Caste remains a crucial determinant of one’s station in life in India, with higher castes the beneficiaries of ingrained cultural privileges and lower castes suffering entrenched discrimination — and a rigid divide between both.
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 but yet to take place — was approved by a government meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs has decided today that caste enumeration should be included in the forthcoming census,” government spokesman Ashwini Vaishnav told reporters.
“This demonstrates that a government is committed to the values and interests of a society and country.”
No date has been announced for the next census.
Amit Shah, India’s interior minister, called the move “historic”.
“This decision will empower all economically and socially backward sections,” he said in a statement.
Caste data was last collected as part of the official census exercise in 1931, during British colonial rule that ended with Indian independence 16 years later.
Successive governments have since resisted updating the sensitive demographic data, citing administrative complexity and fears of social unrest.
A caste survey was conducted in 2011 but its results were never made public because they were purportedly inaccurate.
That survey was separate from the 2011 general census, the last time the world’s most populous nation collected demographic data.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has in the past opposed the idea of enumerating people by caste, arguing it would deepen social divisions.