Overview
- The Centre finalised a 40‑question Census 2027 questionnaire that records 'SC/ST/Caste' as an open‑ended text field and does not include an explicit OBC checkbox or dropdown.
- Census authorities say enumerators will record whatever respondents declare and that a Code Directory plus validation and post‑enumeration coding will be used to map and standardise entries.
- Opposition parties led by the Congress argue the free‑text format will fragment single communities into thousands of spellings and sub‑caste variants and have demanded a scrapped questionnaire with state‑verified dropdown lists.
- Reports say officials dropped a plan to embed central and state OBC lists in the software because those lists contain heterogeneous 'classes' that could confuse enumeration, while some experts defend open entry as the only way to capture local names missing from official lists.
- The dispute has escalated into coordinated political pressure, including a planned 100‑day 'OBC Hak Hunkar' campaign, and could affect how reservation ceilings and welfare resources are measured and allocated if standardisation fails.