'For the first time in this country, perhaps the first time anywhere, we are going to use backwardness index.'
'It is a fundamental shift in the discourse in the country's social justice.'
As the debate on whether a caste census is needed or not continues, the central government has announced its decision to go ahead with a caste census along with the 2026 general Census.
But three Indian states have already conducted caste surveys: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Telangana.
Telangana went a step ahead by appointing an 11-member expert working group headed by a former Supreme Court judge to analyse and interpret the data from the caste survey.
The committee is expected to issue a unique Composite Backwardness Index based on the analysis soon.
"The purpose of the exercise is to identify disparities due to caste and see which caste has been left behind. Above all, whether caste element is the reason why they were left behind," Praveen Chakravarty, member-convenor of the expert committee, tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier. A BITS, Pilani alumnus, Mr Chakravarty is also chairman of the Congress party's Professionals' Wing.
How exhaustive was the caste survey conducted by the Telangana government? Were you part of formulating the questions?
The Telangana government did a caste census survey on its own in 2024, and it was a government project. We were not involved in the process at all.
An independent expert committee was constituted by the Telangana government in March 2025 to analyse, interpret and produce a report on the findings of the caste survey which was completed in December 2024.
This is arguably one of the most extensive, largest caste-based census in the history of independent India.
Why do you say so?
3.5 crore (35 million) people participated across every single mandal and village in Telangana, answering 74 questions each.
The expert committee has 9 full time members and a few special invitees. The majority of us are experts in specific areas of study.
I come from a data statistics background. Professor Jean Dreze is an economist and a sociologist. Professor Himanshu, who has done a lot of work on the Bihar caste census, is also a data expert. Well known French economist Thomas Piketty is a scholar on inequality. Nikhil Dey is an activist from Aruna Roy's organisation.
And none of us are from Telangana.
The first thing we did was statistically verify and check whether the data was robust, reliable and accurate enough. There are various statistical tests we can perform to check this.
We are talking about very large data collected from 35 million people responding to 74 questions. It took us 20 days to test the data.
Then we came to the conclusion that we could make a statement that the Telangana government's survey was robust, rigorous and reliable for further analysis. This was the opinion of the experts.
After that, we started analysing the data and interpreting it as the findings of the survey.
You are coming out with a Composite Backwardness Index. How do you index backwardness?
The purpose of the whole exercise is to identify disparities due to caste, and see which caste has been left behind.
Above all, whether caste element is the reason why they were left behind.
Is caste the main reason or the only reason behind social and economic backwardness?
I cannot disclose any of the findings yet. As convenor of the committee, I am writing the report, and we expect to submit the report to the government of Telangana in two weeks.
We are recommending to the government of Telangana to release the report as well as make the aggregate data available in the public domain.
For the first time in this country, perhaps the first time anywhere, we are going to use backwardness index.
The backwardness index captures many items. One, it is a number to measure backwardness. Yes, backwardness is an intangible concept or feeling. Then, how do you put a number to it?
If you look at it, backwardness is the opposite of progress or development.
Why is it that we are okay with measuring progress or development with one number of the GDP? If we can do that, why not give one number to backwardness too?
The idea of one number is very entrenched in human nature to be able to make sense of complex ideas.
Numbers make it easy for people to understand an idea.
As statistical experts, sociologists, economists, it is our job to make this complex data understandable to common people.
What is this data we have actually?
We have 35 million people expressing their feelings about many things -- from their living standards to occupation to whether they feel discriminated or not, to their education to their income -- reported in this data.
If you have to understand how these people feel about their lives, the survey has to be very exhaustive...
Yes, it is exhaustive. As I said, all these 35 million people answered 74 questions each.
When we have a wide range of data, we can construct an index using all the parameters.
The questions range from demographic to the caste they belonged to. They themselves were asked to identify the caste they belonged to.
And they were 245 castes got listed in the survey in Telangana across five categories -- backward caste, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, general category and an option of no caste if someone doesn't want to identify as any caste.
They were asked whether they belonged to one household, their gender, age, education, literacy, whether a person is a school dropout, whether he studied in English medium or Telegu medium, level of education.
In the case of marriage, whether it is child marriage or inter caste marriage or any marriage at all.
Questions like, Are you a daily wage worker or a street vendor or a businessman or a gig worker or MNREGA worker?
What is your income? (there were 13 categories of income listed.)
Do you own land? If so, how much land do you own?
If you are a farmer, how do you irrigate your land? Do you have livestock?
What kind of house you live in, kuchha house or pucca house?
Do you have Internet?
Do you feel discriminated against when you visited a place of worship?
There were questions on migration also like, has anyone in your household migrated to another state, or another country?
It is extremely exhaustive and holistic, and unprecedented in the history of India.
Based on the data, we constructed an index of 42 parameters across social, gender, occupation, education, discrimination, income, and economic parameters which are statistically significant.
How do you then fit all the information into the backwardness index?
After identifying 42 parameters, we tried to see which castes are left behind or most backward, and which castes are least backward.
It ranged from 'most backward' to 'least backward'.
Let's take a parameter like illiteracy, we look at all the 245 castes and see where they stand in the index. For example, who comes in the 'least illiteracy' category and who comes in the 'highest illiteracy' category.
We split all the castes into quartile distribution and put them in four brackets. The least backward will be in the 5% to 0% bucket while the most backward will be in the 30% to 20%. 20% to 10% will be the next most backward while 10% to 5% will be in the middle.
So, if you are most backward, you get 3 points and the least backward gets 0 points. This is how we give points to every parameter.
If a particular caste is most backward in every single of the 42 parameters, it gets 126 points which is the maximum score any caste can get. And the maximum the least backward caste can get is 0.
The beauty of this survey is that no caste got 0 points in all parameters and no caste got 126 points in all the parameters.
In the Composite Backward Index, the higher the score, the more backward the caste is, and the lower the score, the least backward the caste is.
I have to point out, the share of the population of a particular caste is not a factor in this. The only thing that matters is the 42 parameters.
It is a fundamental shift in the discourse in the country's social justice.
Till now, it was said that a particular caste is X% of the population, and we must have reservation or any policy for them.
For the first time, we will be able to say a particular caste is more backward than the other.
This is statistically the most rigorous, objective and transparent way to measure backwardness.
And this is the first of its kind in the history of India.
How different was the way the Mandal Commission measured backwardness?
The Mandal Commission did a survey in 1979.
One, it was done in the entire country. Two, they did a survey of 50 lakh people for the entire country. But at that time, it was an enormous effort.
They had a similar way of measuring backwardness but using 11 indicators. They did not come with an index or scoring but they used a similar pattern.
But in this survey, 3.5 crore people were involved and that too from one state, and 74 questions were asked to each one of them.
We say that the report should be made public and the data in the aggregate form should be made public. Then, if somebody wants to compile it in a different way, they can do so.
Do you think this can be used as a model for other states also when they are doing a caste survey?
I think so. That is because it is a pioneering effort.
IMAGE: Praveen ChakravartyMany people are talking about the need to have state-wise caste census and not a national caste census, as a caste which is backward in one state may not be categorised as backward in another.
The idea of a caste survey is to see whether a particular caste is left behind or not.
The idea of backwardness is a relative concept, and not an absolute concept.
If a person is relatively poor compared to the others in his state, he is more backward.
And this relativeness is completely different in every state. What could be least backward, say in Bihar could be considered 'more backward' in Kerala or Tamil Nadu.
So, I don't understand the idea of a national caste census unless and until it is done state-wise.
We are demonstrating it through our study. What we are saying is within Telangana, this will be the backwardness, but I don't know where they will be placed All India or in some other state.
I don't think it is relevant also.
What is relevant is, where they feel backward...
Exactly. Backwardness is a feeling. They get the feeling when they see others around them.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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