Foolproof Census in Assam a national priority

The Census operation is not a statistical exercise of counting heads and recording household data but a crucial document for critical policy decisions by the central and state governments. For a demographically sensitive state like Assam, it is also a vital document for taking strategic decisions to protect the indigenous population grappling with the existential threat from demographic change triggered by the unabated influx of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators and population explosion among immigrant settlers from erstwhile East Pakistan and East Bengal. Lessons must be learnt from the faulty exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam to ensure that ground realities of demographic changes are not buried under wrong and incorrect data entries. While publication of the final NRC list is pending amid legal complexities and hurdles, the exercise carried out by incurring a whooping Rs 1600 crore from the exchequer shattered hopes of Assamese people of getting a foolproof citizens’ register due to wrongful inclusion of Bangladeshi infiltrators’ names and exclusion of indigenous people. The NRC list being free from Bangladeshi infiltrators’ names is crucial for the detection of illegal migrants, their deportation, and the preparation of a correct voters’ list in the state free from foreigners’ names. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has correctly said that although the Census is important for the whole country in many respects, for a demographically sensitive state like Assam, the Census is of great importance. The Government Railway Police arresting eight Bangladeshi infiltrators from Bongaigaon railway station on Tuesday is one of many such examples in the past that brought to light the modus operandi of infiltrators sneaking into the Northeast region through the porous India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, Tripura, and West Bengal, as well as Assam, and finally coming to the state to mingle with immigrant settlers in Char areas. Massive encroachment of government land, forest land, and xatra land in the state by hordes of immigrant settlers of Bangladesh origin reveals the dangerous pattern of changing the demography in the state as infiltrators have spread across the state. Correct census data will reveal the real demographic picture and how demography has changed since the last Census was conducted in 2011. As the delimitation exercise is based on Census data, the enumeration being free from any errors is crucial for Assam. The central government has announced that the Census 2027 operation with a reference date of March 1, 2027, will be an e-census and claimed that it will be a 100 percent perfect Census on the basis of which the roadmap for the next 25 years of the country’s development will be drawn. The central government is preparing new software with a provision to add a birth-death register in it. In the coming days, we are also going to use it in multifaceted ways. The birth date of a child will come into the back end of the database of the Census Register, and after attaining the age of 18 years, this person will be registered as a voter in the voter list from the Office of the Census Registrar. On the person’s death, the name will be deleted from the voter list. If a person changes his house, there will be a new registry, and the person will receive an SMS that he or she has moved to a new address or is going to be transferred there. According to information provided by the person, changes will also be made in the voters’ list. While theoretically this sounds reassuring about correct enumeration of population data and preparation of a correct voter list, the NRC exercise in Assam is an eye-opener about how a section of government officials and employees engaged in it sabotaged the computerised data entry process that was supposed to be highly secured with a strong oversight mechanism. The onus lies on the Census directorate to develop a foolproof mechanism of data validation so that any attempt by any unscrupulous official or employee to sabotage the Census enumeration can be immediately detected. Strong punitive actions, including initiating criminal proceedings against such anti-national acts, will be necessary to deter other officials and employees engaged in Census operation. The central and state intelligence machinery remaining vigilant against any attempt by the Bangladeshi lobby to sabotage Census data in Assam and cover up the demographic details to provide safeguards to infiltrators will be crucial for uncovering the demographic changes. Ignoring the systemic risks involved in overdependence on software for enumeration and updating Census data without adequate human oversight could precipitate the demographic threat in Assam. Adequate safeguarding of Census data during data collection, transmission, and storage will be vital to prevent unauthorised entry. Detection of Bangladeshis in various states has awakened the nation to the grave threat posed by the failure to acknowledge demographic change in Assam despite Census data revealing it. A foolproof Census operation in Assam, therefore, must be a national priority.