New Delhi: Centre can gather data required for the welfare of people, but social justice has to be ensured and the RSS will go on making attempts to see that it is encouraged, RSS leader Sunil Ambekar stated on Thursday in the national capital.
Ambekar is the Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This gives an insight into the organisation's cautious and calibrated response on the controversial topic of caste-based counting in India.
"The significance of social justice is that we already took our idea on other matters and with the same thought where the government can take the information needed for the welfare of the people, but social justice should be left and the struggle of the organisation for this should go on," he added.
While the Union government is proceeding with its intention to hold a caste census in conjunction with the next decadal headcount, the RSS leadership has so far avoided making an official pronouncement reacting explicitly to the decision.
Sangh, that has traditionally promoted social harmony and unity across caste lines, is treading a thin line — offering conditional support to the exercise while at the same time expressing concerns over its potential misuse in the political context.
Internal deliberations described by persons familiar with these, see the RSS as considering caste data to be an approved and even imperative device for promoting social welfare.
The organisation believes that accurate data can help in identifying and uplifting lagging or underprivileged communities through targeted government schemes. Such a position aligns with its broader goal of ensuring that social justice mechanisms reach those who need them most.
But the RSS's patronage is qualified. There is a sharp focus within the Sangh that the data gathered under the exercise are not used as grist for electoral politics or political moves to widen social cleavages. Senior leaders in the organisation have repeatedly cautioned that caste, being as sensitive an issue as it is in Indian society, must not be used to prise open fissures in the pursuit of short-term political advantage at the expense of national cohesion and social unity.
What has made the issue more complicated is the issue of sub-categorisation among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the possible inclusion of a creamy layer among them.
The RSS, though not against such initiatives in principle, has emphasized the necessity of widespread consultation and consensus-building with all concerned before taking action. This stance, it feels, is necessary to ensure that no group or section is alienated and to maintain the fragile texture of social unity.
Sangh's measured reaction follows the Union Cabinet's April 30 decision this year to give the go-ahead for caste enumeration along with the decadal census. The action was partly driven by increasing pressure from states such as Bihar — where the exercise has already been conducted — and also from segments within the Sangh that believe in evidence-based policymaking for solving backwardness.
But whereas the RSS has been vociferous regarding the possible utility of a caste census in supporting welfare schemes, it has also been extremely cautious about the politics around it. Intraparty deliberations have insisted time and again that the exercise must not become a means of fuelling divisions or promoting identities that split society on the basis of caste. The organization still calls on the government and the political parties to go into the exercise with the utmost responsibility and sensitivity.
The debate over caste census is taking place against the larger national context, with other states like Telangana carrying out their censuses and opposition parties like the Congress advocating a pan-India exercise. Meanwhile, there are some community bodies, like the powerful Nair Service Society in Kerala, that have expressed their concerns citing issues of privacy and misuse of information which could be detrimental to the cause of social harmony.
For the RSS, the task is to reconcile the developmental need to conduct caste data collection with its ideological drive to bring about social integration. While the government readies itself to implement the enumeration, everyone will be watching how the Sangh's warning voice moderates the process and modulates the political discourse around this delicate and multifaceted exercise.