Beyond the hard numbers

Often during Census, enumeration enters the realm of the intangible and the unexpected

December 26, 2021 12:55 am | Updated 12:55 am IST

The already-overdue Census 2021 is expected to be launched soon. As an official associated with censuses for decades both in the country and abroad, I like to reminisce about some of the amusing sidelights of the mammoth exercise.

Traditionally, a Census questionnaire does not include sensitive or controversial questions in the interest of a smooth and successful process. The first question the enumerator has to ask in a household is the name of its head. Occasionally, he has to wait as the family members enter into a discussion on the choice of the head.

Age-old problem

Collection of age data has always been a challenge. In the past, the number of people who did not know their own age was innumerable. When interviewing such persons, enumerators were at their wits’ end trying to figure out their age.

Sometimes funny situations crop up due to semantics. A middle-aged man in a village gave his marital status as “separated” in answer to the question whether he was single, married, widowed, divorced, or separated (not legally).

On learning that the respondent’s wife was briefly away at her son’s house in a neighbouring town, the enumerator, with a wry smile on his face, ticked the entry “Married”.

While winding up her interview in a household, an enumerator’s observant eye caught the sight of an infant in a cradle. She had to convince the mother, who deliberately withheld the information of her newborn baby, that census meant a full count and had to include even a one-day-old baby.

More often than not men, were chary in disclosing the economic activities of their wives. The husbands’ stock answer was, “She is doing only household work”, though the women might have been working on a farm or in some other occupation. It is, therefore, no wonder a fair proportion of women is conspicuous by their absence in the labour force statistics.

During the course of his inspection at the commencement of the Census in a town, a supervisor was shocked to find a 12-year-old boy enumerating a household. It transpired that his class teacher who was the trainedenumerator had asked him to complete the census schedules on her behalf.

The flabbergasted supervisor warned the defaulter and got the work completed by her. Instructions were immediately circulated to all field staff discouraging such a practice. Teachers have a point. Their main grievance is that they are often loaded with non-teaching jobs in the name of national interest. Yet the time-honoured practice of appointing teachers for Census work continues to this day.

Erring on language

In one of the censuses in Chennai, an enumerator erroneously got a few forms in Hindi instead of in Tamil. He had decided to return them to the office at the end of the day.

However, a respondent noticed those forms in the enumerator’s kit and dashed a letter to a newspaper which was published the next day under the headline “Imposition of Hindi through the Census”. The Census office had to immediately send a rejoinder.

At a press conference got up for releasing the preliminary results of a Census, one of the participants expressed his doubt about the exercise, saying he was missed out. To his utter surprise, even before the meeting ended, the original filled-in form of his family with his name and particulars intact was shown to him. It had the signature of his son who had furnished the particulars to the enumerator in his absence.

Apart from the subtle humour they offer, some of these musings reveal that it is only with the cooperation of the enumerators and the public that a Census could be done smoothly.

Census 2021 will be more challenging than its previous versions as it will be done digitally. A decision is pending with the Centre on the widespread demand to remove questions on the date and place of birth of a respondent’s parents from the National Population Register.

For people with non-binary gender identity in India, Census 2011 is memorable as it collected for the first time data for the “third gender”, meeting their long-time demand.

The writer is a former Deputy

Registrar-General (Census)

ramaraon2014@gmail.com

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