T.N. CM M.K Stalin speaking during the Legislative Assembly session on Wednesday, June 26, 2024
On June 26th, 2024, Tamil Nadu legislative assembly all agreed on a decision made by M.K. Stalin the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu urging the union government to undertake caste-based census together with general population census.
“This House considers that a caste-based population census is essential to formulate policies in order to ensure equal rights and equal opportunities in education, economy and employment to every citizen of India. This House, therefore, unanimously urges the Union government to commence the census work immediately, which has been due from 2021, along with a caste-based population census, this time,” the resolution said.
During his participation in debate PMK member R. Arul argued that he could not support Chief minister’s proposal since even State can conduct caste based Census itself.
The Law Minister S. Regupathy however said that whereas state can do caste based census under Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 but it will be overridden by Census Act .
Earlier Mr. Stalin addressed a letter he wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023 requesting him to consider incorporating caste as an aspect into Indian censuses. “State governments’ actions or decisions can have legal protection only if they are based on data collected by the Centre. In future courts may put stays on any surveys carried out by state governments,” he explained.
Census could only be conducted by federal government as per section three of Census Act according to Mr.Stalin. Though there was an argument stating that State government could do Caste Based Census accordingly in terms of Collection of Statistics Act, 2008, this act basically allows collection of data related: socio-economic conditions only.
