Government News

‘We Need Extensive, Systematic Datasets To Counter Narratives Around Caste’

By - 16 Feb 2024 09:40 PM

In November 2023, Bihar released the findings of its caste survey, revealing tentative but crucial data on various caste groups in the state, and exposing privileges and disadvantages faced by caste groups. There has been a demand by opposition parties to conduct a nationwide caste census to collate caste data. Such an exercise was last conducted in 1931. Some states such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have decided to conduct state-level surveys.We have a stereotype about caste based on the varna hierarchy [traditional birth-based Hindu social order] that it is ancient and stable, and nothing changes. The reality of caste is different at the regional level,” said sociologist Surinder S. Jodhka. Caste is an important indicator of social exclusion, he added.

While the population census, which is now more than a decade old and delayed by nearly three years, collects data on Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), caste-based enumeration must be done by state governments because “caste formations are regional in character”, he added.

Jodhka is a professor of sociology at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. In an interview, he speaks about the need for state-based caste censuses, why governments must engage more with scholars to unpack caste data, and the need for subclassifications of SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).