We do not yet know what upheavals will be caused by the old, not to say divisive, bogie of caste about to be let loose in the 2011 census. In all likelihood, it will engulf in its raging torrents the existing protagonists of the OBC brand of politics. While they have egged on the government to revive caste-based census after 80 years, the Laloos, Mulayams and Sharad Yadavs seem to have been unable to gauge its adverse effect on their own political interests. Commentators are sceptical of caste being included in the census, fearing a deluge of caste claims and counter-claims that independent India has striven to avoid, since such conflicts are deemed detrimental to our constitutional goal of a casteless society.
But since we have already walked down the road of caste-based reservation and have of late been grappling with the issue of a ‘creamy layer’ hogging the benefits over a few generations, enumerating caste in this census might provide an opportunity to understand this contentious layer with a degree of precision. The creamy layer apart, there are also faultlines between groups that benefit from reservation. An example of this is the bitter, aggressive resentment that Gujjars in Rajasthan feel against the Meenas, who have reaped benefits through their ST status. During the previous BJP regime in Rajasthan, that resentment had erupted in an agitation for ST status. The Meenas had traditionally the same standing in society as the OBC Gujjars, who found their benefits eroded when the more dominant Jats were granted OBC status in Rajasthan. The Meenas, naturally, oppose the Gujjars’ demand for ST status. In a parallel case, Muslim Gujjars in Jammu & Kashmir, who have ST status, oppose the demand of the Paharis of the Jammu region for the same status. They think the Paharis will eat into their share of preferment.
These examples are not exceptional. It’s the existence of such factiousness among the beneficiaries of reservation that prompted Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to embark on the politics of Maha Pichhadas (most backward) and Mahadalits (extreme Dalits) to effectively challenge his rivals Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ramvilas Paswan in the race for OBC and SC votes respectively. The BJP and the Sangh parivar, too, exploited these faultlines in the 1990s to mobilise castes like the Lodhs in Uttar Pradesh, the Dhangars in Maharashtra and the Ghanchis in Gujarat along communal lines to counter the politically dominant middle castes as well as the leadership representing them.
There is no point in shying away from the raging quarrels between the beneficiaries of reservation and the groups chafing under the social tension such job and educational quotas have engendered over a couple of decades.
Even if there is no caste-based census, such tensions will remain and are likely to worsen. Therefore, it’s best to tackle the beast head on, a purpose best served by precise enumeration rather than going by vague and unsubstantiated claims cooked up out of resentment against certain communities. While in colonial India, castes rushed to claim a higher status on the varna scale, the headlong rush will now be in the opposite direction—against Sanskritisation, and toward the finishing line of an officially recognised lower caste status. Even groups and individuals in the commonly recognised upper caste categories may end up seeking lower caste status. “Enumerators are not investigators,” Union home minister P. Chidambaram said recently, referring to the problem of verifying such claims. But they can certainly be armed with a methodology and some parameters to assess the claims. A census that includes caste will clear certain other discrepancies too. For instance, the Mandal commission report says that OBCs comprise 52 per cent of the population, but the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report of 1994 puts the figure at only 41 per cent. Those opposing a caste-based census feel there’s no need to settle this disparity, since the OBC quota is anyway fixed at 26 per cent. The problem, however, is that the OBC list varies from state to state and the central list is different from all of them. Such irregularities need to be cleared up to avoid social strife, for the government job pie is shrinking with more privatisation.
By casting a clearer light on the creamy layer, the enumeration of caste in the census might upset a whole lot of applecarts in the reserved category vote banks. If that happens, the present OBC leadership risks losing its dominance to a radically altered OBC line-up. And that might also be true of the existing Dalit and tribal leadership, though these leaders at present seem less vulnerable to such erosion.
