India's caste census will use open-ended questions, no dropdown

A census is when a country counts all the people living in it, like a giant headcount.

India is getting ready to do this, and while counting people, the government will also ask about caste, which is a group families in India have belonged to for a very long time.

The government decided not to give people a list of castes to pick from.

Instead, they will just ask each person to say their caste and write down the answer exactly as spoken.

This is like when a teacher asks about your favorite food and writes down your answer instead of showing a chart.

In 2011, India tried the same way, and it did not work well because people gave almost 47 lakh different names for their castes.

Some people worried the government would have to decide who belongs to which caste, and that could be unfair.

The government says it is only recording what people say, not checking if it is true.

The counting will start in snowy mountain areas in September and everywhere else in February next year.