Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Centre to conduct a caste census.
Moving the resolution, Chief Minister MK Stalin said, “This House considers that caste-based population census is essential to formulate policies in order to ensure equal rights and equal opportunities in education, economy and employment to every citizen of India.”
“This House, therefore, unanimously urge the Centre to immediately commence the census work, which is due from the year 2021, along with the caste-based population this time,” he said.
After the resolution was passed in the Assembly, Stalin also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to integrate caste-based census with the national decadal census.
“As a developing country, I consider that fruits of development must reach all sections of the society, particularly the most marginalised. For framing policies and targeting specific interventions for the socio-economic development of the underprivileged, census data has always been the basis. In a country like India, the social milieu influences the mobility of various communities across the economic levels. As Caste has historically been a key determinant of the prospects of social progress in our society, it is essential that Caste-based socio-economic census data is made available in public domain,” the letter said.
Further, when Laws and Acts are enacted on the basis of verifiable socio-economic indicators drawn from decadal Census Report, it gets legal validity. However, no contemporary data is available since the last caste census which was conducted in India in 1931. The need for quantifiable data relating to socio-economic and educational status of various castes, communities, and tribes of the entire population of the State has been emphasized in several of the judgments of the Supreme Court for classification of Backward Classes and Most Backward Classes.
Considering all the above, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly passed an unanimous Resolution urging the Union Government to integrate caste-based census with the national decadal census and to commence the census operations immediately, the letter said.