British Rule
The decennial census of India has been conducted 15 times, as of 2011. While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881. [1] Post 1949, it has been conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. All the censuses since 1951 were conducted under the 1948 Census of India Act, which predates the Constitution of India. [2] The 1948 Census of India Act does not bind the Union Government to conduct the census on a particular date or to release its data in a notified period. The last census was held in 2011, whilst the next was to be held in 2021 before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. [3] The next census is expected to be begin in September 2024. [4]
List of censuses conducted in India after independence:
India is the most populous country in the world with one-sixth of the world's population. According to estimates from the United Nations (UN), India has overtaken China as the country with the largest population in the world, with a population of 1,425,775,850 at the end of April 2023.
Punjab, also known as the Land of the Five Rivers, is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is specifically located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern-Pakistan and northwestern-India. Punjab's major cities are Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Sialkot, Chandigarh, Shimla, Jalandhar, Patiala, Gurugram, and Bahawalpur.
Mahe, also known as Mayyazhi, is a small town in the Mahe district of the Puducherry Union Territory. It is situated at the mouth of the Mahe River and is surrounded by the State of Kerala. The Kannur district surrounds Mahe on three sides and Kozhikode district from one side.
The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designated in one or other of the categories. For much of the period of British rule in the Indian subcontinent, they were known as the Depressed Classes.
The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947, which also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan—comprising the regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India remained "India" in common parlance but was geographically reduced. Under the Act, the British government relinquished all responsibility for administering its former territories. The government also revoked its treaty rights with the rulers of the princely states and advised them to join in a political union with India or Pakistan. Accordingly, the British monarch's regnal title, "Emperor of India," was abandoned.
East Punjab was a province of India from 1947 until 1950. It consisted parts of the Punjab province that remained in India following the partition of the province between the new dominions of Pakistan and the Indian Union by the Radcliffe Commission in 1947. The mostly Muslim western parts of the old Punjab became Pakistan's West Punjab, later renamed as Punjab Province, while the mostly Hindu and Sikh eastern parts remained with India.
Hinduism is the largest and most practised religion in India. According to the Studies of 2024 1.16 billion people identify as Hindu, representing 80.8% of the country's population. India contains 94% of the global Hindu population. The vast majority of Indian Hindus belong to Shaivite, Vaishnavite and Shakta denominations. India is one of the three countries in the world where Hinduism is the dominant religion.
The official religion of Pakistan is Islam, as enshrined by Article 2 of the Constitution, and is practised by an overwhelming majority of 96.35% of the country's population. The remaining 3.65% practice Hinduism, Christianity, Ahmadiyya(considered non-Muslims by the Pakistani constitution), Sikhism and other religions.
Punjab is home to 2.3% of India's population; with a density of 551 persons per km2. According to the provisional results of the 2011 national census, Punjab has a population of 27,743,338, making it the 16th most populated state in India. Of which male and female are 14,639,465 and 13,103,873 respectively. 32% of Punjab's population consists of Dalits. In the state, the rate of population growth is 13.9% (2011), lower than national average. Out of total population, 37.5% people live in urban regions. The total figure of population living in urban areas is 10,399,146 of which 5,545,989 are males and while remaining 4,853,157 are females. The urban population in the last 10 years has increased by 37.5%. According to the 2011 Census of India, Punjab, India has a population of around 27.7 million.
Religion in the Punjab in ancient history was characterized by Hinduism and later conversions to Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism and Christianity; it also includes folk practices common to all Punjabis regardless of the religion they adhere to. Such practices incorporate local mysticism, including ancestral worship and worship of local saints of all faiths.
The 2011 census of India or the 15th Indian census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information for National Population Register (NPR) was also collected in the first phase, which will be used to issue a 12-digit unique identification number to all registered Indian residents by Unique Identification Authority of India. The second population enumeration phase was conducted between 9 and 28 February 2011. Census has been conducted in India since 1872 and 2011 marks the first time biometric information was collected. According to the provisional reports released on 31 March 2011, the Indian population increased to 1.21 billion with a decadal growth of 17.70%. Adult literacy rate increased to 74.04% with a decadal growth of 9.21%. The motto of the census was Our Census, Our Future.
Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, founded in 1961 by the Government of India Ministry of Home Affairs, for arranging, conducting and analysing the results of the demographic surveys of India including Census of India and Linguistic Survey of India. The position of Registrar is usually held by a civil servant holding the rank of Joint Secretary.
Evangelization of Meghalaya began in the 19th century during the British era. In the 1830s, American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society had become active in Northeast to evangelize indigenous tribes to Christianity. Later, they were offered to expand and reach into Sohra Meghalaya, but they lacked the resources to do so and declined. Welsh Presbyterian Mission took the offer and they began work at Sohra mission field. By the early 1900s, other Protestant denominations of Christianity were active in Meghalaya. The outbreak of World Wars forced the preachers to return home to Europe and America. It is during this period that Catholicism took root in Meghalaya and neighbouring region. Currently, Catholics, Presbyterians and Baptists are three most common Christian denominations found in Meghalaya.
In 2011, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics conducted a national census in Bangladesh, which provided a provisional estimate of the total population of the country as 142,319,000. The previous decennial census was the 2001 census. Data were recorded from all of the districts and upazilas and main cities in Bangladesh, including statistical data on population size, households, sex and age distribution, marital status, economically active population, literacy and educational attainment, religion, number of children etc. Bangladesh and India also conducted their first joint census of areas along their border in 2011. According to the census, Hindus constituted 8.5 per cent of the population as of 2011, down from 9.6 per cent in the 2001 census.
Census in British India refers to the census of India prior to independence which was conducted periodically from 1865 to 1941. The censuses were primarily concerned with administration and faced numerous problems in their design and conduct ranging from the absence of house numbering in hamlets to cultural objections on various grounds to dangers posed by wild animals to census personnel. The sociologist Michael Mann called the census exercise "more telling of the administrative needs of the British than of the social reality for the people of British India". The differences in the nature of Indian society during the British Raj from the value system and the societies of the West were highlighted by the inclusion of "caste", "religion", "profession" and "age" in the data to be collected, as the collection and analysis of that information had a considerable impact on the structure and politics of Indian society.
The 1951 census of India was the ninth in a series of censuses held in India every decade since 1872. It was also the first census after independence and Partition of India. 1951 census was also the first census to be conducted under 1948 Census of India Act. The first census of the Indian Republic began on February 10, 1951.
The Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC) was conducted for the 2011 Census of India. The Manmohan Singh government approved the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 to be carried out after discussion in both houses of Parliament in 2010. SECC-2011 was not done under the 1948 Census of India Act and the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India was not entrusted to do the same. The SECC 2011 was conducted in all states and union territories of India and the first findings were revealed on 3 July 2015 by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. SECC 2011 is also the first paperless census in India conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government in 640 districts. The rural development ministry has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programmes such as MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana. SECC 2011 was the first caste-based census since 1931 Census of India, and it was launched on 29 June 2011 from the Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura district.
The 2024 census of India, or the 16th Indian census, is to be conducted in two phases, a house listing phase and a population enumeration phase. Although initially the house listing was to begin in April 2020 along with the updating of the National Population Register, and the population enumeration on 9 February 2021, they have been continuously postponed. Initially the house listing was to be conducted between April and September 2020, with population enumeration in February 2021 and a revision round in March 2021. The reference date was to be 1 March 2021 in most of the states and 1 October 2020 for Jammu and Kashmir and some areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. On 2 January 2023, Additional Registrar General of India communicated to all the states that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries had been extended till 30 June 2023. The 16th census can only begin three months after the administrative boundaries have been frozen. The completion of the census in its two phases takes at least 11 months, so the possibility of the completion of this decennial census exercise in 2024 or early 2025 is ruled out, as the census is expected to begin in September 2024.
Media related to Censuses in India at Wikimedia Commons
