Castes and religions out of the box

Castes and religions out of the box
B.K. Roy Burman

The Indian Express had reported that President K.R. Narayanan, who belongs to the Scheduled Caste (Paravan) of Kerala, could not record his caste status in Delhi during the current census operations (February 16).

Under Article 341 of the Indian Constitution, specific SCs are notified in respect of specific states and no fresh inclusion or exclusion can be made except through invoking the authority of Parliament. As ‘Paravan’ is not notified as SC in Delhi, a person belonging to the Paravan caste cannot enjoy the benefits or rights due to SCs provided by the government of Delhi, just as a Naga from Nagaland cannot enjoy similar benefits.

The Director of Census of the National Capital Territory of Delhi is apparently under a legal constraint to enumerate a Paravan as a SC or a Naga as an ST in Delhi. But it requires to be considered whether a Paravan loses his SC, or a Naga, his ST status, during his sojourn in Delhi and can be denied claims to benefits provided by the government for such categories. As far as I remember, in 1952 or 1953, the issue was examined by the ministry of law, and it was held that a SC or ST person did not lose the status conferred by the Constitution during his sojourn in some other state where his caste or tribe was not Scheduled.

There is a practical side to the issue. In the fifties and sixties, the number of SC, ST persons sojourning outside their respective states was presumably insignificant. For policy decisions at the all-India level, it perhaps did not matter much if a small number was enumerated in the category of the general population. But, today, with the spread of education, the green revolution, the displacement of large populations in the wake of hydel and other projects, and so on, the number of sojourners has gone up sharply.

For instance, it is reported that a few hundred thousand tribal workers from Jharkhand are sojourning in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh as agricultural labourers. Similarly, migrations of SC communities of Chattisgarh, parts of UP, and Rajasthan to industries in Maharashtra and Gujarat is reported. If such sojourners are not enumerated as ST or SC, as the case may be, there will be a substantial undercount of such categories of the population at the all-India level.

For instance, while according to the 1991 census, the SCs and STs are 16 per cent and 8 per cent of the population, reservations for them in government jobs is to the tune of 15 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively. But if, on enumeration of the sojourners, the percentages of SC and ST go up by one or two per cent, more adjustments will have to be made.

It may be argued that by allowing enumeration of persons as SCs or STs in the states where the respective communities are not listed under the provision of the Constitution, the Census Commissioner would be overstepping his authority. This can be avoided by including a column in the census slip indicating the state or UT where the caste or tribe to which the person belongs is an SC or ST.

There’s also a problem of correctly enumerating religious affiliation. Till the 1991 Census, the question in the slip relating to religion was an open one. This time there is a departure. In Question 7, Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh, Buddhist and Jain religions have been mentioned with respective code numbers. But for other religions, the name of the religion is to be written in full without any code number. While it is not possible to give a code number for each of the other religions, a code number for the category of “other religions” could have been given, leaving it to the office to codify the specific religions under this category.

The writer is an eminent anthropologist and social demographer