The smoke of the caste census.

India is a forest of castes and our society can hardly come out of it. Instead of what you are, there are many questioners of how you are. Caste sometimes benefits and sometimes harms. There is no son of God. After all, everyone is a human being. Now the practice of disclosing caste-caste differences in a categorical manner in census figures has started and the phenomenon is going to continue for a long time. On the other hand, the intellectuals of the country are divided into two parts regarding the disclosure of population figures in this way. A similar divide exists among politicians. BJP had said from the very beginning that this is not like teasing a sleeping snake. The BJP, however, is most likely to take advantage of the caste facts. And yet the BJP has opposed the caste-based census.

Elections were held in five states recently. In three of these, the Congress did not benefit much from aggressively raising the issue of cast census during the election campaign. The election results show that the issue did not sway the voters' decision. After this it is believed that now this issue will not get as much importance as before. But it is interesting to see how even indirectly this issue retains importance in both camps of BJP-Congress? Especially in Karnataka, the Congress is confused on this issue. Recently, during a debate in the Rajya Sabha, the same question was raised by the BJP that why the Karnataka government cannot make public the cast survey report prepared by them. It is no secret that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar have different views on the issue. Even within the BJP, there are different views on caste-based census.

In the Rajya Sabha, Congress president Kharge also indirectly hit out at Shivakumar, saying that whenever such an issue comes up, upper caste leaders unite and oppose it together. After this, however, DK Sivakumar clarified that he was not against making the cast survey report public, but wanted it to be done systematically and scientifically. Interestingly, this clarification once again confirmed that their attitude was only to intercept the Caste Survey Report. There is a reason for this too. The two main castes considered to be the most politically powerful there - the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats - are against it. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is saying that his party will conduct a nationwide caste census. In such a situation, the Congress does not have much room to retreat on this issue.

But it remains to be seen if any solution is found in Karnataka other than keeping this report pending. If he finds an effective way to resolve the contradictions in Karnataka, he can advance it more effectively and credibly in the coming elections, otherwise his electoral relevance will further diminish. As far as the BJP is concerned, despite keeping a distance from the issue, it continues to make parallel efforts to woo the OBC votes. BJP-appointed Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh aim to solve the caste equation in the Lok Sabha elections. The statistics of the caste census which the Nitish Kumar government of Bihar was adamant about for the last 3 years has now been released.

According to a state government report, Bihar has 27% Other Backward Classes and 36% Very Backward Classes. That means the total OBC population is 63%. What is the population of which caste in Bihar? Its figures are in. Nitish Kumar's government announced its figures with great enthusiasm. According to statistics, the total population of Bihar is more than 13 crores. 27% of them belong to Other Backward Classes and 36% to Very Backward Classes. That is, the total OBC population is 63%. Scheduled caste population is 19% and tribal population is 1.68%. Whereas, the normal range is 15.52%. The Nitish government was adamant about conducting caste census for three and a half years. The government received proposals for caste enumeration from the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council on 18 February 2019 and again on 27 February 2020. But the work of caste enumeration started in January this year. However, the government calls it a 'survey' and not a census.