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Anand Teltumbde: ‘A caste census cannot achieve social justice’
For the first time since independence, India will enumerate castes in the 2026-27 census. In his new book, The Caste Con Census,Anand Teltumbde argues that this is a retrograde step which will not ensure social justice
This is your third book in almost a year, after your release from jail. How did you get any writing done in what must have been difficult conditions?
Yes, this was a difficult period because it came as something like a bolt out of the blue. I never imagined that I would land up in jail. For a short time, it was a shock, but the human organism adjusts to an environment. I thought I might not come out alive — so be it. I had done enough; I could call it a day. But then I adjusted and came out in one piece. There were deaths in the family — I lost one uncle and then my brother. But I carried on.
Why did the British start counting castes?
The 1857 revolt gave a big jolt to the British. They realised they did not understand India enough. When the Crown took over in 1858, Queen Victoria declared she would not interfere with the Indians’ culture and religious beliefs, but they adopted ideas from the Enlightenment in Europe of categorisation and classification. There is a dictum, more used in management than social sciences: You cannot control what you cannot measure. So, they started measuring everything — length of ear, width of forehead, everything. They brought in ethnographers and enumerators. Between 1858 and 1871, they found that caste and religion were salient, and they picked it up and started measuring. Certainly, they induced caste consciousness and religious identities. Prior to that, the system was more fluid and localised. Although caste was pan-Indian, it did not operate with the same fixed boundaries.
What exactly did the enumerators do?
They created tables and lists of castes; they fixed identities that were context-dependent. Enumerators would list x, y, z caste and fix them according to their understanding. In doing so, they created fixity and induced a kind of consciousness – “We are not alone; there are people like us elsewhere”. The dictum those days was about superiority and inferiority, and when caste groups thought they were numerous enough, they made claims to enumerators. The enumerators, taking cues from Brahmin advisers and European ethnographers, created a hierarchy. Brahmin advisers emphasised sanātana dharma, purity and pollution, and karma. On that basis, a hierarchical order was induced among innumerable castes. People began calling for representation and higher claims. That dynamic ensured the fixity of caste.
There is a longstanding debate on how much the British impacted the structure of caste. How do you see the effect of the census?
The British census brought rigidity to caste. What was very fluid became rigid; what was contextual became hierarchical. It created a pan-Indian identity, which allowed groups to take higher claims than they previously could.
Why did the practice get abandoned at independence?
The practice was first abandoned in 1931 by the British itself because enough had been done; continuing was expensive and did not add to their logic. After independence, people did not want to do it because the Congress leadership — Nehru, Patel, Azad, Prasad — were not enthusiastic. Congress assumed itself to be a nationalist party; if they spoke the caste language, national unity would be diluted. That anxiety was similar to the BJP’s stance earlier. So, the Congress was not enthusiastic about caste enumeration.
Were there discussions on this in the Constituent Assembly?
In the Constituent Assembly, the big discussions were around instituting reservations. The debates were dominated by the difficulty of identifying backward castes: How do you identify backwardness when it’s a continuum? They evolved criteria like social and educational backwardness, but these were vague in a country so backward at the time. So, enumeration did not prominently occur in the discussions. The question of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were settled as the British surveys had already listed untouchable groups. That became a schedule. Post-Independence, the process of adding to the schedule became politicised.
Even 10 years ago, it was unimaginable to see a political consensus on caste census. Does that surprise you?
Politics has reached such a stage now that nothing should surprise anybody. The BJP was earlier against it. The 2024 elections suggested that upper layers of backwards — relatively better-educated, well-off groups – were shifting away. The party needed to solidify the lower strata of its support, so it may have felt the caste census could help create a narrative: The Congress historically too was not enthusiastic, but picked up the idea to try to recover lost constituencies.
Many experts have said the caste census can be a great source of data.
Data is a tool of visibility — a diagnostic snapshot, like a national selfie. But what you do with that data matters. Data needs political will backing it. Are you imagining that any political party is going to talk about redistributive logic? No. Data operates in a logic of recognition — it tells you where castes are placed on educational or economic spectrums. Beyond that, what do you do? You need political will, which I don’t think exists. Rahul Gandhi does not articulate what he means by (bhagidari) participation: participation in government or legislature? Real redistribution — say land distribution — is not on the agenda. So, data without political will does not automatically lead to social justice.
You suggest there is no link between caste census and social justice.
What is a caste census going to do? It is data justice, not social justice — a market-sized diagnostic for the State. Data per se cannot do social justice. Enumeration may operate on recognition logic, but when the state withdraws from welfare, what remains is representation. So, data may tell you who is where, but social justice requires state action. Data alone is not enough.
You argue that the caste census is the opposite of the goal of annihilation of caste.
Yes, that’s my worry and the book’s thrust: Caste census would solidify boundaries and impel people to reassert caste identities. Caste census will fragment solidarity among lower castes — it can become a zero-sum game where every group fights for a share of a contracting pie, not expanding it. That creates conflict rather than advancing the goal of annihilation of caste.
