After a historic delay of 16 years, India will finally undertake its next national census, with population data to be counted as of March 1, 2027. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed that this will be the country’s first digital census and, significantly, the first in independent India to include an enumeration of caste. The exercise will be conducted in two phases and completed by February 28, 2027, but the date of commencement has not yet been officially notified. While this announcement marks a crucial step in governance, it also underscores the deeply political nature of the census process. At the core of the upcoming census lies more than just data collection. The results will directly influence the next delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies, and are essential to implementing the 33% reservation for women in legislatures, as per the recent women’s reservation law. Under the 84th Constitutional Amendment Act (2001), the redrawing of constituencies is to be carried out using data from the first census conducted after 2026. Currently, seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies are based on population figures from the 1971 census. With general elections due in 2029, the 2027 census will thus become the foundation for the next phase of India’s political map. What makes this census even more politically charged is the government’s recent about-turn on the question of caste enumeration. In a significant policy shift, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decided on April 30, 2025, to include caste data in the upcoming census. This decision contradicts the long-standing position of the Sangh Parivar, which has consistently argued that a caste census would fragment Hindu society. Modi himself, after the BJP’s 2023 state election victories, had criticized attempts to “divide the country on caste lines,” framing his vision of society around economic and social identities rather than caste. Yet, political realities seem to have driven a strategic recalibration. With the opposition-especially the Congress and the RJD-mobilizing around demands for OBC representation and transparency in caste data, the BJP risked ceding ground in key battleground states like Bihar. The move to include caste in the census appears designed to blunt that campaign. BJP leaders now laud the decision as a masterstroke, framing it as a bold step no Congress-led government had taken-conveniently omitting the 2011 caste census, the data from which was never released by the Modi government. At its core, the ongoing dispute over the census reveals a collision of governance, representation, identity politics, and electoral strategy. The demand for comprehensive caste data, particularly concerning OBCs, has become a rallying cry for the opposition, pointing to the absence of updated caste statistics since 1931. Without such data, they argue, policymaking lacks precision and equity. As India prepares for its next census, the political battles around it remind us that in a democracy, even the act of counting citizens is rarely neutral. Ultimately, the political impasse surrounding the census serves as a microcosm of India’s broader struggles with representation, equity, and the intricacies of its federal structure. It underscores the pressing need for data-driven governance while highlighting the inherent challenges of balancing diverse social interests within a deeply stratified democratic framework.
Friday, July 18, 2025