Codava Council Demands Separate Column in 2025 Census to Safeguard Indigenous Identity

Hans India

02-05-2025

Madikeri: The Codava National Council (CNC) has urged the Union Government to ensure a separate 'code and column' for the Codava community in the upcoming General Census and caste-based enumeration scheduled for 2025. The demand, presented in a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Registrar General of India, seeks formal recognition of the Codavas as a distinct, mono-ethnic indigenous warrior clan native to Kodagu in southwest Karnataka.
In a detailed representation given to the central government on Friday and subsequently shared with The Hans India, CNC president N.U. Nachappa Codava welcomed the Centre's April 30 decision to conduct caste-wise enumeration along with the delayed decennial census, calling it a long-overdue step toward social justice. He stressed that this offers a crucial opportunity for micro and minuscule communities like the Codavas to be accurately documented and constitutionally acknowledged.
'Codavas are a unique mono-ethnological community with no class or sub-caste divisions. Our identity, tied intrinsically to our ancestral homeland of Codavaland, has been historically undermined by administrative mergers in post-Independence censuses,' said Nachappa Codava.
He argued that the Codava community's omission from independent classification between 1941 and 2011 had severely affected its socio-political representation and cultural survival. From being enumerated distinctly in colonial censuses between 1871 and 1931, the community was, he alleged, subsumed into broader categories under post-1956 frameworks, stripping it of its ethnic and territorial recognition.
The CNC's memorandum calls for a 'social engineering' process that includes:
A distinct column and code for Codavas in the Census 2025,
Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the community,
Restitution of hereditary land rights lost due to state reforms,
Recognition of the Codava language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution,
Autonomous geo-political status for Codavaland,
Special political representation in Parliament and state legislatures,
And recognition under international indigenous frameworks, including those of the United Nations.
Codavas, traditionally known for their martial legacy, were one of the few communities permitted to retain arms under British rule—a right they view as emblematic of their warrior identity.
'India's diversity should not be measured merely in numbers. Communities like the Codavas may be small in size, but our cultural and historical distinctiveness deserves statutory recognition and protection,' the CNC noted.
The memorandum has also been copied to the United Nations, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and the Karnataka Department of Social Welfare, underlining CNC's efforts to raise the issue at both national and international levels.
This fresh call for constitutional safeguards comes amid growing discourse around caste enumeration, identity preservation, and indigenous rights in India's evolving demographic policy landscape Nachappa told Hans India