‘The Caste Con Census’ by Anand Teltumbde: Why inclusion of caste in census doesn’t work, and sure does

This book is a landmark intervention in the ongoing debate on the enumeration of caste in the forthcoming national census. It provides a comprehensive and critical account of the subject. While doing so, Anand Teltumbde also spells out a broad conceptual and empirical history of caste and caste-based state policy, the reservations. Though at times it seems difficult to reconcile with his arguments, particularly those related to his approach to caste as a structure of inequality and injustice and how the Indian state should deal with it, there is a running theme through the book that, when taken together, provides a persuasive and refreshing perspective.

Even though the book primarily addresses the question emerging from the proposal to enumerate caste, it also offers a critical view of India’s approach to development. By doing so, he proposes an alternative policy frame for making India a just and inclusive society, free from caste divisions and related structures of inequality and injustice.

Written in accessible language, the book has 15 chapters. Nearly half of them deal with the conceptual history of caste, its origins in ancient times and the processes of its evolution. As is widely believed, the hierarchical mode of organising society, which came to be known as the caste system, was first articulated in the Purusha Sukta hymn, composed as part of the Rig Veda around 1000 years before the beginning of the Common Era.

The hymn proposed an “idealised Brahmin-centric social order”, an ideological dictum that gave centrality to ritual status and divided society into four varnas. In reality, however, the social order remained fluid and varied across regions. It also kept changing over time.

Besides religious belief and ritual status, the local structures of jati-based hierarchies were shaped by region-specific dynamics of power and economy. The Brahmanical ideology was also challenged by Shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism, but it survived and emerged as a hegemonic religious value among Hindus. Even the Muslim rulers and Islamic influence did not produce a significant challenge to the ideological hold of Brahmanism.

The British colonial rule was far more consequential. Concurring with scholars such as Nicolas Dirks, he argues that the colonial policies disrupted “the dynamic nature of caste by formalising it through religious laws and bureaucratic classifications”. For those on the margins, the British interventions on caste were a double-edged sword. While on the one hand, the process of enumeration created grounds for representational politics through identity consolidation, on the other, it helped fortify religious identities.

Brahmanical Hinduism emerged as a pan-Indian religious order. Likewise, the British policy of enumerating religious communities encouraged the emergence of political Islam. Thus, caste, alongside religion, “became a key instrument of governance, enabling the colonial regime to divide, classify and rule a complex society”. These divisions significantly dented the political mobilisations of the Indian masses against colonial rule, eventually resulting in the Partition.

Tultumbde goes on to argue that the incorporation of caste into the Constitution also reflects a similar kind of imagination. Instead of working for its annihilation, the native elite who took over the command of ruling the new nation, like the colonial masters, also wish to keep the people divided and manage caste through policies such as reservations. Such an approach to development, Teltumbde insists, “risks reducing the complex and layered fabric of Indian society to a simplistic semblance of identities”. While caste has indeed been, and remains, an important “axis of injustice”, deploying it as a sole lens for understanding everything about Indian society can be “intellectually limiting and politically debilitating”.

Such an approach, he argues, keeps the historically marginalised caste groups fixated on marginal gains through reservations and content with crumbs of representation and targeted benefits rather than demanding their share in the wealth of the country.

Teltumbde is thus opposed to the proposal to include the caste variable in the census. Apart from producing new jati-based divisions and diverting attention from the real issues of development, he argues that, given the nature of caste, it would be nearly impossible to meaningfully enumerate it as a demographic variable. Castes are not flat or discrete entities. They are internally divided and tend to follow hierarchical logic even within jatis and sub-jatis. Even a category like Brahmin is not a homogeneous group.

He is not opposed to affirmative policies for historically marginalised sections. However, for him, such policies cannot be and should not be an alternative to a broader vision of growth and development, which should cover everyone. Following Amartya Sen, he advocates a state policy that builds the capacity of the entire population through education, healthcare, and social security. Targeted “social justice interventions must sit atop” the universal guarantees of basic entitlements. An overemphasis on identities — caste, gender, or religion — and an allocation of development goods through quotas ends up dividing them. While it may give the impression of empowerment and representation, such policies keep the citizenry socially segmented, confined within the boundaries of their officially recognised identities. Such an approach best suits the elite, as it diverts attention from the underlying structures of power and injustice that, to begin with, produce hierarchies and inequalities.

It is hard to disagree with Teltumbde’s prognosis. However, the arguments do not necessarily make a convincing case against the enumeration of caste, or the sub-classification of caste communities for targeted benefits. Even if the targeted policies have to be visualised beyond the universalistic approach of human development for all, this cannot be done without data. The modern state cannot and should not frame policies without hard evidence. The real problem lies with the intent, political will, and sincerity of those in power, which has also been mentioned in the book.

— The reviewer taught sociology at JNU