The caste census is also likely to reshape people’s priorities from the mere aspiration for development (read public resources) to assertion for representation and through that development among various under-represented social groups. It may also lead to an unfolding of caste and sub-caste identities and reshaping of society in an equitable manner in the long-run.

This decision of the Narendra Modi government has major political implications. First, it is likely to demolish the political and electoral strategies of the Congress-led anti-BJP opposition, which was aiming to use caste census to mobilise OBCs and other marginal communities. They will need to reframe their political strategy, especially in Bihar, where assembly elections are due later this year. Second, the BJP has not only disarmed the Opposition from weaponising caste-based electoral polarisation of backwards and Dalits, but it has also appropriated the anti-BJP Opposition’s caste-focussed social justice argument by recasting its own model of social justice – referred to by many political analysts as samagra (all-encompassing) social justice model – by weaving in governance-centered empowerment with caste-based representation.

The caste census may appear to go against the grain of the ideological vision of society usually associated with the BJP. However, the BJP is a political party that imbibes whatever they find as yuganukul (a concept popularised by Jana Sangh ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, which means suitable to the time). The Bihar election is set to be a contest of various social justice models: The neo-Congress and neo- samajwadi (socialist) argument for social justice based on representation as per share in population, bahujanwadi politics, and the BJP’s samagra social justice model. While the current Congress-Samajwadi social justice model is limited to the demand for caste-based representation, the BJP has been smart to combine governance with representation. The BJP has already been successful in shattering its historical image as a Brahmin-Bania party and transformed itself into a sarva samaj (all communities) party that provides substantial political representation to OBCs and Dalits.

This conscious transformation has already helped the party attract a large section of OBCs and Dalits, especially in the Hindi heartland. In the long-run, this will lead to a diminishing of the electoral base of influential parties such as the RJD and Samajwadi Party (SP). The social justice argument that energised their politics may be in crisis. Their one-dimensional social justice politics will have to compete with the NDA’s multi-dimensional politics, that claims to offer social, cultural, and religious social justice with now, the promise of caste-oriented representation in power politics. The first test of the new political positioning by the BJP will be the Bihar assembly election. But it will have a resonance nationally.

The fact is few people now argue against a caste census. A section of the Hindu upper caste and a few activists who argue for the annihilation of caste may insist that not acknowledging caste in census and surveys is the right way to diminish its importance. Of the first lot, the Hindu upper castes may be disappointed with the BJP’s decision to include caste enumeration in the census. However, the appeal of the Hindutva agenda and the absence of other political choices may keep them close to the party. A potent combination of Hindutva, an aggressive anti-Pakistan centric nationalism, the promise of Viksit Bharat is likely to help the party overcome the caste fault line in Hindu society that anti-BJP social justice groups have historically used for electoral mobilisation.

The caste census may turn the caste survey data collected by various state governments irrelevant and offer more rigorously collected, methodologically appropriate, elaborately collected politically neutral data that can be used for evolving policies and their proper implementation. Political parties may use their own data collected by the state surveys either to supplement or contest national data and sharpen their political posturing and arguments. These data can be weaponised, of course. But the outcome will depend on who is using it, how, and for what? One thing is for sure. A national caste census, whenever it is going to be conducted, will change the course of Indian politics, transform the structures of dominance, and the relations between the privileged and the deprived.

Badri Narayan is director, GB Pant Social Science Institute. The views expressed are personal