State govts. stumped by demography committee’s ‘religion-wise’ inquiries

Why in the News

The Union Home Ministry’s High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) has sent States 35 questions seeking religion-wise data from routine administrative records. States say they cannot answer most of them, leaving a panel on illegal immigration waiting on data that may not exist.

What is the HLCDC, and what has it asked for?

1. What it is: A Home Ministry panel led by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar, constituted on 26 May.
2. Mandate: It studies demographic changes caused by illegal immigration and “other abnormal reasons”, and suggests measures to deal with them.
3. Religion-wise records: It wants 15 years of religion-wise data on birth and vehicle registrations, school enrolment and property transactions. This is like asking every government counter to sort its files by faith.
4. Six communities: Every category is to be broken down for Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Parsis and Buddhists.
5. The takeaway: A panel on illegal immigration is seeking a faith-wise map of everyday administration, widening its inquiry from who entered illegally to how every community lives.

What else does the questionnaire seek?

1. Identity document spikes: The panel asks which districts saw unusual increases in Aadhaar, voter ID and ration card registrations.
2. Enrolment anomalies: It asks which districts show school enrolment trends that do not match past birth rates, and why.
3. Religious structures: It seeks temples, mosques, churches and other structures built in the period, and any Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, meaning digital maps, used to identify them.
4. Conversions and detention: It seeks intelligence and commission reports on religious conversions among Scheduled Tribes (STs). It also asks about operational detention centres and undocumented migrants apprehended or deported.

Why can States not answer, and why is religion-wise data contested?

1. Records not kept by religion: States hold only two relevant records: birth registrations, whose certificates name the newborn’s religion, and counts of migrants apprehended or deported.
2. Secular construct: State officials hold that the secular construct of the Constitution prohibits collecting data under religious categories. The panel has received no State reply yet.
3. Sachar precedent: The Congress-led government set up the Sachar Committee in 2005 to study Muslims’ status. In 2006 the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), then the principal Opposition, called its recommendations a religious quota and socially divisive.

How does the Bihar SIR feed into the panel’s work?

1. SIR ruling: On 27 May the Supreme Court upheld Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a fresh check of the electoral roll. It held that the Election Commission of India (EC) may check citizenship only to decide who stays on the roll.
2. Reference to the Centre: The Court gave the EC four weeks to send the Centre the names of electors on the 2003 roll removed as non-citizens. A competent authority will then decide their citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
3. Data pending: The EC has not yet given the panel data on those excluded as suspected foreign nationals, and has not explained the delay.

Challenges

1. Constitutional exposure: Religion-wise mapping of property and enrolment invites challenge under Articles 14 and 15, which bar discrimination on religion.
2. Inference by proxy: Where records lack religion, officials may guess it from names, yielding unreliable and stigmatising data.
3. Conflating religion with illegality: Reading religion-wise growth as illegal immigration turns a demographic trend into a finding without adjudication.

Way Forward

1. Lawful statistical sources: Use the Census and the National Family Health Survey, which record religion under legal safeguards.
2. Narrower questionnaire: Limit requests to records that exist, such as migrants apprehended or deported.
3. Published method: The Home Ministry should publish the panel’s terms of reference and methodology.

Conclusion

With States citing both missing records and the Constitution, the panel’s inquiry has stalled on data. Whether it narrows its demand to census data and adjudicated citizenship cases will decide if its findings hold up.

Back2Basics: Secularism in the Indian Constitution

1. Preamble: “Secular” was added by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976.
2. Articles 25 to 28: Guarantee freedom of conscience and religion and freedom to manage religious affairs. They also bar taxes that promote a religion and religious instruction in State institutions.
3. Basic structure: S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994), a nine judge Bench, held secularism part of the basic structure.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2022, GS1, 15 marks] Are tolerance, assimilation and pluralism the key elements in the making of an Indian form of secularism? Justify your answer.”