How India Loses by Not Holding a Census

2020-21 was the year of the decadal census for many countries, including India, as I wrote in a blog post at the time. It was also the year of the dreadful Covid-19 pandemic across the world and India too had introduced strict lockdowns. This, and social distancing norms being enforced meant that the census could not be conducted on schedule.

Of the countries that were meant to conduct their population census in 2020-21, I would imagine that most of them would have completed their census by now. The other major countries with census in the same year were US, UK, China and the European Union countries. It appears that all of them have managed to complete their census, save for India. The European Union is scheduled to make the complete 2020-21 census information public at the end of this month, March 2024, according to the Eurostat website, and they released preliminary data from the census a year ago in March 2023. UK and the US too completed their census – even with Scotland postponing it by a year – and with Covid-19 affecting the US population much more than it did in India. I have read an article on Brookings based on the initial findings of the US census 2021 last year and had also shared it with subscribers to my blog’s newsletter, The Whistle. Even China – which was badly hit by the delta and the omicron waves of Covid-19 – managed to complete its 2021 census.

That we have not considered it important to conduct our decadal census in India until now is inexcusable and unconscionable. There have been excuses galore for not holding it on time: from the logistical challenges presented by Covid-19, to the need to implement CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NPR (National Population Register), and the like. India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman even announced a budget for the National Census in her 2021 Union Budget and also announced that the census would be conducted using digital technology. Alas.

In this article, I would like to focus on why holding a national population census is so important and what India loses by ignoring it, and not conducting it in time. The most important reasons for conducting a census are to ascertain population growth or decline over the 10-year period after the previous census, as well as population growth by age and gender. In a country like India which shows a preference for male children, it also helps us examine data regarding sex ratio at birth, to see if the state of the girl child and of women in general is improving or deteriorating. Then there are other demographic indicators that a census sheds light on, which makes it much more than a mere headcount.

Through a census, one can also ascertain demographic changes and changes in human development indicators such as life expectancy, maternal and child mortality, education levels, occupation and access to healthcare, at a regional, state, city, town and district level. And by age and gender. It all depends on the extent of the detailed analysis the census wishes to engage in. For example, although city or town population might not be the primary area of probing, from the results of the census it ought to be possible to cross-reference and check for growth of individual city/town populations and even urbanization or internal migration patterns.

Ideally, a census should also be able to tell us if any particular occupations have grown significantly, or declined, and if there are any new kinds of jobs finding favour with the population. If so, then where are these differences or changes most apparent. As 10 years is a long period over which to observe changes in the population, we are likely to see even longer duration trends and patterns if we compared them with previous censuses.

In other words, a census is like a complete check-up of a country’s population to see how it is faring. It provides the vital signs necessary to read what more the country’s people need in order to improve their standard of living and their quality of life. By not conducting one on time, or not thinking it important enough, we are undermining our nation’s capacity and potential for improvement. We are neglecting our human resources and human capital.

By not conducting a population census, we have no comprehensive or complete understanding of how India’s people have fared over the past 10 years, and longer. We have little to no knowledge or understanding of which sections of the population – by age and gender – have improved their lot, and which have fallen behind. Nor can we tell with any certainty which regions, states, cities and towns are improving the lives of their citizens and which aren’t.

In the absence of any of these long-term population and demographic indicators, and sensible economic analysis based on such information, we are hampering our policy-making. Any policy we make in such an environment is only a shot in the dark. Besides, we are then prone to covering up these lacuna and information gaps by inventing all kinds of new surveys in order to make it appear that we are busy analysing how our people live and work. I am afraid, but no, any other survey is not a substitute for the national population census.

Even if one were to agree with the methodology and the findings of some of these surveys, they are not adequate to give us the long-term decadal picture. We will be missing the wood for the trees. The most recent survey on monthly household expenditure to prove that poverty has fallen to 2.5% or thereabouts in India has to be a joke. And it is a cruel joke being played on those actually poor in our country.

By not conducting the national population census, we are also allowing political parties and state governments to demand their own kinds of surveys. The caste census conducted by Bihar government which was recently in the news is one of them. If it is indeed true, as has been suggested by many, that Bihar continues to remain backward because its population mostly comprises lower and backward castes, then it might be justified in conducting a caste census. However, knowing how much the caste issue can be played up for political and communal purposes in India, I don’t think it is the answer. Caste can be included in the main population census, the way the US treats its population cohorts by ethnicity and race. And it can still be a useful guide to policy-making. In fact, I think understanding the state of women in India through the national population census might be equally important, for us to truly leverage the power of women in the country.

Then again, the question to ask these days is where is sensible policymaking in India? As I have been writing on my blog, we have not been tapping into several established economic think-tanks we have in the country – many of them government-owned – or consulting them properly in order to produce the best and most relevant economic policies. And as I have also observed and written in my blog posts, policy-making is usually hostage to the elections in India – whether state assembly elections or the parliamentary one – where policies are announced with an eye on winning votes and then the political term is spent fulfilling campaign promises. In this context, let me also add that the AAP government in Delhi announcing Rs 1000/- per month for every woman above 18 years of age in its budget, is being seen as the rising importance of women voters. When it is nothing but an attempt to buy votes from gullible women voters; surely there are several better ways to empower and enable women to do better.

It is my view that we never had very sensible – or fact-based policymaking in India – and that in recent years, it has been made much worse by mischievous and unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses and their cronies in RK Swamy/BBDO who have attempted to capture and interfere in government policies, all with the aim of covering up their unprofessional nonsense. It has gone to ridiculous extremes of reading stupid meanings in numbers (and colours) and has very little relation to the reality on the ground. I can’t see why the government at the centre is allowing itself to be led by the most unprofessional idiots I have ever seen in my entire and long career in advertising and brand communications in India – who ought not to be in the corporate world – and turning itself into a circus as well.

As we wait for the 2021 census to be declared – if ever it is – I have to say that the silence of economists in the country and the media on this matter is inexplicable. They ought to have been demanding one and putting pressure on the government, which seems to be only concerned with winning elections and attaining a “Viksit Bharat” (developed India) by 2047. Nobody said that the route to becoming a developed nation by 2047 is to skip censuses and cook up economic surveys.

It is another matter that even when India conducts the decadal census, it takes years for the analysis and findings to be released. After many years, one usually gets to read about a few topline demographic findings which trickle in through newspapers and then there is silence. One doesn’t know how detailed the analysis is, to indicate the kinds of things that I am talking about in this piece, such as state of women, internal migrations, regional demographic and economic data, etc. because this information is never disseminated. Here too, the media has a job to do.

If we do not pay attention to the here and now India only loses, especially in terms of human costs. Even if we conduct our census in 2025, we would have lost out on five critical years in terms of population data and comparison. Assuming that 20-25 years is usually considered a generation in economic terms, we would have lost out on a fifth or a quarter of it. Let me say this: the only time countries do not hold a census or postpone it, is in times of war. In times of peace, all governments try to do the best by their people, because they owe it to them.

No amount of grandiose thinking of what India can achieve by 2047 will actually ensure the future of 1.4 billion Indians, the way implementing scores of critical steps in that direction can. Perhaps, we also need to make sure that we do not miss the trees for the wood this time.

This article first appeared on my blog on March 14, 2024.