New Delhi, Aug. 26 -- India is once again arguing about whether to count caste. In April 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided that India's next census-Census 2027, our first digital headcount-would include the first comprehensive caste enumeration since 1931, with its questions notified before enumeration begins.

The arguments made are usually dressed as technical: classification, data protection, administrative capacity. Beneath this caste count is an old question in Indian democracy: does naming an inequality weaken it or make it permanent?

It is a serious debate that involves judges, dissent notes and oped space. What nobody has said aloud is that the state is already late. A shadow caste census has been running i...