India’s Caste Census: The Power of Communities in Counting Castes

Nagesh Bhushan

Community leaders and citizens hold the key to making India’s caste census a triumph of inclusion

May 24, 2025 

India’s decision to include caste in its 2025 census, the first such exercise since 1931, is a bold step toward data-driven social justice. With 1.4 billion people and thousands of castes, the task is formidable: logistical barriers, social sensitivities, and the ghost of the flawed 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which recorded 46 lakh inconsistent caste entries, loom large. Yet, inspiration lies in Nagaland’s 2011 census, where community leaders and citizens turned a challenging count into a model of inclusivity. As India embarks on this historic endeavor, the active participation of local leaders and ordinary citizens will be the linchpin of success.

Nagaland’s Lesson: Communities as Catalysts

In 2011, Nagaland, a north-eastern state of 1.98 million, achieved near-universal census participation despite rugged terrain and tribal diversity (86.5% Scheduled Tribes). Its secret? A communitization model that empowered village councils, tribal hohos (apex bodies), and church networks to mobilize residents. Community leaders bridged trust gaps, ensuring even remote villages were counted. Citizens, rallied by multilingual campaigns via radio and church gatherings, embraced the census as a collective mission, delivering reliable data: a 79.55% literacy rate, a unique negative growth rate (-0.58%), and insights that shaped welfare policies. This blueprint—rooted in local ownership—offers a path for India’s caste census.

Defining an Inclusive Caste Census

An inclusive caste census captures every caste and sub-caste—Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and General categories—while ensuring marginalized groups are represented. It demands cultural sensitivity, accessibility across urban and rural divides, and transparent data to inform reservations and welfare schemes. Unlike the SECC 2011, which faltered on consistency and disclosure, the 2025 census must produce actionable data to address intra-caste disparities and prevent elite capture, as seen in national debates like Bihar’s 2023 caste survey.

The Role of Community Leaders

Community leaders—panchayat heads, caste association chiefs, tribal elders, religious figures—are pivotal in navigating the caste census’s complexities. Their roles include:

Building Trust: In Nagaland, tribal hohos and village councils dispelled mistrust by framing the census as a community-driven effort. Nationally, caste leaders can counter fears of social unrest or data misuse, reassuring communities that enumeration strengthens, not divides, social fabric. For instance, in states like Uttar Pradesh, where caste rivalries run deep, local leaders can mediate tensions, as Nagaland’s elders did for tribal sensitivities.

Mobilizing Participation: Nagaland’s leaders ensured enumerator access to remote areas. Similarly, community leaders can rally citizens, especially in underserved regions—urban slums, tribal belts, or conflict zones. Caste associations, like those for Dalits or OBCs, can organize local drives, ensuring no household is missed.

Cultural Mediation: With India’s 4,000-plus castes, leaders can guide enumerators on local caste nuances, preventing errors like SECC’s overcounting. In Nagaland, trained enumerators respected tribal customs; caste leaders can ensure similar sensitivity, clarifying sub-caste distinctions.

Advocacy and Awareness: Nagaland’s church networks spread census benefits via sermons. Caste and religious leaders can use platforms—from temples to social media like X—to highlight how data will improve education, jobs, and welfare, countering skepticism.

Citizens as Active Partners

Citizens are not passive respondents but active stakeholders in an inclusive caste census. Their contributions include:

Accurate Reporting: In Nagaland, citizens provided honest data, enabling precise demographics. For the caste census, citizens must accurately report caste identities, resisting under-reporting or ambiguity that plagued SECC 2011. Clear public campaigns, as Nagaland used, can encourage transparency.

Community Accountability: Nagaland’s citizens, guided by local councils, ensured broad participation. Across India, citizens can hold peers accountable, urging neighbors to participate, especially in resistant or remote communities.

Feedback Loop: Citizens can report enumeration challenges (e.g., inaccessible forms, untrained enumerators) via helplines or community leaders, mirroring Nagaland’s iterative approach to logistical hurdles

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Advocacy Amplifiers: Empowered by awareness campaigns, citizens can spread the census’s value through grassroots networks, much like Nagaland’s churchgoers did, amplifying reach in villages and urban wards.

Scaling Nagaland’s Model

Nagaland’s success offers scalable strategies. Community leaders can adapt its communitization model by forming local census committees, blending caste associations with panchayats or urban bodies. Public awareness campaigns, inspired by Nagaland’s multilingual radio and church outreach, can leverage TV, WhatsApp, and regional influencers to demystify the census. Training enumerators to handle caste complexities, as Nagaland did for tribal identities, will ensure data clarity. Hybrid enumeration—digital for cities, paper-based for villages—can mirror Nagaland’s rural focus, while legal reforms, like amending the Census Act, 1948, can standardize categories.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenges abound. Political polarization over caste data, as seen in debates over Bihar’s survey, risks resistance. Leaders can counter this by framing the census as a unifying tool for equity, as Nagaland did. Logistical barriers—India’s urban sprawl and remote terrains—require community-led mapping, as Nagaland’s councils achieved. Privacy fears demand transparent data protocols, communicated by trusted leaders. In Nagaland, where SCs are just 0.1%, the focus was on tribal data; nationally, leaders and citizens must ensure SCs, OBCs, and minorities are fully counted.

A Collective Triumph

India’s caste census could redefine social policy, but only with community leaders and citizens at its heart. Nagaland’s 2011 triumph shows that local ownership, not bureaucratic mandates, drives success. By rallying communities, clarifying benefits, and ensuring cultural respect, leaders and citizens can deliver a census that reflects India’s diversity and empowers its marginalized. Failure risks another SECC-style misstep. As India counts its castes, the hills of Nagaland point the way forward.