Census was taken in time of flux, chief was sceptical of accuracy

NEW DELHI: The 1931 census, which formed the basis for the Mandal Commission’s recommendations on OBC quota as well as the UPA’s quota decision, had recorded the difficulties encountered by the officials in preparing the break-up.

The census not only failed to formulate a precise definition of caste, it had also noted that the category itself was in a state of flux, undergoing rapid changes across the country. It made the task of the officials engaged in compiling data that much difficult.

Former Union minister Arun Shourie, in his book, Falling over Backwards: An Essay against Reservations and against Judicial Populism, quoting from the census report, recounted these problems.

“The institution (of caste) itself is undergoing considerable modification. There is a tendency for the limitations of caste to be loosened and for rigid caste distinctions to be broken down.’’

Indeed, Mr Shourie concluded, this was the reason the census commissioner argued that enumerating persons by caste would not revive it.

The difficulties faced by the census officials in preparing a caste-wise break-up were many. Consolidation of groups separated by caste rules, wilful misrepresentation of caste identities in the hope of rising in the social estimation of other people, emigration, inter-caste marriages and changes in occupation were just a few of them.

The lines differentiating castes were getting blurred, caste rules were being jettisoned and economic and technological changes, coupled with the freedom of movement, were knocking off the very basis of caste divisions.

“To place each unit of the Hindu community in his or her proper caste compartment under the correct sub-caste is today a complete impossibility,’’ the census report for Bombay Presidency, reproduced by Mr Shourie in his book, surmised, “because — (a) No real complete index of castes and sub-castes has yet been compiled, (b) In too many cases, the individual questioned is either ignorant of his own caste or unwittingly gives a wholly misleading reply, (c) It is unreasonable to expect, from the type of enumerator now employed, the degree of vigilance, the breadth of ethnical knowledge and the patience and persistence necessary to obtain really correct information.’’

There was so much movement across sub-castes that traditional distinctions were getting blurred. It constrained the 1931 census officers to make a strong case for giving up traditional notions. ``It is probable that the time has come when the elaborate caste detail which has adorned, or as some would say, congested the past census reports should be given up,’’ the Madras Presidency Report said.

Sorting by caste, M W M Yeatts, the then superintendent of census operations in the Madras Presidency, who later went on to become the country’s census commissioner, noted, is one of the most complicated of all census operations: ``The tables require a prolonged and careful check, and in the end it is doubtful whether, in the famous phrase, it is worthwhile going through so much to get so little.’’