Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 1: Providing a major relief to the Bihar chief minister and his “Mahagatbandhan” government, the Patna High Court on Tuesday dismissed all petitions filed against the decision of the Bihar Government to conduct a caste-based survey and allowed the State government to continue with the survey.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice K.V. Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy said in its order: “We find the action of the State to be perfectly valid, initiated with due competence, with the legitimate aim of providing ‘Development with Justice,’ as proclaimed in the address of both Houses and the actual survey to have neither exercised nor contemplated any coercion to divulge the details and having passed the test of proportionality, thus not having violated the rights of privacy of the individual especially since it is in the furtherance of a ‘compelling public interest’ which in effect is the ‘legitimate State interest’.”
On May 4, the High Court had issued an interim stay on the ongoing caste-based survey. Following the stay order, the State government filed a petition seeking early hearing of the case. However, the court on May 9 had rejected the petition filed by the State government, challenging the caste enumeration and economic survey in the State for hearing by the court before July 3. Later, the State government approached the Supreme Court to lift the stay, but the Supreme Court refused.
The case for a caste-based census has been often made. But now Kumar’s push for the census brings into focus the reluctance of the BJP which leads the NDA, on the issue, as well as the timing of the demand.
The census conducted at the beginning of every decade does not record any caste data other than for those listed as Scheduled Castes. In August 1990, the V.P. Singh government announced the decision to implement the Mandal Commission report, extending reservation to castes grouped together as the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The last census to record caste was conducted in 1931, and the Mandal panel’s determination that OBCs accounted for 52% of the population drew heavily from that. It was not clear then, nor is it now, whether this 52% was up-to-date. Is it more, or is it less? Are only a few castes among the OBCs cornering the benefits of reservation? Only a caste-based census can answer these questions.
From July 3 to July 7, a continuous hearing was held by the Bench of Chief Justice K.V. Chandran, and the verdict was reserved for August 1. Earlier, Chief Justice Chandran had directed the State government to not share or use the data collected during this period.
The first phase of the survey, which involved a house listing exercise, was carried out from January 7 to January 12. The Bihar Government was in the middle of conducting the second phase of the caste-based survey, which had begun on April 15 and was to be completed by May 15. In its interim order, the court had said the Executive did not have the jurisdiction to conduct caste-based surveys. Earlier, the court had also said the privacy of the public had been violated by the caste-based survey.
The petitioners’ advocate Dinu Kumar said they would approach the Supreme Court against the Patna High Court’s verdict.
“We have not seen the copy of the judgment, so [we are] unable to speak much on the issue. We want to know why the court dismissed the petition. Earlier, the court had put a stay on the survey, emphasising that the State does not have the right to conduct any caste survey,” Mr. Kumar said. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Prasad Yadav welcomed the court’s verdict.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Yadav said: “Authentic, reliable and scientific data will be obtained from our government’s caste-based survey. The most backward, backward, and the poor of all sections will get maximum benefit from this. Caste census will be a huge revolutionary step in the direction of economic justice. Our demand is that the Central government should get the caste census done. Why don’t the majority backward and poor populations of the country, who are boasting of being OBC (Other Backward Class) Prime Minister, want caste enumeration to be done?”
Janata Dal (United) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh echoed a similar sentiment. “The Honourable High Court has rejected the petition against caste enumeration. It is welcome. The conspiracy by the BJP to stop the caste enumeration failed and the way for the caste enumeration is paved. Caste enumeration is in the interest of the State and it should be done across the country.”
The Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, Vijay Kumar Sinha of the BJP, said the ruling RJD and JD(U) had a changeable stand. “The Bihar Government is welcoming the Patna High Court order but when the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), ED (Enforcement Directorate) and Income Tax [Department] take action, then questions are raised on it. These people do not have faith in the constitutional institutions. These are the people who believe in monarchy and dynasty. When the pressure on the property earned through corruption increases, then there is restlessness. Crime is at its peak in Bihar and the government is busy with the caste census. What is the need for this?” Sinha asked.
Political observers in the State estimate that the caste-based survey is going to be a major political issue in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls next year as it will be one of the strongest political tools for ruling parties in States where the BJP is in the opposition, with the latter having a difficult time mounting an offensive on the issue. A caste-based census is a mammoth exercise, and the next round of Assembly elections are still three years away. The BJP’s hope would be that the exercise will not be complete before those elections.
The Bihar Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution seeking a caste-based census in February 2019, and then another one exactly a year later. It is a historically longstanding demand that consecutive governments in Delhi have sought to ignore. So far, a few State governments have carried out such exercises on their own.
In July 2021, the JD(U) had once again stepped up pressure on the Centre by passing a resolution at its National Executive meeting held in Delhi that a delegation of its MPs would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for a caste-based census. The Prime Minister did not entertain the delegation. But they met Home Minister Amit Shah. Then Kumar decided to step in himself. In August last year, he led a delegation of 10 parties to meet the Prime Minister in Delhi.
A month later, on September 23, the Centre clarified its stand in a submission to the Supreme Court. The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment told the court that caste census of the Backward Classes was “administratively difficult and cumbersome.” It was replying to a writ petition filed by the State of Maharashtra to gather Backward Classes’ caste data in the State while conducting Census 2021.
The government in its affidavit had said excluding any castes other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was a “conscious policy decision” adopted since the 1951 census, and that there was a policy of “official discouragement of caste.” Moreover, the government said, enumerating Backward Castes was an “administratively difficult and cumbersome” exercise.
The only time the Central government has showed any inclination to conduct a caste census was in 2011, when the Congress, buckling under pressure from allies, announced a Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) to get data on the caste and economic status of every household in the country. The socio-economic data from the census was made public in 2015, but the caste data was withheld, citing discrepancies. In its September affidavit the Centre explained why the data was unusable. The government said in the 1931 survey the number of castes was 4,147 while the SECC figures showed that there were more than 46 lakh different castes. The government was unable to explain this exponential growth in the figure.