The class divide among Other Backward Classes

The demand for a caste census is likely to emerge as a major political issue in the run-up to the 2024 elections. After the Union government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying a caste census cannot be clubbed with the already delayed 2021 decadal census, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has written letters to 33 leaders of different political parties demanding support for an immediate caste census.

The demand for a caste census is not without context. It is linked with a demand for doing away with the Supreme Court imposed 50% limit on reservations. To be sure, this limit has already been breached after the implementation of reservations for economically weaker sections among communities which were hitherto excluded from availing reservations. The demand for doing away with the 50% limit on reservations is mainly coming from Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders who argue that their share in population is far more than the designated 27% quota for OBCS.

OBCS, as of now, are entitled to reservations not just on a castebasis – unlike the case for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) population – but also a class criterion. This makes it imperative that any census to justify the demand for expanding the reservation quota also looks at the economic status of OBCS.

Findings of the latest All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) are useful in answering this question. AIDIS was conducted in 2019 and is the most comprehensive official source of assets and liabilities of Indian households. It gives data on assets and liabilities as of June 30, 2018.

Here are four charts which summarise what AIDIS tells us about the economic status of OBCS in India.