Ranchi, September 26:An all-party delegation from Jharkhand led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren met with the Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Sunday on caste census.
During the pre-scheduled meeting, the Chief Minister and other public representatives from different political parties handed over a memorandum, to conduct a Caste-based census during the proposed 2021 census survey. The letter was addressed in the name of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
The said letter, which was signed by all the members of the delegation from Jharkhand read, “The Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi had dreamt of a new India where the last person in the society can live freely and dignified life. Provisions for special facilities and reservations were made for holistic development of the nation.”
“Due to the lack of caste data in the census surveys conducted since independence till date, people from backward classes are facing difficulties in getting special benefits bestowed upon them. In the proposed census in the year 2021, the Government of India has informed the parliament through a written record that the government will not conduct the caste census, which is very unfortunate.”
“This is unfair for the people from Backward and Extremely Backward Classes, for ages, they are not able to make the expected progress. In the current scenario, if the caste census doesn’t get conducted now, then neither educational, nor social, nor political or economic conditions of the backward/extremely backward castes will be properly assessed. This will hamper the formulation of the right policy for their betterment and upliftment.”
Further, it read, “In India, people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes have faced the brunt of economic and social backwardness for centuries. After independence, different classes have developed at different paces. Due to this, the gap between rich and poor has increased further. Economic inequality in India has a very strong relationship with caste and generally, those who fall in the socially backward category are also economically backward. In such a situation, caste-based data is needed to remove these disparities. By conducting the caste-based census, there will be many benefits in the policy-making of the country.”
The letter concluded with a joint request to include provisions for a caste-based census during the proposed census survey in 2021. It said, “In the interest of the people, all of us, the members of the all-party delegation of Jharkhand, demand from the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to conduct a caste-based census.”
The delegation led by the Chief Minister included BJP state president Deepak Prakash, Congress Legislature Party Leader Alamgir Alam, Congress state President Rajesh Thakur, AJSU Party President Sudesh Kumar Mahato, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s MLA Satyanand Bhokta, Vinod Kumar Singh of CPI-ML, Kamlesh Kumar Singh of NCP, Bhuvneshwar Prasad Mehta of CPI, Arup Chatterjee of Marxist Coordination Committee and Suresh Munda of CPI(M) were present.