Qaisar Mansoor
In today’s India, minorities are facing the worst kind of persecution as intolerance has become a basic hallmark of Modi’s regime. Muslims are beaten up in day’s light, Sikhs are protesting on the roads while Christians are also facing severe persecution. In the Hindutva ideology, a caste-based census is described as a conspiracy to break “Hindu society.” BJP fears that having an OBC census may dent their constructed caste alliances in several states under the dominance of the upper caste.
The whole of India is now demanding a caste-based census to capture the true picture of the society but Modi-led BJP isn’t paying any heed to its people; further pushing them to the wall. It is a matter of fact that only 7% Brahmans are ruling the country.
Political parties are demanding caste census and claiming that so-called upper castes have occupied disproportionate share in jobs and access to higher education. Director, Centre for Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Prof. Chinna Rao has said that caste-based census is the need of the hour as it would bring out the social, economic and educational indicators in comparison with the upper castes.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, a strong advocate of caste census, said enumeration of population of each caste group would help the government to formulate more accurate welfare programmes. Quotas for Scheduled Castes (SCs), also called Dalits 15 percent and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) 7.5 percent are based on caste and tribal identities. The highest reservation mandate for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) at 27% is caste based as BP Mandal Commission ascertained the backwardness of the class on the basis of caste. Bihar and Maharashtra assemblies have passed resolutions in favour of “Hamari Ginti Puri Kero”.
However Supreme Court has dismissed the case on the request of BJP government that it is not possible to carry out caste based census in the country. A caste-based census will expose this fact in a forceful manner that will become problematic for Brahminical ruling class; threatening their hegemony. Moreover, the Hindutva ideology sees a caste-based census as a threat to their projection of “Hindu” unity as it will expose their Brahminical nature.
In a nutshell, non-BJP regional parties in Bihar and UP are unlikely to let go of what is a big political opportunity against the BJP.
