Anand Sharma questions Congress stand on caste census: ‘Not a solution for unemployment, inequalities’

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, a member of the Congress Working Committee, has written to party president Mallikarjun Khargequestioning the party’s aggressive campaign pitch for holding a caste census. The party had “never engaged in nor endorsed identity politics” and argued that departure from the “historic position” is a matter of concern for many in the party, Sharma wrote.

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been vocal about his demand for a nationwide caste census, making it the centrepiece of the Congress’s campaign during the Assembly elections late last year and in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. A caste census, Sharma said, “cannot be a panacea nor a solution for unemployment and prevailing inequalities”.

Interestingly, Sharma in his letter has also quoted Indira Gandhi, saying her clarion call in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections was “Na jaat par na paat par, Mohar lagegi Haath par” and Rajiv Gandhi’s September 1990 speech in the Lok Sabha during a discussion on the Mandal Commission report, when he said, “We have problems if caste is defined to enshrine casteism in our country …”

In his letter, Sharma said while “divisive agenda, issues of gender justice, unemployment, inflation, and rising inequality are shared concerns of the Congress, its alliance partners and progressive forces”, the national caste census had emerged as an important issue in the electoral debate and endorsed by the INDIA alliance of which the Congress is a part.

“Parties of the alliance also include those which have pursued caste-based politics for long. However, the Congress policy on social justice is based on a mature and informed understanding of the complexities of Indian society. Leaders of the national movement were firmly