Open Access Research Article
FROM LEGIBILITY TO PROFILING: READING THE 2027 CASTE CENSUS THROUGH AMBEDKAR, GANDHI AND ROUSSEAU
Abstract
Abstract:
This paper examines the caste
enumeration debate in India through a profound constitutional paradox: the
democratic state must meticulously measure caste to eventually annihilate it.
Anchored in the theoretical discord between Ambedkar’s demand for state
legibility and Gandhian-Rousseauian warnings over civic factionalism, the paper
navigates the delicate boundary between achieving substantive equality and
dangers of identity profiling. Driven by the judicial mandate for quantifiable
data to justify affirmative action, states initiated their own independent
socio-economic surveys to bypass the constitutional monopoly of the Union over
conducting the census. However, this decentralised workaround revealed
financial and bureaucratic unsustainability. Routine administrative social tagging,
as recently condemned by the Allahabad High Court, could convert legibility
into stigmatisation. Analysing the Union government’s decision to officially
include caste enumeration in the current census exercise, this paper argues
that a centralised national dataset can help resolve these recurring federal
frictions. Ultimately, the paper synthesises these competing visions by
proposing a precise administrative compartmentalisation: utilising caste
enumeration exclusively as a macro-level policy tool for social justice, while
carefully preventing it from becoming a tool for identity profiling at the
micro-level of administration.
Published Paper
Author Details
Authors: NOURIA RAFI
Registration ID: 1013112 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13112
Year: Sep-2026 | Volume: 3 | Issue: 6
Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, India
Page No.: 206-218
Article Information
FROM LEGIBILITY TO PROFILING: READING THE 2027 CASTE CENSUS THROUGH AMBEDKAR, GANDHI AND ROUSSEAU
Authors: NOURIA RAFI
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Volume 3
- Issue 6
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- AbbreviationIJLRA
- ISSN2582-6433
- AccessOpen Access
- LicenseCC 4.0
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