New Delhi: With several political parties and state governments demanding a caste-based census for a while now, the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday held an all-party meeting in Patna to conduct a discussion on conducting their own caste-based census for the state.
While some experts question the constitutional validity of conducting a caste-based census by any state government, some also opine that political parties emphasise this issue just for political posturing. With no constitutional validity, the intention behind the stand of political parties is also under questioning as many find this exercise unfeasible and impractical on part of a state government.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Ashwini Dubey, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, said that since conducting a census is purely the job of the central government, the state conducting a census of its own will be invalid. "This demand has been raised from time to time even when there was a UPA government. The union government 2018 agreed to a census of backward castes and the states should take a decision; but after that, it did not happen. Later the political parties wanted that the census should be done following the format decided at UPA time. This is completely a union subject. Thus if any state does this, it will only be for political purposes. It will not be legal and constitutional," he added.
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Referring to the past judgements by Supreme Court on the matter, Dubey said that even Supreme Court had directed the Union Government to ensure census and caste-based census in its decisions. The states can conduct surveys but can not take any policy decisions based on that, he said. However, the national general secretary of the JD (U), KC Tyagi is of a different view.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Tyagi said that the question is whether a caste-based census is important or not. "When the census was conducted in 1931, many people used to hide their castes because caste discrimination was widespread at that time. Belonging to the upper caste at that time was a symbol of honour while the backward caste was like an insult. Reservation should be given on the basis of caste, this is written in the constitution and even Ambedkar and others found it right. Thus when the reservation is given on the basis of caste to people from backward castes, there must be an estimation of their numbers. At a time when we are celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the people from backward castes also have the right to know about their socio-economic development in these 75 years," he said.
Questioning the delay behind conducting a caste-based census, Tyagi said that this is not just the demand of the Bihar Government. When this issue was raised in parliament almost all the parties said that a caste-based census should happen. "This is the central government's job but they have cited some technical issues behind not doing this. Though their excuses are invalid and unnecessary. This has already happened in Karnataka and now the Bihar government has raised this which has been supported by all the political parties including the BJP. Almost all the Political parties from Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamilnadu, West Bengal etc have supported this then where is the problem? After today's meeting in Bihar, all parties will pass a resolution and then this will soon be started," he added.
Countering the question of the constitutional validity of a caste-based census conducted by the state government, Tyagi said that nowhere in the constitution has it been mentioned that the states can not conduct their own census. When states will conduct their own caste-based census and release the data, the Central government will also follow that. The JDU leader did not deny this as a pressure tactic of the party on the centre.
