Census categories on religion are mutually exclusive – is this a problem? Can EWS quotas be implemented without knowing relevant numbers? What’ll the drive against ‘illegals’ do to internal migration? Should govt statistical authorities be answerable to Parliament?
These and other questions, many of them making current headlines, are the forte of population scientist and demographer Ram B Bhagat , author of Population & the Political Imagination: Census, Register & Citizenship in India. He’s former professor, International Institute for Population Sciences. Excerpts of a wide-ranging conversation with Nandita Sengupta :
● Census work has begun. First thoughts?
Colonial India used Census as an instrument of governance, not for development. Before that, there was no consciousness of minority or majority among India’s many peoples. Census asked about religion. With it entered a consciousness among Indians of numbers. It was the colonial way of looking at people.
Read the full story on TOI+.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
END OF ARTICLE
