India sets date of population and caste census

NEW DELHI: The world´s most populous nation India will conduct a census in 2027, its first since 2011, the government said on Wednesday, which will also count caste -- a controversial accounting not done since the country´s independence.

“It has been decided to conduct Population Census-2027 in two phases along with enumeration of castes,” the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement.

Most of the vast nation will take part in the census on March 1, 2027, but for the high-altitude Himalayan regions, the counting will take place earlier before snow sets in -- on October 1, 2026.

Those areas include the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as well as in Ladakh, and the contested region of Jammu and Kashmir. Caste remains a crucial determinant of one´s station in life in India, with a rigid societal chasm dividing those of higher castes -- the beneficiaries of ingrained cultural privileges -- from people of lower castes, who suffer entrenched discrimination.

More than two-thirds of India´s 1.4 billion people are estimated to be on the lower rungs of a millennia-old social hierarchy that divides Hindus by function and social standing.

The decision to include detailed caste data as part of the next census -- originally due in 2021 -- was approved by a government meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May.