How Census 2027 could alter India's political landscape

The Centre on Wednesday (June 4) announced the schedule for conducting Census 2027. Since then, questions have come flying thick and fast on various aspects of the population enumeration exercise that has been pending since 2021 and also on the politically critical issues such as delimitation, caste enumeration and rollout of women’s reservation, all of which are now directly tied to the Census.

The Census timeline

As per the statement of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the gazette notification for Census 2027 will be issued on June 16. This would officially initiate the groundwork for the enumeration exercise, which will be conducted in two phases and be completed by March 2027.

Also read | Population Census: Opposition flummoxed, sees it as a BJP ploy

For the first time since the 1931 Census, the enumeration exercise will also record castes of all citizens, fulfilling an unwavering demand of Opposition parties from the INDIA bloc. Since castes will be enumerated alongside the population for the first time in nearly a century (currently caste-wise data is only collected for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes), the Census Registrar will also have to finalise the new format for collecting data.

The collection of data will also be done digitally for the first time since the decennial exercise began in undivided India 144 years ago in 1881.

The reference date for the first phase, which will cover the Union Territory of Ladakh and snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, is October 1, 2026, while for the rest of the country, it has been fixed at March 1, 2027. This, official sources say, means that both house listing and counting of population, along with caste enumeration, will have to conclude by March 1, 2027, for the entire country.

Once the provisional data is compiled, the next stage would be to rid it of any discrepancies. MHA sources say while the compilation of provisional data will not take more than one month after the enumeration process is concluded as the counting process is to be done digitally, the process to remove discrepancies could take up to anywhere between six to eight months. The overall exercise, MHA sources say, is likely to span over “at least the next three years”.

It is, however, only after the final data from the two phases is collected that the more consequential questions of its likely implication on India’s future course, be it on policy-making or politics will come into play.

Delimitation exercise

The most politically turbulent consequence of Census 2027, many in the Opposition believe, would be on delimitation of parliamentary constituencies and the extent to which it could potentially rob many states, especially from southern India, of their political capital in Parliament.

Though sources in the MHA have been insisting, without offering any counter explanation, that Census 2027 should not be “immediately linked” to delimitation, Opposition leaders such as DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and Congress veteran P Chidambaram, have voiced their concern on the “the dangers of delimitation on the basis of proportional representation (one person, one vote)”.

Delimitation is the exercise of redrawing and readjusting the seats of Lok Sabha and state Assemblies. This readjustment, as per the original text of Article 82 of the Constitution, was mandated to happen after every Census. The Article was, however, amended twice – first in 1976 under the Indira Gandhi-led Congress regime and then in 2001 when then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee helmed the NDA government – to suspend the readjustment of number of seats. The amendment made in 2001 froze the readjustment process till the “first Census taken after the year 2026”.

Oppn’s apprehensions

The fear of Opposition parties that the upcoming Census will pave the way for delimitation is thus valid. Given that the forthcoming Census will conclude in 2027, it will meet the constitutional requirement for starting the delimitation process: “first Census taken after the year 2026”.

Subsequently, the Centre will have to bring a Delimitation Bill for consideration and passing by Parliament. A Delimitation Commission will need to be set up to carry out the entire exercise of redrawing and readjusting constituencies in consultation with various stakeholders.

This is, arguably, the trickiest stage as the Centre will need to explain the formula that could likely be adopted for delimitation. Since a potential increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats in each state is expected to be directly tethered to its population, states such as Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, among others, which have all had varying degrees of success in controlling their population as opposed to Bihar or Uttar Pradesh that have failed to achieve similar results, are likely to protest this skewed and unfair readjustment.

Also read | Stalin slams Modi govt's decision to defer Census exercise to 2027

Some Opposition parties are of the view that any delimitation exercise should, at least for the time being, limit the readjustment process only to Assemblies and leave the present Lok Sabha strength of 543 seats unaltered. Whether the Centre will be willing to accept such a formula to meet the Opposition halfway on the delimitation exercise as a conciliatory move is unclear.

Women reservation rollout

The delimitation exercise is also a prerequisite for rolling out the 33 per cent reservation to be made for women in Lok Sabha and assemblies of states and Union Territories as per the Women Reservation Act (Naari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had got hurriedly passed by Parliament through a special session in September 2023.

Apart from deciding which seats are to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as per the currently prevalent quota system in Lok Sabha, the Delimitation Commission will also have to decide which seats to reserve for women.

The other critical question that the Centre, the Delimitation Commission and the Opposition parties will need to grapple with is whether reservation of seats for women will follow the same system as the one followed for SCs and STs, i.e. reserving the seat till the next comprehensive delimitation exercise, or follow the pattern adopted in several states for reservations in urban and rural local bodies where seats are reserved by drawing lots in every election cycle.

Caste enumeration

In a surprise move last month, the Centre had sought to appropriate a key poll plank of Opposition parties such as the Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD and DMK by approving caste enumeration for the upcoming Census. The decision of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), chaired by the prime minister, had stunned many since Modi and his BJP had repeatedly dubbed Opposition’s calls for a nationwide caste census as being divisive and called the backers of such a move “Urban Naxals”.

The CCPA’s decision, however, gave no other details of how castes are to be enumerated in the census. Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and sundry other Opposition leaders from the INDIA bloc have been insisting that for a Caste Census to be truly meaningful and consequential, it needs to record castes not just in umbrella terms of SC, ST, OBC or forward castes but also enumerate sub-castes along with economic status. This, the Opposition argues, is imperative for getting a clear picture of where people of not just broad caste groups but also the sub-castes within them stand on socio-economic indices so that future policy prescription and public representation can be aligned with these findings.

Also read | No reason to postpone Census by another 23 months: Congress

The Centre has remained tight-lipped on what formula it would adopt for caste enumeration and whether it is open to partially or fully accept the Opposition’s suggestion. MHA sources say caste enumeration under Census 2027 would “most likely” not list sub-castes of backward castes or even forward castes and instead categorise people as SC, ST, Backward Caste and Forward/Upper Caste. Such an enumeration would be “unacceptable” to the Opposition, several INDIA bloc leaders have pointed out repeatedly.

Delimitation, women’s quota

Since the publication of the final Census data is likely to take up to three years, MHA sources say the likelihood of a change in the number of Lok Sabha seats, which can only happen post delimitation, or rolling out women reservation with the 2029 Lok Sabha polls is very slim.

It is, however, plausible that the Centre may at least try to get the Delimitation Act passed by Parliament ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha polls to pave the way for setting up the Delimitation Commission and proceeding with the delimitation and exercise and reservation of seats for women soon after the next Lok Sabha polls conclude.

This could allow the Modi government to go into polls claiming that women reservation rollout was now on the horizon and also that its pet project of synchronising Lok Sabha polls with elections to Assemblies and civic bodies (a Bill for which is currently under the scrutiny of a Joint Parliamentary Committee) will also take off soon.