Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has hailed the Centre’s decision to approve the inclusion of caste-based enumeration in the upcoming Census 2025.
Taking to social media platform X, Sarma said, “We welcome #Census2025, which will further strengthen the agenda of social justice and is a tribute to Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur, and several other greats. The Modi government has always stood for the representation and rights of our backward communities.”
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, while announcing the decision, said the exercise will be conducted in a transparent manner under the Centre’s purview.
He criticised opposition-ruled states for conducting similar surveys in “a non-transparent manner” under the guise of state-level caste surveys, which, he argued, have created societal doubts and confusion.
The move follows mounting pressure from opposition parties, including the Congress, which has made a nationwide caste census a key electoral issue.
States like Bihar, Karnataka, and Telangana have already conducted their own caste-based surveys. In Bihar, where assembly elections are due, even BJP allies have expressed support for the caste census, making the Centre’s decision politically significant.
Caste-based enumeration was last included in the 1931 census during British rule. Although data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been collected since independence, detailed data on other backward classes (OBCs) has been absent.
Demands for a full caste census have intensified in recent years, with proponents arguing that it would lead to better targeting of welfare schemes and affirmative action policies.
The last attempt at caste data collection was during the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) of 2011, which faced issues of data quality and was never fully released.