Caste census: Stalin urges Union Govt to avoid discrepancies

DMK president MK Stalin on Sunday expressed disappointment over the Union Government’s proposed open-ended format for recording caste details in the upcoming Census 2027.

He also called upon the Tamil Nadu Government to pass a special resolution in the ongoing Assembly session to reflect the sentiments of the people and exert necessary pressure on the Centre to adopt an error-free enumeration process.

In a statement, Stalin alleged that allowing enumerators to manually enter caste names without a standardised, pre-determined drop-down list would lead to severe discrepancies and undermine the core purpose of a caste-based census. “The Union Government’s explanation that the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list comprises classes rather than individual castes is completely unacceptable,” the former chief minister said.  He urged the Centre to consult state Governments, obtain their official lists of Backward Classes (BC) and Most Backward Classes (MBC) and integrate these standardised categories into the census system.  “Giving citizens the option to select from an established list is the only way to ensure accurate data collection, whereas open-ended entries risk generating chaotic results, such as ‘falsely’ indicating the existence of 46 lakh distinct castes across India”, he claimed.

The primary objective of a caste census is to determine the exact population and the socio-economic and educational status of OBC communities, similar to the data collected for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) so that Governments can frame effective reservation policies and development schemes, Stalin said.

“Proceeding with the current flawed methodology would waste nearly Rs 12,000 crore of public funds, extensive labour of lakhs of Government employees, turning the entire exercise into a mere eye-wash,” he said.

Emphasising the need to protect the social justice rights of millions of backward and most backward citizens, he demanded immediate corrective measures from the Centre.