Kolkata, Sep 7: A section of social activists and representatives of various mass organisations on Tuesday demanded a caste census and setting up of a Bahujan Commission in West Bengal to conduct a comprehensive socio-economic survey of all sections of society and recommend measures for their development. The activists demanded that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee clearly state her stand on the caste census in which details of Other Backward Class (OBC) people will be taken besides those of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
We have written two letters to the prime minister and the (state) chief minister. In the letter to the PM, we have demanded that census 2021 be delinked from the NPR-NRC process and full caste enumeration be initiated,” social activist and a member of the Joint Forum against NRC, Prasenjit Bose, said. The Centre has adopted a delaying tactic regarding the demand for caste census, he alleged.
Bose said it is of utmost importance to carry out a full caste enumeration of the entire Indian population as such an exercise has not been undertaken since the Census of 1931. Government policies, including major benefit schemes, continue to be implemented on the basis of the claimed population share of caste groups, though no one knows the actual population size of a caste except for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, Bose said.
Veteran Congress leader and one of the signatories of the letter, Sukhbilas Barma, said the Trinamool Congress and the chief minister should clear their stand on the issue. We have seen that several chief ministers have openly come out in support of caste census. But our CM and the TMC has maintained a stoic silence. They should clear their stand on the issue. The state government should put forward the demand for caste census to the Centre and also set up a Bahujan Commission to conduct a comprehensive socio-economic survey among all society and recommend measures for their development, he said.
The 1931 Census figures are often used as an indicator of the current population distribution among castes, which is indeed a huge mistake, as India has undergone tremendous demographic changes since 1931, Bose claimed. Various governments in independent India have argued that caste census would strengthen caste divisions and perpetuate the caste system. However, the caste system and casteism have persisted and flourished in independent India even without the caste census, he said. Several political parties in various states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have also demanded a caste-based census.
The BJP leadership has so far not taken a categorical stand on the issue which has been lapped up by a number of regional parties, many of them its rivals in different states. There is a view that a caste census will bring the Mandal politics to the centre stage of politics and can be an effective weapon in the hands of regional parties to counter the BJP”s Hindutva and welfare planks, the twin issues used by the saffron party to make inroads into the OBC vote bank at the expense of state-based parties.
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