After Modi, RSS Also Says It Is Against Caste Census Demand
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: Just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke against conducting a caste census, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has also categorically stated that the exercise is not needed as it would "weaken national unity".
Speaking against the need for a census with a group of Maharashtra assembly MLAs of the BJP and Shiv Sena at the outfit's Nagpur headquarters, RSS Vidarbha chief Sridhar Gadge said the caste census might benefit “some people politically” as it would provide data on how much the population of a certain caste is, “but it is not good for national unity.”
RSS functionaries brief right-wing MLAs of the state annually at its headquarters.
A Times of India report said, “Admitting that there has been caste-based discrimination for ages and that it would take time for it to be completely eradicated, Gadge said a caste census would only deepen the rift.”
Terming the growing demand for Maratha reservation as a regional issue, Gadge tried differentiating between reservation and caste census, stating that reservation had been introduced because of the need for social uplift and it would continue till “there is complete social progress as not all communities have progressed yet.”
Though the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP is part of the Eknath Shinde government in Maharashtra, its MLAs stayed away from the meeting with Gadge. Addressing the matter, its leader and state minister Chhagan Bhujbal called the RSS’s idea about caste census utopian. “When people seek legal remedy for reservation, courts ask for data on population. How can that be possible without a caste census?”
Gadge’s statement against the caste census comes after Prime Minister Modi spoke against it during a public address at Varanasi, his Parliamentary constituency, on Monday. Rejecting the opposition’s demand for such a census, Modi reiterated what he had said in October: “Only four castes – women, youth, deprived sections and farmers – exist in the country.” At the time, he was reacting to the Bihar government releasing the data of a caste survey it conducted, which revealed that OBC and EBC groups together comprised 64% of the state's population.
Their empowerment, Modi said, “would catapult the country into a developed nation,” according to a New Indian Express report. The Modi government says it plans to make India a developed country by 2047.
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