#dnaEdit: SECC data gives a reality check

There is confusion about the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011. It was meant to be primarily a caste census, something which has not been done after 1931. There have been heated debates whether there should be a caste census in the first place because it seemed that the country had moved so far ahead on the road to enlightened modernism that it seemed atavistic to go back to millennia-old caste stratification. But the UPAII government took the difficult decision to include caste in the socio economic census. It was decided that the exercise of caste enumeration will not be done along with the general decennial census. The BJP government should not fight shy of releasing the caste data now that the survey has been done. The bureaucratic answer given by National Statistical Commission Chairman Pronab Sen is that Parliament had asked for the caste census, and once it is placed before Parliament — and he did not specify when it would be done — the census would be made public. 

There will be intense debates about what the socio-economic data indicates and how it is to be interpreted. Former Planning Commission member and agricultural expert Abhijit Sen said that while the general census was about individuals, the SECC was based on households and this gives a more accurate picture of the economic status of families. It has to be noted straightaway that out of the 17.91 crore rural households, 7.9 crore (39.39 per cent) have been automatically excluded because they have been found to satisfy the criteria of 14 parameters of exclusion which includes households owning a motorised vehicle, owning mechanised agricultural equipment, earning an income of more than Rs 10,000 per month. 

Out of the remaining 10.69 crore households, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) press release shows two crore  “households not reporting deprivation”. No explanation has been given for this category in limbo, which does not seem to belong to the 7.9 crore households which have been excluded. So, the actual number of deprived households stands at 8.69 crore. The reality hits home only when these households are converted into individuals comprising them. That is, out of a national population of 1.2 billion, 40 million belong to deprived category, which is one-third of Indians. It is not a flattering figure, to say the least.

The parameters of deprivation are going to be controversial as well. For example, the third parameter of deprivation is “Female headed household with no adult male member between 16 and 59”. This category accounts for 68.96 lakh, or 3.85 per cent, of the rural households. It can be argued that in a predominantly patriarchal rural society, a household headed by a female stands at a disadvantage, and that it may not be the case in urban India.

This might seem a minor detail but it is an important issue which will shape public discourse. Similarly, the sixth deprivation parameter shows Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households, which account for 3.86 crore (21.53 per cent) of the total rural households. It is a reminder  that social discrimination remains a major factor for low economic status. But the most striking deprivation figure is that of the 65.15 lakh households ( 3.64 per cent) with no adult member between age 18 and 59.

What the SECC even in its bare provisional conclusions reveals is a complicated picture of poverty and deprivation. One of the ironical facts revealed here that 122.45 million (68.4 per cent) of the rural households own a mobile phone, but rural deprivation haunts more than half the households. The cheerleaders of market economy need to pause and ponder over this fact of illusory empowerment through ownership of gadgets. There is a need for a reality check of a harder kind.