The Politics of Enumeration: Brahminism, Caste-lessness, and Bureaucratic Deflection in India's Census
Introduction: The Census as a Site of Power The Indian Census is far more than a neutral administrative count; it is a contested site of "knowledge-making" and a fundamental mechanism for "identifying political subjects." In the lead-up to the 2027 Census, we must view the exercise as a deployment of state symbolic power that can either illuminate or obscure social reality. The 2011 caste count remains a "victory that never materialized"—a strategic retreat by the state where a public concession to marginalized groups was systematically dismantled by the executive bureaucracy. The primary architects of this subversion were the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner (ORGI) . Through a process termed as Bureaucratic Deflection , these institutions publicly complied with the demand for a caste census while privately maneuvering to sabotage its implementation. By shifting responsibility across departmen...