Census Without Consensus

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Published in The News on Sunday, Political Economy, 28th June, 2009

The census scheduled for 2008 has been postponed. The federalgovernment, which is responsible for census operations, cannot

foot the bill and is seeking international donor support and privatesector investments to fund an exercise in which 150,000 armed

forces' personnel would be required to provide security to civilian

census staff, especially in Balochistan and the NWFP.

This is not the first time that the government has failed to conduct

on time this national data gathering exercise, which can be the

only informed basis of allocating resources and rights to thecitizens. The demographic profile is a key indicator to rank wealth

and power of a nation and its constituent entities. Its data

determines social power and political rights. That is why for many

it is the hallmark of what constitutes a nation.

The fifth census scheduled for 1991 was delayed by seven years,

and was conducted in 1998. It is strange that we have been

devising policies and programmes in the absence of an updateddemographic profile like the census since that year. Pakistan

conducted its first census in 1951. Since then, four more decennial

population and housing censuses have been conducted -- in 1961,

1972, 1981 and 1998 -- with frequent lapses. The failure to hold

regular census points to weakening writ of the state. It also reflectsdivision within the nation, and the contested nature of rights and

resources administered on the basis of census.

Is the delayed census a tragic reminder of a divided nation, which,

if required, should be united through the use of armed forces? Oris there something about the census that does not neatly translate

into indicators of equitable development and sustainable growth

for all the members of a nation? A bit of history will help us

answer this question.


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Census as a tool of state craft was originated in the WesternEurope in the early nineteenth century. After the first British

census was conducted on March 10, 1801, and every 10 years

thereafter, the practice of decennial census became a universal

norm. The ability to conduct census also represented the power ofthe state over the nation. In the Indian subcontinent, the British

colonial census drew on the long indigenous history of numeracy

and information gathering institutions. This also included the

Indian caste system, which provided the British with a relatively

stable scheme to classify the Indian population according to

indigenous criteria. Similarly, religion also appeared to the British

a natural distinction to divide the population.

The first census of Punjab province, which forms a large part of

present day Pakistan, was conducted in 1855 with Richard Temple

as the chief census commissioner. It divided the population on the

basis of two religious categories, the Hindus and the Muslims,creating the idea of numerical strength that was to serve as the

basis of political representation and communal quotas later. Thefirst decennial census was conducted by Denzil Ibbetson, who

later became the governor of Punjab, in 1883. It extended the

purview of census to the enumeration and ranking of castes in

Punjab. The famous colonial anthropological text, The Punjab

Castes, which is still in popular demand and is widely cited as the

most authoritative account of castes and tribes of the province,

was based on the report of this census.

The basis of Hindu-Muslim conflict can be traced back to the

beginning of census operations in India. Communal boundaries

between the Hindus and the Muslims were murky at the time of

the first colonial census. Overlapping cultural codes and shared

histories of dwelling rendered the communal identities as fluid.

Therefore, the tabulation of information on population in distinct

religious categories led to a heightened sense of religious identity.The census linked the elite political representation and communal


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quotas in education and employment with numerical strength ofreligious communities. In fact, state gazetteers and the census

institutionalised the religious and cultural differences in mutually

exclusive categories, sowing the seeds for inter-communal

violence leading to partition and fuelling intra-state communalconflicts in the region.

Even the term 'Hindu' was largely a British invention. The British

colonisers used it to demarcate a community distinct from the

Muslims. Sikhs, untouchables and tribals were categorised as

Hindus in the first census of Punjab. In 1868, the Sikhs were re-

classified as distinct from the Hindus. Hindu nationalist saw thisas a blow to their numerical strength and political representation.

Every act of numeration sparked controversies and mobilised

communities for effective self representation in census figures.

The colonial census computation of conversion rates of Hindus to

Christianity and Islam precipitated the Hindu proselytising

movement Arya Samaj in Punjab. For Muslims, on the other hand,

early census returns brought home the realisation that they were a

numerical minority in the Indian subcontinent, thus they sought

education and jobs in the government service to bolster their

demographic profile. The Muslim educational movement, such asSyed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh University, was engendered by

similar fears of losing out on the religio-political front.

A quick reference to the censuses in Britain since the nineteenthcentury reveals how colonial census was used as a tool of

imperialism in India. The census in Britain remained largely asecular institution as regards the collection and presentation of

data. The census exercise exhibited either disinterest in religion or

extreme reluctance to explore this field. In several censuses, there

was no question on religion; and wherever any question on

religion was included, it was done with extreme care. Not onlythis, the results were published separately from the census reports.


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No British census in the last two centuries has asked questions onethnicity or religion. The question on ethnicity was for the first

time introduced in 1991 Census and there was pressure to include

religion in the 2001 Census of the Great Britain. The American

census also specifically prevents collection of data on religion.

On the other hand, census in the colonial India had a differentpurpose altogether. Driven by the colonialist need to know the

land and population it controlled, the census served the imperative

of control and domination. In colonial census of India, the

question on religion, caste and race was introduced since its

beginning in the 1850s. Religion was used as a fundamentalcategory in census tabulations and data on this was published

without any restraint. It seems that the projection of cleavages

within the colonial society was essential for sustaining the British

rule. In fact, the British used a variety of texts, forms and methods

to continue and perpetuate their rule at the cost of strainedcommunal relationships in India.

Since a foreign and colonial government initiated both gazetteers

and census, no public opinion or the representative institutions

existed to limit the subjects investigated in the two documents. A

comparative view of census enables us to see how modern censushas played a different role in the social and political life of people

in Britain and its colonies. The policies, procedures and

institutions in Pakistan are very much framed along the lines

marked by colonial census in the British India.

No attempt has ever been made to revisit the colonial categoriesand frame new one to unite, rather than divide, the society. From

seats in the parliament to the allocation of jobs in government

service, to the provision of education, health and civic services, all

national resources are tied with numerical strength, irrespective of

the needs of the marginalised segments of society. Every singlecensus in Pakistan was conducted amid the storms of protests


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from the disenfranchised ethnic and religious groups, but withouteliciting any changes in the census schedule. As a result, the

struggle for power among various social and religious groups in

the society draws on the imbalance between census figures and the

situation on the ground.

Although the institutions gathering information on various aspectsof population have diversified, along with the number of subjects

under tabulation, the fundamental postulates of modern census as

a measure of a nation's wealth and ranking have not changed. The

politicisation of census in Pakistan has jeopardised the national

planning process, because without reliable census figures,macroeconomic management is bound to fail and so is the

electoral process based on doctored figures. The mirage of

electoral democracy that holds the country together is in jeopardy,

if the plans for decennial census are abandoned again. A fraction

of media hype and public attention that is routinely showered onelectoral process will relocate the issue of census and place it at

the heart of the debate on national sovereignty and democraticstruggle, to where it must belong.

Census Without Consensus

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