
Should Caste be Counted? || Prof K Nageshwar English ||
Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes. Before that, every Census until 1931 had data on caste.
However, in 1941, caste-based data was collected but not published. M W M Yeats, the then Census Commissioner, said a note: “There would have been no all India caste table… The time is past for this enormous and costly table as part of the central undertaking…” This was during World War II.
In the absence of such a census, there is no proper estimate for the population of OBCs, various groups within the OBCs, and others. The Mandal Commission estimated the OBC population at 52%, some other estimates have been based on National Sample Survey data, and political parties make their own estimates in states and Lok Sabha and Assembly seats during elections.
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-the-caste-census-debate-7422053/
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