Daily Newsings: 2 May 2025

On the caste census in India

Daily Newsings are musings on the daily news.

The big story this week is that the Central Government has announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next census of the country. This means that when the census is conducted in 2026 or 2027, caste details of people will also be collected.

Why is this news big? To understand that, we need some context.

The alliance of opposition parties named INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), led by the Congress party, has made the caste census a central part of its campaign in recent years. They argue that while a large section of the population—particularly those from OBC, SC, and ST communities—form a significant majority, their representation in government jobs, education, and positions of power is disproportionately low. In other words, a minority may still hold a majority of influential roles. According to them, the current reservation system has not sufficiently corrected these imbalances, and a nationwide caste census would help.

Election results in Bihar and Karnataka have shown that this topic of the caste census has resonated with many voters, especially from the OBC communities. The effect was also seen in the previous general elections where the BJP lost a full majority, and only enjoys a majority with the support of its alliance partners.

Till now the central Government led by the BJP opposed the caste census. But with this decision, it looks like they can oppose it no longer. If they do oppose it, they would do so at the cost of losing elections.

Is this announcement by the Government good or bad?

One view is that data by itself is neither good nor bad. Information by itself is neutral. In an ideal world, more information would enable the government to make well-informed decisions. On the other hand, data can be misused. Data can be misused by using the reservation system for electoral gains.

There are very good arguments that can be made as to why the reservation system is good and needed in India. However, even a really good system can be misused in a fallen world.

But how can the system be misused?

India has reservations in educational institutions, government jobs, and political bodies. This is a form of affirmative action where a portion of seats in educational institutions, government jobs, and political bodies are reserved for people from castes and communities which have been historically marginalised. If a college has a limit of 100 students for a particular course, students from the general category are competing for around 50 seats only. Out of the remaining, 15 are reserved for members of the Scheduled Caste communities, 27% for members of Other Backward Classes (OBC), and so on.

This often results in members of reserved categories being able to secure admission to top colleges on a lower score than would be required for members from non-reserved categories. To curry favour with a particular community and gain their votes, a political party can choose to include the community in the reserved category whether they deserve it or not. This is the misuse of reservation.

Back to the caste census. Why have the opposition parties been demanding for the caste census? One reason could be that they genuinely desire justice for the marginalised. But there is also a political reason.

Over the past few decades, the BJP has successfully built a narrative around religion. The Hindu religion is said to be in danger. Danger from what though? Danger from Muslims taking over positions of power in the country through the appeasement policies of the Congress party... Danger from Christian missionaries bringing about large scale conversions. In short, the BJP built a narrative that the Hindus in the country are in danger of losing their power and influence in society, and in danger of losing the Hindu culture.

This narrative is not entirely rooted in truth, and yet fear is a powerful weapon to mobilise the masses. This fear was mobilized by the BJP to come to power and stay in power.

The fact that the BJP is primarily in power due to playing the religion card is evident from the fact that their biggest achievements of the past decade (according to themselves) are the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the abrogation of Article 370 (which gave a temporary special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir which had a high Muslim population).

The only way the opposition parties could fight the religion card of the BJP was by playing the caste card.

The opposition parties spread the counter-narrative that the problem was not in Hindus losing their influence. It was rather in the dominant upper caste communities maintaining their power and influence at the cost of OBCs, SCs and STs not receiving their fare share of the country's wealth.

How do we Christians think about these issues?

There are no easy answers here. Situations like this make us long for the fully consummated and realised kingdom of Jesus where we no longer deal with the presence of sin.

As Christians, we maintain a posture of humility. We will not know all the implications of a caste census. We may not know all the reasonings behind the reservation systems. And we will never know all the motivations behind the decisions of our leaders. But to make blanket claims that the reservation system is unjust, or that politicians make decisions due to corruption or only out of self-interest does carry a hint of pride (and I am convicting myself by saying that). We do not know everything. Only God does. But the Bible does command us to pray for our leaders. So we will do that in humility.

We also remember that everything we enjoy here on earth is by grace. We can never say, "I deserved it but did not get it." There's only one thing we can say that of — and that is hell. Even when talking about the potential problems of the reservation system, we acknowledge that we don't deserve anything good here on earth. What we have is by grace.

In spite of all of the above, we also do ask for justice. We ask for justice not merely for ourselves, but out of love for others. We desire justice for the historically marginalised communities. But we also desire justice for the majority communities. We long for a just world because we serve a King of Justice.

This does not give us easy answers. But that is okay. Sometimes, our desire for simple yes-or-no answers could be due to a desire to be in control. It could also be out of a refusal to acknowledge our own finitude and limited knowledge.

Moreover, not knowing the answers to complex issues like these are good, because they can push us to our knees, forcing us to greater reliance on God.