The Union government has decided that the forthcoming 2027 Census will record caste information using an open‑column format rather than relying on the Central or State lists of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Officials briefed to The Hindu explained that the decision emerged after deliberations revealed that OBC lists are not pure caste registers but contain entries that describe social classes, occupations and other non‑caste groups.
Why OBC Lists Were Set Aside
According to senior officials, the Central and State OBC lists include several entries that do not correspond to distinct castes. Examples cited include groups described as “local borns” in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, occupational categories such as “begging”, and specific labour classes like tea‑garden workers in Assam. These entries, officials said, would not qualify as castes under an enumeration framework that aims to capture only caste identities.
Both the Central and State compilations contain such anomalies, but they represent a minority among the nearly 3,000 communities classified as OBC. Moreover, the same community may appear as OBC in one state while being classified as Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) in another, further complicating any attempt to use a uniform list for national caste counting.
Open‑Column Method Chosen After High‑Level Review
Officials noted that the government examined several methodological options, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. After weighing these alternatives at the “highest levels”, the open‑column approach was finalised. Under this system, respondents will write the name of their caste in a free‑text field, allowing the enumeration of “all other castes” beyond the SC and ST categories, which continue to be recorded using the established Presidential lists.
The open‑column method has drawn criticism from opposition leaders and scholars. Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, among others, have called for a specific list of OBC communities to be enumerated, arguing that a free‑text approach may not yield reliable data. They question the utility of the open column, suggesting that it could replicate the outcomes of the 2011 Socio‑Economic Caste Census (SECC), which recorded more than 46 lakh distinct caste names. The Modi administration previously cited the SECC’s unwieldy volume of entries as a reason for not releasing its caste data.
Historical and Legal Context
A 2015 document from the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) addressed whether an OBC community could be classified based solely on caste. The commission concluded that “a caste can be and quite often is a social class in India” and that caste, as an identifiable social group, can serve as a starting point for broader classification into sections and classes. This observation underscores the longstanding ambiguity between caste and class in Indian social taxonomy, a nuance that informed the current decision to avoid using OBC lists for census purposes.
In the political backdrop, the Union Cabinet of the third Narendra Modi‑led government approved the inclusion of caste questions in the 2027 Census forms a year after the BJP lost its majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The opposition had campaigned vigorously for a caste census, arguing that the OBC population – currently estimated using data from the 1931 caste census – needed an updated count. The cabinet’s approval reflects a compromise: while caste data will be collected, it will be done through an open‑column mechanism rather than a pre‑defined list.
Government officials emphasized that the decision to retain the traditional enumeration of SC and ST communities using Presidential lists remains unchanged. The open‑column field will apply only to “all other castes”, a category that includes OBCs, other backward groups and any caste not covered by the SC/ST lists.
Opposition figures and several scholars warned that the open‑column approach could generate a proliferation of caste names similar to the SECC experience, potentially complicating data analysis and policy formulation. Nonetheless, officials maintained that the method was chosen after a comprehensive review of alternatives and that its implementation will be overseen at the highest administrative levels.
The shift away from OBC lists highlights the government’s effort to balance the technical challenges of caste enumeration with political pressures for greater granularity. By treating caste as a self‑identified attribute rather than a pre‑compiled classification, the 2027 Census aims to capture a more accurate snapshot of India’s complex social fabric while avoiding the pitfalls of mismatched class‑caste categorizations.
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