The caste inequality in India’s executive | Number Theory

If there is one thing which has been vindicated once again by the Narendra Modi government’s decision to include a caste count with the next census, it is that democratic pressures have an important role in shaping policy on caste in India. From the provision of reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in legislatures and government jobs to post-independence democratic assertion for expanding the net of affirmative action to backward classes -- it eventually culminated in the creation of the Other Backward Class (OBC) category and reservations for them -- politics has always been the vanguard of affirmative action or what’s also called social justice in India. That the demand for a caste census is tied to the objective of making OBC quota proportionate with their population share should not be a surprise, given this history.