Cenuse debate has taken all over in India especially when opposition leaders demand caste-based census. For Indian politics, census has always been an important factor as most of the strategies are around either religion or caste. Indian government is planning to start the censure soon and it’s expected they will add a caste column in it. Rahul Gandhi (opposition leader) said that because of no proper caste-based census, almost 90% of people are outside of the system benefits. While others have completely different opinions they think caste-based census will be used by politics for personal benefits and lead to more tension between the castes. In this GD Topic of caste-based census, we will find what all the advantages and disadvantages are there.
What is the Census?
The census is a complete count of the population of the nation with detailed insights. It includes the demographic, economic, and social information of a country’s population. The main objective of the census is to find detailed information about the country’s people and craft a strategy based on that. It will help policymakers to build sustainable solutions that are beneficial for all the benefits of society. United Nations recommended that all the nations have to conduct the censure every 10 years. Although the last census in India was done in 2011.
Census is done in two phases – Houselisting or house census and population enumeration. The population enumeration phase collects individual details such as age, marital status, religion, education level, and more.
MBA Rankings – Top 50 MBA Colleges in India | Best MBA Colleges in Jaipur
Pros of Caste-Based Census
- The caste-based census will help India and the world know about how diversified India is.
- It will show the real picture of different castes in India and how they have developed in recent times.
- Policymakers can make policies that are beneficial for the underprivileged caste of society and promote equality.
- Government can prevent the misallocation of the welfare scheme due to data insufficiency. For example in a particular group, some people are wealthy and some are poor then officials can provide the schemes who actually need them.
- It provides contemporary data that reflects the current demographic structure, helping update outdated assumptions about caste groups. This is important for ensuring fair political representation, as constituencies are sometimes based on population data.
Check out – Best Placement MBA Colleges in India | Top MBA Colleges Accepting MAT in India
Cons of Caste-Based Census
- In India, caste-based census is sadly not used for the social upliftment of underprivileged people instead of they use this as a vote bank. Politicians are forcing caste-based censuses just to ensure which caste has the most votes in an area.
- In education, upbringing, and movies, we are opposing the caste diversification system. On the other hand, doing a caste-based census will psychologically make people think that caste is important and other caste people are different from them.
- The government will face huge costs and time to do a caste-based census as the Indian caste structure is complex. There are many subcastes under one caste and multiple levels in that also.
- Determining the social welfare policies also be challenging as the definition or eligibility should be based on the financial level instead of caste.
- Caste-based enumeration could open old wounds related to historical oppression and caste-based violence. Communities that have faced past discrimination might feel that their struggles are being revived or amplified through the census.
MBA Resources – CAT Previous Year Papers | CMAT Previous Year Papers
Conclusion
For India census is important as we need a real picture of our society and population. To make better policies and properly implement these policies government needs accurate date data. So conducting the census is not the problem also the caste-based census is not a concern. The concern is related to how the information is being used. If the government used it for social upliftment, providing welfare policies, and promoting equality then it should be conducted. But if the information is used for the vote bank to manipulate the voters and create social tension among the people then it can be worse. In recent elections also some parties manipulate the voters by saying that they are in danger and the government is against them.
