Hyderabad: Leader of Opposition in the Parliament and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi questioned why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never openly declared that he will challenge the caste discrimination in the country.
Addressing the caste census consultation meeting held at Gandhi Ideology Center in Bowenpally on Tuesday, November 5, Rahul Gandhi said that the only people against the caste census were the kind who could resist asking questions, who have been hiding the truth, who didn’t want the people to know the truth about ‘caste discrimination’ rampant in the country, and those who were benefiting from that discrimination.
“The BJP including the PM says I’m trying to divide the country seeking a caste census. But since when has revealing truth divided the country? Let us explore the truth. Everybody accepts that there is caste discrimination in this country. Let us identify the amount and nature of that caste discrimination,” Gandhi said.
He said the caste census was needed to find out the composition of OBCs, SCs, STs, minorities and EBCs, how wealth was distributed among them, and how many from these castes were in the judiciary, armed forces, and working in the top 500 companies.
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Terming the caste discrimination in India as unique and probably the worst in the world, Rahul Gandhi mentioned an expert economist, who once gave a presentation to him to explain why India was the most unequal country in the world.
“Even that was an understatement as he didn’t consider the element of caste to prove inequality in India. Inequality increases if caste discrimination is there,” Rahul Gandhi observed.
Calling Telangana’s effort to conduct a caste census as the model for the national caste census, and through the effort, he said that the state would be the first stepping-stone for developing a political and developmental instrument which will decide the progress of the country.
Making it clear that he didn’t want a bureaucratic caste census where a bureaucrat will design the questions which need to be asked during the census, Rahul Gandhi said that he wanted a caste census where the people will decide what questions they want to be asked.
“There will be shortcomings in Telangana’s caste census, but we are constantly going to engage the civil society, people and the government in the process. It is not just a caste census. Is is the future of governance of this country,” he declared.
Around 400 attendees were present during the consultation meeting, including 200 Congress leaders and workers. The rest were intellectuals, representatives of caste organisations, retired judges and artists among others.
