Publish the caste census in full and on time

On 14 August the Registrar General notified the 40 questions every resident will be asked in Census 2027. Question 10 now reads “SC/ST/Caste”. When the count is done, India will have recorded the caste of every group for the first time since 1931.

Collecting the data is the easier part. The harder test is whether the results are published in full, on a date announced in advance, with the method laid open.

Why full publication matters

Caste shapes reservation, welfare targeting, and political argument in almost every state. For nine decades, those debates have run on estimates, state surveys and old numbers. A national count, done by the same enumerators under the same law as the rest of the census, can settle questions that surveys cannot.

That only works if the numbers come out. Partial tables, or totals for broad categories without the underlying castes, would leave room for every side to claim the data supports it and no one to check. The Union Cabinet approved ₹11,718 crore for this census, as reported by Telangana Today and The Arunachal Times. Its users are owed the results.

The coding problem

The notification did not come with a pre-set list of castes; Telangana Today, citing unnamed sources, reported that caste will be recorded as people state it. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh criticised this, pointing to the lists used in the Bihar and Telangana caste surveys. He said the absence raised “serious doubts on intent”.

There is a reasonable case on the other side. A fixed list can leave out communities or lock in contested classifications, and letting people state their own caste respects how they see themselves. But it shifts the hard work to later. Millions of written answers, in many languages and spellings, will have to be grouped into categories. Whoever designs that grouping will shape the results as much as the enumerators.

That is why the method must be public. The Registrar General should publish the rules and the reference lists it will use to code caste answers, before population enumeration starts in February 2027, and invite comment from states, researchers and community groups.

The case for caution, and its limits

Some argue that detailed caste data could sharpen divisions or be misused, and that it is safer to release only aggregates. The concern is understandable. But the decision to collect the data has been made, and the questions are notified. Holding back the results would leave caste just as central to politics, with a less informed debate around it. Caste tables can be published at an aggregate level that identifies no individual.

The reporting behind this view

• 1931last census to record caste for all groups
• 40questions notified for the population count, including caste
• ₹11,718 crorereported budget for Census 2027

What the Registrar General should do

First, publish a release calendar before February 2027, with a date for the caste tables alongside the population totals. Second, publish the caste coding method and reference lists for comment. Third, release caste tables at the same geographic detail as other census tables, down to districts, with the raw category counts and not only grouped totals.

Census 2027 already has a schedule fixed by gazette notification, down to the hour of its reference dates. Its results deserve the same precision.