“Banerjee voiced her reservations and sought time to think about it when several parties, including Congress, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and Communist Party of India (Marxist) wanted to include caste census in their common agenda,” a TMC leader aware of the development said on condition of anonymity.

Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the TMC national general secretary, left before Rahul Gandhi and the other leaders held a press conference at the end of the meeting and issued a statement endorsing the census.

TMC’s Bengal vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar told HT that such a census will lead to social disharmony.

“The decadal general census, which is due in 2021, plays an important role in India’s growth because these surveys reveal socio-economic reality, changing character of the society and aspirations of the people. A general census is necessary. A partial and projected census will create disharmony in the society. A caste census is conducted only to draw an inference. It will create a wrong index,” Majumdar said.

The Muslim and OBC factor in West Bengal

West Bengal’s Muslim population stood at 27.01 % during the 2011 general census and is projected to have increased to around 30 % now. The community plays a decisive role in as many as 120 of the state’s 294 assembly seats, according to surveys done by political parties.

It is the Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation for Bengal’s Muslims, which is based on socio-economic status, that will come under focus during a caste census, experts say. Analysis of poll results shows that Muslim voters backed TMC in all polls since 2011 when Banerjee first came to power ousting the 34-year-old Left Front government.

In 2010, the Left Front government introduced a 10% reservation in state government jobs for “economically, socially and educationally backward" Muslims who came under the OBC-A (more backward class) category. Muslims who came under the OBC-B (backward class) category were granted a 7 % reservation.

The 10% reservation in the OBC-A category was based on the recommendations of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities whose report was tabled in Parliament in December 2009.

The report said that since minorities, especially the Muslims are under-represented, and sometimes wholly un-represented, in government offices they should be regarded as backwards in this respect. The report said 15 % posts in all cadres and grades under Central and state governments should be earmarked for OBCs and within this recommended 15 % there shall be a 10 % reservation for Muslims.

When the Left Front enforced this policy, 49 out of 56 communities in the OBC-A category in Bengal were Muslim. In the OBC-B segment, only four of 52 communities were Muslim. Thus, of the 108 OBC communities in the A and B lists, 53 were Muslim in 2010.

Since 2011, Banerjee has included more backward communities in the OBC lists in phases.

Currently, there are 81 communities under OBC-A and 99 under OBC-B categories according to the state backward classes welfare department. Of these, 56 Muslim communities are listed under OBC-A and 41 Muslim communities are listed under OBC-B category.

Based on their professions, the Muslim communities listed in the OBC lists include the Abdal, Basni, Beldar, Atta, Bhatia, Hajjam, Kalander etc.

The Hindu communities in these lists, most of whom belong to lower castes, include the Chitrakar, Gangot, Bhujel, Gurung, Dewan and even Scheduled Caste people who have embraced Christianity.

Since 2010, four cases challenging these reservations have been filed at the Calcutta high court by people affiliated with Hindu organisations. The BJP was made a party in three of these petitions. The litigation continues.

Professor Moidul Islam from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences said: “A caste census in Bengal may create trouble between various OBC communities and even add a communal angle because Muslims are listed alongside Hindus. If a census shows a rise in the number of people from the various castes in the OBC-A and OBC-B lists, the government will be under pressure to revise the reservation quotas.”

“In the OBC-B list, most of the castes are Hindu while in the OBC-A list, most of the communities are Muslim. The outcome of a census may demand fresh categorisation and rearrangement of the lists. That will pose a big problem for the government,” Islam added.

While it was always the swing in Muslim votes that was discussed in Bengal elections, the scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) communities came under focus after the BJP emerged as the main opposition party.

The tribal population in the state stood at 5.29 million during the 2011 census, accounting for about 5.8% of the total population. In sharp contrast, the SC population, according to the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, stood at 21.4 million, or 23.51 % of the population.

For the SC population, which is spread across Bengal, 68 assembly seats, out of the state’s 294, are reserved. The ST population, on the other hand, has only 16 reserved seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP set a record by winning 18 of Bengal’s 42 seats. Analysts and political leaders said the BJP could not have performed so well without the support of SC and ST communities.

In 2021, when the general census could not be held because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bengal’s projected population stood at 101.9 million. During the last 2011 census, the Hindu population stood at 70.54% while Muslims comprised 27.01%. The total population was 91.3 million.

Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said Banerjee does not want a caste census because it will create an upheaval in Bengal.

“Only a handful of Muslim communities in Bengal are left to be included in the OBC lists. The Constitution does not permit reservation on the basis of religion but that is precisely what the government is doing,” Bhattacharya said.

There are around 60 Hindu sub-castes that come under the SC category. Of these, the three major ones are the Rajbanshi who account for 18.4 % of the total SC population, the Namasudra (17.4 %) and the Bagdi (14.9%). The Matua community, which has been in the news since 2019, is a part of the Namasudra community. The exact size of the Matua population is unknown since no caste census was done.

Originally from East Pakistan, most of the Namasudras came to India during the Partition and after the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 to escape religious persecution.

The implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been one of the principal demands of the Matuas since 2019 when BJP national leaders, including Union home minister Amit Shah, announced their intent to do so.

CAA offers expedited citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015. TMC insists that CAA is unconstitutional as it links citizenship to faith in a secular country. The Centre has said that it is in the process of framing laws for CAA which the Parliament passed in 2020.

Despite Mamata Banerjee’s strong campaign against CAA, the support of the Matua and other Hindu Dalit communities helped the BJP win several seats in 2019. TMC leaders said that after analysing the erosion in the Hindu vote bank Banerjee took remedial measures. She formed the Namasudra Development Board and launched the party’s refugee cell with units in all districts. She also gave land ownership papers to people living in refugee colonies. The TMC even formed separate cells for SC and ST.

In a significant move, in December 2020 the Bengal government began distributing caste certificates for SCs, STs and OBCs through the ‘duare sarkar’ (government at the doorstep) project, which is Banerjee’s biggest outreach programme so far. The seventh phase of Duare Sarkar started on September 1.

In the 2021 assembly polls in which BJP bagged 75 seats, support from the Matua and other Dalit communities helped the party in the districts bordering Bangladesh and also in north Bengal.

On the eve of the assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bangladesh and offered prayers at the Matua temple at Orakandi near Dhaka, triggering a sharp reaction from Banerjee.

Uneasy social relations

On June 11, several BJP and TMC workers were injured in clashes when saffron camp workers from the Matua community stopped Abhishek Banerjee from entering their sacred temple at Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district.

On May 26, Abhishek Banerjee’s convoy was stoned, allegedly by members of the Kurmi community at Salboni in Jhargram district, leading to the arrest of nine Kurmi leaders.

Several Kurmi organisations have been agitating since last year demanding ST status for the community. The various sections of the Kurmis are listed either under OBC or SC categories. They have planned a road blockade this month.

Samik Bhattacharya said: “The chief minister knows that social equilibrium in Bengal will crack right now if a caste census is held. People will come to know who are actually downtrodden and who are not. It is a reality that casteism does not exist in West Bengal. A person who loudly enquires about someone’s caste identity is seen as uneducated. But it is also a fact that a census will shift focus on the Kurmis, Namasudras and Muslims.”