Caste away: On the Court and caste count

📌 Summary:

• Context: The Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking to stall the caste census being conducted as part of Census 2027; the CJI remarked that any government "must know how many people are backward and how many need welfare"

• Core argument: The editorial holds the Court was right not to interfere, but warns that a caste census is a double-edged tool — useful for welfare targeting yet risking the ossification of caste identities

• Background/turnaround: In April 2025 the Modi government reversed its stance to announce caste enumeration with the fresh Census — the first since 1931; Modi had earlier derided the idea as "urban Naxal" thinking and the RSS warned it could fracture Hindu society; the Congress, too, reversed its historical position to demand it

• The founding paradox: Early independent India chose not to count caste, fearing it would reinforce the institution the state wished to dismantle — yet the state simultaneously accounted for caste for reservation in legislature and jobs; this dual approach baked a lasting contradiction into the nation's founding principles

• Key data/precedent: The Census, due in 2021, was delayed by COVID-19; the only post-Independence attempt — the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) — produced over 46 lakh distinct caste names and 8 crore data errors, rendering the dataset unusable, with most findings still unpublished

• Methodology challenge: Census 2027's second phase will ask every individual their caste (not merely SC/ST status as before); the government still lacks an accurate enumeration methodology

• Solution/stance: A caste census is justified only if read alongside other socio-economic indices to better target welfare and ensure representation; the "annihilation of caste" must remain the goal, and individuals must be free to identify as casteless

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS1 (Indian Society — caste) and GS2 (Governance — welfare targeting, social justice); a classic debate on whether enumerating caste advances or undermines the constitutional goal of a casteless society.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• The last caste census in India was conducted in 1931 (colonial era)

• Census 2027 will include caste enumeration in its second phase

• The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was conducted in 2011

• The decennial Census, due in 2021, was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic

🔑 Key Term: Caste census — the enumeration of every individual's specific caste during the population Census, as distinct from the earlier practice of recording only Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe status.