PM puts lid on caste count by setting up GoM on modalities

NEW DELHI: After a short but intense debate at Wednesday\'s Cabinet meeting,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh settled the question whether to include caste in the ongoing census with a brief remark that how this was to be done should be referred to a group of ministers.



\"How do you do it (include caste in census) should be examined by a GoM,\" the PM is understood to have said after a majority of ministers endorsed a caste census. The GoM, which will most likely be headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, is expected to be set up soon and will look at the modalities on how caste is to be enumerated.



Asked about the Cabinet decision, law minister Veerappa Moily said he was not authorised to speak on the matter but pointed out that enumerating caste will only recognise a social reality. \"I agree caste is a cancer. But we need to treat parts that are affected, not the entire body. If certain sections are lifted out of poverty, everyone will be better off,\" he said.



The law minister, who has been a strong advocate of including caste in the census, told TOI on Thursday that OBC reservations depended on guesstimates and judicial mercy. \"Have not the courts questioned how the 27% quota for OBCs was arrived at? Have they not asked what is the basis of estimating the population of OBCs,\" he said. An authentic count would settle doubts.



Pointing out that political parties, including Congress and BJP, take into account caste calculations, Moily said, \"When party panels sit down to assess candidates, there is a left hand column that mentions caste.\" He added, \"There are percentages given. How are these arrived at? Often state intelligence bureaus are asked to provide these.\"



Moily said Congress had paid a price for not appearing on the right side of the Mandal divide and had suffered in the Hindi heartland. It would be unwise for the party to repeat the error and he was confident this would not be the case. The year 2010 is not 1991.



The minister indicated including caste enumeration in the second stage of the census might be practical as that is when the national population register will be finalised. \"When the biometrics are recorded, caste can also be tagged and this might be the way forward,\" Moily said.



Responding to criticism that the census would make reservations permanent, Moily said the information gathered could be used to devise better creamy layer criteria. \"It can be decided that my children and grandchildren, who are socially and educationally advanced, are not backward. This will challenge the hold of some leaders and communities,\" he said.



Moily said the census was now essential to identify \"beneficiaries and how many of them\". With the ambit of reservations increasing from government jobs to educational institutions, problems of inclusion and exclusion have become more severe. He admitted there could be exaggerated claims, but suggested closer monitoring when benefits are actually accessed.



It was the first amendment to the constitution by Jawaharlal Nehru that gave a statutory position to backward classes. Thereafter, a slew of commissions have recognised that the ends of social justice would be served through affirmative action to help backward castes. \"Can we still depend on the projections of the 1931 census,\" he asked.



The law minister said central backward caste commissions and its state counterparts were only tasked with inclusions. There were few exclusions and they certainly had no authority to enumerate. \"These commissions have become dysfunctional. It is only the census that can carry out this task and it has the wherewithal to do so,\" Moily said.
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