Census Gazette Notification With No Mention of Promised Caste Enumeration Raises Questions

New Delhi: While the Union government notified the 2027 Census on Monday (June 16), the gazette notification did not include any mention of the caste enumeration which was announced by the Narendra Modi government in April.

Congress has pointed to caste counts' absence in the notification, questioning whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had changed its mind.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in a statement said that “misleading information” is being spread about caste enumeration and assured that the exercise will be included in the census. However, in its clarification, the MHA only referred to press releases issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) following the April announcement and Union home minister Amit Shah’s meeting with MHA officials on Monday. It did not address why the gazette notification makes no such mention.

No mention of caste in gazette notification

The gazette notification issued by Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, registrar-general and census commissioner, said that the “central government hereby declares that a census of the population of India shall be taken during the year 2027.”

Earlier this month, the Union government had announced that the population census along with the enumeration of castes will be conducted in two phases starting October 1, 2026.

The gazette notification reiterates: "The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of March 2027, except for the Union territory of Ladakh and snow bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand."

The gazette notification further adds that "in respect of Ladakh and snow bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand" the reference date will be  at 12 am on October 1, 2026.

‘Misleading information’

Late on Monday night, the MHA in a statement said that the census will include caste enumeration and pointed to “misleading information” being spread about the exercise.

“The notification to conduct Census has been published in the Official Gazette today. The Census will include Caste enumeration as well. However, some misleading information is being spread that there is no mention of caste census in the notification. It has already been mentioned in the Press Releases dated 30 April, 4 June and 15 June, 2025 that Census will also have Caste enumeration,” the MHA said.

While the MHA attached three press releases from the PIB including the ones announcing the cabinet’s decision to include caste enumeration with the population census (April 30), the announcement of the census itself (June 4) and a release of Shah meeting MHA officials, it did not clarify on why the gazette notification itself did not include any mention of caste enumeration.

The Union government’s move in April to announce the enumeration of caste along with the decadal census was a sharp reversal from the BJP's stance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign where it had described the caste census as a move to divide society.

The MHA’s statement on Monday evening came after the Congress in a statement pointed to the gazette notification and questioned whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “changed his mind again”.

“Today's gazette notification says only the census will be done in late October of 2026 in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and for the rest of the country, it will be done in March 2027. It does not talk of the ‘caste census’,” said Congress MP and the party’s general secretary media in-charge Jairam Ramesh.

“So my question is: has the Prime Minister changed his mind again? Why is there no mention of the caste census?” he said.

On Tuesday, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera posted the gazette notification on the caste survey in Telangana and the Union government’s gazette notification issued on Monday. Khera said that while the Telangana government’s notification mentioned the word “caste” thrice, the Union government’s notification did not mention caste even once. 

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