For nearly two years, social media activist Anuradha Tiwari has been criticising state governments, including those run by the Bharatiya Janata Party, that pursue social justice policies for the backward castes. But even then, she never thought that the BJP would one day end up endorsing the idea of a caste census.
“Upper castes have been their loyal vote bank,” she said, referring to the fact that the Hindutva party has historically enjoyed the support of communities such as Brahmins, Thakurs and Baniyas. “If they are going to increase reservations [in educational institutions and government jobs], this is definitely a betrayal. I won’t vote for them, for sure.”
Tiwari is not alone. The Modi government’s sudden announcement on April 30 stating that it would enumerate caste in the next Indian census surprised both its opponents and supporters.
Supporters of a caste census contend that members of the Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes have long been undercounted and that affirmative action quotas are smaller than they should be.
Scroll spoke to upper-caste activists and Hindutva leaders in four BJP-ruled states to gauge their response to the decision. All of them struggled to explain why the party was making a U-turn on an opposition demand that it has mocked for over a year.
Most of them expressed their disappointment in the top BJP leadership for delivering what is, in their view, a major setback to the idea of “Hindu unity”. But at the end of the day, they also say that upper castes have few political options to the Hindutva party.
‘A Mandal moment’
Some Hindutva activists questioned the timing of the move and differed with the ruling party on what the government should prioritise at the moment.
“The terrorists in Pahalgam did not ask the tourists about their caste,” a Bajrang Dal member from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh said, requesting anonymity. He was echoing a meme posted by a BJP social medial handle in the wake of the attack, alluding to the fact that the attackers had asked victims for their religion and singled out Hindus.
“I am astonished that the government has announced the caste census at such a time,” this person said. “The census can be conducted later but first we must fix Pakistan once and for all.”
A Vishva Hindu Parishad worker from Haryana, who also spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, went a step further and alleged that the government was diverting public attention from the tourist killings in Pahalgam.
“This is purely political,” he complained. “People were asking for strong action against Pakistan. To stop that discussion the government has initiated this caste census debate.”
Upper-caste community leaders expressed worry that a caste census would invariably bolster demands to increase reservations for backward communities, further shrinking the upper caste-dominated “general category”.
“The upper-caste anger we saw after Mandal might come out on the streets once again in 2025,” said Raghvendra Singh, national general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha.
Tiwari, the social media activist, also decried the caste census for precipitating another “Mandal moment”.
Both were harking back to the fallout of the 1990 decision of VP Singh, when he was prime minister, to accept the recommendation of the Mandal Commission to create a 27% quota in government jobs for Other Backward Classes.
Upper castes protested against the decision. Some even immolated themselves to express their anger at the recommendation.
The Mandal Commission report was based on the findings from the 1931 census, the last one to include caste data. This is, perhaps, why upper-caste organisations are apprehensive about another caste census and its potential for inspiring demands for expanded caste quotas.
Singh, who lives in Lucknow, contended the move was part of BJP’s strategy for the upcoming Bihar elections. “The BJP is writing its script for power,” he said. “I believe the caste census will be used to increase reservations so the BJP can retain its hold on power.”
Party workers in a soup
Other Hindutva supporters also speculated that the decision had been made with an eye on the eastern state. Bihar is known for its social-justice politics and the BJP has never had its own chief minister there.
However, party workers in other states said they were confused about why the BJP would risk appearing to be no different from its opponents when it comes to the caste census. “I can’t tell how it will benefit us but I can see the Congress gaining from this because Rahul Gandhi raised this demand,” said a Madhya Pradesh BJP leader, requesting anonymity so he could express his views candidly.
“The BJP has grown because of its focus on Hindus, not caste politics,” this person argued. “Brahmins, Thakurs, Baniyas, Kayasthas – upper castes on the whole – view us a certain way. This is not what they expect of us. I don’t know what the party leadership is thinking.”
The BJP politician claimed that in the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh, where he lives, the caste census announcement has made Brahmin voters so anxious, they are asking if even senior posts in the military would be filled on the basis of caste.
In Rajasthan, BJP worker Suresh Mishra, who heads a Brahmin organisation called Chanakya Sena, said he was receiving mixed responses from supporters after the announcement. Upper castes are concerned that numerically dominant non-Savarna groups such as Jats and Meenas would oust them from positions of power, he said.
Something similar had happened during the Mandal agitation in the 1990s, when upper-caste representation in Parliament dipped. Mishra feared the census would exacerbate this. “It’s possible that the caste census would reduce the number of tickets upper castes get,” he told Scroll.
As a last resort, he argued that upper castes should not be divided into subcastes but counted as broad varna blocs in the census to counter the numerical heft of other voters.
“Brahmins should remain Brahmins, Vaishyas [Baniyas] should remain that way,” he said. “They should not be split into subcategories. If Hindus are not divided into different castes, then this will turn out to be a good decision.”
Nowhere to go
Despite these complaints, most Hindutva organisations have so far refrained from calling for agitations. Part of the reason for this is that they are confident the government will eventually listen to their concerns, said Hindu Sena National President Vishnu Gupta.
“This is, after all, a government of the Hindus so we trust it,” he asserted, citing slogans of Hindu unity by BJP bigwigs such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath. “We will demand that the government reconsider its decision.”
The other reason why the upper castes are not up in arms against the BJP is that they have few other political options that they can turn to, explained political scientist Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. In recent years, the Congress party and other opposition outfits have focused their attention on what Verma called the “bottom half of the pyramid”, allowing the BJP to present itself as the sole defender of upper-caste interests.
As a result, he suggested, upper-caste anger would eventually have to make way for deal-making with the party.
“The BJP will have to convince them that they still get more from it than anybody else,” he said. “It is highly unlikely that they will vote against the BJP. But they may become mute during the election, skip campaigning or not turn out to vote.”
Singh, the Kshatriya activist from Lucknow, underlined this last possibility as a looming threat for the ruling party. The Kshatriyas of Uttar Pradesh, he claimed, had taught the BJP a lesson by not voting in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“It is clear that the upper castes are with the BJP right now because they support the idea of a Hindu rashtra,” he added. “But if Hindutva leaders start devising caste formulas to capture power, the idea of Hindu rashtra is finished. Why should we vote for the BJP then? Nobody owns our vote.”
