Majoritarian Mandates, Selective Silences: Politics of Caste Census in Kerala and Beyond

-

What if the very act of counting people was never neutral?

In today’s datafied democracy, where surveillance is sanitised as governance and numbers masquerade as justice, the call for a caste census comes with both promise and peril. Is it a long-overdue instrument for equity—or a sophisticated weapon in the arsenal of electoral manipulation? The answer, like caste itself, is layered.

As governments across India toggle between silence and strategy, the caste census returns as a political flashpoint - no longer just a statistical exercise, but a battleground for the soul of democracy. Nowhere is this more evident than in Kerala, a state that projects itself as a beacon of social justice, yet sidesteps the uncomfortable question: Whose lives are worth counting, and who gets to decide?

This blog unpacks how the politics of enumeration has morphed from colonial control to democratic erasure - raising urgent questions about visibility, power, and the future of representation in India.


In a political era where ‘freedom’ is increasingly reduced to data points and democracy is little more than a numbers game, we need to ask: Who really benefits when the government counts us? On the surface, a caste census sounds like a progressive move - an attempt to right historical wrongs and drive welfare where it’s most needed - if it is used to eliminate social inequalities. But the same exercise could also hide a deeper game at play - a return of colonial logic wrapped in democratic jargon.

Welcome to the slippery slope of ‘democratic colonialism.’

Counting Caste: A Double-Edged Sword

Caste data collection is not new. In fact, it goes back to 1931 ‘ when the British, under the Census Commissioner J.H. Hutton, recorded caste identities to serve imperial objectives:

  • Flagging dominant caste groups that posed political threats

  • Undermining caste reform and anti-colonial uprisings 

  • Strengthening caste-based military recruitment in British India

So, let us be clear: the caste census did not start as a tool of justice - it started as a strategic tool of control.

Today, when the ruling regime claims that the 1931 caste data is ‘outdated’, it sounds perfectly valid…. until you ask: “Will the new data be used for justice or for manipulation?”

Data or Democracy? You Can’t Have Both (Blindly)

We live in a time when data is deadlier than bullets - it shapes elections, redraws constituencies and controls the narrative. In a neoliberal regime obsessed with surveillance and optimisation, a caste census could be a masterstroke of electoral engineering. Imagine knowing the exact social configurations of every constituency and redrawing the map to tilt the scales in favour of any one party - no rigging necessary, no protests, just quiet devastation.

Think that’s too dystopian? The colonial census did exactly this with quills and typewriters.

Botany and Bureaucracy: A Colonial Mindset Repackaged

During the colonial era, documentation was not just about record-keeping - it was a full-fledged technology of control. The British empire mastered the art of ‘knowing’ the native, not out of curiosity, but as a strategic tool. The more they knew, the better they could rule. As Foucault famously put it: “In knowing we control, and in controlling we know.” Anthropology became the empire’s best friend, using the tools of natural science to dissect human societies as if they were botanical specimens. Bureaucrats catalogued castes, tribes, customs, and rituals with scientific precision - not merely to understand, but to manage. Colonial administrators acted like botanists, labelling human lives for the empire's garden of control. This deep social mapping laid the groundwork for colonial modernity to seep seamlessly into the everyday life of the colonised. A quiet, calculated takeover - one form at a time.

Just as the British used botanical knowledge to catalogue, cultivate and control plant life for empire-building, caste data today could be used to ‘classify’ communities to gain a finer understanding of demographic profiles. It is a perfect tool for those in power - a neat way to redraw constituencies and fine-tune voters lists, all under the guise of streamlining governance. Ironically, the same knowledge that could liberate marginalised groups can also be weaponised to erase them from political relevance.

This is not a census. This is soft power in hard numbers.

 Kerala: A Progressive Utopia or a Comfortable Illusion?

If there is one state that proudly wears its ‘welfare badge’, it is Kerala - home to high literacy, better sex ratios and glowing UN reports. Anyone flipping through its demographic credentials might assume that the state would welcome a caste census as the next logical step in its renaissance journey.

But that is where the silence gets confusing.

Why are both the major coalitions — LDF and UDF — eerily quiet about the caste census? Here is why: It threatens to unravel the very narrative of communal harmony and political stability they have sold for decades.

The Real Fear? Exposure.

If the caste census were honestly embraced, it might:

  • Reveal the deep caste hierarchies still governing access to power  

  • Disrupt the ‘secular-progressive’ image of the state

  • And worst of all (politically speaking), lead to constituency delimitation that benefits the Centre.

Rigging elections without ever touching a ballot box? That’s the next-level strategy - the people in power know exactly how the game is to be played. 

Here is the real question: In our effort to stop manipulation, are we throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

The Convenient Myth of a ‘Casteless Society’

Let us bust a myth: Just because we do not mention one’s caste in public does not mean caste has ceased to exist.

Some ‘progressives’ argue that ignoring caste would gradually lead to castelessness. But silence is not reform - it is erasure. Meanwhile, the same state that resists a caste census has fully embraced reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) under Articles 15(6) and 16(6) of the Constitution of India. Who are its beneficiaries? Mostly upper caste communities, often through community lobby groups like the Yogakshema Sabha, Nair Service Society and so on, backed by both the political camps.

This hypocrisy - resisting caste data while backing class-based reservation - is not just policy confusion. It is casteism in disguise.

Caste vs Class: Kerala’s Old Dilemma

Since 1956, Kerala’s developmental model has leaned on class-consciousness, not caste-consciousness. But the ground reality says otherwise:

  • Intellectuals like Sunny Kappikkad continue to raise the alarm on caste exclusion.

  • Adivasi communities remain marginalised,  hardly visible to both census categories and welfare schemes.

To maintain that a caste census would ‘disrupt social harmony’ is to protect the status quo. But that is only half the story - it’s also a smokescreen to avoid uncomfortable truths. A caste census, like a hard-hitting film, can jolt us awake - if we allow it to.

Democracy in the Age of Data: Why the Caste Census Is More Than Just Numbers

In today’s India, the debate around caste census is not just about counting - it is about power, people, and the pulse of democracy itself.

At the heart of it lies an apparent contradiction:  some governments that aggressively collect data to micromanage elections and others who shy away from acknowledging caste as a critical axis of inequality. The danger here is twofold. On the one hand, when data is weaponised not for welfare but for electoral engineering, democracy becomes a ghost of itself—controlled not by public will but by predictive algorithms. No coups, no chaos—just quiet manipulation. A democracy undone without a single bullet fired.

On the other hand, denying the existence of deep caste hierarchies by refusing a caste census ensures the continuation of majoritarian democracy - where silence masquerades as unity, and invisibility is mistaken for equality.

Both paths lead to decay of democracy. What we need is not surveillance or silence, but structural reckoning.

Final Word: Numbers Do not  Lie, But They Can Be Used to Deceive

If Kerala truly believes in its progressive values, it must stop hiding behind slogans and face its caste reality. Yes, misuse of data is a valid concern—but refusing to collect data is worse. How can a government champion affirmative action without the particulars of who needs to be uplifted?

Either we count caste to dismantle it - or we let it rule us from the shadows.

Kerala, it is time to choose.
Will you be the land of real Renaissance - or just another data point in the empire of numbers?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Idlis to Excel Sheets: The Invisible Load of Working Women

-
Society loves a checklist, especially when it comes to women: a steady job in the organised sector?  A supportive husband?  That’s it—you must be  empowered  and  happy , right? You're told that earning money equals freedom. Add a "good marriage" to the mix, and voilà—you’ve apparently unlocked the perfect formula for a woman’s happiness. And if you’re still not content? Well, you’re gently reminded to “count your blessings” and stop looking for more. But let’s be honest— is this really your truth ? Do you ever feel there’s more to your story than what the world sees or wants to hear? This one’s for all the working women who are expected to feel fulfilled just because the boxes are ticked. Let’s talk about what empowerment really feels like when no one’s watching. Let’s explore the untold truths behind the ‘perfect’ lives. To every married, employed woman out there—especially those clocking into the organised sector—and to every person who knows such a woman, he...
Read more

Kerala Studies at the Institute of English

-
  Back when it was almost unthinkable to speak of Malayalam literature or Kerala culture in an English department... a quiet revolution began. Kerala Studies took root at the Institute of English nearly two decades ago—long before it became a core paper in 2013. Today, it is evolving into an integral component of the course every student joins for in the 4-Year UG programme across Kerala’s higher education institutions. Here’s a glimpse into the early days of Kerala Studies at the Institute—a story of resistance against the colonial foundations of M.A. English Language and Literature programmes and reimagining what we teach in the name of "English" - envisioned by Prof. G. S. Jayasree. By 2025, offering Kerala Studies in English departments in higher education institutions under the Government of Kerala has become a common and expected practice, no longer seen as anything out of the ordinary.  But there was a time when discussing even those narratives in Malayalam that had En...
Read more

The ‘Academic Refugee’: When Classrooms Become Borderlines

-
Not all refugees cross borders. Some sit quietly in seminar halls, flipping through marked-up drafts, smiling through silences, and shrinking with each passive-aggressive "suggestion" from those who were supposed to guide them. This blog is not a revenge tale. It’s a reckoning. A story of a scholar who entered academia with reverence and left with scars — not from intellectual battles, but from invisible power wars waged behind staffroom doors. If you've ever felt out of place in a place that was supposed to nurture your voice, this is for you. If you've ever been punished for not choosing sides in a game you never signed up for, this is your mirror. Here’s a dispatch from one such war zone — where degrees are earned not just through research, but resilience. Welcome to the story of an ‘Academic Refugee.’ They say a PhD journey is lonely. But what happens when it turns into exile? This is the story of an academic refugee — not someone fleeing nations, but someone fle...
Read more