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Indian Express
6 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
The Census of 1931
The Centre on Wednesday announced that the much delayed Census 2021 will be held in two phases beginning October 1, 2026 and March 1, 2027. This will be the first Census since 1931 to capture granular caste data, beyond the broader classifications of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) that have been enumerated in every post-Independence Census. Some of the debates that took place around the exercise in 1931 continue to be relevant even today. As are questions of methodology, which were discussed in detail in the 518-page report compiled by Census Commissioner John Henry Hutton. Here's a brief history. Context of the Census In 1931, British-ruled India stretched from Baluchistan (Balochistan) in the west to Burma (Myanmar) in the east. Hutton, an ICS officer and an anthropologist by training, wrote about the logistical challenges in his report: 'The taking of the decennial census in India involves the cooperation of more than one-sixth of the world's population over an area of nearly two million square miles [around 50 lakh sq km]… Enumerators' duties were often as onerous physically… [For instance] in Baluchistan the average enumerator had a block of 836 square miles [2,165 sq km]…'. The Raj also faced political challenges. The 1931 Census and preparations for it took place as civil disobedience swept across much of the country. '… [This] census like that of 1921 had the misfortune to coincide with a wave of non-cooperation, and the march of Mr Gandhi and his contrabandistas to invest the salt-pans of Dharasana synchronized with the opening of census operations,' Hutton complained. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 5, 1931, which effectively ended the Civil Disobedience Movement, was signed a week after the date of enumeration on February 27. The Congress boycotted the Census, observing January 11, 1931 as 'Census Boycott Sunday'. Hutton's report, however, claimed that the boycott 'was not taken up with any real enthusiasm' on the ground except for in some cities in Gujarat like 'Ahmadabad (Ahmedabad), Broach (Bharuch) and Surat ' and a few Mumbai suburbs like 'Ghatkopar and and Villaparle (Vile Parle)'. The Congress' boycott, Hutton wrote, 'had very little ultimate effect on the taking of the census'. What did have an effect, however, was the Great Depression and the economic distress it brought. 'It was another of the misfortunes of the 1931 census that it coincided with a fall in revenue and a period of economic depression which…left me no choice but to cut expenditure as fine as possible and to goad my Census Superintendents unremittingly in an attempt to finish sooner and spend less,' Hutton wrote. The 1931 Census cost the exchequer Rs 48.76 lakh compared to roughly Rs 40 lakh spent on the Census a decade previously. Even in absolute terms — not taking inflation into account — the 1931 Census was cheaper per capita than a decade earlier, costing Rs 12.8 per thousand population compared to Rs 14 per thousand population in 1921. One way in which the Census depressed costs was by not paying the nearly 20 lakh enumerators who collected the data. These enumerators, often teachers or low-level government servants, had to collect and collate Census data in addition to other quotidian tasks. Hutton also mentioned other challenges such as the Bhils refusing to have their houses numbered on 'superstitious grounds', and of enumerators in 'less law-abiding places' getting beaten up by locals. At places, enumerators were attacked by wild animals. 'Here and there wild beasts interfered instead of wild men, and the Administrator of Bastar State when inspecting census work on the night itself, was attacked by a tiger, which sprang onto the bonnet of his car, but finding the pace and the radiator too hot for him failed to make an end either of the inspector or his inspection,' Hutton wrote. Key findings of Census The 1931 Census captured crucial demographic data about (undivided) India and its people. 🔴 It found the total population of British India (including Burma and various princely states) to be 35.05 crore, up from 31.89 crores a decade ago. This equated to a decadal population growth rate of 10.6%, much higher than in the last three cycles. (It was 2.2% in 1891-1901, 7.4% in 1901-11, and 1.2% in 1911-21.) Hutton cited significant improvements in public health (particularly a reduction of deaths from the bubonic plague, cholera, and smallpox), an absence of major epidemics and, interestingly, the 'universality of marriage' as the reason for the population growth. '… [It] is enough to point out that in India the birth rate is much higher than in Europe, largely on account of the universality of marriage, the Parsis being perhaps the only Indian community in which late marriage and small families are the rule instead of the exception,' the report noted. 🔴 The distribution of this population, however, was far from uniform. While the overall population density was 85 persons/sq km, Chagai, Baluchistan, had a density of less than 1 person/sq km, the lowest in India. All of Baluchistan had a population density of only 2.5 persons/sq km. On the other hand, Cochin State on the southwestern coast had a population density of 800 persons/sq km, the highest in the country. One particular village in the princely state had a population density 1,635 persons/sq km. Also populous was the Dhaka Division of the province of Bengal, with a population density of 375 persons/sq km. '[The] variation of density of population in India depends not on industry, as in the United Kingdom, but on agriculture, and is greatest of course in the most fertile areas,' Hutton's report said. However, 'the actual rate of increase in population [was] the greatest in the less populated and less fertile areas', it noted. This, Hutton reasoned, was due to dynamics of internal migration. 'Where, therefore, there is a population already dense, there is a clearly perceptible spread towards the less profitable land,' the report said. 🔴 Calcutta (now Kolkata), with a population of 14.85 lakh, was the most populous city in British India, followed by Bombay (Mumbai) with 11.61 lakh, Madras (Chennai) with 6.47 lakh, Hyderabad (4.66 lakh) and Delhi (4.47 lakh). Besides these, Lahore, now in Pakistan, and Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma, were the only other cities that had a population of more than 4 lakh at the time. The enumeration of castes Like in earlier censuses, the 1931 Census enumerated individual castes among the Hindu population. This exercise faced strong opposition in Punjab; even in the previous Census of 1921, a total of 20,993 Hindus — about half of them from Bahawalpur State — had declared their caste as 'unspecified' due to the influence of Arya Samaj. Hutton wrote in his report: '[It is] difficult to see why the record of a fact that actually exists should tend to stabilize that existence. It is just as easy to argue and with at least as much truth, that it is impossible to get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like the proverbial ostrich, and indeed facts themselves demonstrate that in spite of the recognition of caste in previous decades the in institution is of itself undergoing considerable modification. Indeed the treatment of caste at the 1931 census may claim to make a definite, if minute, contribution to Indian unity.' The 1931 Census put 18 questions to respondents, the eighth of which was on 'Race, Tribe or Caste'. This question had appeared in every Census from 1872 — when the first Census was conducted — onward. Thus, in the questionnaire of 1872, the fifth of 17 questions was on 'Caste or Class'; in 1882, the last of 13 questions asked for 'Caste, if Hindu, sect, if of other religion'; in 1891, the fourth of 14 questions was on 'Caste or race-Main caste', and the fifth was on 'Sub-division of caste or race'. In the 20th century, the 1901 and 1911 censuses (16 questions each) had a question on 'Caste of Hindus & Jains, Tribe, or race of others'. In 1921, the eighth of 16 questions was 'Caste, Tribe or Race'. In the 1931 Census, 18.83 lakh people, including 60,715 Hindus, gave the response 'caste nil'; 98% of them were from Bengal. The report said that no return of caste was insisted on from Arya or Brahmo Hindus. Given challenges such as the use of different surnames for the same caste, the Census report noted 'the difficulty of getting a correct return of caste and likewise the difficulty of interpreting it for census purposes'. The Census Superintendent for Madras wrote: 'Had caste terminology the stability of religious returns, caste sorting might be worthwhile. With the fluidity of present appellations it is certainly not… Individual fancy apparently has some part in caste nomenclature.'
Montreal Gazette
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Opinion: King Charles may help Canada escape the worst of Trump
Op Eds By Last week's two-day visit by King Charles III and Queen Camilla to open the 45th parliament of his Canadian domain. was purely symbolic, but pundits far and wide pontificated about the profound significance of the event. That's their job, poor souls. Later this year, probably in September, U.S. President Donald Trump will travel to the United Kingdom for his second state visit, and King Charles will swallow his distaste and welcome him to the U.K. with a clenched smile. Another symbolic event bereft of visible consequences, it would seem, but there is a real and viable strategy behind these events. The whole show is designed to exploit Trump's fascination with the British monarchy. Charles's sole purpose in Canada was to emphasize the sovereignty and separateness of Canada in the face of Trump's insistent claims it should become part of the United States, the 51st state. But why bring in the King of Canada, a title even Charles himself rarely uses? Indeed, why does Canada even have a king? Every country needs a head of state, and most democracies prefer not to have a practising politician in the role. Whether president or monarch, the head of state needs to be above the day-to-day political struggle. Kings, emperors and tyrants used to rule everywhere. They came into vogue when mass societies emerged some 5,000 years ago, and continued in most places until the 18th century or later because democracy was impossible until the advent of mass communications (initially in the form of printing and mass literacy). Countries that won their democracies by revolution, like the United States, replaced their monarch with a president who served as both head of state and executive head of government. Some presidents in other republics were later tempted to use this dual position to seek absolute power, although the U.S. has avoided that problem until recently. Countries that achieved their democracy later and more peacefully, however, often found it simpler just to transform their former monarchs into non-political and impartial heads of state. Kings and queens fill that role in former British-ruled democracies like Canada and Australia and in many other countries from Spain and Sweden to Thailand and Japan. Many people in countries that swapped their kings for presidents long ago still feel a strange attraction to the mystique of the monarchies. The French popular media, for example, follow the doings of the British Royal Family at least as closely as the British do. The mystique of monarchy is as false and deliberately fabricated as an advertising campaign for beauty products. Charles is an intelligent and well-intentioned man working hard for Canada even while under treatment for cancer, but he is not the incarnation of an ancient and sacred past. In fact, when it comes to heredity, I am probably more closely related to King Charles I than King Charles III is. (My ancestors were mostly English and Irish; his, at least on the male line, are mostly German.) Yet the phoney mystique of the British royal family has captivated Trump, so it made perfectly good sense for Prime Minister Mark Carney and the King to conspire in reminding Trump that Canada has a strong royal connection (even if most Canadians don't feel it). It will make equally good sense for Charles to welcome Trump to the United Kingdom in the autumn for an unprecedented second state visit. Trump is a sucker for real power (thus his fanboy admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin), but he is also a sucker for the ceremonies, rituals and trappings of fake power (Charles). Playing the monarchy card might protect both countries from worse treatment at the hands of Trump. After all, this is a man who loves parades in his own honour.
Otago Daily Times
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Fall for the mystique of monarchy
This week, King Charles III and Queen Camilla made a two-day visit to Canada to open the 45th parliament of his Canadian domain. The trip was purely symbolic, but pundits far and wide pontificated about the profound significance of the event. That's their job, poor souls. Later this year, probably in September, Donald Trump will travel to the United Kingdom for his second "state visit", and King Charles will swallow his distaste and welcome him to the UK with a clenched smile. Another symbolic event bereft of visible consequences, but once again the pundits will have to analyse it in search of "results" and "meaning". Yet most of the pundits are not idiots, and neither is the general public. There is clearly a strategy behind these events, and it's safe to discuss it here because Trump will never read this. The whole show is designed to exploit Trump's fascination with the British monarchy. Charles' sole purpose in Canada was to emphasise the sovereignty and separateness of Canada in the face of Trump's insistent claims that it should become part of the United States — the "51st state". Canadians, lulled into complacency by the fact that the US last invaded Canada (unsuccessfully) in 1812, awoke to the harsh reality that the current US president regards the border as an "artificial line". "Somebody did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago," he said, "and [it] makes no sense." So, Trump wants to correct this mistake by absorbing Canada, although so far, he has only talked about crushing Canada's economy to extract the consent of its citizens, not about resorting to physical violence (as he has threatened to do in his other territorial claims against Greenland and Panama). But why bring in the King of Canada, a title even Charles himself rarely uses? Indeed, why does Canada even have a king? Every country needs a head of state, and most democracies prefer not to have a practising politician in the role. Whether president or monarch, the head of state needs to be above the day-to-day political struggle. Kings, emperors and other tyrants used to rule everywhere, of course. They came into vogue when mass societies emerged some 5000 years ago, and continued in most places until the 18th century or later because democracy was impossible until the advent of mass communications (initially in the form of printing and mass literacy). Countries that won their democracies by revolution, like the US, replaced their monarch with a president (the word dates to the American Revolution) who served as both head of state and executive head of government. Some presidents in other republics were later tempted to use this position to seek absolute power, although the US has avoided that problem until recently. Countries that achieved their democracy later and more peacefully, however, often found it simpler just to transform their former monarchs into non-political and impartial heads of state. "Kings" and "queens" fill that role in former British-ruled democracies like Canada, Australia and New Zealand and in many other countries from Spain and Sweden to Thailand and Japan. And the funny thing is that many people in the countries that swapped their kings for presidents long ago still feel a strange attraction to the mystique of the monarchies. The French popular media, for example, follow the doings of the British Royal Family at least as closely as the British do. The mystique of monarchy is as false and deliberately fabricated as an advertising campaign for beauty products. King Charles III is an intelligent and well-intentioned man working hard for Canada even while under treatment for cancer, but he is not the incarnation of an ancient and sacred past. In fact, when it comes to heredity, even I am probably more closely related to King Charles I than King Charles III is. (My ancestors were mostly English and Irish; his, at least on the male line, are mostly German.) Yet the phony mystique of the British royal family has captivated Trump, so it made perfectly good sense for Prime Minister Mark Carney and King Charles III to conspire in reminding Trump that Canada has a strong royal connection (even if most Canadians don't feel it). And it will make equally good sense for Charles to welcome Trump to the UK this year for an unprecedented second state visit. Trump is a sucker for real power (e.g. his fanboy admiration for Vladimir Putin), but he is just as much a sucker for the ceremonies, rituals and trappings of fake power (Charles). Playing the monarchy card might protect both countries from worse treatment at the hands of Trump. After all, this is a man who loves parades in his own honour. — Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
Irish Independent
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
The Irish Independent's view: Diplomacy must find answer to potentially catastrophic dispute between India and Pakistan
Seething tensions over the disputed Kashmir region date from 1947. India has long accused Pakistan of fomenting separatist violence. Once a princely state, Kashmir today is a heavily-militarised zone administered by India. Blood has been spilled there almost since the once British-ruled subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. It was the killing of 25 Indian tourists and a Kashmiri man last month that created the current flashpoint. Kashmir has triggered fighting between the two countries before, in 1947, 1965 and 1999, and between India and China in 1962. What is so frightening is that both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Pakistan and India each possess about 170 nuclear warheads. Neither country is a signatory to the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, yet somehow the case for preventing nuclear proliferation has slid down the list of priorities on the global agenda. In response to India's attack, the Pakistani government said it had authorised its military to take measures 'corresponding' to the country's 'self-defence, at a time, place and manner of its choosing'. It is going to take something more nuanced than plaintive pleas for calm to walk this crisis back India's assault was its most extensive in decades, with Pakistan claiming 26 people had been killed. The situation is on a knife-edge, with India carrying out mock drills, simulated air raids and fire emergencies. They are the first such nationwide operations since 1971. Donald Trump called the strikes 'a shame' and said he hoped the conflict 'ends very soon'. China has appealed to both sides to de-escalate tensions, but it is going to take something more nuanced than plaintive pleas for calm to walk this crisis back. Kashmir is India's sole Muslim-majority region, but in 2019, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi stripped it of its semi-autonomous status. It is claimed by both India and Pakistan, but divided between. A decades-long insurgency has claimed thousands of lives. The stand-off has defied all attempts at resolution. The absence of a credible international mediator makes it all the more worrying. America's withdrawal from its role as international policeman has left a vacuum. The often-derided Ronald Reagan said: 'Our moral imperative is to work with all our powers for that day when the children of the world grow up without the fear of nuclear war.' The stakes are simply too high for New Delhi or Islamabad to make a miscalculation. Diplomacy must come into play if off-ramps are to be found. Getting sucked into an escalatory cycle would be catastrophic.
New Straits Times
07-05-2025
- Politics
- New Straits Times
Dozens killed as India and Pakistan clash in worst violence in decades
MUZAFFARABAD, PAKISTAN: India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier on Wednesday, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival, marking the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in two decades. At least 34 deaths have been reported, with Islamabad claiming 26 civilians were killed by Indian strikes and border fire, while New Delhi reported at least eight fatalities from Pakistani shelling. The attack followed accusations by New Delhi that Islamabad supported a deadly assault on the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir. The South Asian rivals have fought multiple wars since their partition from British-ruled India in 1947. The latest escalation surpasses India's 2019 strikes, when New Delhi claimed to have hit "several militants" after a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel. The Indian army declared "justice is served", reporting that nine "terrorist camps" had been destroyed. New Delhi insisted its actions were "focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature." Pakistan's Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to "shore up" his domestic popularity but confirmed that Islamabad had retaliated. "The retaliation has already started," Asif told AFP. "We won't take long to settle the score." Military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry claimed five Indian jets had been shot down across the border. An Indian senior security source, speaking anonymously, confirmed that three Indian fighter jets had crashed within Indian territory. AFP photographers captured images of one aircraft's wreckage in Wuyan, on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir. In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, troops cordoned off streets around a mosque that Islamabad said had been hit. Blast marks were visible on nearby homes. Pakistan reported 21 civilian deaths in the missile strikes – including four children – and five more killed by gunfire at the border. India's army accused Pakistan of "indiscriminate" firing across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir. "We woke up to the sound of gunfire," said Farooq, a man from the Indian town of Poonch, speaking to the Press Trust of India from his hospital bed, his head bandaged. "I saw shells raining down." AFP reporters in the town witnessed bursts of flame as shells exploded. At least eight Indians were killed and 29 others injured in Poonch, according to local revenue officer Azhar Majid. India was widely expected to respond militarily to the 22 April attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir by gunmen it says belonged to the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation. The attack in the tourist area of Pahalgam killed 26 people, mostly Hindu men. New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing the assailants, prompting a series of heated threats and tit-for-tat diplomatic measures. Pakistan has rejected the allegations and called for an independent investigation. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described India's strikes as a "heinous act of aggression" that would "not go unpunished" and convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee in Islamabad on Wednesday. The two sides have reportedly exchanged nightly gunfire along the LoC since 24 April, according to the Indian army. Pakistan also said it has conducted two missile tests. "Escalation between India and Pakistan has already reached a larger scale than during the last major crisis in 2019, with potentially dire consequences," said Praveen Donthi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Diplomatic pressure is mounting on both sides to step back. "The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a statement. US President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington he hoped the conflict "ends very quickly". US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had spoken with top security officials in both New Delhi and Islamabad since the strikes and was monitoring the situation "closely." Expressions of concern have come from around the world, including China – a mutual neighbour – as well as Britain, France, and Russia. Airlines have cancelled, diverted or rerouted flights in the region. In Indian-administered Kashmir, rebels have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking either independence or union with Pakistan. India frequently accuses its neighbour of backing armed groups operating in Kashmir – charges Islamabad consistently denies. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected in New Delhi on Wednesday, just two days after visiting Islamabad, as Tehran attempts to mediate.
