The demand for conducting a Caste Census has been on for over a year. The All India OBC Students' Association (AIOBCSA) has now sent out letters to 542 Lok Sabha MPs and 237 Rajya Sabha MPs, urging them to raise the demand for conducting the Caste Census 2021 during the winter session of the Parliament that is set to start on November 29.
The students see the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections as the right opportunity to get their demands approved, just like the farm laws were repealed. "We are looking at Uttar Pradesh and other elections as opportunities to push our genuine demand. The government may accept our demand like that of the scrapping of the farm laws. Otherwise, we will be forced to go for intensive protests in a democratic manner to achieve our demand," said Kiran Kumar, President of AIOBCSA. "The reliable data related to social and educational backwardness is needed to convince the judiciary to extend reservations beyond the 50 per cent ceiling. States like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are providing less than 15 per cent reservations to OBCs. Hence, we need contemporary and reliable data on various castes to make decisions related to reservations and other social welfare policies," he reiterated.
In the previous phase of this protest, the students had sent 1 lakh postcards and 10 lakhs tweets to the Prime Minister and urged him to take a favourable decision but there has been no response from the government yet. So what makes them think that writing to the MPs will help? Kiran said that various states are in favour of their demand and have been passing resolutions as well and will be up to help their cause. "On one side, state legislative assemblies started passing resolutions on the Caste Census and urging union government to conduct the Caste Census. On another side, civil society groups and OBC organisations like us want to keep pressure on the union government. We are very much hopeful that the Modi government will conduct the Caste Census for effective social policymaking," Kiran added.
