The list of questions for the 2027 census has stoked fears that census data might be used to prepare a National Register of Citizens.
The questionnaire for the 2027 census includes 12 questions that were not asked in the previous census. Ten of these were part of the contentious National Population Register that the Modi government had attempted to conduct in 2020.
With these inclusions, the census has subsumed the National Population Register, which is the first step towards drawing up a National Register of Citizens.
Scroll spoke to lawyers, activists and politicians to understand what the collapse of the distinction between the census and the National Population Register means. Most were of the view that this move could trigger anxieties about citizenship similar to those that had sparked the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019.
The main purpose of the census is to collect statistical data about India’s population and their housing and social conditions. But the 2027 census will go beyond questions that allow administrators to construct a statistical picture of how Indians live.
It will, for instance, ask respondents where and when their parents were born and which religion they practiced. Activists worry that this could set off a cycle of investigations and inquiries into the citizenship...
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