By Fahad Shah
Yet again Indian government has started to record erroneous census data. The choice of religions given on data-entry-form is like Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain but there is no mention of Islam as a religion. One more choice given is ‘Muslim’ which confuses both citizens and enumerators. Then in confusion enumerators write ‘Others’ as option for Muslim citizens because they can’t find Islam in religion column.
 Data Entry Form of Census 2011 which shows religion option codes |
This seems an attempt to earn the benefit of confusion and lessen the Muslim citizen percentage all over India. Most of the people who follow Islam as religion do not choose ‘Muslim’ option on forms and go for ‘Others’.
A Census enumerator from Kashmir (name concealed) says this issue raised serious discussions during meetings with senior officers in New Delhi. “But we were told that anyone who follows Islam religion we have to tick on ‘Muslim’ box. Still at some places we have failed to do so. People are choosing ‘Others’ option for Muslim citizens which can calculate the low percentage of all over Muslim population,” he said.
