Between September 2020 and April 2021, Narendra Modi’s government was expected to conduct India’s decennial census. This census was to be composed of 31 simple but crucial questions. Do you have access to clean drinking water and a flushing toilet? Do you have a cell phone? An internet connection? The answers to these questions would have replaced the severely outdated data from the last census conducted in 2011. These questions were never asked.
Government officials cite the complexity of India’s response to Covid-19 as justification for delaying the census. There are three issues with this. Firstly, India has officially ‘left’ the pandemic, yet the census remains perpetually delayed. All major political events have been running for the last 18 months. Secondly, all four of the remaining world’s five most populous countries were able to carry out a national census during the pandemic – China, the USA, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Thirdly, India’s 2021 census was intended to be fully digital. Even if we ignore the myriad technological complications involved in implementing this, there is no reason why a supposedly fully digital census could not run during the pandemic if the government already had the capacity to run a digital census pre-pandemic.
So, why has Modi’s government delayed the census indefinitely? Perhaps, it can be attributed to his desire to consolidate his political base in the run-up to the 2024 Indian elections. Overstating achievements is remarkably easy when no one can access the data that disproves them. Modi claims that under his leadership, every single village in India has been ‘electrified’ and that India is ‘open-defecation free’. These are achievements of Herculean proportions in a country that finds universal development difficult. Unfortunately, reality subverts them. Research conducted by UNICEF found that roughly 15% of India’s population still practices open defecation. However, without a census, there is no conclusive way of fact-checking Modi’s extravagant claims, providing ample motive for the disingenuous delay on his part to boost his re-election prospects.
A further motive for Modi is provided by the population’s accrescent support for a caste census, which counts the number of members of each Hindu caste. Modi and the BJP (his party) fervently oppose this as a ‘matter of policy’. The BJP’s popularity lies on the shoulders of a carefully created alliance of castes. Any slip-ups and Modi could lose the Hindu vote he has strived so hard to obtain. With multiple opposition parties calling for a caste census, perhaps in an understanding of the delicate balance Modi has created, it would be difficult to run an official census without caste-based questions. What better solution does Modi have than just not having a census at all?
Regrettably, Modi’s calculated political intrigue places the people of India at a woeful crossroads. How can policy be formulated without accurate data? Census data is used to determine how many schools are built, how much funding hospitals get, where food aid is given, and where the most critical areas for development are. It is also used to garner a detailed understanding of nationwide poverty, social attitudes, and access to technology – all crucial measures used to understand the population’s dynamics. Without this data, how can India sustain, much less progress, its rapidly growing population?
Real-life complications are already arising as a result of this. In fast-growing cities such as Delhi and Bangalore, it is proving nearly impossible to build new schools and hire teachers. City planners have no concept of how many children are in each area, meaning some schools are left struggling to fill up while others reach max capacity. Similar stories have emerged from India’s hospitals, with some hospitals burdened and underfunded while others have empty beds. Of course, this is not just a result of a delayed census, but accurate data certainly wouldn’t hurt.
There have also been severe consequences for India’s food-welfare programme, which relies entirely on accurate data to adequately provide for the millions of Indians who struggle to support themselves. Utter Pradesh, a state notorious for its immense size and population, has particularly struggled. Citizens of the state have been left without ample grain to support their families as administrators of the programme do not have the data to tailor their support based on which areas need it the most. Modi’s battleground politics have left India with a significant data chasm.
There are undoubtedly other difficulties than the ones previously mentioned in conducting a census. India is an enormous country, and the opportunity to run the census is short due to the prolonged monsoon season. Nevertheless, other administrations have worked around these difficulties, and none have declared a census indefinitely postponed. There are more factors at play in Modi’s refusal to call a census than physical and administrative difficulties.
Modi should explain his reasoning for not calling the census, if there is any good reason, or get on with his job and run one. While he pines for short-term electoral gain, his popularity will wane if India’s people are left without food, education, and healthcare.
