socially and educationally backward classes and Census

Social Issues Vulnerable Sections in Indian Society

The decision of the Central government, at a meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh on August 31, to canvass data with regard to the socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs) in Census 2021 is both welcome and long overdue.

First of all, this will provide a mine of valuable information—economic, occupational, educational and social—that can facilitate better planning of the comprehensive socio-economic development of the SEBCs and the formulation of schemes tailored to the development needs of different categories of the SEBCs.
The data collection exercise will compliment the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), which is being set up for the SEBCs under the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-third) Amendment Act that Parliament passed in its 2018 monsoon session.
Such data for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) have been available since the first census of independent India in 1951. It has helped officials to formulate development plans and design specific programmes for the S.Cs and the S.Ts more precisely. The same is needed for the SEBCs communities.
The need for a census with due attention to the SEBCs has been urged by various commissions, including the Kaka Kalelkar Commission (1953-55) and the Mandal Commission (1978-80) at the national level and State Backward Class commissions such as the Sattanathan (1969-70) and Ambasankar (1985) commissions of Tamil Nadu, the Anantharaman Commission (1968-70) of Andhra Pradesh and the Havanur Commission (1972-75) of Karnataka.However, still it was much neglected.

The long delay in taking up the census of the SEBCs as part of the decennial census is typical of the neglect of the SEBCs by the Centre. The southern States and even States such as Bihar under the late Karpoori Thakur have a better record than the Centre with regard to the SEBCs.
Article 340 of the Constitution had been flouted by the Central government until 1990 when the V.P. Singh government introduced 27 per cent reservation, as recommended by the Mandal Commission in 1980, for the SEBCs, which the Supreme Court upheld in 1992.
Article 340 of the Constitution had been flouted by the Central government until 1990 when the V.P. Singh government introduced 27 per cent reservation, as recommended by the Mandal Commission in 1980, for the SEBCs, which the Supreme Court upheld in 1992.

Government embarked on the path of socio-economic caste census (SECC) in 2011 and entrusted this work to the ministries of Rural Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, neither of which has the required expertise or the background or the infrastructure for this task.
The exercise did not resulted desired outcome. As Instead of asking each respondent whether she or he belonged to any of the castes in the SEBC list for the State concerned, the respondents were asked which caste they belonged to. They variously gave names of castes, sub-castes, sub-sub- castes, synonyms, clans, gotras, and so on. As many as 46 lakh categories were recorded, which made it difficult to reach at any outcome.
The SECC provided some economic information, which is useful for identifying beneficiaries on economic basis for schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. But the original purpose of securing data caste-wise, in particular SEBC-caste-wise, remained unfulfilled.
Another short-sighted approach is to link the SEBC census with 27 per cent reservation for the SEBCs. It was not understood that SEBC census by itself does not have any bearing on the reservation for the OBCs.

The Central list for each State for Central purposes and the State’s own list for State purposes are the same or nearly wholly the same in respect of most States.
In some cases, particularly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, there are certain entries of castes that are not in the Mandal list or the Central list and whose applications for inclusion have been rejected by the government on the advice tendered by the National commission of Backward Classes (NCBC) after a public enquiry and in-depth study.
These States may want to collect data of castes that are included in the State list but not in the Central list. In case they so wish, there should be one column for castes that are in the Central SEBC list and another column for castes that are only in the State list.

There is one more social category for which census data is important, namely, the Nomadic, Semi-Nomadic and Vimukta-Jati/Denotified communities (NSNVJs/DNTs). At present, they are distributed among the S.Cs, the S.Ts and the SEBCs.
The Renke Commission, set up by the previous United Progressive Alliance government, and the Idate Commission set up by the present government envisage their constitution into a separate class and the provision of separate quotas and separate social justice measures for them.
However, categorising them within one class will not be wise decision, given to their different socio economic conditions.

It is essential that organisations of the SEBCs and those working for their rights keep a watch on the devising of schedules and the methodology for the gathering of SEBC data in the census, and the actual conduct of the census, so that what has been secured after so much effort and such an inordinate delay has useful outcomes and output without any scope for error or confusion. It is suggested to the Census Commissioner to place in the public domain the schedules and methodology after drafting and before finalising them.