India to conduct first record of nations caste system since days of the Raj May 10, 2010
India is poised to record the place occupied by each of its 960 million Hindus in the religions controversial caste system for the first time since the days of the Raj.
The countrys mammoth ten-yearly national census began on April 1, when it was hailed as the biggest attempt in history to count, classify and ultimately issue identity cards to the citizens of a single nation.
Now, the census questionnaire is set to be rejigged after the Government indicated that it will meet demands for the caste of every Hindu to be documented too.
The caste system divides Hindus into four varnas, a term that can be translated as colour, according to their birth. The priest Brahmins at the top are followed by the warrior Kshatriyas; the merchant or farmer Vaishyas and the artisan Sudras in that order.
Untouchables, or Dalits, fall beneath that hierarchy and in many parts of India continue to perform the most disgusting and dangerous jobs.
The associated Jati system contains thousands of subgroups based on occupation.
The last time that the number of members of each caste was counted was in 1931, in a census carried out by the British. Then, one of the main problems was that people exaggerated their caste status in attempts to garner social prestige.
Now, the opposite problem of downward mobility is anticipated as people pretend to come from low castes in an attempt to qualify for government benefits. In earlier periods there was something to be gained from climbing the caste ladder, now the opposite is true, said Radhika Chopra of the Delhi School Of Economics.
The reinstatement of the caste question had been demanded by leaders of the so-called other backward castes, or OBCs, who hope to win new economic and social assistance for their communities by proving that they are struggling to benefit from Indias economic renaissance.
OBCs are one step up from untouchables, who are currently counted in the census and qualify for greater government benefits, such as reserved jobs and university places.
Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister, said last week that there would be no logistical problem in adding a new question to a census that is already gathering information from literacy levels to the number of mobile phones in each household. The exercise will involve 2.5 million officials and 12,000 tonnes of paperwork printed in 18 languages and distributed from the Himalayas in the north to the Andaman Islands in the south.
However, no other question gives rise to the same level of apprehension as that of caste. Some observers fear that merely asking it risks dividing society along caste lines and provoking violence.
The Times of India argued that there had been a good reason why caste had never been a census issue before in Independent India: The idea was to move towards a casteless society.
John Henry Hutton, the Indian Civil Service officer who was Census Commissioner of India in 1931, grappled with a similar dilemma. It has been alleged that the mere act of labelling persons as belonging to a caste tends to perpetuate the system, he wrote. It is just as easy to argue ... that it is impossible to get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like a proverbial ostrich.
India to conduct first record of nations caste system since days of the Raj - Times Online
India is poised to record the place occupied by each of its 960 million Hindus in the religions controversial caste system for the first time since the days of the Raj.
The countrys mammoth ten-yearly national census began on April 1, when it was hailed as the biggest attempt in history to count, classify and ultimately issue identity cards to the citizens of a single nation.
Now, the census questionnaire is set to be rejigged after the Government indicated that it will meet demands for the caste of every Hindu to be documented too.
The caste system divides Hindus into four varnas, a term that can be translated as colour, according to their birth. The priest Brahmins at the top are followed by the warrior Kshatriyas; the merchant or farmer Vaishyas and the artisan Sudras in that order.
Untouchables, or Dalits, fall beneath that hierarchy and in many parts of India continue to perform the most disgusting and dangerous jobs.
The associated Jati system contains thousands of subgroups based on occupation.
The last time that the number of members of each caste was counted was in 1931, in a census carried out by the British. Then, one of the main problems was that people exaggerated their caste status in attempts to garner social prestige.
Now, the opposite problem of downward mobility is anticipated as people pretend to come from low castes in an attempt to qualify for government benefits. In earlier periods there was something to be gained from climbing the caste ladder, now the opposite is true, said Radhika Chopra of the Delhi School Of Economics.
The reinstatement of the caste question had been demanded by leaders of the so-called other backward castes, or OBCs, who hope to win new economic and social assistance for their communities by proving that they are struggling to benefit from Indias economic renaissance.
OBCs are one step up from untouchables, who are currently counted in the census and qualify for greater government benefits, such as reserved jobs and university places.
Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister, said last week that there would be no logistical problem in adding a new question to a census that is already gathering information from literacy levels to the number of mobile phones in each household. The exercise will involve 2.5 million officials and 12,000 tonnes of paperwork printed in 18 languages and distributed from the Himalayas in the north to the Andaman Islands in the south.
However, no other question gives rise to the same level of apprehension as that of caste. Some observers fear that merely asking it risks dividing society along caste lines and provoking violence.
The Times of India argued that there had been a good reason why caste had never been a census issue before in Independent India: The idea was to move towards a casteless society.
John Henry Hutton, the Indian Civil Service officer who was Census Commissioner of India in 1931, grappled with a similar dilemma. It has been alleged that the mere act of labelling persons as belonging to a caste tends to perpetuate the system, he wrote. It is just as easy to argue ... that it is impossible to get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like a proverbial ostrich.
India to conduct first record of nations caste system since days of the Raj - Times Online
