EVENT DATE : 3 SEPTEMBER
The demand for caste based census is not new and grows louder by the day. This year, almost all political parties in opposition have come together in their support for caste enumeration in the upcoming national Census. If the government accedes, this would be the first time in post-independence India that citizens would be officially classified on the basis of their jati.
While the purported objective would be to collect data so as to devise better programs for eliminating caste based inequities, such an exercise would be a bold acknowledgment of India’s failure at eradicating caste as socio-economic identifier. Concerns range from worsening of India’s notorious identity politics to outright caste wars.
On the other hand advocates of caste census argue that the risk of potential abuse should not prevent the collection of data. In the ‘Age of Data’, the Indian state must not be expected to administer its vast population blindly.
Politics aside, there is also a more fundamental question here. To achieve a more equal society does the state need to first further entrench the unequal social classifications? Will India have to accept caste in order to free itself from the social ills induced by caste?
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~ PUBLICATIONS BY DR. RAM B. BHAGAT
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