Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains considered castes in TG?

Hyderabad: Come December, unlike in any other State in the country or in the world, Telangana will be the first state in India that officially treats Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims in general under the caste category.

It may be mentioned here that the State government has initiated a comprehensive door-to-door household survey covering the “socio-economic, educational, employment, political, and caste’ status of the people in the entire State. The State government said the survey is meant to plan and implement various socio-economic, educational, employment and political opportunities “for the amelioration of Backward Classes, SC and ST citizens of the state and other weaker sections of the state.”

The instructional manual given to the enumerators gave them a tough time, not knowing that the Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists fall under only the religious category or both the religious and caste categories.

Speaking to The Hans India, an enumerator from Malkajgiri said, “It is not known if it is an unintended mistake that rolled while printing in the instructional manual or there is an unspelt reason for the government.”

The page-6 of the instructional manual given to the enumerators of the survey prescribes them to enter the codes of the religions as Hindu (01), Islam (02), Christian (03), Sikh (04), Bauddha (05) and Jain (06). However, there is no code given to the Parisis or people belonging to Zoroastrians, who are the minuscule minority of the country grouped under the others category (00). This is in-gross negligence of not recognising their contribution to different fields, the country’s economy, and charitable activities for centuries deserves no religious code other than the others category.

A separate code number-085 is allocated for the BC-E category, falling under the Scheduled Castes converted to Christianity and their progeny.

Similarly, the BC-E category is given codes from 121 to 134. This is to cover various sub-castes of people of the religious denomination Muslims.

However, page 46 springs a surprise with its Anexory-D of ‘Other Castes”.

Under the new category, besides the mentioned several castes considered as ‘OCs’ of the Hindu fold, there are separate codes given to different religions. This includes: the castes code for Buddhists-003, Christians (other than BC-C)- caste code-004,Jains caste code-005,

Muslims (Other than BC-E) caste code-013, Sikhs caste code-016, and other religions caste code-000. However, Hindus have only been given a religious code and are not mentioned in the “Other Castes” category under the Anexory-D of the instructional manual of the survey.