Caste-based census in India: Is it right?

An individual in India draws his social status, respect, identity, opportunities of improvement and security from not just wealth, educational qualification, physical appearance but from his class of birth. Whether we take allegiance or not to caste we are all caste conscious. Thus caste forms the core of Indian identity. In the name of upliftment and affirmative action against the historical and systematic exploitation, annihilation and subjugation of certain classes of the society Indian government has introduced many a schemes of which reservations in employment and education is the most dominant. At the time of inception it was conceived to be bridging the developmental gap between deprived and affluent. It was supposed to be implemented for a limited period of 20 years and then reviewed its results. All in all the objective is to build an Indian society with out exploitation, equal opportunities for all and for which extermination of caste system was necessary.

Ridiculously reservations only became another means to exploit and deprive the deserved and create a nation of sub standards. obviously it has submerged the difference in one respect , today all castes are deprived even state CMs and Union ministers claim reservation and there is no dearth of backwardness. The only way we fought caste based injustice is by mudslinging at ancient law makers, scriptures and their watchdogs. Finally today we have entire nation of deprived looking for special quotas and uplifments.

Absurdity of this whole system is that, we have been implementing reservations to uplift the deprived but we don't know  who they are, how many are they, how much it is(backwardness), how much is to be done, how much can be done and how long. Absolutely  no checks and balances. No measure. It is just like pouring all the resources into a bottom less pit. Not to mention why will our leaders think of all this , why will they loose this opportunity that gives them vote bank, popularity, money......

God is merciful and our politicians are also self restraint that they let this opportunity go. May be they had the best of it and there isn't any more to explore. Finally we are going to get the answers for all the above discussed questions. Any system is functional only if it has proper checks and balances in place. Atleast now there would some sort of accountability and an idea of how much and how long. But this also will spur some side effects, till now the dotted line of caste divisions will take up the form of darkened continuous one. But that should not be a problem, as we already discussed in India, caste is the core of one's identity. What has been behind the curtains will be now before it. So nothing new in it.  Hope justice, equality will prevail soon(atleast within next 100 years) in our beloved country because of this wonderful concept of affirmative action. Hail reservations.

I agree with what Mr. Vikram said. At least doing a caste based census will bring the reality in front of govt. and they will be able to take better decision related to reservation policies and concentrate truly towards the improvements in the condition of the deprived  and downtrodden people.   

I dont find any problem in that. When we are giving caste based reservation, caste certificates then whats the problem in mentioning castes in census.

In the first place it is a clear fact borne out by earlier censuses that the S.C./ S.T. population in the country is close to 25 per cent. There are also indicators to show that the several upper castes put together would comprise about 20 to 25 per cent. So, under any circumstances the OBC population would be between 50 and 55 per cent. So nobody need have any fears about OBC population figures surging through the roof. What this exercise would do, if the government carries it out properly and diligently, would be to provide all official agencies with authentic figures on different social strata in the country. Moreover, census only provides base figures and it does not preclude legitimate information and certification required for inclusion of castes in an OBC list. So, there is no basis for fearing a caste-based census and the data it would throw up.