While data can empower communities, it reinforces identities, making local politics more caste-centric, with decisions increasingly contested on the grounds of representation.
Such dynamics could lead to shifting alliances and, in the worst case, local governance getting paralysed as each group demands proportional power-sharing, explain Amitabh Kundu and Mehebub Rahaman.
Collecting caste-based data will be a major challenge, but it would have to be delinked from the census, to prevent respondents from misrepresenting facts, says Amitabh Kundu
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