What does it mean to be one in a country of over a billion? A speck of dust? A cog in that hulk of a machine called the Indian democracy? A decimal in a breath-taking multitude? But in New Delhi?s 2A, Mansingh Road, in a row of whitewashed barrack-like buildings, there is no time for such philosophical pauses. Here, at the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, the question is more real.
India has held Censuses uninterruptedly since 1872, every 10 years, through the freedom struggle, Partition, wars, floods, earthquakes and Independence. Even Great Britain, where the Census began in 1801, stopped its Census operation during World War II. But in India, the headcount went on. But what makes Census 2011 different from the 14 others before it is the exercise to build the National Population Register (NPR), a database of every single resident of India.
For the first time, the NPR (one of the principal sources of data that will be used by Nandan Nilekani?s Unique Identification Authority of India to issue identity numbers to every Indian) will be tagged along with the Census exercise. So apart from the Census questionnaire, all of us will have to fill up an NPR form that will ask for individual details ? your name, your father?s name, mother?s name, educational qualifications, and more.
How?s that different from what the Census was already doing?
The difference is in the way the individual is seen. While the Census only asks for the head of the family and asks him/her for a count of family members, the NPR seeks details of every individual in the country. ?The Census is a purely statistical exercise while the NPR involves individual data collection. So the Census would want to know how many people in a village are literate, not if Sita Devi is literate or Kamala Devi is literate. That?s part of NPR data,? says Varsha Joshi, Director of Census Operations, Delhi.
Over the years, the Census has run into divided sensibilities. One of the demands for Census 2011 was for caste as one of the parameters, an argument led by those seeking a count of OBCs. The last time a caste-based Census was done was in 1931.
?Caste is a complex issue, but the Census collects data on other complex issues, so why not caste? This lack of information is only helping the worst people on both sides of the debate — those making inflated claims and those who are blind to the reality of caste as an issue in India,? says Satish Deshpande, professor of sociology, Delhi School of Economics.
Ashish Bose, demographer and the man who coined the term ?Bimaru? in the context of the economic condition of states in the Hindi heartland, says it?s time the Census stopped being status-quoist. ?While I am proud that this is the largest Census operation in the world, we collect almost the same data that we collected 100 years ago. For instance, the Census doesn?t ask direct questions on income. The income of India?s population is inferred from whether they own a ration card, refrigerator and so on. Also, the housing Census shouldn?t be part of the population count. That?s something the Ministry of Housing should do. And then, the data should be disseminated fast?, Bose says.
But at the Census office in Delhi, Commissioner Chandramouli won?t be drawn into debates: ?The Census is a dispassionate agency. It is a guide to how far you have come and helps you review the past, take stock of the present and plan for the future.?