What's the sense of Caste Enumeration in India ?

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : What's the sense of it?
At best, fresh caste enumeration can provide only marginal benefits because, as sociologist Nandini Sundar points out, it holds out only an “illusory promise of formal employment.” The long-term societal benefits of reservation — in terms of making a constitutionally sanctioned statement against social inequality and actually providing educational and economic opportunity to historically and socially disadvantaged or oppressed communities — are there for everyone to see. But with the majority of India's workforce languishing in the informal sector and the state's role in providing jobs declining over the past two decades, it is clear that reservation is becoming less and less potent as a countervailing force.

But the objections to the Cabinet's nod for a “focussed,” standalone house-to-house caste headcount between June and September 2011 are not only political-ideological. They are also practical. As any modern sociologist knows, answers to the question, ‘What is your caste?' can be notoriously variable, subjective, and influenced by contingent factors. Caste has an elusive arithmetic in a country that is home to a staggering number of sub-castes, where caste names vary depending on context (for marriage or for religious rituals), and where the social implications of a caste tag vary from region to region.