CASTE CENSUS AND DEEPENING OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

ABOUT THE BOOK This book emerges from a moment of reckoning in Indian democracy. More than seven decades after Independence, and nearly a century after the last comprehensive caste enumeration in 1931, the Indian state continues to design policies of social justice without contemporary, credible caste data. This paradox of governing inequality without measuring it lies at the heart of the debates that animate this book. Caste Census and the Deepening of Social Justice is not merely an academic intervention; it is a response to a long-standing democratic deficit. The demand for a caste census is often misrepresented as divisive or regressive. This book begins from a different premise: that democracy cannot function on invisibility, and social justice cannot be pursued on the basis of outdated assumptions. Enumeration, in this sense, is not an act of division but an act of recognition. The chapters assembled here bring together policymakers, public intellectuals, activists and young scholars who engage the caste census question from multiple vantage points - constitutional, historical, institutional, feminist, intersectional, and political. This book also emerges from sustained intellectual and political engagement. Many of the essays grew out of national and international conferences, seminars, and public dialogues organized by student movements, civil society organizations, and academic institutions—particularly the All India OBC Students Association (AIOBCSA). These spaces brought together lived experience and scholarly inquiry, reminding us that knowledge production around caste cannot be detached from the struggles of those whose lives are shaped by it. A caste census can deepen social justice only if it is followed by policy reform, redistribution of resources, and democratization of power. The timing of this book is significant. The Union Government has formally announced the inclusion of a comprehensive caste enumeration in the forthcoming national Census, the conduct of which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related political considerations. The critical question is no longer whether caste should be counted, but how, by whom, and for what purpose. This volume seeks to intervene precisely at this juncture. Ultimately, Caste Census and the Deepening of Social Justice is an invitation to policymakers, scholars, students, and citizens, to rethink the relationship between democracy and data. It asks us to confront uncomfortable truths about inequality, privilege, and exclusion, not to entrench caste identities, but to dismantle caste hierarchies. In doing so, it affirms a foundational democratic principle: that justice cannot be achieved without visibility, and equality cannot be realized without evidence. If democracy is to be more than a procedural ideal, it must be willing to look honestly at itself. Counting caste is not about returning to the past; it is about equipping the present with the tools necessary to build a more just future.