With Pahalgam Lapses and Bihar Polls Front and Back, Modi Buckles on Caste Census; How One School Principal is Keeping Secularism Alive

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

April 30, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

Proving yet again that he never lets national security come in the way of election strategising, Prime Minister Modi today chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs amidst rising tensions with Pakistan to clear … the inclusion of caste in the next Census. The decision is not just a non-sequitur – at a time when a military response to last week’s terrorist attack at Pahalgam is imminent – but also an embarrassing climbdown for a leader who spent most of last year denouncing the Congress and other opposition parties for insisting on a caste census. With Bihar set to vote later this year, and the opposition zeroing in on rising inequality as a campaign point, the Bharatiya Janata Party has realised resisting the demand for a caste count is counter-productive.

The Congress has been quick to note the cabinet’s decision comes with no assurance of when the census will be held. The national Census, due in 2020,