It's a
monumental effort. The census workers — most of them school teachers armed with
clipboards and computer surveys — are out negotiating skyscrapers, navigating
farm roads and forest paths, visiting village huts and knocking on slum doors
to find everyone they can before the census deadline of March 1. Anyone older
than 15 must be questioned.
“There is
so little time,” one census worker said, tapping his temple. “This mind will
bifurcate in two pieces! But it is the national work. It must be done.” And
this year, following a decade of liberalization and unprecedented economic
growth, there is an eagerness among many citizens to participate. They know the
10-year census may help authorities identify areas where neglect is high, where
poverty is particularly rife and where high numbers of people are unable to
read or to work.
“It can
lead to help for the poor and maybe help establish some reforms,” said
16-year-old Jatin Anand, who excitedly signed off on his first census survey in
the cramped New Delhi neighborhood of Baljeet Nagar.
His
mother, Meena, agreed. “We also come to know about the children ... their
education, services,” she said.
This is
the second census phase, with the first last year listing some 300 million
Indian households. Baljeet Nagar holds some 7,000 of those homes, many no wider
than their front door and divided by narrow alleys strewn with garlands of
laundry lines and loose electrical wires.
Former
army soldier Hira Lal, sitting on the broken concrete steps of his modest home,
said he hoped the census would lead to better benefits. “The way inflation is
going, maybe they will see a need to raise pensions,” the 67-year-old Lal said.
Meanwhile,
41-year-old Geeta Ajmatkhan, who fully considers herself a Delhiite after 21 years
in the capital, hopes the demographic information prompts more social control
for cities overwhelmed by a constant influx of migrant workers.
“The
census is a good way of finding out who has been staying in Delhi, who is
coming from outside and who is creating a nuisance,” Ajmatkhan said.
There are
89 teachers assigned to canvass Baljeet Nagar, and for the first time they will
be considering that women may be the heads of their households, rather than
just men.
“It makes
me happy to participate and be counted as part of the country,” said Veena
Suri, 47, smiling as she tossed the end of her woolen shawl over her thick
shoulder.
The
census now asks for actual birth dates, to avoid respondents giving only
approximate ages. If someone can remember only that they were born, say, during
a certain festival in 1934, it's up to the census worker to find out what date
that is.
For the
first time, the census is noting whether people live in mud huts or concrete
structures, have electricity or access to toilets and if they have ever been to
school even if they don't go anymore — key questions for a country with some
800 million people living in poverty.
The
millions of homeless sleeping on railway platforms, under bridges and in parks
will be last counted on the evening of Feb. 28, with revisions conducted until
March 5 and the final census reports published over the next two years.
“There's
a very wide range of socio-economic data being collected,” touching on literacy
and education levels, work and fertility, marriage and migration, New Delhi
census director Varsha Joshi said. There are 15 official languages apart from
English to note, and myriad religions represented. New categories for
disability and “third-gender” are part of an effort to make the count more accurate
and culturally relevant.
“All
these together ... They give a complete social picture of the country,” Joshi
said.
The
disabled now have eight categories to qualify their condition. Prostitutes will
be listed as having “other” employment rather than as “beggars.” The
transgender community, which has long hoped for more social acceptance, is
being given an “other” option under gender apart from “male” and “female.” The
results will give India a firm count for its “third-gender” hijra community.
Having a
third-gender option in the census “was a demand from the community,” Joshi
said. “They wanted their numbers to be counted.” India's president, the
government, religious leaders and NGOs for the homeless and disabled have all
urged people to stand and be counted so their needs might be better met.
Officials
are even counting foreigners including sailors docked in Indian ports and
inmates locked up at Indian prisons such as Pakistani Ajmal Kasab, who is
sentenced to death for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
But there
are some who won't make the roster — the children of unwed mothers.
Authorities
deemed it too culturally insensitive to have their census workers ask unmarried
women if they have kids — a situation rare enough, they say, to be numerically
insignificant. In India, arranged marriage is still largely the norm, and
nearly 45 percent of girls are married by the time they're 18, according to the
last census in 2001.
Another
topic deemed too sensitive for this year's census was that of caste, which will
be surveyed separately later this year as officials try to understand how
deeply society still reflects the millennia-old Hindu custom dividing people in
a strict social hierarchy based on their family's traditional livelihood and
ethnicity.
Census
officials worried the sensitive subject of caste in multicultural and secular
India could upset the results of the population count.
