DOCTORING OF CENSUS DATA CONTINUES WHILE BJP SLUMBERS – A WAKE UP CALL TO HOME MINISTER
– Ram Kumar Ohri, IPS (Retd) 
Eleven years ago the religion-wise data of census 2001 was made public in the first week of September 2004. It revealed that the population of Muslims was growing at a much faster pace, way ahead of the Hindus and all other religious groups. According to the actual headcount the decadal growth rate of Muslims was 36 percent, while that of the Hindus was barely 20 percent When this news was published in newspapers there were multiple howls of protests by the self-styled secularists and left-over leftists who started baying for the blood of the Registrar General of Census, J. K. Banthia. Pressure was mounted on him to modify the census data for protecting the Muslim votebank of the ruling political dispensation. Bowing to the intense pressure mounted by the government the Registrar General opted to present the census data under two heads, namely the “unadjusted” and the “adjusted”. The “adjusted data”, which was unlawfully manufactured by deleting 3.67 crore Indians living in Assam and Jammu & Kashmir, showed that in percentage terms the Muslim population was growing barely at 29.5 percent as against 36 percent increase revealed during the actual headcount. Due to intense political pressure the truthful data was labelled as “unadjusted data”. A new category of manipulated data was created by deleting the headcount of 3.67 crore Indians living in the two sensitive States of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam and it was labelled as “adjusted data”. This manipulation was done in a clumsy manner to achieve the desired political objective of votebank politics on the eve of the Maharashtra State Assembly elections. The entire census headcount in respect of Assam and Jammu & Kashmir was deleted with retrospective effect from the last five census operations conducted from 1961 onwards. The proof of this manipulation is self evident in the published Census Report. There is an asterix marked footnote below the Statement 1-a of the Religion-wise data of Census 2001 which gives the proportion and growth rate of the respective population of religious communities for the last four decades from 1961 to 2001. The footnote clearly states that it “excludes Jammu & Kashmir and Assam for all decades from 1961 to 2001″.1 Thus, the so-called “adjusted data” was nothing but fudged census data manufactured by recourse to a clumsy of sleight of hand, perhaps under instructions of Ahmed Patel – at least so the whispering rumour mill alleged. As author of my second book, The Bell Tolls –Tomorrow’s Truncated India , I had remained in touch with some lower functionaries in the office of the Registrar General of Census for updating two chapters of my first book, Long March of Islam . My casual visits to the Census office unwittingly gave me an insight into the questionable process of fudging the census 2001 by deleting with retrospective effect the census headcount of two states, viz., Jammu & Kashmir and Assam with retrospective effect from the five censuses held in 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001. In conformity with the globally recognised best practice of maintaining purity of statistical analysis, the present Registrar General should have relied on the “unadjusted” census data computed by the then Registrar in September, 2001. But prima facie he has failed to act honestly for reasons known to him alone. By basing the Census data on the crooked finding that in 2001 the Muslim growth was 29.5 percent he has acted as a pedaller of falsehood. The fudged data, euphemestically labelled as “adjusted”, was nothing more than a massive mutilation of the census figures. All reasonably educated, but non-secular, Hindus know that the population of Muslims has been racing ahead in India at a fast pace, way ahead of all other religious groups, now for more than 50 years. Even the ever-pontificating economists like Abusaleh Shariff dare not contest this undeniable fact. It may be recalled that the census 1991 had recorded that the Muslim growth rate during 1981-91 decade had risen by 32.76 percent, while the declining Hindu growth rate had fallen to 22.78 percent.2 Will the present Registrar explain how does he presume that in 2001 the Muslim growth rate was 29.5 percent. Unfortunately the census 2001 showed a further sharp acceleration in the growth rate of Muslims at 36 percent, and at the same time registered a steep decline to a meagre 20 percent in the growth rate of Hindus. And for that sole reason by means of a political trick, the Census 2001 data was fudged. Though the sharp increase in Muslim growth rate, revealed by the census 2001, was an established fact, truth has always been ared rag to the votebank-besotted politicians of our country. All hell broke loose in the so-called ‘secular’ political circles as soon as the census data was released by the Registrar, J.K. Banthia. Although the officer had performed his official duty in an upright manner in accordance with the Census Act, 1948, unseemly attempts were made to haul him over coals. A leading English daily labelled him a “saffronite”. Quite a few newspapers reported that he was given a dressing down by the Home Minister himself, though God alone knows why. Ultimately the Registrar was pressurised by the power- that-be into making certain unwarranted changes in the census 2001 data by deleting retrospectively more than 3.67 crore Indians to make the findings politically acceptable on the eve of Maharashtra State elections. This huge deletion of all census enumerations pertaining to Assam and Jammuj & Kashmir from 1961 onward with retrospective effect was done, after attempting all sorts of permutations and combinations, solely for scaling down the percentage of Muslims just to show that their growth rate, too, was declining like that of the Hindus and Sikhs. The desired objective of projecting a declining trend of Muslim growth rate could not have been achieved even by leaving out of calculations the entire 2001 census data pertaining to the State of Jammu & Kashmir which showed a total population of only 101,43,700 comprising 67,93,240 Muslims, 30,05,349 Hindus and 3,45,111 ‘others’. In the huge headcount of more than one billion people, it was too small a figure and its deletion alone could not have achieved “the politically desired” result. While grappling with the problem created by political diktat suddenly a bright statistician in the Registrar’s office recalled that no census had taken place in Assam in the year of grace 1981. Why not exclude that State as well, having a total head count of 2,66,55,528 which included a high percentage of Muslims ? Luckily for the beleaguered Registrar the census figures of Assam did fit the bill when added to those of Jammu & Kashmir, but there was a difficult proviso. To project the desired downtrend in Muslim growth rate, it was necessary to delete the entire census data pertaining to these 2 states from 1961 onwards with retrospective effect – something never done before. More importantly, it was totally violative of the spirit of the Census Act 1948, and the pending Right To Information Bill. But ultimately the ‘pseudo-secular’ politics triumphed over truth and the growth rate of Muslims was brought down by omitting 1,50,33,851 Muslims, 2,03,01794 Hindus and 14,63,573 ‘others’ belonging to the two States of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam from census 2001. The peremptory deletion of the combined population of these two States was able to take care of omitting nearly 43 percent Muslims along with the Hindus and ‘others’ constituting the remaining 57 percent population. The peculiar demographic mosaic of the two States, both having a high percentage of Muslims, provided the necessary scope for doctoring the census data for achieving the politically desirable goal. Thus the politically motivated fudging, though a uniquely unprecedented sleight of hand, was accomplished by deleting from the census analysis nearly 3 crore 67 lakhs residents of two States (including Muslims, Hindus,Sikhs and others) constituting more than 3.6 percent of India’s population on the frivolous plea that no comparable data was available for Jammu & Kashmir in respect of census 1991 and that similarly no actual headcount took place in Assam during 1981 census. Simultaneously the census data pertaining to four decades, from 1961 to 2001, in respect of the two States of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam was deleted with retrospective effect ito achieve the desired result. This kind of manipulation is not allowed, repeat not allowed under the Cenus Act, 1948, and the Census Rules, 1990. Thus this deletion of 3.67 crore Indians from the Census 2011 was a palpably illegal act by Dr. Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi led UPA government. To call this mutilitated data as “adjusted” is an insult to the I.Q. of average Indian. Frankly, it is something fit to be labelled as “maladjusted” census data, because there could be no legal or moral justification for omitting more than 3.6 percent of India’s population pertaining to two important States having high concentration of Muslims. What was done had no parallel in the history of India’s census operations, nor in the annals of census in any other democratic country ! This unprecedented doctoring of census 2001 data has left several important questions unanswered.
- First, the wanton manipulation of the Census 2001 done by the UPA government by deliberately distorting the actual headcount was a clear violation of the letter and spirit of the Indian Census Act, 1948, and the Indian Census Rules, 1990, which don’t have any enabling clause facilitating the deletion of the headcount of 3.67 crore Indians from the actual headcount. It was a patently illegal act on the part of the part of the central government. To take recourse to such manipulation simply for deceiving the gullible Hindus and appeasing a particular communal constituency and dumb secularists amounted to political grossness of the highest order.
- The second illegality committed in 2004 by the Census controlling authority, i.e., the Home Ministry, was to delete with retrospective effect all previous census figures relating to Assam and J & K States from 1961 to 2001. This gross illegality was committed despite protest by the then Registrar General of Census. Prima facie the government has no legal powers to modify, amend and delete with retrospective effect the census data pertaining to the last 40 years in such a cavalier and contrived manner, especially when there was absolutely no complaint from any quarter about the census data analysed and published in the years 1961 to 1991 ? And lo and behold, the same illegality appears to have been continued by the present Registrar General of Census.
- The BJP government must undo this gross illegality by rescinding the deletion of 3.67 crore Indians from the past c ensus of 4 decades.
- My third question isx why was not the same dubiously ingenious method of arriving at the “adjusted” data applied at the time of analysing the census of 1991 ? At that time, too, there was a similar problem in relation to one State, that is Assam, where no census could take place during the census operations of 1981. The truth is that at that time no one questioned the census results because there was no political compulsion. To put it bluntly, in 1991 no one felt the political need to fudge the census data because it was not a hot potato then, nor were the figures of 1991 census released on the eve of elections to any State legislature.
- Fourth, there absolutely no justification for deleting from record the census data of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam for the years 1961 and 1971 because no controversy had ever erupted about the census figures of those two decades in those two census years. While the census data of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam for the decades 1981 and 1991 have been deleted from the Registrar’s revised analysis on the specious ground that in 1981 there was no census in Assam and similarly in 1991 no census operations could take place in Jammu & Kashmir, the unstated opaque reasons for deletion of census data of 1961 and 1971 in respect of these two States retrospectively are shrouded in mystery. The Registrar General owes an explanation, and a convincing one at that, for resorting to this unwarranted and unprecedented malpractice which amounts to deliberate tinkering with the data of previous census operations undertaken and published nearly 40-50 years ago.
- Fifth, the Registrar General of Census and Home Minister must explain whether the two States of Jammu & Kashmir and Assam are not part of India ? Are the 3.67 crore people living in the two States not Indians ? Then how dare the present BJP-led government arbitrarily allow the omission of more than 3.6 percent of the country’s population from the census data after the actual headcount had already been done and officially recorded ?
- Sixth, will not this dangerous step of excluding the census data of 2 strife-torn States from 1961 onwards send a wrong signal to the ISI-sponsored separatist forces operating in the two vulnerable states ? Will it not strengthen their case for breaking away from the Indian Union in future? As a result of this short sighted move, devised solely to garner communal votes, the insurgent groups of J.& K. and Assam will be able to convince their local supporters, and even proclaim at the international fora, that the Government of India has no case to prevent them from seceding because of the deletion of all residents of J.& K. and Assam from India’s census data for the last 40 years ! They might convincingly argue that the Indian government does not consider them Indian nationals.
- Seventh, will the future governments continue to play ducks and drakes with the census data, by deleting retrospectively any portion of India’s population after the actual head count stands conducted ? Under which law can such a large number of Indian citizens be ignored and left out in future, too, without approval of the Indian Parliament when the census operations are conducted under a special statute, that is the Census Act passed in 1948?
- Eighth, is not the government, especially the present Narendra Modi-led government bound by the norm of good governance in the matter of dissemination of correct and truthful information to the public ? In a situation like this, what is the sanctity of the Right To Information Act when the government itself fudges facts to conceal the truth?
In a nutshell, the mischief done by the UPA government to distort the actual headcount was a clear violation of the letter and spirit of the Indian Census Act, 1948, as well as the Indian Constitution. The tragedy is that it is being continued even now by the Registrar General of Census and the Home Minister. It is a fit case to be taken to a court of law for rescinding the gross distortions interpolated in the census data of four decades, i.e., 1961 ro 1991 . If this manipulative procedure is not challenged, it could lead to a situation in which every political dispensation coming to power in future will invent similar questionable methods for distorting the census findings to meet their political objectives. There is absolutely no enabling provision in the Census Act, 1948, for making retrospective changes in the census data, especially after the headcount had been conducted and published twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. In percentage terms the growth rate of the Sikh community, an integral part of the OMKAR or OM Parivar has been going down very rapidly. Their growth rate had sharply declined from 32.2 percent during the decade 1961-71 to 24.3 in 1981-91. According to census 2001 it had hit a low growth of merely 18.2 percent as per unadjusted data. In other words, during the previous four decades the growth rate of Sikh population has gone down quite fast, i.e., by nearly 14 percentage points. What is more important is that this declining trend is likely to be maintained for the next 30 to 40 years because of the disproportionately lower percentage of Sikh cohorts in the age-group 0-6 years revealed by the Census 2001. It is time that the Indian people (read Hindus), especially the top politicians and educated classes, started viewing the phenomenon of the skewed population growth of India’s religious groups in the global context. Let us not turn our back on truth. Galloping Muslim population is a global problem, including India. It is already worrying many democratic countries and strategic thinkers. It is time that the broad spectrum of our political leadership and the Indian people knew that the Muslims were only 12 percent of the world population in the year 1900, they grew to 18 percent in 1990, and now the Muslim population is likely to quantum jump to 30 percent of the world population say, any time between 2025 -2030.3 Reproduced below is the Pew Research Center’s global population growth of Muslims compared with other religious groups.4 It has been captioned by the Pew Researchers as ‘Islam Growing Fastest.’ In view of the above mentioned demographic projection by the America-based Pew Research Center no sane man (except lefto-secular chatterati) can deny that the demographic threat to the Hindus and Sikhs of India is immense and imminent, though the present Registrar General of Census may not admit it. Worldwide the projected Muslim growth rate is 73 percent, while that of the Hindus is 34 percent – far less than half of the Muslim growth rate. As revealed by the Census 2011 data the gravest threat, however, is to the Hindu identity of Assam, Kerala and West Bengal – even Uttar Pradesh. Apparently not many TV anchors, nor lefto-secular political leaders of India, know that within the next 50-60 years the ‘Christian’ Europe is likely to become a Muslim majority continent. A warning about the impending coup de grace was given by Niall Ferguson (a contemporary historian and former strategic analyst teaching at Harvard University) in an article published in the Sunday Times, London, in April 2004. Unless the Hindus wake up right now and here they will meet the same fate fairly soon. Some enterprising futuristic analysts like Prof Bat Y’eor of the Brown University have already re-named Europe as ‘Eurabia’. Will Bharat be re-named one day as ‘Bharat-arabia’ ? Well, your guess is as good as mine ! Till two decades ago India was growing at a declining fertility rate of 2.9. Now it is far lower, at least in respect of the Hindu and Sikhs who have adopted the small family norm in an ultra-big way. Do our centre-stage political leaders know that the Prime Minister of the U.K., Tony Blair, had advised years ago the British couples to opt for a 5-children norm, even though at that time the Muslims constituted less than 2 percent of U.K.’s population? And fearful of the growing population of jihad-infested Indonesia the Australian government has advised all couples to make more babies – at least 3, preferably even more. A cash bonus of $2,083 for every baby born after June 2004 had been promised to every couple by Australia’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Peter Costello in the budget allocation for the next year.4 Without taking a global view of the fast changing demography, the Indian nation cannot prepare itself for handling the impact of the speedily skewing population changes in several States on India’s secular and pluralistic ethos and the consequential challenge of the growing jihadist campaigns. Europe is almost paranoid by the fear of the fast-paced growth of Muslim population overtaking the declining Christian numbers. Some demographers, associated with the United Nations Development Programme (U.N.D.P.), have warned that once an anti-natal ethos gets entrenched in a society it tends to become almost irreversible. France, Russia and Germany are three Christian countries trapped in a serious depopulation crisis, are two typical victims of this growing anti-natal ethos in western societies. It is time for a rational and cool-headed analysis of the latest census data in the context of national as well as global developments. Recourse to acerbic remarks like nit-wit malice-mongers, used by some T.V. Anchors and columnists while referring to Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj are poor substitutes for a dispassionate discourse. Only coming decades will tell who are the real incorrigible nit-wits Both in Lebanon and the Balkans the demographic change had a kind of terminator effect on the pluralistic civilizational moorings of the once-upon-a-time Christian territories. Due to adverse demographics the Christians who constituted a majority of Lebanon’s population in 1932 were reduced to a minority within a short span of four decades. While Christians restricted the size of their families, the Muslims did not due to the diktats of their clerics and religious preachers. By 1970 the Christians had landed themselves in a declining fertility rate of 4 children per woman, while the Muslims maintained a steady fertility rate of 6 children per woman. The result was that between 1965 and 1970 Lebanon became a Muslim majority country during a raging civil war. In the ensuing bloodbath and mayhem nearly five million Christians out-migrated within 2-3 years, mostly to Europe and the USA The foregoing facts speak for themselves, even though they defy the prevalent cult of political correctness, deeply ingrained in a section of our country’s secularised middle class and English media. It is difficult to fathom how can they fail to understand that the growing asymmetry in the religious composition of population will surely and seriously undermine the multicultural character of Indian nation in not-too-distant future. Nearer home, they refuse to see the frightening consequences of the sharp demographic changes taking place in the north-eastern region, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on the unity and territorial integrity of India in the context of growing jihadi threat worldwide and in our immediate neighbourhoood. Unfortunately there is very little awakening among the Hindu masses spread over the vast countryside about the impending demographic crisis likely to confront them. In sharp contrast to the somnolent attitude of Hindus, numerous Muslim scholars, community leaders and members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have been openly exhorting the Muslims to reject family planning and continue to opt for large-sized families. ……….. References / Endnotes:
- The Census of India 2001, The First Report on Religion Data, Statement 1-a, p. xxviii.
- Source : Ahtesham Qureshi, The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, July 9, 1995.
- Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations And the Remaking of World Order, p.117, and Spangler, Decline of the West I , pp.93-95].
- [Source: The Future of the World Religions: Population Growth Projections 2010-2050]
- The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, May 13, 2004, p. 1, a news item titled ‘Do It for Country’]
Copyright @ Ram Kumar Ohri
