Brahmins single largest caste, 4000+ castes in India – Read about 1931 caste census conducted by the British which eventually led to ‘Mandal-Kamandal’ politics 6 decades later
The Political Affairs Committee of the Union Cabinet of the Modi government recently approved the caste census in India. Caste-wise data will be collected across the country along with the new census. While the opposition tried to claim credit for it saying it is the effect of its pressure, the Modi government explained how the Congress and the I.N.D.I. Alliance have been constantly cheating the people on this matter. It is yet not clear when this caste-wise data will be out in public. The government has also not set any time limit for the next census.
Caste census has been a popular word in Indian politics for the past few years. Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, RJD in Bihar and Congress at the national level have made a lot of noise about it. Along with the announcement of this new caste census, the country’s first caste census is also being discussed. It was conducted in 1931 under British rule. A lot of the information that came to light in the census conducted in 1931 is still relevant in Indian politics even after over 90 years.
Why did the British conduct caste census?
The Modi government has said that it has taken the decision to conduct the caste census so that the society remains economically and socially strong and the progress of the country continues without any hindrance. In the present context, this caste census is being conducted so that information about the socially backward people in the country can be known, but the British had some other reasons behind conducting this caste census.
The British used to adopt different methods to maintain their control over India, Caste census was one such method. Through caste census, the British wanted to know which caste group is strong in which area and can become a problem for them. Apart from this, they also wanted to weaken the caste movements going on in the country at that time, because these movements sometimes rose from caste basis and later became a symbol of opposition to the British.
JH Hutton, who was the Census Commissioner of India at the time of the caste census, has also written about these demonstrations and movements in his 1931 report. Another reason for the British to conduct the caste census was that at that time, recruitment in the British Army was based on caste on a large scale. The British Army had many caste-based regiments including the Jat Regiment, Mahar Regiment, Rajput Regiment. The British called many castes ‘martial races’.
In such a situation, the British wanted to strengthen their army accordingly by knowing the nationwide statistics. The caste-based census would have made it clear to them which castes could be recruited in large numbers. Apart from all this, one advantage of the data was to strengthen the administrative structure for the British. There were many castes which were in government service in large numbers during the British rule. The British had also collected information about all these.
What were the results?
This caste census conducted by the British was quite difficult. In the report, Hutton has stated that sometimes people give wrong caste and sometimes they changed their caste within 10 years. Apart from this, it has been stated in the report that many people did not even want to get counted in the caste census.
This census revealed that the population of India (as of today) was about 27 crores. The number of different castes within this was stated. The report revealed that at that time, Brahmins were the single largest caste in India.
As per the report, in 1931, there was more than 1.5 crore Brahmin population in the country. The report states that at that time, there were more than 14 lakh Brahmins in Bengal, while there were about 9 lakh Brahmins in Odisha and Bihar. Apart from this, there were more than 11 lakh Brahmins in Bombay state. There were also 14 lakh 73 thousand Brahmins in Madras.
Jatavs were the second largest group in India at the time as per this caste census. Their number was 1.2 crore, while Rajputs were the third largest group with a population of 81 lakh. Apart from this, castes like Ahir, Teli, Gwala, Kayastha and Kumhar were also in large numbers. Each of these castes had population in excess of 30 lakh.
It was revealed in this census that there were 4000+ castes in the country. However, the number of castes kept on increasing later. Even then there were many problems in the society regarding caste, which were collected by the data collectors for this report.
1931 caste census continued to influence politics even after independence
This caste census conducted in 1931 continued to influence Indian politics for decades to come. It was stated in this report that the total population of Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the country is 52%. On this basis, politics like ‘backwards should get 60 out of 100’ started. This politics later on turned into Mandal-Kamandal politics.
On the basis of this census findings, the Mandal Commission was formed. On the basis of the Mandal Commission report, Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s government decided to extend reservation benefits to those castes. Earlier, they were not provided reservation, and only scheduled castes and scheduled tribes used to get reservation.
When VP Singh’s government extended reservation to OBCs, Mandal Commission was strongly opposed in the country with protests breaking out all across India. After 1990, caste-based politics also gained momentum. The main reason behind this was the Mandal Commission recommendations and their implementation by VP Singh, and the basis of the Mandal Commission report was this 1931 caste census prepared by the British.
After more than 30 years of this decision by VP Singh, caste politics has once again gained momentum. Opposition parties tried to target the government over the caste census, but after this decision by the Modi government, their main issue to target the government has slipped out of their hands.
It is not clear yet when the new census will be held, but it is definitely clear that this caste politics exists only as long as it is being hyped up. Be it Karnataka or Bihar, after the caste-based survey comes, there is no further action. The caste census reports have been gathering dust ever since they came out in those states.
A few castes have benefited the most from reservation since 1990, if more castes are added to the reservation pool after caste census, these few electorally influential castes will suffer the most, hence they will oppose it. In such a situation, the parties of the I.N.D.I. Alliance only make noise about caste census, but do not make any action plan for the future after the caste census, as nobody really wants to rock the boat.
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