Why MK Stalin is pushing for a pan-India caste count

Will a pan-India caste count be held as part of the delayed national census? This is the moot question posed by Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin by getting the state legislative assembly, on June 26, to adopt a resolution urging the Union government to conduct such an enumeration.

The move is significant as it comes after a long delay in conducting the census, which was initially scheduled for 2020 but postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The census data is crucial for the government to formulate policies and schemes for the welfare of various communities, especially the marginalised and backward classes.

The demand for a caste census was one of the main issues raised by the Opposition, especially the INDIA front, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. Stalin and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have repeatedly demanded a nationwide caste census. Rahul had also promised that if the Congress comes to power, the first task the new government would undertake would be to conduct a caste census.

Stalin, who wrote about the issue to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last October, alleges the Union government is delaying the “basic task of conducting the census every 10 years, which was due in 2021”. He wants the caste-based count of the population to be done alongside this time. Given the timing of the resolution, even before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government gets down to business, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supremo is pushing the envelope.

“This house considers that a caste-based population census is essential to formulate policies in order to ensure equal rights and equal opportunities in education, economy and employment to every citizen of India,” reads the resolution.

“We can become a society with real, widespread economic development only by making all sections of the society have equal opportunities and equal rights in access to education and employment,” says Stalin. “It is with that objective that the reservation policy is being implemented to bring about a balance among all sections of the population on educational, social and economic levels.”

Census operations in the states and Union territories were conducted as per the provisions of the Census Act, 1948, and the caste-wise and tribe-wise data of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes alone were enumerated now. But in a country like India, where the social milieu influenced the mobility of various communities across the economic levels, laws were enacted on the basis of verifiable socioeconomic indicators drawn from the decadal census report alone to gain legal validity.

Yet no contemporary data was available since the last caste census was conducted way back in 1931, and it had given rise to the need for quantifiable data relating to socioeconomic and educational status of various castes, communities and tribes of the entire population of the state, as it had been emphasised in several Supreme Court judgments for classification of the backward classes.

In Tamil Nadu, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a constituent of the NDA, is pleading for a caste-wise census to provide 10.5 per cent quota for the Vanniyar community. But the state is hamstrung as it cannot call for such a caste count since the mammoth task of the head count is the mandate of the Union government under the Census Act. A caste-based census has been a longstanding demand of various political parties and social organisations in the state.

A widely held opinion is that the state government can carry out a caste-wise census under the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008. While the Act empowers state governments to collect socio-economic statistics, Section 3 Clause (a) of the same Act prohibits the collection of statistics in respect of castes in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India. A case pertaining to the matter is in the Supreme Court.

The caste-wise census cannot be conducted under the Statistics Collection Act, 2008. “A legally sustainable census means that it must be carried out under the Census Act, a Union law. Therefore, we have been insisting that it would be proper for the Union Government to undertake this work,” said Stalin. If the respective state governments collect statistics in the name of a survey for a caste count and then enact laws based on it, it is fraught with the prospects of being struck down by the courts at a later date. Such an attempt by the Bihar government was quashed by the court.

Caste is a strategic element in the operations of political parties, considering the lack of accurate data has resulted in the neglect of certain communities, which has perpetuated social and economic inequalities. Some analysts, therefore, argue the DMK government is showing interest in a caste census now with an eye on the Vikravandi assembly by-election. Others, contend there is no immediate compulsion per se, though there is the 10.5 per cent sub-quota order that the previous AIADMK government passed on December 20, 2020, for the Vanniyar community, which is hanging fire.

A caste-based census, that too by the Centre, would get the figures correct, and that can be done only alongside the delayed national census, where it has to be included. “At the political level, it could put the ruling BJP at the Centre, its ally PMK and also the Opposition AIADMK on the defensive until the assembly polls in 2026, as social justice deriving from caste-based reservations has been the mainstay of the Dravidian polity in the state for over 100 years—and continues to be so even now,” says political commentator N. Sathiya Moorthy.

There are gains for the ruling party. “The DMK gains in public imagery as the defender of the faith. Tamil Nadu will benefit as all past state government commissions that have made substantial recommendations on caste reservations have cited only from the decennial census figures,” says Moorthy.

It is often forgotten that in the much-debated 'Mandal Commission verdict' of 1992 (Indra Sawhney vs State of Karnataka), the Supreme Court also held that any state government that wanted to fix a higher quota than the court-ordered upper limit of 50 per cent, should prove with facts and figures that reasons existed for the same. That’s another reason behind the state government’s demand now for including caste in the delayed census process.

The DMK government can, for now, tell the PMK to pressure the BJP to comply with the demand for the caste-based census at the national level. The demand could force the party to quit the NDA after the current short stay, and for one more time, to realign for the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly polls.

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