Govt has deferred Census in Manipur amid calls for NRC to be carried out

Why in the News

The Union government has decided to defer the 2027 Census in Manipur. The decision followed a meeting of the Union Home Minister with the Governor and the Chief Minister of Manipur, and the State government said it came out of discussions on the demand that the Census be held only after a National Register of Citizens (NRC), a register of persons verified as Indian citizens, is implemented in the State. Meitei and Naga organisations want citizenship settled before any population figure is recorded. Kuki-Zo organisations want the reverse order, arguing that the Census is the credible data source against which citizenship allegations should be tested. The count is contested because the same figures will eventually decide how Assembly seats are shared between the valley and the hills.

Why is the Census being opposed?

1. Citizenship and demographic change: Meitei civil society groups in the valley and Naga communities in the hill districts allege that migration from Myanmar and elsewhere has altered Manipur’s demographic composition. They want an exercise distinguishing Indian citizens from illegal immigrants before population figures are recorded.
2. Displacement from the ethnic conflict: Thousands remain displaced more than three years after the violence that began in May 2023. Meitei groups say a count taken while people live away from their homes would record the consequences of displacement rather than the underlying population pattern.
3. Political representation: Census figures will eventually govern delimitation, and Manipur has had no fresh delimitation implemented since the 1970s.

How old is the NRC demand?

1. It predates the current conflict: The demand existed before the May 2023 violence, and the influx from Myanmar and the conflict later gave it a sharper political and security dimension.
2. A joint memorandum in 2022: In June 2022 the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), representing Meitei civil society, and the United Naga Council (UNC) jointly demanded an NRC and a State Population Commission.
3. The Assembly endorsed it twice: The Manipur Assembly adopted a resolution seeking both on 5 August 2022, and reaffirmed it on 1 March 2024.
4. The growth figures the resolution cited: The resolution recorded population growth of 153.3 percent between 1971 and 2001 and 250.9 percent between 2001 and 2011 in the hill districts, against 94.8 percent and 125.4 percent respectively in the valley. Those figures do not by themselves establish illegal immigration.
5. An institution was created: The State government constituted the Manipur State Population Commission in February 2023.

What did the Myanmar crisis add?

1. Displacement across the border: Fighting in Myanmar’s Chin State and adjoining areas after the 2021 military coup drove thousands across the border into India.
2. Ethnic links on both sides of the border: Many of those arriving belonged to Chin and related communities with ethnic and familial ties to the Kuki-Zomi population in Manipur.
3. The State government’s framing: The Manipur government linked the influx to new settlements, poppy cultivation, encroachment and demographic change.
4. The counter position: Kuki organisations disputed that framing, arguing that legitimate Indian citizens were being conflated with recent arrivals from Myanmar.
5. A border policy change: The Centre scrapped the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar in February 2024, citing security and demographic concerns.

What are the Meitei and Naga groups demanding now?

1. A fixed sequence: The UNC stated on 18 August, “NRC first: No Census, No Delimitation Before Implementation of NRC in Manipur.”
2. An old base year: It demanded an NRC with 1951 as the base year, followed by the Census and then delimitation.
3. The demand cuts across party lines: The State Congress president, himself a former Chief Minister, supported the demand for an NRC before the Census on 19 and 20 August, placing the two main parties broadly on the same side.

Why do the Kuki-Zo groups oppose it?

1. A national exercise, not a State one: The Kuki-Zo Council called an NRC before the Census “premature and unjustified”, stating on 23 August that there is no provision for a community or a State government to unilaterally initiate a separate NRC in one State.
2. Allegations should be tested against data: It argued that the demand rests on unsubstantiated allegations about the Kuki-Zo community, and that such claims should be tested against credible demographic data. The Census is the appropriate source of that data.
3. It supports delimitation on verified data: The Council has backed delimitation once verified demographic figures exist.
4. The documentary cut off is the underlying fear: Kuki, Zomi and Chin communities straddle the India-Myanmar border, so a register built on an old documentary cut off could raise doubts about people who have lived in Manipur for generations.

Why does delimitation matter so much here?

1. The present seat split: Manipur has 60 Assembly seats, 40 in the valley and 20 in the hills.
2. The demographic map behind it: The State’s 16 districts divide broadly into hills, where Nagas and Kuki-Zomis predominate, and the valley, where Meiteis are in the majority.
3. The map is more than fifty years old: The present political map goes back to the 1973 delimitation, which was based on the 1971 Census.
4. Manipur was left out of the last exercise: A national delimitation based on the 2001 Census ran between 2002 and 2008, and Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland were excluded after the Centre deferred it in 2008, citing security concerns and challenges to the credibility of the 2001 Census data in the region.
5. The disputed 2001 figures: In nine hill subdivisions the increase between 1991 and 2001 was over 40 percent, and in four it exceeded 100 percent.
6. What the valley’s political class fears: A new Census followed by delimitation could move the 40:20 distribution to something closer to 35:25 or 30:30.

Can an NRC be held only in Manipur, and what else is the Centre weighing?

1. The usual national sequence is stalled: A nationwide NRC is supposed to follow an update of the National Population Register (NPR), a register of usual residents, and the government has not notified the NPR to be taken up with the 2027 Census.
2. No legal bar on a State specific exercise: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 vests the power to compulsorily register citizens and maintain the National Register of Indian Citizens in the Centre. No statutory requirement makes simultaneous nationwide deployment necessary.
3. The decision is political rather than legal: The Centre could in principle notify the exercise for a particular State or border region, and the recorded position is that this is a political call.
4. An alternative route already exists: A High-Level Committee on Demographic Change, announced in May this year, is examining demographic change arising from illegal immigration and other abnormal causes, and will recommend policy, legislative and administrative measures. Its findings could form the basis of a policy specific to Manipur.

Challenges to holding the Census in Manipur

1. Displacement distorts where people are counted: An enumeration records a person where they are living on the reference date, so a district hosting relief camps absorbs the population of the district people fled. Eg. Displaced Kashmiri Pandit families have been counted in Jammu and Delhi rather than in their home districts across successive Censuses.
   The Fix: Record a home district field for persons enumerated in relief camps, so displacement is visible in the data instead of silently altering district totals.
2. A register built on an old base year excludes documented residents: Citizenship registration turns on producing legacy documents, which the poorest and the most mobile are least able to hold. Eg. Assam’s updated register, worked against a 1971 cut off, left 19,06,657 persons out of the final list published in August 2019, and the appeals process has still not concluded.
   The Fix: Publish the documentary standard and a binding appeal timeline before enumeration begins, so exclusion is contestable within a fixed period.
3. A deferred count leaves the State on stale data: Allocations for welfare programmes are pegged to Census population, so a State that is skipped keeps running on figures more than a decade old. Eg. Coverage under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is still fixed against the 2011 Census population.
   The Fix: Notify an alternative statutory data source, such as updated ration and electoral rolls, for allocations in the deferred State until enumeration is held.
4. The credibility of the count is itself contested in the region: A count that any side believes is inflated cannot settle the question it is being deferred to answer. Eg. Nagaland recorded decadal growth of about 64 percent in the 2001 Census and a fall of about 0.6 percent in 2011, and the earlier count was widely described within the State as inflated.
   The Fix: Publish subdivision level growth anomalies alongside post enumeration survey results, so a disputed count is audited rather than defended.

Conclusion

Deferring the count postpones the dispute without resolving either question behind it. The two demands cannot be met on the same timetable, since one side wants citizenship settled before people are counted and the other wants the count to test the citizenship allegations. A deferral also leaves the State without the current population data that its own programmes and its own representation ultimately rest on. What to watch is whether the Centre fixes a date for enumeration in the State or lets the deferral run open ended.

Back2Basics: National Register of Indian Citizens

1. What it is: A register of persons verified as citizens of India, maintained by the Centre.
2. Its statutory basis: Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 empowers the Centre to compulsorily register every citizen and to issue national identity cards.
3. How it is meant to be built: The rules contemplate verification of the particulars collected in the National Population Register to sort residents into citizens and doubtful cases.
4. Where it has been done: The only State level exercise so far was in Assam, carried out under Supreme Court supervision, with the final list published in 2019.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2009] Consider the following statements : 1. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the density of the population of India has increased more than three times. 2. Between Census 1951 and Census 2001, the annual growth rate (exponential) of the population of India has doubled. Which of the statements given abova is/are correct ? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 ANSWER: (d)”