Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr | Take head count: Delay in Census will be costly

No country, including India, can do without the crucial Census data which provides the social and economic profile of the country. Census data is needed to move forward in every field of economic and social development. Governments would need it, entrepreneurs would need it, and policy analysts would need it.

It is therefore surprising that there has not been much buzz around the need for the latest Census, which was due in 2021, and why it has not yet taken place.

There was no official announcement that the 2021 Census would not be conducted because of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. It was assumed by the people that the epidemic was the cause for the Census not taking place. The year 2022 passed in the shadow of Covid-19 though in 2021 vaccination proceeded apace. It looked as though the government was taking a breather in 2022 after the trauma of Covid-19 of the preceding two years. Then came 2023, and there were Assembly elections in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In 2024, there was the Lok Sabha election. There was the vague hint that Census operations will be undertaken in 2025, but there is as yet no sign of anything happening on that front.

What is surprising is that no one in the country seemed to be concerned about the need for a Census, as a matter of fact the urgent need for it. What will you do without a Census? How will you assess demographic changes in terms of population growth, the social profile of the people, of educational status, mother tongue and religion. Of course, the last category is the one that poses a challenge to right-wing ideologues in the establishment, even as it feels needled by the demand of the Opposition parties for a caste census. Without any government statement about the Census, and with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasising time and again the importance of data, the Census has become the proverbial elephant in the room everyone pretends not to see, and if anyone sees it, prefers not to talk about it.

A young journalist friend chided me when I mentioned the issue of the continuous deferring of the 2021 Census, saying: “Does the Census matter to Chintu in Chandigarh?” The implication is that the Census is a fancy issue of bureaucrats and experts and not that of ear-to-the-ground politicians who are responsive only to the buzz on the ground. A Congress leader shrugged his shoulders and said that we (the Congress) have raised the issue many times, but what can we do if the government does not bother?

A pensive former bureaucrat admitted that the Census has not come up for discussion among his peers. He felt that the controversy around delimitation and the redrawing of constituencies would bring back the Census as a central political issue. Economists and statisticians, in the government and outside, did not feel the need to bring up the issue of the Census and how population number forms an important basis for government policy.

As the government and experts in the public realm maintain an uneasy silence over the Census, it becomes inevitable to second- guess the reasons for pushing it on to the back-burner, and the ostensible lack of interest and concern in carrying it out. The government, with its known and hidden political biases, could be thinking that the ritual — and it is in many ways a liberal ritual because the Census is part of the modern scientific outlook and therefore an imported Western or colonial concept — might be something that need not be taken too seriously. If it can be given a silent burial, the better it would be. The rationalisers in the government establishment and its props in the public could come up with the argument that the old, pre-computer era of door-to-door counting is obsolete. And that there are better ways of keeping the count of the people on a continuous basis. The idea has already been mooted that people should fill a census form on their own, which is perhaps inevitable, but it poses problems as well. The population clock works relentlessly and one gets a rough idea of how many are born.

It was in 2023 that India overtook China as the world’s most populous country. The Indian figure is projected to stand at 1.45 billion in 2024 and that of China at 1.41 billion. The difference between the two most populous countries is that of a few million. And there was some cheer in some section of vocal Indians that India overtaking China in terms of population is a matter of cheer and celebration. But the problem with the general projections of estimated population growth is that the granular detail is missing, which is what makes the Census a crucial factor in a country’s politics, economy and sociology. How many men and how many women, and how many in the different age groups, and how are they distributed across villages, towns and cities. Researchers preparing socio-economic reports are forced, much to their dismay and irritation, to use the 2011 Census details as the basis for any meaningful discussion. The 2011 figures are hopelessly outdated. The lack of updated Census data marks a stupendous data deficit.

It becomes imperative that the Registrar-General and Census Commissioner in India should be mandated to carry out the Census operation every tenth year, and he or she should not wait upon the nod of the political executive. The Registrar- General’s office should have the authority to commandeer the government machinery to conduct the exercise. And the team of demographic experts at the Registrar-General office should introduce new information that need to be incorporated in every new Census. For example, digital literacy should be one of the criteria, both for schoolchildren, and also elders in the family who have had no formal education. The use of mobile phones should count as a condition of digital literacy.

It would be naïve to pretend that the Census exercise would be non-political. The office of the Registrar-General and Census Commissioner is part of the Union home ministry. Political biases are going to influence decisions. The caste census is a political issue, and so is religion and language. Politicians in seats of power have to try and be objective, that elusive thing. Even if they fail the objectivity test, it is necessary to have a Census rather than not have a Census.

The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst