Why Does Narendra Modi Suddenly Want a Caste Census?

On April 30, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) decided that caste enumeration will be part of the upcoming census. This decision contradicted the traditional approach of the Sangh Parivar whose leaders have always claimed that a caste census was bound to divide Hindus.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the 2023 state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, referring obliquely to the Congress’s caste census campaign in these three states, Modi had said: 'People tried to divide the country on caste lines during elections. For me, there are only four castes: women, youth, farmers, and the poor.' Two years before this pronouncement, in a reply to the Lok Sabha, the Modi government had argued that the Indian government had made it a point not to enumerate caste-wise data beyond the Scheduled Castes. 

How can we explain Modi’s U-turn?

The most obvious variable that needs to be factored in is, of course, the Bihar elections. In this state, caste has played a significant role in electoral politics since the colonial era, to such an extent that Nitish Kumar’s government conducted a caste survey in 2022. Nitish's party, Janata Dal (United), whose support is key to the BJP in parliament, would have contradicted itself if it had not been in a position to support a proper caste census (and not just a survey). If the Modi government had not approved a caste census, the Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine would have probably used very effectively that issue in the upcoming Bihar polls. Incidentally, BJP leaders, including Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, now claim that Modi has made a brilliant move and even argue that, by contrast, no government led by the Congress had counted caste in any census since independence. He conveniently ignored that the 2011 census recorded caste but that the Modi government did not make the data public.

While the Bihar election and, more generally speaking, the pressure exerted by Rahul Gandhi in the name of a social justice-oriented caste census have played a role in a decision intended to deprive the opposition of one of its planks, other factors explain Modi’s U-turn as well.

The evolving relation between Modi and the middle class is one of them. The 'upper' caste, middle class voters turned to the BJP in reaction to the implementation of the Mandal report from the 1990s onwards because they expected from a BJP government a dilution (or even more) of caste-based reservations. They were right: the Modi government has made the public sector shrink so much that the absolute number of jobs under quota has dropped accordingly. The BJP also introduced a 10% quota for the 'upper' castes (under the garb of a pro-Economic Weaker Section positive discrimination). Besides, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Other Backward Class representation in higher positions remained lower than the quotas allotted.  

This means that middle-class access to quota benefits overall has been reduced in the context of an economic slowdown which has affected this group badly. Contrary to Modi's 2014 motto – celebrating the making of a neo-middle class which was supposed to make the middle class larger and larger – this class is shrinking. The wealthiest 10% do well, but none of the categories below do. 

The World Inequality Lab, in a report published in 2024 shows that the share of national income owned by the wealthiest 10%, after falling from 37% of the total in 1947 to 30% in 1982 – its lowest point – then rose to represent 33.5% in 1990 and, after soaring, 57.7% in 2022-23. Other indicators lead to the same conclusions. This is the case for consumption measures. The poorest 50% of urban dwellers consume on average less than Rs 5000 per month, the wealthiest 5% Rs 20,824 the next 5% Rs 12,399, the next 10% Rs 9,582 rupees, and the rest, between the poorest 50% and the wealthiest 20%, which elsewhere in India is sometimes referred to as the 'middle class', consumes between Rs 5,662 and Rs 7,673 rupees per month.

Hence, the verdict of R.C. Bhargava, the chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd that only 12% of Indian households can afford to buy cars. This state of things is disappointing for all those of the neo-middle class who aspired to arrive. Now, many of them come from 'low' caste groups and may appreciate the return of caste politics to their benefit. 

By contrast, the return of caste politics may infuriate the 'upper' caste middle class, but they appreciate other facets of Modi’s politics, including the promotion of Hindutva. Who else could they support? Last but not least, what percentage of the electorate do they represent anyway?

This takes us to the second explanation of Modi’s U-turn: his growing reliance on plebeian voters. According to the CSDS-Lokniti, poor voters who chose the BJP jumped from 16% in 2009 to 24% in 2014, 36% in 2019, and 37% in 2024. As a result, the gap between the two extreme groups within the BJP electorate has reduced to only four percentage points, 41% of the rich supporting the BJP against 35% of the intermediary groups. Why should Modi cater to the needs of the 'upper' caste middle class if the poor, who represent many more people, are behind him? 

Also read: How Does India See Its Muslim Population?

Modi has attracted the poor that effectively by resorting to a 'politics of dignity' – which has found expression in thousands of his speeches and during the Maan ki Baat programme in particular. He has emphasised on the key role of plebeians in society, people who, like him, have worked hard with their hands. But his popularity among the poor also comes from his 'welfarist populism' that translates into a myriad of social programmes, most of the time named after the PM, like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, or the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, to name a few. 

CSDS surveys show that the poor who benefit from these programmes tend to vote more for the BJP than those who do not. This correlation suggests that the current economic slowdown may not affect Modi’s support base among the poor, simply because they perceive that they need him and his welfare programmes even more. In fact, a purely power-oriented ruler would not regret the impoverishment of the masses because they would depend upon him more in this new clientelist logic.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

The same line of reasoning could apply to caste. The difference is already minimal between the Hindu upper castes and the Hindu lower OBCs when it comes to support for the BJP: 53% of the former voted for the party in 2024 and 49% of the latter. The impact of Hindu majoritarianism can first explain this striking convergence. Since the 1990s, with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Sangh Parivar has promoted a saffron wave to submerge caste identities. This strategy relies on a constant critique of the Muslims, aiming at polarising society along religious lines at the expense of caste politics. A survey conducted by the CSDS during the 2024 election campaign shows that this strategy bore fruit, as anti-Muslim prejudice is as prevalent among 'lower' caste Hindus as among 'upper' caste Hindus. For instance, while 27% of the Hindu interviewees 'fully' or 'somewhat' agree that Muslims are not as 'trustworthy as anyone else', among them, Dalits cultivate the most negative views of the Muslims at 28.7%. 

If 'lower' caste Hindus have already been conquered, so to speak, the BJP may consolidate these gains by playing the caste census card. 

This, again, may not be so simple for two reasons. First, the BJP remains overwhelmingly dominated by 'upper' castes. This is obvious from the sociology of the party cadre, who come mostly from the RSS. It is also evident from the profile of its MPs. In 2024, as Gilles Verniers shows in a forthcoming article to be published in the Journal of Indian Politics and Policy , more than 31% of the NDA candidates came from the 'upper' castes, against 19% of the INDIA alliance’s candidates. How will these leaders react to a shift towards a pro-'lower' caste agenda, especially if the party needs to nominate 'lower' caste candidates in larger numbers?

Secondly, the BJP could attract many 'lower' OBCs in 2024 because these caste groups had been neglected by opposition parties, which tended to focus on the 'upper' OBCs (and these groups, as a result, voted much less for the BJP, at 39%, in 2024). There’s one interesting exception here: in UP, the Samajwadi Party nominated a tiny number of Yadavs ('upper' OBCs) to woo the 'lower' OBCs by giving them more tickets – and it worked, mainly because the Yadavs continued to vote for the SP, whereas the party’s 'lower' OBC candidates joined them, for a change, to support candidates from their community.

Can this experiment be repeated in Bihar? The ball is in the court of the opposition: if the RJD and the Congress emulate the strategy of the SP, they may prevent the BJP-JD(U) coalition from capitalising on the caste census card that Modi is trying to play.

Beyond this short-term prospect, the decision to hold a caste census is bound to make a structural impact on Indian politics and society. The caste census is not an end in itself. It is a statistical instrument that will be used to measure the under-/or over-representation of different caste groups in the bureaucracy, the public sector undertakings, etc. This will result in new demands from various groups for social justice. This process will probably foster the same resistance from dominant groups than during the Mandal moment, which The Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, described as a 'Shudra revolution'. The epicentre of Indian politics will, therefore, move back from the ethno-religious register to the socio-economic caste-based repertoire. Narendra Modi might not have anticipated this long-term effect, but sometimes tactical moves have substantial unintended consequences. 

Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s College London and Chair of the British Association for South Asian Studies.

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