For a foolproof caste census, focus on data
Oversight will be required for the electronic tabulation of the app, and rigorous verification must be done in real-time
Bihar’s survey of all castes and their socioeconomic condition began this weekend. The contentious exercise — attempting to enumerate the numerical strength and socioeconomic conditions of all castes for the first time since Independence — is happening against the backdrop of a political churn. Bihar’s ruling coalition comprises (along with the junior most partner, the Congress) two of the most prominent post-Mandal parties, the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which are hoping to erect a new social justice plank on the back of the numbers generated in the exercise. This, the Opposition hopes, would help stop the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has attracted a significant chunk of marginalised castes, using welfarism, faith-based appeals and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity.
Data around caste is difficult to verify, given the diversity of surnames, their spellings and their links to community groups. This inability to standardise surnames and caste criteria reportedly did the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census in. Bihar must take care of two things. First, enumerators must be sensitive to local dynamics and should not influence answers. The second will be in correlating socio-economic indicators to castes. Those conducting the survey will need to be alert to the possibility of exaggeration or suppression in the self-declared process, given the stakes involved in the exercise. Oversight will be required for the electronic tabulation of the app, and rigorous verification must be done in real-time. The government should push to keep the focus on the data. The politics can wait.
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