The Congress on Tuesday alleged that the Narendra Modi government intends to “sabotage” the caste census, and questioned why the 2027 Census does not have a drop-down menu for selecting castes, even though the Centre had recommended it in 2021.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that on April 30, 2025, Modi “made a complete U-turn…and announced that a caste census – which he had earlier attacked as an ‘urban Naxal’ idea – would take place.”

Ramesh claimed that the government has reversed its stance and “buried the idea of a caste census” without explicitly saying so. “He [Modi] is a U-turn ustad [master],” the Congress leader remarked on social media.

The Union government had in September 2021 filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court rejecting the plea for a caste census, Ramesh noted.

However, he quoted the affidavit as saying: “There was no registry of caste prepared prior to the conduct of 2011 Census. It would have been ideal for the Registry of Castes that there should have been given a drop-down menu for selection of the castes which could have made some consistent data available which can be relied upon.”

Ramesh questioned why the 2027 Census does not have this drop-down menu, when the government itself had advocated for it in 2021.

“Such a menu had, in fact, been prepared prior to the caste surveys both in Bihar and Telangana,” he said. “Such a menu had also been suggested by the Congress president in his letter to the PM of May 5, 2025.”

Ramesh claimed that the absence of this option showed that the government did not want the caste census to achieve its objective.

In the Census 2027, surveyors will ask respondents if they belong to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and will also include an open-ended question for other communities about the caste that they belong to.

This will be the first time in independent India that caste will be enumerated across communities. Until now, the Census only recorded the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

India had last conducted an exercise to count the population of all caste groups in 1931.

The Opposition had in recent years been demanding a nationwide caste census. The proponents of such an exercise argue that it will help identify the true population of the country’s Other Backward Classes and other castes, in turn paving the way for policies such as expanded reservations in jobs and education.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Census 2027 will count caste – but the data it produces won’t be usable

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