Caste Census
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COMMENTARY
Caste and Census: A Forward Looking Strategy
Sonalde Desai
In modern India, vast quantities of research have documented caste-based inequalities in many dimensions of well-being. If these inequalities are not simply imagined but reflect social processes that deserve public policy attention, incorporating questions about caste in the census is imperative. However, there is a need to devise an accounting framework that has clarity of purpose since there are many complexities involved in collecting caste data.
O
pponents of inclusion of caste in the census argue that for a society which seeks to abolish castebased inequalities, a census that inquires about caste identities is a retrogressive step since it is more likely to solidify castebased divisions than to obliterate it. Following Benedict Anderson’s argument that censuses played an important role in creation of imagined communities that transcend face-to-face associations (Anderson 1983), many scholars have argued persuasively that colonial censuses created caste as enumerated communities (Das 2003) and solidified hitherto fluid identities (Dirks 2001). Resistance to this reification of social difference often emerges in the form of reluctance to collect caste data. In many ways, this reluctance is similar to that observed in collection of racial statistics in other cultures (Zuberi 2001). While there is some justification to this argument, we are now living with the aftermath of these political processes. In modern India, vast quantities of research have documented caste-based inequalities in many dimensions of well-being, including income, education, health and access to employment (Govinda 2002; Thorat and Newman 2009; Desai et al 2010; Deshpande 2000). If these inequalities are not simply imagined but reflect social processes that deserve public policy attention, then incorporating questions about caste in census is imperative. However, it is easier to suggest that caste be counted (e...
Caste and Census: A Forward Looking Strategy
Sonalde Desai
In modern India, vast quantities of research have documented caste-based inequalities in many dimensions of well-being. If these inequalities are not simply imagined but reflect social processes that deserve public policy attention, incorporating questions about caste in the census is imperative. However, there is a need to devise an accounting framework that has clarity of purpose since there are many complexities involved in collecting caste data.
O
pponents of inclusion of caste in the census argue that for a society which seeks to abolish castebased inequalities, a census that inquires about caste identities is a retrogressive step since it is more likely to solidify castebased divisions than to obliterate it. Following Benedict Anderson’s argument that censuses played an important role in creation of imagined communities that transcend face-to-face associations (Anderson 1983), many scholars have argued persuasively that colonial censuses created caste as enumerated communities (Das 2003) and solidified hitherto fluid identities (Dirks 2001). Resistance to this reification of social difference often emerges in the form of reluctance to collect caste data. In many ways, this reluctance is similar to that observed in collection of racial statistics in other cultures (Zuberi 2001). While there is some justification to this argument, we are now living with the aftermath of these political processes. In modern India, vast quantities of research have documented caste-based inequalities in many dimensions of well-being, including income, education, health and access to employment (Govinda 2002; Thorat and Newman 2009; Desai et al 2010; Deshpande 2000). If these inequalities are not simply imagined but reflect social processes that deserve public policy attention, then incorporating questions about caste in census is imperative. However, it is easier to suggest that caste be counted (e...