Expectations high among villagers, tepid response among urbanites to Bihar’s caste-based survey

PATNA: There is an air of expectancy among villagers as a lanky Ekta Kumari, 31, a middle school teacher in Adampur village of Lakhnibigha panchayat in Danapur block, 20 kms to the west of Patna, goes from one house to another, wading through some waterlogged and marshy areas of ward number 5, seeking information about the number of family members, noting the name of the head of the family, and putting a number to their house.

Ekta is among the 13,000 enumerators in Patna, drafted for Bihar’s caste-based survey, which kicked off at the ground level on January 7. The target to complete the first phase is January 21. The second phase, when enumerators have to collect information about one’s economic condition, and caste, is scheduled for April. There are as many as 204 castes on the state government list.

“The villagers are keen to get their name listed, anticipating government largesse. Married siblings, despite staying together in one house, want to register as separate family units in anticipation of government doles in the future,” says an enumerator in Danapur.

Ward number 5 in Patna is a nightmare for any enumerator. Houses have sprung up in the middle of agricultural fields, which are waterlogged despite the last rains in October. There is no drainage or road. Enumerators, like Ekta, have had to wade through stagnant water, a perfect breeding ground for dengue mosquito (aedes aegypti), to access at least five such households.

Enumerators have had to precariously balance themselves on cement-cast electricity poles or bamboo sticks put together as a makeshift bridge to access a few houses in rural Patna, constructed in brazen violation of municipal norms.

Enumerators have been tasked to list every residential dwelling in continuity, and mark them in ascending order in every ward. Every enumerator has been given a target to reach out to 150 households or a population of 700. The state government will pay them a remuneration of ₹10,000 each for this exercise. Of this, ₹2,500 on account of mobile expense, is to be paid before March 31, and the remaining ₹7,500 after successful completion of the survey, said government officials.

Urban Patna stands in stark contrast to rural Patna.

The expectation, evident on the faces of villagers to see the enumerator at their doorstep, holding a pen, sheets of printed white paper, clipped to a cardboard, and a red marker pen to number the house, paves the way to nonchalance among the urban populace.

“You have been pressing the doorbell long enough. This is no time to visit someone when one takes a siesta,” a woman snaps at enumerator Seema Singh, a science teacher at Golghar’s Kanya Madhya Vidyalaya, as she stands outside a flat at the Shanti Kunj Apartment, in ward number 27 on Patna’s Bank Road, on January 12.

“Sorry to disturb you, but the government has deputed us for the caste-based survey. We’ll just request you to answer a couple of questions and that’s all,” says Seema, as she quickly collects her composure after a curt response from the landlady.

The woman, like most others, makes Seema stand outside while she answers the questions in a jiffy, signs the form, before slamming the door in her face.

On the floor above, Premlala Neelu Prakash, 85, a retired professor of English at RPM College, Patna City, is kind to Seema and her supervisor Indu Kumari, also a teacher in the same school as Seema, as she ushers them into her house, and offers them tea, which the duo politely declined.

“Caste-based survey! I don’t like this word. It will only divide the society further when the need of the hour is to unite, rising above caste and creed. We should be eyeing progress, not caste. It is because of the deep-rooted caste system that Bihar is backward. We should aim at a casteless society,” says Prakash, as she answers the questions and signs the enumerator’s sheet.

Many residential flats in apartments, having double-income nuclear families, are locked during the day. Caretakers and security guards ask the enumerators to come on Sunday.

At some others, say, for instance, the RBI Officers Senior Officers’ Flat on Bank Road, the security guards refuse to grant the enumerators access.

Enumerators do not have access to the Army cantonment area in Danapur as well. In absence of permission from central command, the Army is not participating in the state survey.

“We have informed the state headquarters about the Army’s decision to not participate in the caste-based survey,” said Mahesh Prasad, district statistical officer and also the additional principal census officer, Patna.

Despite teething problems in the demarcation of boundary for enumerators, duplication of area, methodology for numbering households, and absenteeism of enumerators, 6,23,710 families out of an estimated 20,06,677 in Patna, had been covered till January 14, according to Patna’s district magistrate Chandra Shekhar Singh.

The state’s move to go ahead with caste-based survey, after the Centre refused a caste census, has already been challenged in the Supreme Court and is likely to come up for hearing on January 20.

Mandal-based parties have been at the forefront of demanding a caste census. They have argued that a scientific counting of caste groups would help governments broaden the scope of development goals. Moreover, it will eventually lead to greater participation of under-represented and unrepresented caste groups in mainstream economy and polity.

However, observers say there is more to it than meets the eye. The exercise may emerge as a potent tool to redefine the practice of caste-based politics.

A caste count (the Socio-Economic Caste Census) was conducted after the general Census in 2011 but the data was never released. When chief minister Nitish Kumar initiated the demand for a caste census, he categorically stated that his government’s intention was clear that the caste census will give a proper estimate of the poverty levels among communities, and that it will help it “in deciding what can be done for them and their localities”.

The state cabinet had on June 2, 2022, vetted the caste-based survey, which is estimated to cost ₹500 crore. The state will meet this resource from the Bihar contingency fund.

About 12.7 crore people in 2.5 crore households spread over 38 districts of the state are being enumerated by 3.5 lakh government employees.