In nine months from now, the much-awaited and long-delayed Census exercise will have completed a countrywide population enumeration. Beginning 1 October, this will be done first in the western Himalayan regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and cover all other parts of India in February 2027.

The timeline itself raises concerns as do the design and the expected outcomes of the exercise.

First, the timeline. The UN recommends that a decennial Census be carried out in the zero year of a decade and for the data to be made available in the first year of a decade. The recommendation to standardise the year is meant to facilitate international comparisons. All past Census exercises from 1871 to 2011 were unfailingly conducted in the first year of a decade.

If the Covid pandemic thwarted the 2021 Census exercise, it should have been completed in 2023 — and stood as the 2021 Census; alternatively, the exercise should have been postponed to 2030 for 2031. The arbitrary declaration of the Census in 2026, making 1 March 2027 the reference date, disrupts long-established practice, institutionalised for sound statistical reasons.

The government has offered no reasons, and the only logical explanation for this decision seems to be that the Delimitation Act of 2002 and the supplementary Delimitation (Amendment) Act, 2003, lay down that an increase in the number of Members of Parliament may be considered only subsequent to a Census that takes place after 2026. It appears that the government is determined to complete the Census before the 2029 general election.

The responsibility to conduct a Census rests with the Union government as per proviso #69 of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution. The Article provides for a ‘Union List’, and the one word proviso #69 simply says ‘Census’. Clearly, the Union government is all powerful in this matter.

The Census Act, 1948 provides the legal basis for the conduct of Censuses in independent India. Although the Act puts the Union government in charge of........

© National Herald