Former Union minister Srikant Jena questions Centre’s claim of caste census in Census 2027, citing limits in the notified questionnaire.

BHUBANESWAR, Jan 24: Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Srikant Jena on Saturday questioned the Union government’s claim that Census 2027 will include a caste census, alleging that the recently notified questionnaire does not provide for actual enumeration of castes.

In a statement, Jena referred to the January 22 notification issued by the Registrar General of India outlining the questions for the first phase of Census 2027. He pointed out that Question 12 only asks whether the head of the household belongs to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe or “Other”, without any provision to record the specific caste or sub-caste.

According to Jena, such a formulation merely distinguishes SC/ST households from the rest of the population and does not amount to a caste census. “A census exercise which does not record caste or sub-caste identity cannot be described as a caste census,” he said.

He added that the absence of any mechanism to capture caste names or sub-castes would leave a vast majority of the population grouped under the vague category of “Other”, continuing the existing framework rather than enabling detailed caste-based data.

Jena warned that unless the questionnaire is corrected at this stage with clear guidelines and classification methods, Census 2027 would fall short of its stated objective and could undermine evidence-based social justice policymaking.