In Rajya Sabha, Opposition MPs call for caste-based census

During a discussion on the Bill to add Gond community to ST list in 4 districts of U.P., the MPs also asked why other communities were not being included

Rajya Sabha on Tuesday took up the Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022 to move Gond community from SC list to ST list in four districts of Uttar Pradesh for consideration.

The Bill received support from across party lines with Opposition MPs persistently insisting that there were several other communities in need of being included and that a caste-census was imperative to set things right for all such communities that have so far been left out.

MP Pramod Tiwari (INC) kicked off the discussion on the Bill extending his support for it but asking the Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda to explain why no sub-castes of the Gond community were being included in the ST list in the Bill, why the Gond community was being included only in four districts and not the entire State, and why so many other communities agitating for ST status were being left out even now.

“Have you accepted that ST people will never progress enough to relocate to other districts and cities for business, jobs? So why not all of U.P.?” he asked the Minister, while adding that he was supporting the Bill. 

Like Mr. Tiwari, members of Opposition parties like the Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Rashtriya Janata Dal also brought up the issue of several other communities agitating for ST status for decades but being deprived of it and sought answers as to why they were being kept out of the list, all the while supporting the Bill.

They also asked whether the inclusion of communities in the list alone would uplift them in society. After the discussion, MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray (TMC), who was in the Chair, said Mr. Munda will respond to all MPs on Wednesday.

RJD MP Professor Manoj Kumar Jha went on to insist that a caste-based census must be conducted by the government so that its policies can be based on factual and scientifically accurate data instead of “myths that seem to have substituted facts now”. It is puzzling that when BJP leaders in Bihar have supported this, why is the party at the Centre opposed to it, he added.