The dreariness is typical of state authority—dank corridors gutted by cubby-hole offices, piles of air-coolers and mineral water canisters, spittoons and grey officials. But it is also the centrum where the fate and fortune of hundreds of tribes, castes, lineage and stock is decided. The Social Studies Division is the research and authorising wing of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner’s office.

It’s the crucial stop in the Centre hierarchy where petitions and requests for SC/ST certificates are sent to, and vital and weighty decisions roll out from these unremarkable cells. The department is staffed by nine basic officials--Assistant Registrar General Dr I C Agarwal and his personal assistant, one deputy and three assistant generals, two research officers and one printing officer. There’s a library at the end of the corridor where anthropological and social data of census collected over the decades are stacked. The division gets an average of 125 requests a year.

Not surprisingly, it’s a pressure cooker environment at the department whenever a contentious proposal is in the offing, with politicians and lobbyists breathing down its neck to pass or reject a proposal.

The process is straightforward. After the state Government proposes, it goes to the “post office”, the National Commission of ST or SC as the case may be, which forwards the proposal to the Social Studies Division. If approved, it goes back to the commission, which also has the veto power to accept or reject, and if cleared, moves to the Union Cabinet, becomes a Bill, and then is passed in Parliament. A proposal can be rejected by the division only twice and cannot come up for review again.

... contd.