Thread by @asadowaisi

There are reports that there may be no #census. Under the dynamic & able leadership of Narendra, India is so week that it cannot count its population anymore. Indians managed a census without fail EVERY DECADE, despite higher poverty, instability, external threats than today 1/n

Why doesn’t the govt want to do census before 2024? Maybe because it will be able to avoid caste census. If caste census figures come out, we’ll know exactly how few Upper Castes have cornered most of India’s wealth & left nothing for the vast majority of Indians 2/n

Beneficiaries under Food Security Act are based on 2011 census. Govt has not added new beneficiaries. Experts estimate that at least 10cr have been excluded.
Govt says it’ll wait for new census to increase beneficiaries. If there’s no census, then what happens to the hungry? 3/n

Census is a constitutional necessity for delimitation, SC/ST reserved seats, etc. Even if delimitation is frozen till 2031 census, 2021 census would have helped us understand which states will gain disproportionate number of LS & RS seats at the cost of less populous states 4/n

Census literally means HEADCOUNT of entire country. It can’t be replaced with shady guesstimates based on AADHAAR data. Reports suggest that vax data may be used instead of census. It’s laughable. How can vax data tell us about religious, socio-economic & caste data? 5/n

Like 2011 Census, 2021 Census would have busted the propaganda of “population explosion” or fears of large Muslim population taking over India. If data is likely to be inconvenient, Modi simply stops counting 6/n

Census data is essential because it collects data on languages spoken by various Indians. Rights of linguistic & religious minorities under Articles 29 & 30 depend on their total numbers, not carrying out census harms peoples’ right to exercise their fundamental rights 7/n

Please don’t be triggered by the word “minority”, it includes Hindus who speak minority languages also. We also need to know the status of languages that are endangered or at risk of disappearing. This is only possible with the census 8/n

Census would have helped in designing better policies for disabled (beyond just “renaming” them). It’d have helped upgrade number of poor elderly & women under govt schemes. It is in govt’s interest to keep these numbers low, it’s in national interest to have correct numbers 9/n

Census also helps in tracking inter-state migrants & their economic status. For Prime Ministers with compassion, this data would be essential to prevent disasters like short notice lockdowns that forced thousands to walk back home. But for Modi “no data” is the best excuse 10/n

Most importantly, it’s not only pandemic that’s to blame. Modi’s hair brained idea of linking NPR/NRC with census caused justified suspicion amongst masses. NPR is an illegal exercise that collects identifiable private information, census only collates aggregated data 11/n

Govt has already told parliamentary panel that it can wrap up most census work by 2023-24. Let’s reduce the workload of census enumerators further by not carrying out NPR. With additional govt support & reduced workload...12/n

...I am sure that our census officers can wrap up the exercise before 2024 elections

Let data clearly show how much poverty and joblessness has increased in Modi’s two terms n/n