http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/indira-rajaraman-castethe-census/397100/
Indira Rajaraman: Caste and the census
If caste information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves
an opportunity to make quotas function in an equitable manner
Indira Rajaraman / June 05, 2010, 0:12 IST
If caste information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves
an opportunity to make quotas function in an equitable manner.
Even countries with good recording systems for births and deaths
conduct a population census once in ten years. These snapshot counts
capture population movements in a more elegant way than having a
police state that monitors movements within a country. And several
countries go beyond the minimalist census to record information about
all manner of things, including household income.
In developing countries, the census is the only source of data on
demographics, and any other information needed to inform public
policy. The 2011 Indian census, for the first time since Independence,
is considering collection of caste data. This has generated some heat,
as might be expected.
Had there not been a resurgence of caste-based quotas after 2006,
there would have been no need whatever for introducing it into the
census. But after 2006, accurate knowledge of caste shares in the
total population is critical for equitable fixation of quotas. Even
countries practising merely equal opportunity, with no preferential
affirmative action, let alone quotas which are the last step up the
positive discrimination ladder, conduct a baseline count along the
relevant boundaries. The United States census, currently under way,
routinely includes a question on race. The information is collected as
self-declared, and is treated purely as an identity issue entirely
independent of visual markers, or fractional ancestry.
No quota can operate in a data vacuum. Indeed, constitutional equality
is violated if a caste-based quota is mandated in the absence of a
uniform nationwide database, of the kind only a census can provide.
Caste enumeration in the 2011 census is essentially dictated by the
quota decisions taken earlier. No country can put in place job and
education quotas for an underprivileged segment of the population, and
then bury its head in the sand about the boundaries along which those
entitlements are drawn.
Among the urban elite, caste is seen as private information, of the
kind people may choose to reveal in certain contexts like matrimonial
advertisements, but which they should not be compelled to reveal to a
census enumerator. This can be easily accommodated. There will clearly
be a box for unknown or undeclared caste. Indeed, this freedom should
be extended to questions on religion and sex. A third box for the
last, in particular, would establish that the sum of males and females
need not equal the total population, and so recognise the rights of
the mocked small minority in every country that is of indeterminate
gender.
The majority of residents know their caste identity more clearly and
unambiguously than they know their own age. I have marvelled at the
ability of census enumerators to ferret out the age of individuals, by
piecing together answers, often mutually conflicting, related to
religious cycles like the Kumbh, or by probing personal memories of
major events. Between age and caste, age is unquestionably the more
intrusive query. Even names in India are ambiguous, with public and
private variants, and with the first names of women radically altered
after marriage among certain groups, in accordance with custom. Caste
by contrast is uniquely assigned, and is public information in any
rural settlement. Although caste consciousness is decidedly lower in
urban India, caste identity of households is publicly known in all but
a small minority of urban residential neighbourhoods as well. Clearly,
caste is neither relevant, nor sought to be known in anonymous urban
spaces like worksites or commercial areas. But it is known in places
of residence, which is where the census is conducted.
The stand that caste consciousness, with its associative aspects of
exclusion and entitlement, is best obliterated over time by neglect
would have been tenable but for the resurgence of quota consciousness.
People are already familiar with classification into categories like
scheduled, backward and general, in contexts like admissions or
employment registration. The new question will just be a more factual
version of information they are accustomed to providing.
Aside from yielding the database for defining caste-based quotas,
knowing caste shares in the population will enable a more fair
operation of the reservation among the beneficiaries, who are a
mutually unconnected set of castes. The same network exclusion effects
which led to the introduction of quotas in the first place will
clearly operate within the quota. Scheduled and backward reservation
can be dominated by a few well-networked groups. The purpose of the
quota will only be served if there is a database on representation of
the stipulated groups in the population, and their representation in
the quotas designed to give them privileged access.
The best analogy is the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a
trade preference scheme operated under what was formerly GATT (now the
WTO), whereby importing countries in the developed world were
permitted to offer positive discrimination towards developing country
exporters in the form of reduced tariffs, usually set at zero. Because
the general MFN tariff extended without discrimination had been
lowered through successive rounds of trade negotiation, the
differential advantage of a zero tariff GSP came down to somewhere
between 1 and 4 per cent, depending on the product. Only a few
developing countries were close enough to compete effectively at such
a narrow price advantage, so that GSP imports came to be dominated by
them. A graduation provision was, therefore, introduced, usually set
at half of total imports under the GSP. Even where Indian exporters
were among those graduated out, they had to concede the fairness of
the provision.
Quotas are designed to give forcible entry for underprivileged groups
in a system which poses multiple obstacles to their advancement. If
access to the quota is uneven across those groups for whom it is
intended, clearly it only replicates the injustices of the larger
system. But unevenness of access itself is impossible to assess
without a census of population shares of beneficiary groups. If caste
information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves an
opportunity to make the quota function in an equitable manner.
The author is honorary visiting professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi
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