Base of caste census

The Modi government at the Centre has surprised the entire political world by deciding to conduct a caste census because the ruling party BJP has a lackadaisical attitude on this issue, but Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is considered to be a surprise politician in politics, so he has pushed the entire opposition to the margins for the time being by deciding to conduct a caste census. It is also a fact that Mr. Modi is considered to be a politician who breaks the traditional stereotypes of the BJP, so his decision is often according to the circumstances of the country. The issue of caste census was raised by the opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in full swing with opposition parties from across the country. In all the elections that have been held from the state level to the national level during the last two years, Mr. Rahul Gandhi has kept the issue of caste census at the top and announced from Parliament to the street that whenever the opposition gets a chance, he will do this calculation but Mr. Modi has also snatched this weapon from the hands of the opposition. In fact, caste census is the need of the hour because in the democratic structure of India, the common man's share of power is enshrined.

In a democracy, it cannot be that the people who constitute the largest number of the population have negligible participation in the administrative structure of the system. Of course, it is related to the social structure of India, in which the population of minorities along with backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Tribes sits close to 90 percent. However, the power share of these sections is less than five percent. In the Indian Constitution, the people of Scheduled Castes and Tribes have been given political share in proportion to their numbers, while the backward classes got a share in jobs after the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations in 1990, but the political share was not equal to that of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. From education to jobs, 27 per cent reservation was given to the backward classes, while according to the caste census of 1931, their population was 52 per cent.

Since 1990, the backward classes were identified by breaking the boundary wall of religion, but the total reservation remained below 50 percent, while in many states the reservation limit was up to 69 percent, which was protected by the Center. Tamil Nadu is the most prominent among them. After the new decision of Prime Minister Modi's government, this reservation limit will have to be broken, which has been set by the Supreme Court of the country. In due course of time, this has to be done so that the backward class people are satisfied. In India, a census is conducted at the national level every ten years, but the 2021 census could not be done due to the Corona outbreak and was postponed further. Now this census is to be done, the date and time of which will be decided by the Central Government. However, in 2010, when the Congress-led Manmohan Singh government was at the Centre, it conducted the caste census after a huge hiatus, but its results could not be declared and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections came. At that time, several parties in north India, which were part of the Manmohan Singh government, had demanded this census. But for the last nearly three years, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has made it an election issue, on which the ruling party's stand was not clear. However, earlier the Congress party could not come out openly in favor of caste census. While the socialist thinker himself. Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia was in favor of giving representation to the people of backward castes according to their numbers and wanted that people of these castes should have an equal share in politics. It is also a fact that the Congress party ruled the country for 55 years but never conducted a caste census.

Of course, the joint UPA government formed under his leadership in 2010 took this decision under pressure from its allies, but it remained inconclusive. Dr. Lohia had made it clear in the 60s itself that a day would come when the backward castes would stand up and demand their share. This also happened and from the early 1970s, leaders of these castes began to emerge at the top. Chaudhary Charan Singh was at the top. But under the leadership of Chaudhary Saheb, the mobilisation of these rural castes took place not on the basis of caste but on the basis of occupation, which included Muslim citizens from the minority community. This equation surprised the then ruling party Congress as well as the Jan Sangh (BJP) sitting in the opposition. This change began with the mid-term elections held in Uttar Pradesh in 1969. But at that time, this mathematics was seen in the realm of rural and urban politics and not in the caste circle, but in the current political context, it will be seen only in the caste realm because Chaudhary Saheb's disciple was the late Chaudhry Saheb. From Mulayam Singh Yadav to Lalu Prasad Yadav. Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar Right from Ram Vilas Paswan, everyone divided Chaudhary Saheb's legacy on the basis of castes. But in all these equations, the Muslim electorate remained constant. The Bahujan Samaj Party, which was born in the 1980s, also made a small contribution to it by creating a Dalit-Muslim vote bank. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi was throwing a very far-reaching idea by talking about caste census, which Narendra Modi has grabbed in the middle, but in this period, Shri Narendra Modi succeeded in making another big change. This change was about the overall Hindu society in which the identity of castes was hidden. It was started by Shri L.K. Advani with the Ram Mandir movement, which Shri Modi tried to root out after becoming the Prime Minister. Therefore, the decision of caste census taken by Mr. Modi connects with the BJP's ground strength, which seems to be upset by the opposition leaders.