Maths of progress

The stalling of the census operations in Jammu and Kashmir following the ban announced by the Hizb-ul Mujahideen is, indeed, unfortunate. Although the Hizb claims that it is suspicious of the genuineness of the census count, the real reason for its opposition is obvious. A successfully conducted census operations, like free and fair elections, confers credibility on the political system. That is a risk that a pro-Pakistan, militant outfit, fighting a separatist battle, cannot afford to take. In this regard, the Hurriyat8217;s chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani8217;s comment is much more candid: quot;We do not accept the authority of India.quot; Moreover, the apprehension among some sections that the Census is being manipulated to change the minority character of Jamp;K, sounds too conspiratorial to be true.Acirc;micro;The figures dished out from the 1981 Census, by former Union minister Saifuddin Soz, to show that while the population growth rate of Hindus in most districts of Jammu are growing by leaps and bounds, that of the Muslims are either growing gradually or even falling are, indeed, interesting. They need to be re-examined scrupulously. If these figures are fudged, some heads in the Census bureau must roll. But they could be on account of genuine mistakes, like structural problems of undercount of subaltern groups, or could be pointers towards large-scale population movements. Comparative figures in the Valley might help to solve the enigma. A political crisis, with undertones of sectarianism, is likely to have differential impact on different communities forcing them to move in divergent directions. Economic forces can have similar results. After all, racial tensions in Western Europe and the US have led to the emergence of ethnic neighbourhood ghettoes as economic prosperity has led to the phenomena ofsuburbanisation.Acirc;micro;The regular occurrence of violence in Jamp;K is tragic, the stalling of its census operations is, indeed, no less so. For some, the Census is simply a dull and tedious method of estimating population. But in reality, the exercise is the very basis of development. All the essential information about a population, its economic, cultural as well as social parameters emerges from the Census data. In this regard, India is perhaps the only developing country in the world where census operations have been carried out without a break for over a century. All the decennial censuses have followed the traditional, time-tested, head count method. Today, given the practical problems of conducting a Census count in a region threatened by militancy, and with enumerators fearing for their lives, a possible solution lies in counting through the survey method. Other than Census, almost all other estimates, whether of poverty or of prosperity, of political preferences or of market choices, are carried out through survey techniques.Moreover, statistical theory today argues the advantages of the survey over head count measures. In the tradition of making a virtue out of necessity, Jamp;K would be a good start. The absence of the census count can potentially have severely negative consequences for the region: it not only falls off the demographic, but the development map of the country.