The census, a critical exercise for a welfare State, seems to have disappeared through the cracks in the memory of India’s ruling regime. India’s last census was conducted in 2011; the pandemic, the Narendra Modi government has stated repeatedly, has delayed the next census. Data now suggest that India, shamefully, finds itself among the 44 nations out of 233 countries that have not conducted their census. Incidentally, of the 189 countries that completed their census, 143 did so after the Covid-19 pandemic had struck; what explains India’s inability to do the same then? Some of the laggards have legitimate excuses for the delay. Conflict, internal strife, economic crisis or civil war account for these countries failing to conduct their census. India is not affected by any of these exigencies. Yet, among the world’s most populous nations, India shares the dubious distinction of not having done its census with only Nigeria for company; it is also the only country to be without a recent census among the nations that constituted the BRICS grouping originally.

India delaying its census comes with its own costs for its welfarism. The census exercise is crucial for policies to correctly identify and then reach targeted beneficiaries. The absence of such data thus has the potential of undermining the impact of programmes meant for the upliftment of India’s poor. The consumption survey of 2022-23, a reliable indicator of the pattern of consumption of goods and services, was forced to use the 2011 Census for its sampling, as did the National Family Health Survey of 2019-2021. There is concern that 100 million people have been left out of the National Food Security Act given the reliance on outdated data. The new government does not have the luxury to sit on the census: it must be finished at the earliest. Further delays would raise credible questions about the Central government’s commitment to the principle of public welfare itself. The Opposition, which has claimed to be the voice of the people of India, must ensure that the leaden-footed regime does what is necessary to put the census on the table.