The Census of India 2027 is India’s first digital census, allowing citizens the option of self-enumeration. The rehearsal or pre-test for its second phase (population enumeration) is being conducted from July 6 to July 20, 2026, across 16 States and Union Territories. It tests the digital tools, questionnaires, and specifically the feasibility of registering castes through an open-ended question before finalizing the main Census methodology.

The regular decennial Census of India is conducted under the Census Act of 1948, which makes it legally binding for citizens to answer questions truthfully and guarantees complete confidentiality of the data. The 2011 SECC, however, was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation without using the Census Act, meaning it lacked statutory backing, participation was voluntary, and the collected data was not legally confidential.

The 1931 Census of India, conducted under British rule, was the last census to comprehensively count and tabulate population data by caste. In 1941, caste data was collected but not fully tabulated due to World War II. Post-independence, the Indian government decided in 1951 to only count Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the census to move away from caste-based divisions, leaving other castes uncounted in decennial censuses.

In September 2021, the Union government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in response to a petition by Maharashtra seeking raw caste data from the SECC 2011. The Centre stated that the SECC 2011 caste data was highly inaccurate, incomplete, and plagued with millions of errors (such as returning 46 lakh castes instead of the actual list of around 4,000). The Supreme Court subsequently dismissed Maharashtra’s petition, agreeing that the data was too unreliable to be used to fulfill the ‘Triple Test’ requirement for local body reservation.

Conducted in two phases between January and August 2023, the Bihar caste-based survey was India’s first successful state-level caste enumeration in decades. To prevent the messy data issues of 2011, enumerators used a mobile app called ‘Bijaga’ (developed by BELTRON), which was pre-loaded with a standardized, curated list of 215-216 registered castes and sub-castes. The findings, released in October 2023, showed that OBCs and EBCs comprised 63% of Bihar’s population, leading the state to increase its reservation quota to 65%.

The framers of the Indian Constitution, led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, sought to dismantle the caste system through specific statutory guarantees. Article 17 of the Constitution abolished ‘untouchability’ in any form, making its practice a punishable offense. Article 15(1) prohibits the State from discriminating against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. Together with Article 16 (equality of opportunity in public employment), these form the bedrock of India’s anti-caste legal architecture.

Sociologists argue that British census operations in India, particularly under Herbert Hope Risley (Census Commissioner for 1901), did not merely record caste but actively reified and ossified it. Before the colonial census, caste identities were often localized, fluid, and negotiable. By classifying every Indian into rigid, hierarchical caste categories based on social precedence and anthropometric data, the colonial administration codified local hierarchies, locking fluid social groups into a rigid, permanent nation-wide administrative structure.

The core debate surrounding reservations in India is whether affirmative action ‘entrenches’ (solidifies) caste identities by offering benefits based on them, or ‘delegitimises’ (weakens) casteism by correcting the structural inequalities that sustain the system. Proponents argue that only by addressing caste-based deprivations through targeted welfare can we achieve a classless, casteless society, thereby neutralizing the salience of caste over time.

The ‘creamy layer’ concept was introduced by the Supreme Court in the landmark Indra Sawhney case (1992) to exclude affluent individuals of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) from reservations, ensuring benefits go only to the truly needy. Sub-categorisation involves dividing a reserved category into smaller subgroups (e.g., extremely backward vs. backward) to prevent dominant castes within that category from cornering all benefits. The Rohini Commission (appointed in 2017) was tasked with studying the sub-categorisation of OBCs, while recent Supreme Court rulings have also addressed the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).