Public opinion on the caste census in India is deeply divided. While some view it as a progressive measure to address historical injustices and enhance social justice, others fear it may exacerbate caste divisions and be misused politically. Supporters believe it could create transparency and inform corrective policies, while critics argue it threatens meritocracy and could entrench reservations further. Concerns about political motivations and data manipulation are prevalent, with calls for more inclusive and needs-based approaches to equity and welfare.

Indian Government

Political Parties

Public/General Population

Good data help in better policy making and measuring the impact of policies.

5Doublu

No. JDU is the weakest party in the alliance right now. Why? Because it desperately needs BJP in Bihar elections or else unka tata bye bye ho jayi. 
CBN has also quite clearly stated that he isn't supporting caste census.

Shenshi7k

Caste aur Population census ho jaega, to Sabko pata chal jaega that is not so much a considerable growth in Muslim population and other such things. 


To fir Gobhi Ji daraenge kisko?

Consistent_37

Good : We can measure some development among the castes. 

Bad : It will be used for political gains. Especially in Bihar, Jharkhand and UP.

[deleted]

I pay 30% of my income as taxes and now some freeloader who has generational wealth will eat up my income further bcoz he belongs to so called oppressed caste

Already there's 60% reservations in Central Govt. Aur badh gaya to merit bhul jao fir. This is the biggest outcome of caste census. 
Even J.Nehru opposed inefficiency in services. 
I agree there should be reservations for the poor but solely on economic issues, know a lot of well to do SC, OBC people in services. The really downtrodden in those caste groups remain the same, benefits are cornered by the well to do among those sections.

eatplayfuckrepeat12

Caste census is not a problem, general seats are treated as everyone's seat, that's the problem

Caste census will divide society. Better census is for poverty

kek_kek_kkk

unspoken_one2

Moist-Chart2440

Watch as they claim credit for doing caste census while botching it up monumentally. We need socioeconomic data to be collected along with caste, so the disparities can be measured and used to inform policy. They will not collect socioeconomic data, and will do the equivalent of using movie ticket sales as measure of gdp growth. 

charavaka

This bjp seeks power. It's not so much an ideological, so am not sure whether bjp will face problems because of it.

WeeklyType8962

Liberated_Wisemonk

Caste census was done before but bjp never released the data and I bet it will be the same this time.

kothintim

annaaffkhan

there is another reason i think. the muslim population growth rate has declined dramatically with loads of muslim women joining workforce, and extra deaths during covid. (speculation obviously and needs census)


that also is against the hindu khatre main hai narrative

Ser_DuncanTheTall

Census is anyway delayed.


I wouldn't be surprised if they skip this decade's census altogether. 

Titanium006

I don't think the BJP is that uncomfortable with the caste census. If they were, they'd simply not do it. After the election, they were always non-commital on the caste aspect, never openly rejecting it. 

It's clear that the BJP let RaGa do the public opinion testing for it. Now that they've seen that it has resonance, they'll take the idea, and implement reservations based on the data right before UP elections in 2027.

souvik234

But I mean given how EC, ED, SC and every other institution has been compromised how can we be ever sure that the caste census will be done in a fair manner. It’s not very hard to manipulate statistics once you have control of the conduting agency. Opposition must put all its focus now to make sure the census is done in a fair manner.

7SxarsRed

Any form of census should note all possible data as they can. Caste census is simply a small part.

AkaiAshu

The problem is not the caste census itself. The problem is the politics behind it. Rahul Gandhi and others have publicly declared that representation should be in proportion of population. **The representation here implies not your MLA or MP but rather admissions in higher education, government jobs (don't know if it will extend to private jobs) and promotions etc.** 

&amp;#x200B;

The practical experience has been that the people become more rigid in their outlook towards caste, forever fighting to be included in a lower category and looking out to allies within their caste at the work place. My uncle is a professor in a tier-2 university and his SC colleague advices  SC(his caste) PhD students to report professors for caste discrimination if his thesis is not approved or if the professor was critical of their work. 

&amp;#x200B;

**Also, till date, I have not come across anyone advocating that a group should be removed from reservation list if they are over-represented. Like if Jatavs in UP or Meenas in Rajasthan are over-represented in scheduled castes, they should be moved to OBC.** The politics seems to be OBC+SC+ST are probably 70% of population, lets increase the reservation limits to 70%.

darklordind

"Jitni Abaadi Utna Haq" is probably the most retarded concept to have ever existed in India. You literally have a live case study of how Lebanon has become a failed state because of it. Just further dooming this country beyond repair in the name of "social equality" and " social justice".

stalin_kulak

Come on we can do better than a two para case for equal representation based on proportion in population if we can divide labour of debunking each of the claims and present the reforms needed within the current system then its not a debate, only I haven't been able to find data or a clear methodology we can go about creating a case for caste based census.

Simple reforms that come to mind is the ews bullshit 8 lakh limit be lowered to 5-4 lakh ,for dalits  a ~15 lakh upper limit  and for obc ~10 lakh upper limit (creamy layer with harsh penalties if found fudging income/wealth) with exclusions if beneficiary is third gen govt job holder at same status/level ( 1st 2 gen  are able to get reservation 3rd gen is not),also more stricter penalties for caste violence perpetrators

Also the private sector must accept some burden of upskilling historically disadvantaged communities by undertaking skill development and training for some representation for dalits and sc/St in private sector ,if they get tax cuts and benefits from a publically educated ,young low wage workforce  and most CSR go to vanity and bullshit causes surely increasing the consumer base by hiring from backward classes who are capable to do the work general category do only need a little more time in training will find the returns coming back to the private sector entity a few years down the line

MarvinIrl

ukoan7

Saying someone backward and disadvantaged on the basis of only caste is unjust. There can be several things that can make a person backward and disadvantaged apart from caste like living in rural areas, living in hilly areas, third gender, loosing both parents, not having any skill or education, poverty etc..

But NO, every govt is hell bent in caste. Why? Because it can give maximum and secured votes. Earlier it was poverty and now caste and religion.

Here goes my useless rant. Full disclosure, I'm a "upper caste privileged kid" or "meritdhaari." My fee fees aren't hurt by these adjectives.

What we need, more than anything, is data about social progress. An open discussion on reservation and caste.  Caste census may/may not be it. This is just hiding agenda in plain sites. It's for votes based on caste based politics. It's not about making people's lives better. 

If we want to talk social progress, lets talk social progress. One can simply look for data about education outcomes of second/third/fourth gen kids of parents benefitting from reservations. Are their education outcomes as good as the other "privileged kids"? What if that sort of data came out and it's not favorable for pro reservation crowd, would it just be hand waived away because "muh endless oppression"? 

Do all your caste census but when you compare outcomes of one group vs the other and all your insight boils down to "well only oppression can explain this", the one being dishonest is you.

Also representation  guarantees fuck all progress. Bihar was a shithole before JP andolan launched the careers of all these caste krantikaris. It has had OBC CM since. It's still a shithole. You can have your 100% representation, you still won't come close to outcomes of "privileged upper caste". This can be proven by data even today and will be proven years hence, after full Lebanonisation has been achieved.

reddit0r_

Caste census is fine if it is used to make the govt provide more incentives to backward communities, build more schools where they are needed more.

But, it will be used to further increase reservation. Anti- meritocricy will destroy the Indian economy.

Make reservations unconstitutional and conduct as many caste censuses as possible.

Nevermind_kaola

Obsession with castes is a retarded thing and "caste census" is as backward and third world concept as it gets. 

The claims of "upper castes are privileged" is pure nonsense. It is not even clear what this "upper caste" is and not sure what "privileges" any one in this country of $2000 per capita income has. 

Most of the narrative around castes is pure grift by handful of clever and manipulative people and academics who are otherwise unemployable. 

Let us address the "caste census". I would love to see the proponents of this idea get into the details of this concept. 

**1. How does the census officer note down a person's caste ? Does he go by purely what is self reported ? Or does he apply his own logic ? Is there any evidentiary criteria ?** 

Most people who claim their are OBC or SC/ST for sake of reservations, like to claim they are actually "upper caste" because they want prestige. Rarely anyone anywhere says "I am a poor oppressed dalit" when there is no really financial benefit associated for claiming to be oppressive. 

  
**2. Caste is mutable unlike race or religion**

A Meena travels from Haryana to Mumbai for work. What is his caste ? He marries a Brahmin girl what is the child's caste ? What is the caste of his wife ? Castes change all the time because people mix across groups. How does one account for this ? 

**3. How will caste data impact current reservation system ?** 

Each caste can be impacted by caste census in three possible ways. A caste's reservation goes up. A caste's reservation goes down. It remains same. All this is a zero sum game as total reservations remain constant. Are you saying a lot of castes will see their reservations actually reduced based on what they tell the census officer ? Good luck getting the right answers then. 

**4. Targeting welfare schemes**

The only people who need welfare are poor people. There is no reason why any caste family should get any welfare benefits if they are rich enough. Caste is currently irrelevant for any welfare schemes and we have an excellent metric called 'poverty line'. 

We also have excellent macro economic signals for every district or even tehsil. For example we already know Bihar is extremely poor (any caste) and Goa is reasonable rich (any caste). What possible benefit does one get by further slicing along the caste lines when everyone is pretty poor ? 

  
**5. Resource Allocation has no caste component.** 

Why should "resources" be caste dependent at all ? Do you build roads only for one caste and not for other ? What if a district has 90% of OBCs with per capita income of $2000 and another district with 90% GC with per capita income of $700 ? Where would the resources go ?

MartianManhunter0987

[https://write.as/8lqvuohk29bhb.md](https://write.as/8lqvuohk29bhb.md)

souravtxt

Caste reservation is a state discrimination, so it is nazism. It perpetuates the animosity between the castes.

Creamy layer exclusion should be strictly implemented in all caste reservations, so that this caste politics lobby will stop

Critifin

And what exactly are your ideas on how we can use the caste census? Why not focus on providing basic education, healthcare and employment opportunities to all instead of focusing on caste?

Suitable_Success_243

If they found out that particular caste which is currently classified as Open is socioeconomically or by whatever other parameters they measure, backward will the government add that caste to the list of SC or ST. inversely if some caste has made enough progress that surpasses some of the Open catagory caste will the government remove the reservation for that perticular caste? If not open category people will see the caste census as unidirectional, i.e., it will only be used to increase reservation if possible not reduce it. No matter what the report says, the best case scenario for open category people is reservation will stay as it is and not that it will be reduced if reports are good.

&gt; implement more effective affirmative action policies to address inequalities. 

come on we know that is not going to happen

whathedawgdoing

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I am gonna have to act like I am surprised by this decision,like I didn't know this would happen someday .The so called hindu party continuously increasing reservation and benefits for those people who don't even consider themselves as hindu and sometimes even abuse hinduism meanwhile making problems for the general guys who actually consider themselves as hindu and even worship the gods. Well honestly at this point I believe general guys even deserve all this humiliation due to their own ego and
delusion(I am general btw)Atleast sc/st 's got even brain to fight for their rights. Don't worry seeing the mental condition of general category guys,the worst is yet to come ,prepare yourselves

_-jk-

Euphoric_Ground3845

It would be great to have this census. 

To find every casteist PoS, and jail them, as per laws. 

Then, every d-bag that mentions caste as a supremacist rhetoric should be jailed as well, per law. 

We might need a lot more jails. And an entire new government. 

*Religion is poison*. 

Antidote, and antidote-givers needed.

dogisgodspeltright

I support the caste census 

Even if I come from a privileged background.

sliceoflife_daisuki

Sad_Cellist1591

I support it, but do not support casts base politics.

unique_pieceinworld

I can't understand why someone whould have problem with data unless they want to live in dilution?

biasedToWardsFacts

In favour of the census but I don't trust the politicians. They will use it as political tool instead of actually fixing the issue. 

But it's a very important thing to have. I wonder why it wasn't implemented way back when the census started in '51.

Curious_Mall3975

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The Indian government's decision to include caste data in the upcoming census has sparked debate over its implications. Proponents believe it can address social inequalities, while critics worry about deepening social divides.

Caste Census in India

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want