In her book, Counting Caste: Census Politics, Bureaucratic Deflection, and Brahmanical Power in IndiaSociologist Trina Vithayathil Traces the Institutional sabotage of caste data And the systemic refusal to acknowledge caste privilege. Drawing on years of fieldwork and interviews, her analysis provides a critical lens to understand today’s development. In an interview with indianxpress.com, She reflects on the meaning of caste enumeration, the myth of neutraity in data collection, and the deep-roted power structures that shape India’s cennsus politics. Edited Excerpts:

1. You argue that the Indian state has institutionalized the concept of caraceness, framed caste as an issue primarily affecting the oppressed Rather than the privileged. In this context, what significance does the upcoming caste census hold? Additionally, why was the note of castenessness institutionalized in the first place?

Depending on the design and execution of caste-related questions in Census 2027, The Census Could Provide a comprehensive understanding of how caste hierarchy intersects with gender, education, literature, ocupation, ocehol. Amenities, Assets, and Place of Residence, Among Other Socio-Economic Factors. The Census Could Document The Relational Nature of Caste, Including How Caste Privilege and Power Operate for the First Time Since 1931.

With regards to the institutionalization of castelessness, scholars such as professor satish deshpande have traced how political leders from dominant castes to their caste identity all of India and converts. Congress “Majority”. They have in response to Dr Ambedkar’s Demand for Separate Electorates, and Continued to op! Enact a hindu code bill to challenge case and patriarchy in social life), which strive to build institutional mechanisms to safguard the interests of marginalised communities including the electricity of LEADERS. Bureaucrats Committed to Annihilating Caste, Patriarchy, and Related Systems of Domination. Instead, the system that reproduce caste-based privilege and power became obscured and was allowed to take on new forms that often appear with democratic values.

2. How did colonial-ara census practice shape the postcolonial Indian state’s resistance to caste enumeration beyond scheduled casters and tribes?

Census officials in Independent India were eager to redirect time and energy away from the caste, which they saw as an obsession of the colonial state IRrelevant in Andia. Caste, Religion, and Race Jere Key Social Categories Enumerated in Colonial Censuses, and Census Officials Considerable Time and Resources Caste Lists Lists Listing Listing, Comparing, and Publishing Counta Cong. Across Colonial Censuses, The State Struggled to Commensurate Caste, that is, Create a common metric or set of comparable categories with and across localized systems of caste Hierarchy. Yet, Marginalised Groups Also used these census data to make Demands on the colonial state to address caste-based inqualities, including the under-topicentation of caste-tops and the restricted aclic. Resources and Institutions. Census Data Helped to Make Visible Gross Caste-Related Inqualities and Assisted in the Development of Policies to Address Caste-Based Discrimination and Exclusion. In contrast, political leders in Independent India argued that if the state focused on economic development, then caste hierarchy would dismantle itSelf; This view justified the decision to restrict the enumeration of the caste in the census and square aligned with the strengthening of an ideology of castelessness.

3. You trace the idea of ​​”Bureaucratic Deflection” – How the state appears to comply with social judic demands but then quietly subverts them. Can You Walk Us Through The Key Mechanisms That LED To The 2011 Caste Count Not Being Made Public, Despite Political Agreement At the Highest Levels?

Though political leders publicly backed caste enumeration in census 2011, office in the home ministry and office of the registrar general, India (Orgi) resisted, arguuing it wield the cesnsus acuracy. Framing the issue as technical rather than political, they sidelined advocates and shaped the decision-making process out of public view. This LED to the exclusion of a caste-wise enumeration in the census on the grounds of protecting its “Integrity.”

Political Leaders Obtained Written Support for A Caste Census from Every Political Party But The Process Secured Operational Latitude Through Word Inquiry. Executive Bureaucrats Redirected the Caste Count to The National Population Register (NPR) But Facing Pressure Proposed a Separate Caste Casus After the Main Census 2011. Below Poverty Line (BPL) Survey, Later Renamed The Socio-Economic Caste (SEC) Census. Years later, the resulting caste-wisdom data was deemed unusable and never published.

The caste-win enumeration in the sec survey was undermined by an Ideology of “castenessness.” The First Caste Question Lacked OBC and General Category Options Required to Classify Approximately 77.5% of the Population. The inclusion of “other” and “no caste/tribe” options further diluted a meaningful enumeration of caste. The second case question failed to include a caste list for the cat -all “other” option from the first question, resulting in unstandardied, unprocessable answers. Little Effort was made to enumerate caste angious minorities excluded from sc sclassification, Neglecting tens of millions from caste-uppressed backgrounds. Without external oversight, Future Efforts May face the same fate.

4. One striking theme in Counting caste is the role of technocratic language – Concerns about data quality, standardism, and survey design – as a mask for identical resistance. How should we understand the relationship between Technocratic Reasoning and Brahmanical Power?

For more than 150 years, texts such as JottiRo PHUle’s Slary And Br Ambedkar’s States and minorities Have described the interwoven relationship between Technocratic Reasoning and Brahmanical Power. Dr Ambedkar worried that if the executive bureaucracy is remained in the hands of those hands System of Caste-and Gender-Based Discrimination and Privilege in Independent India. He foresaw How Bureaucratic Expertise and Technocratic Decision-Making With Reproduce Existing Hierarchies of Power Instad of Correcting Histories of Exclusion.

Technocratic Reasoning is incorrectly seen as apolitical and there is caste and-gender-free; This gives experts leaway to make decisions with limited external scrutiny and allows for the perpetuation of Brahmanical Ways of Thinking. In the case of Census 2011, Executive Bureaucrats Used Technocratic Language to Steer A Public Conversation and Convince The Political Leadership Not to Enumerate Caste in the Casus. Non-experts had differently challenging the premise that somehow enumerating case in the census would ruin the decadal population count. Technocratic Reasoning (for where there is a high bar for entry) replaced a conversation over the import of collecting caste-juice data for the administration of affirmative actions, broader policy and programps. And Social Justice Concerns. Similarly, Research from Other Parts of the world traces how technocracies threaten the abality for historically marginalised groups to shape the creation, design, and monitoring of public polities and programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZGDunz86ws

5. Why did the state relocate the task of caste enumeration from the census of India to the bpl/sa survey, and what something this review of the politics of data invisibility?

The Political Leadership Relocated the Task of the Caste Enumeration from the Census of India after conceding to the orgi’s position. Census. Timing-way, the planning of the BPL survey was almost complete, and so politically leders equally decided to combine bot prjects and provided additional resources for a combined caste-wise. The State Published BPL data from the sec survey in 2015 and 2016, but the caste-win data has yet to be published. An Expert Committee Chaired by Professor Arvind Panagariya was created in 2015 to analyse the caste-wisdom, but it’s unclear who was on the committte, where the committte Met, and I am the same a final. Report. The design of the caste-related questions and answer options in the sec survey, the gaps in the enumerator training, and the burial of the collected data all highlight how the central government (Across Political Administration). Evaded the documentation of case power and promoted the invisibility of caste-wise data.

6. What did the bihar caste survey of 2023 Reveal about the capacity of State-Level Politics to Challenge the centralized Casteless Narrative?

The Bihar caste survey data builds up a history of local and regional political movements challenging an identity of castelessness in the census. It also contains the castelessness narrative by making visible how caste hierarchy structures socialonomic life. At the same time, the central government has repeatedly decentralized the entertainment of caste-level agencies (WHER STATE Governments, Backward Classes Commissions, Or Other Entits) From. Strategy to avoid a nationwide enumeration of caste in the census.