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At the Internet Freedom Foundation’s Annual privacy conference ‘Privacy Supreme’, there was a discussion on Caste, Privacy and Digital Technologies with Nikita Sonavane and Manoj Mitta. An important debate considering ongoing litigation around the Bihar caste census potentially violating the right to privacy by publishing data. There have been further arguments from the Government of India on how only the Centre is allowed to conduct a census, opening up questions on who gets to control this social information.
The history of the census has been contentious in India, especially how the colonial census was used to criminalise caste groups and tribes in India. This is often not understood by upper caste groups. As Mitta noted, the state also decided not to collect the economic status of people other than SCs and STs post independence. The caste data collected under the Socio Economic Caste Census of 2011 carried out during the UPA regime was never made public.
The control of caste data suppresses the narratives around the socio-economic status of various caste groups by denying them information about themselves. By carrying out a caste census in Bihar, Nitish Kumar has set a conversation rolling around the Brahmanical regime’s control over caste census data and the delay in census 2021.
The arguments over privacy violations made by an organisation Youth for Equality were rightfully rejected by the Supreme Court, which allowed the Bihar caste census exercise to continue. It is always in the interests of upper caste groups to control the information and narratives around caste discrimination.
Other major state censuses that have been carried out post 2011 have been in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation of these states. In both the states, these censuses have been called surveys, Samagra Kutumba Survey/Intensive Household survey in Telangana and Praja Sadhikara Survey/Smart Pulse Survey in Andhra Pradesh. Both the survey’s were linked to Aadhaar numbers and information at the household level was collected.
There is little that these states have published in terms of official reports or statistics based on these surveys. In the case of Telangana, an obscure presentation from the Human Resources Development Institute of Telangana gives some insights on numbers about this Big Data exercise. The Government of Telangana used data from this exercise to determine households that will be included as part of Government welfare schemes.
Number of Caste Wise Households in Telangana, included and excluded for welfare.
The Government of Telangana often uses information from its Intensive Household Survey to launch new schemes and day to day governance activities. This information was also used to launch “Dalit Bandhu”, a welfare scheme targeted towards the marginalised caste groups to help them set up small scale businesses. While the state has been contributing towards the welfare of the Dalit community, it hasn’t been a fair process – with protests against the rules for becoming eligible for the scheme.
There are scenarios where the state is collecting caste information, but not in the form of a census. In the case of Telangana’s land registration portal Dharani, all the agriculture land owners’ information is public including their caste details. A statistical summary of land ownership based on caste groups is different from displaying the caste group of individual land owners. In Telangana, land ownership has historically been associated with caste violence.
Telangana’s Land Portal Displaying Personal Details Including Caste of Land Owner.
Using Aadhaar to create 360-degree profiles with State Resident Data Hubs has helped states to understand household level socio-economic status that they use in governance. This socio-economic profile includes the details of land/property ownership that is being interlinked through Aadhaar. At the same time all this information collected through the state surveys are used by the police for 360 degree policing of residents.
One could argue, every resident’s 360 profile is being shared with the police, everyone’s rights are being violated. But the cost of privacy violations for Dalits and other marginalised communities will be higher because of the historical police violence that has been perpetuated.
Political parties have always used information to appease different communities with economic or political benefits that they can use. In the case of Telangana, while the government is promoting various forms of welfare for Dalits, it is also opposed to the emergence of Dalit politics by suppressing politicians like R.S. Praveen Kumar of the BSP.
Information is power and people in power are able to access information about the population to control them. But state mechanisms can be misused to control information, by not being transparent while publishing statistics and or by unauthorised usage of this information – a privacy violation. This also creates an information asymmetry which hides caste violence, which is hard to document but often visible in our society.
Even in the case of Bihar, Aadhaar-linked micro data of the census can still be potentially misused for electioneering by select political parties. This has been the case with the Telugu Desam party in Andhra Pradesh in the past. The current YSR Congress party too is using government machinery to carry out regular surveys which are not public.
A major threat when one looks into how data and a census can harm the marginalised communities including caste groups, is that of demarcation of electoral constitutes that is upcoming through delimitation post census 2021. The US Census Bureau has been looking towards using various mathematical applications of differential privacy to not let this information be misused or weaponised in the US.
The Census 2021, whenever it happens, is likely going to be the last colonial form of census that India will conduct. For over a decade, bureaucrats from the Census Office have made it very clear that they want more real-time information on the population in India and are building this capacity like in Andhra Pradesh. While the Bihar census may have brought the caste census to the forefront, the Census of India will create its own challenges to people’s rights.
Srinivas Kodali is a researcher on digitisation and a hacktivist.
This article was first published by The Wire
