Sunil Jain: Caste-ing my vote
If the census tabulates caste data with education, occupation and the
place of residence, etc., it could be meaningful
Sunil Jain / New Delhi June 07, 2010, 0:20 IST
If the census tabulates caste data with education, occupation and the
place of residence, etc., it could be meaningful
Too many of India's policies, especially in recent times, are made in
a data vacuum. The Right to Education seeks to rid the country of
unrecognised private schools, but there is no official data on just
how many children study in these schools and how good or bad this
education is. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act seeks to
provide jobs to the unemployed, but the data on this is collected only
once in five years by the NSSO. The government is happy to do
caste-based affirmative action even while it has no data on how real
the discrimination is.
It is in this context that the proposal to ask for caste details in
the census has to be seen. Those in favour of it argue that if you
must have reservations along caste lines, you must know just how many
people there are in each caste group. Those opposed to it argue that
since the Supreme Court has put a 50 per cent ceiling on reservations,
and there are more SC/ST/OBCs, the exact number needn't be collected.
Two, since there are benefits in being an SC/ST/OBC, people will flock
to declare they're SC/ST/OBC — the OBC share of the population rose
from 36 per cent in the 1999-2000 NSSO survey to 41 per cent in the
2004-05 one for this very reason.
So, it is likely the same thing will happen if caste details are
canvassed in the census. There will then be pressure on the courts to
raise the levels of reservation, leading possibly to another
anti-Mandal type of bloody agitation. There is, however, an even more
fundamental issue when it comes to canvassing caste details: in the
absence of ways to put them in perspective, the data is just
incendiary.
Let's say you know that while SC/STs are 25 per cent of the
population, they comprise just 12 per cent of those with
"administrative, executive and managerial" jobs. Before you shout
discrimination, keep in mind SC/STs also comprise just 14 per cent of
all graduates — and since you have to have passed out of school to
become a graduate, the solution is clearly not affirmative action, it
is ensuring low dropout rates in school.
Or let's say you get to know that while 20 per cent of OBCs are
graduates, just 7 per cent of them have
professional/administrative/managerial jobs. It's natural to shout
discrimination, but keep in mind the respective figures for upper
castes are 34 and 11 per cent.
All of this, and a lot more, form the crux of a book just written by
Rajesh Shukla and me (out on the stands at the end of the month) based
on the NCAER's annual income survey across the country. While it would
be foolish to deny caste discrimination, the book tries to analyse the
reasons for the difference in incomes — how much is due to education,
how much is due to where you live (villages, small towns, metros,
prosperous states, poor states), how much is due to your occupation,
and so on.
The results are illuminating. To cite just one type of example, while
an illiterate ST household earns Rs 22,456 per year, this rises to Rs
85,023 for a graduate household; an illiterate upper class household
earns Rs 31,511 versus Rs 135,086 for a graduate household. At all
levels of education categories, upper castes earn more than STs. But
the caveats are critical. Here are a few:
# The difference in income between an illiterate and a graduate ST is
far higher than the difference between an ST and any other caste group
— that is, education is critical (and keep in mind the point about the
high school dropout rates).
# As salaries are the highest (and the relative differences between
caste groups the least) in the modern services sector, a big reason
for low ST incomes (regardless of their education level) is that very
few of them are in this sector.
# Since incomes are the lowest (and relative income differences
between caste groups the highest) in low-income states, a very major
reason for low ST incomes is that they are mostly located in these
states.
# As incomes are the lowest in rural areas (and relative income
differences among the highest), and this is where the greater share of
ST households are, this is another reason for lower ST incomes (again,
this applies to all education groups).
While the census does not ask for information on incomes, it does ask
for information on some surrogates — pucca house, own
kitchen/bathroom, TV, car, mobile etc. If this information is married
with information on education, occupation and location (rural, urban,
small town, metro etc.) in meaningful cross-tabulations of the type
discussed above, the exercise could yield powerful results on caste
discrimination. The raw numbers, it must be underscored, are not
relevant, more so since, as in any such exercise, very large numbers
will either not report their caste or will declare it incorrectly.
Contrary to the generally held view, the census does collect
information on caste and religious groups even today — the SC/ST data
comes from the census today. So, asking respondents to declare whether
they are OBCs isn't such a major issue.
It needs, of course, to be said that since census is used to validate
most sample surveys, getting the enumeration wrong will have huge
negative implications. Getting this right is critical, and the
analytics have to be top class — so make the unit-level records public
and then let top academics/institutions have a crack at interpreting
them. The census will throw up as many interpretations of caste
discrimination as we have over poverty using the same NSSO data. Let's
not shy away from the debate.
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