New Delhi, May 3 – India’s plan to include caste enumeration in its next nationwide census faces a major challenge as the government lacks a comprehensive and standardized list of castes and communities, top demographers and anthropologists warned.
The proposed exercise, expected to be the first such headcount since 1931, comes amid growing political and social demand for data that could guide affirmative action and welfare policies. But experts caution that without a vetted list, the enumeration risks generating unreliable data, as happened during the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011.
“The starting point must be to list the castes and communities that need to be counted,” said Ram B. Bhagat, former head of migration and urban studies at the International Institute for Population Sciences. “This was one of the failures of the SECC, which reported over 4.6 million caste names, many of them inflated by people entering their surnames.”
India’s Constitution classifies disadvantaged groups into Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), but no centralised, exhaustive list of all caste groups exists. Government records currently identify 3,651 OBC groups, 1,170 SCs, and around 850 ST communities, though many appear in multiple states under different classifications.
The last caste census in 1931 recorded 4,147 caste and sub-caste groups, including those from Christian and Muslim communities, but advised enumerators not to insist on caste information from non-Hindus unless volunteered. Since then, caste identities have evolved, with new groupings and coalitions emerging, experts said.
“There may be new caste names now that did not exist before,” Bhagat said, noting that regional and linguistic variations further complicate data collection. “Caste is a dynamic phenomenon.”
A previous effort by the Anthropological Survey of India, the People of India project, compiled a list of 4,635 communities, including General category castes, over a seven-year period.
A senior official at the Anthropological Survey said the diversity and shifting nature of caste identities meant that any national listing would need to be regionally disaggregated and publicly vetted to ensure accuracy.
The 1931 census, overseen by Census Commissioner J.J. Hutton, involved extensive consultations and revisions before finalizing the caste lists. Bhagat said a similar consultative approach is needed now, involving academics, caste associations, and civil society.
Classification presents another challenge. Several communities are identified as SC in one state but as OBC or ST in another. “Even in 1931, some groups appeared under multiple classifications such as caste, tribe, and race depending on region,” Bhagat said.
Despite the complexity, experts argue that transparent enumeration is vital to policy planning. “Regardless, listing the castes and public notification of these lists for discussion is of paramount importance,” Bhagat said. “At least now there is precedent in the way that Bihar and other states have done theirs.”
India’s Census, typically conducted every ten years, has been delayed since 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has not announced a new timeline for the caste census.
