Why Census won't take place until after Lok Sabha elections of 2024

New Delhi: A decadal Census should have taken place in 2021. Now, indications are that it may not be held until the Lok Sabha polls of 2024.

There are three reasons why the government is not keen on a large-scale operation like the census before the Lok Sabha elections slated for March-April of 2024.

Firstly, the government does not wish any disruption in the efforts to make the G-20 summit, with over 200 events planned across the country, a mega success, which marks India heading its presidency.

A pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he has already spoken to all chief ministers to ensure the events in 50 cities make good use of the opportunity offered by the G-20 summit (to be held in September) to showcase their states and their resources in the run-up.

Secondly, a census exercise is bound to ratchet up the demand for including caste in counting the numbers, altering the political narrative ahead of the parliamentary elections. The Modi government and the BJP are opposed to a caste count in the census---because it will whip up competitiveness among the influential Other Backward Caste (OBC) groups challenging the pan-Hindutva narrative, particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Already, the political rivals of BJP have decided that the demand for increasing the quota for OBCs should be pursued more vigorously -- so that calculations of Modi and the BJP are upset before the Lok Sabha polls.

That is why Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar going for a caste survey in his state and Chattisgarh Congress CM Bhupesh Baghel passing two bills in December (raising the reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to 76 per cent ahead of the next year's Assembly elections) are seen as a big challenge to the BJP.

Nitish's move is seen as intended to be of a far-reaching impact. He thinks the best way to counter the BJP's base among the OBCs, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is by strengthening the demand for a caste-based census.

Of course, the demand is couched by the argument that scientific counting of caste groups will help the governments to enlarge the scope of development goals. It should eventually also lead to greater participation of under-represented and unrepresented caste groups in the mainstream.

On the other hand, the BJP sees it as a dangerous political tool for reviving the caste-based identity politics of the 1990s.

The census in Bihar, which is supposed to have started on January 6, will involve door-to-door surveys covering 12.70 crore people, who are said to be divided among 204 castes across 38 districts of the state.

Nitish wants the exercise to be carried out in two phases -- the first from January to April involving the counting of the households and the second from April to May 31 where information on the caste, skill, income and religion of the individuals will be collected.

He intends to make the census report public in June so that anti-BJP parties get enough ammunition before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The last census involving caste was undertaken by the British administration in 1931. On the basis of that census, the Mandal Commission concluded that the OBCs constitute 52 per cent of the population in north India.

Indira Gandhi's government did not consider the report. But Janata parivar used the Mandal recommendations for carving out a new base to outsmart the Congress and the BJP, which then decided to revive the Ram temple stir.

When VP Singh was Prime Minister, he faced a big challenge from his deputy PM Devi Lal in 1989-90. So he announced the acceptance of the Mandal Commission recommendations, leading to a 27 per cent quota to the OBCs in government jobs. The matter went to the Supreme Court and after its verdict, it was implemented by the Narasimha Rao government in the mid-90s.

Thus was the concept of "social justice" made into a dominant political narrative. The BJP too began to undertake "mandalisation" of its social base, including OBC leaders in its hierarchy and going beyond its traditional support base to end the tag of being a Brahmin-Bania combination.

Fear of a political storm over NPR/NRC?

The Modi government does not wish for any outbreak of a new political storm. The census work has to be preceded by enumerating for the National Population Register (NPR) which itself is a precursor to the creation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

NPR is a database containing a list of all usual residents of the country. A usual resident for the purposes of NPR is a person who has resided in a place for six months or more and intends to reside there for another six months or more.

In 2019, there was a lot of political opposition to both NPR and NRC after Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The work of listing of houses and updating of the NPR, which was to be done from April 1 to September 30, 2020, was postponed due to Covid.

Of course, many economists believe that the inordinate delay will affect the factual inputs needed for better planning and implementation of many schemes that are supposed to fight poverty.

The census was first put off last year due to the impact of the pandemic.  In fact, in the last Budget presented by the finance minister on February 1, 2022, the ministry of home affairs, which is the nodal ministry for census operations, allocated Rs 3,676 crore to conduct the Census.

But we were informed in July and last December by the government in Parliament that the exercise had been put off "until further orders."

The Census is to be the first-ever digital Census with a provision for self-enumeration. Even a mobile app for the collection of data and a Census portal have already been developed. That would require large-scale training of the enumerators.

What is officially known so far?

The Additional Registrar General of India communicated to the states on January 2, without specifying a reason, that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries has been extended till June 30. The Census can only begin three months after the boundaries have been frozen, and the completion of the Census in its two phases takes at least 11 months. Normally, the finalisation of boundaries of administrative units entails covering all jurisdictional changes between two consecutive censuses. The last census was held in 2011. 

Therefore, even if the census is attempted at an accelerated pace from October, its completion in two phases will take at least 11 months. That means it has to be undertaken between late 2023 and early 2024, which the Centre is not said to be in favour of.

India’s first proper census was carried out in 1881.