Let us first begin with an explanation of what the restoration of the caste census after almost a century – the last one was conducted in British India in 1931 – will mean in concrete terms. While India did away with counting castes in the census after independence, the discontinuation was not universal. The census continued to enumerate the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) population, both at the aggregate and sub-group level. So, what the next caste census will hopefully really give us afresh is a break-up of the remaining population at two broad groups and sub-castes: Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and persons who do not belong to SC/ST/OBC groups or the proverbial upper castes.

This is likely to fill a huge statistical vacuum as far as our knowledge about social composition of India’s population is concerned. To be sure, we have had a tentative idea of the share of OBC and non-SC-ST-OBC population at the macro level from various government surveys. But a census generated database will be far more robust at the aggregate level and give a demographic break-up at the sub-caste level for the first time since independence.

What led to the resurrection of the demand for a caste census? OBCs as a broad social category did not exist before independence or even when the constitution was adopted. The only affirmative action provision which the constitution recognized was reservation in the legislature and government educational institutions and jobs for SC-ST population. The former was a legacy of the Poona Pact, a compromise between BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi where the former, at the latter’s insistence, agreed to reservations for Dalits rather than creation of a separate electoral college (like minorities) for them.

India’s feudal economic landscape, however, meant that the arc of discrimination and deprivation extended much beyond the proverbial untouchables who were included among the SCs. This cohort, a large part of the overall population, started asserting for a constitutional redressal of their deprivation and discrimination along with pushing for greater political agency.

While there were large state-wise and group-wise asymmetries between this population, it eventually culminated in a pan-India assertion for recognition of an umbrella category called the OBC when the Mandal Commission report was formally accepted by the V P Singh led National Front government announcing 27% reservations for OBCs in government jobs in August 1990. It would take almost two decades for OBC reservation to be enacted in educational institutions, which was implemented under the first United Progressive Alliance government in 2006.

The Mandal report was categorical in saying that it would have liked to recommend a higher quota commensurate with the more than 50% share of OBCs in the population but was constrained from doing so by a Supreme Court judgment capping aggregate reservations at 50%. The demand for caste census is primarily motivated at resurrecting this demand and could very well succeed given the fact that the 50% quota cap has been breached for all practical purposes after judicial ratification of 10% reservations for economically weaker non-SC-ST-OBC groups.

The implementation of Mandal Commission recommendations triggered a huge social-political storm in India in the form of an upper caste backlash. In many ways, it also nudged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to make an aggressive pivot to the Hindutva plank. L K Advani started his Rath Yatra – he planned to travel in a motorised chariot from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh demanding a Ram Temple in Ayodhya and was arrested in Bihar – almost immediately after VP Singh’s decision to implement Mandal. While the BJP would have to wait for six years before first forming a coalition government and 24 years before getting a parliamentary majority of its own, the Congress started hemorrhaging almost immediately in the aftermath of the Mandal-Kamandal binary, the latter being a popular lexicon for Hindutva politics in the country.

While OBC reservations have definitely made the labour market more equal in terms of increasing the representation of OBCs, Mandal’s political implications far exceed its economic implications.

In two of India’s most populous states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it led to the creation of political parties (Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal) which were led and controlled by leaders from a dominant OBC group, namely, Yadavs. This cohort along with a strong support from Muslims in the aftermath of a growing BJP, came to control a significant vote share to win elections in a fragmented polity and became an important arbiter of political power at the national level giving rise to the theory that there was no preventing Kamandal without Mandal.

To be sure, the larger legitimacy of these Mandal parties was questioned with time, especially in Bihar as OBC polity got fragmented and parts of it (Janata Dal-United) aligned with the BJP to capture power. These fissures within the larger OBC camp were driven more by unequal sharing of political power by dominant OBCs than some ideological struggle about the cause of OBCs per se.

OBC polity’s watershed moment however would come in 2014 when the BJP fought the elections under an OBC prime minister candidate and actively pursued a tactics of mobilising OBC groups other than dominant OBCs represented directly by Mandal parties. This strategy was the most successful in Uttar Pradesh, first in 2014 and then in 2017, where overwhelming support from lower OBCs paved the BJP’s march to victory.

Rather than resting on its laurels, the BJP almost immediately decided to give its tactics of breaking the homogeneity of the OBC camp a legal sanctity. Justice Rohini Commission, which was formed in October 2017 to stratify reservations within OBCs, seeks to do exactly that. The report has been completed and is pending with the government and is likely to reserve a larger pie of reservations for non-dominant OBCs. To be sure, the strategy is not very different from what the Congress is trying in a state such as Karnataka by trying to tilt the reservation scales in favour of AHINDA (broad group of backward classes, Dalits and minorities) from the dominant peasant communities of Lingayat and Vokkaligas, both of whom are technically OBCs. However, unlike the Congress in Karnataka, Mandal parties in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh draw their primary strength from dominant OBC support and would not be keen on a policy which others these groups.

If the BJP decides to unleash the Rohini Commission rejigging of OBC reservation along with an increase in reservation for OBCs; which is perhaps what will follow the caste census, Mandal parties or dominant OBCs might still be losers rather than winners in the existing state of play on reservations. Mandal parties opposing such rejigging would only vindicate the BJP’s charge of them being sectarian towards the larger OBC cause. This dilemma will increase the Congress’s dilemma in taking a clear position. This is exactly why it is early days to see the government conceding on the caste census demand as an unambiguous victory for the opposition’s Mandal agenda. To be sure, the social turmoil which could follow from such rejigging of OBC reservations along with a dilution of the 50% cap on quota could very well consume the BJP too.

The best way to understand the caste census announcement is to see it as a continuation of the Mandal-Kamandal dialectic in India’s political economy. Both these camps think of their larger constituency (Bahujans or SC-ST-OBCs for Mandal and Hindus for Kamandal) as free from contradictions and the other side tries to drive a wedge in that consolidation.

By forcing the government to accept caste census demand which will almost certainly lead to an expansion of OBC quota, Mandal has scored an important victory in its historical struggle for proportionate reservations. However, it remains to be seen whether this agenda-based victory will also guarantee political power for Mandal parties and the Congress. This is not a given if the BJP manages to sell Mandal 3.0 as a coup against dominant OBCs usurping most benefits in the realm of affirmative action. The announcement of the caste census, is a victory for the Mandal camp, but with the caveat of por ahora (for now).

Roshan Kishore, HT’s Data and Political Economy Editor, writes a weekly column on the state of the country’s economy and its political fallout, and vice-versa.