Is Caste Census Only In Name?

Opposition leaders have questioned how caste responses will be recorded without state-wise pre-prepared lists.

The Union ministry of home affairs on Friday notified the 40 questions that enumerators will ask during the population enumeration phase of Census 2027.

In this list, comprehensive caste enumeration is back in the Census for the first time since 1931 and seeks information on citizens' digital and documentary footprints in the national headcount.

Issued under the Census Act, 1948 and signed by Registrar General Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, the gazette notification triggers the second phase of the country's 16th census, the first since 2011.

It is also the first to be conducted digitally with an option to self-enumerate.

Census 2027 Caste Enumeration

The headline change is question number 10.

Where the 2011 form asked only whether a person was scheduled caste or scheduled tribe, the 2027 version reads 'SC/ST/Caste'.

India last recorded caste across all groups in 1931 and every post-Independence census narrowed it to SC and ST status alone.

Aadhaar, Voter ID Details

The new questions capture a respondent's Aadhaar number, voter ID, passport, driving licence, mobile number, permanent address and total number of bank accounts.

It further adds the place of COVID-19 vaccination, separate particulars for both parents and the spouse, digital literacy, and the discipline of study.

The demographic core -- age, religion, mother tongue, migration, work and fertility -- largely carries over.

Census Digital Self-Enumeration

The Opposition questioned how caste will be recorded in the Census.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge of communications, said it had been widely expected that caste would be captured through a pre-prepared, state-wise list -- as in the Bihar and Telangana surveys -- with respondents simply ticking the appropriate entry.

'This has, unfortunately, not happened, raising serious doubts on intent,' Ramesh posted on X.

Ramesh also pointed to a May 2025 letter from Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, arguing that its first and fundamental suggestion -- to model the questionnaire on Telangana's survey and conceal nothing -- had been ignored, with no dialogue held with political parties.

Census 2027 Two-Phase Exercise

Census 2027 runs in two phases.

The reference date is March 1, 2027, for most of the country, and October 1, 2026, for Ladakh and the snow-bound, non-synchronous areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Here, population enumeration takes place from September 1 to 30, 2026.

Elsewhere, enumeration is scheduled for February 2027.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff