Backward Classes group raises concern over challenges to caste census

The National BC Dal has expressed serious concern the central challenge in the Centre’s proposed caste census on how a single social community known by different names across regions, States and linguistic contexts would be eventually be counted as one.

Participating in a meeting in Hyderabad on Monday (September 14, 2026), the National BC Dal president Dundra Kumaraswamy said variations arising from regional nomenclature, sub-caste identities, local usage, pronunciation and spelling could result in multiple entries for what may, in social terms, represent the same community. The key question, therefore, he said, was not merely how caste identities would be recorded but how different names and expressions referring to the same social reality would subsequently be identified, classified and reconciled to arrive at an accurate population count.