Census Without Consensus

The current political and economic uncertainty could create serious hurdles in the seventh census set to commence from March 1

KARACHI: The first digital census which is due to start from March 1 may resolve many riddles before the 2023 general elections, but the political and economic uncertainty could create some serious hurdles in the planned 7th census of the country.

This is really a good initiative by the government, but since there was a major system glitch in the 2018 general elections due to some technical problems, the digital census may raise many questions as the two previous census in 1998 and 2017 have  remained very controversial.

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, a digital population and housing census will commence across the country from March 1, continue for a month and conclude on April 1, announced by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

“The issue triggers many supplementary questions about the timing of the census, the current political uncertainty and polarisation, the economic crisis etc. It is gratifying that we are trying to use modern digital technology in the enumeration of our population and housing. It is another question of greater importance whether our rural population would understand the process and the mechanism of the digitisation of population or whether our people will remain beholden to the team to make entries, rightly or wrongly, for themselves.  There has been no awareness campaign. The people have not been educated about the digital enumeration instead of manual one, former ambassador and senior analyst Mohammad Alam Brohi said.

He said the political uncertainty has peaked and the polarisation among political parties reached the point of no return from local government to federal government levels. The people were teetering under unprecedented inflation. The mini budget introduced recently will trigger another avalanche of earth shaking inflation. There was no logic in undertaking this huge exercise squandering the meagre resources of the country.

“Yes, it is a good initiative to collect data through electronic devices connected with the internet. These leaders are on record to have opposed the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in elections exactly for these reasons. Who will feed data in electronic devices,” he said, adding that the government appointed teams going from village to village and neighborhood to neighborhood.

“The 2018 general elections were made controversial due to a glitch in the system for some hours. Who is going to guarantee that the digital census process will not be manipulated by certain political, nationalist and ethnic groups to serve their purpose. There was a reverberation of increase or decrease of constituencies in the local government elections in megacities. The MQM-P boycotted the elections demanding delimitation of certain constituencies,” he said.

He said the long spell of military rules have rendered our politics, political culture, norms and equations quite topsy turvy.

“There was no political divide in Sindh and Balochistan before 1988.  There was no competition for political space in the megacities of Sindh. The controversy over the 1998 and 2017 census could be seen in this context. MQM-P has the complaint that the population of Karachi has been deliberately shown less to deprive its residents of their political, economic and financial rights.” “On the other hand, Sindhi nationalist have apprehensions that certain hidden hands are busy in conspiracy to systematically reduce Sindhis or the indigenous population to a minority in their own homeland.  He said they have weighty arguments including the occupation of lands and forests of Sindh, immigration and settlement of alien populations in Sindh’s urban areas,” said Brohi.

“The waiving off the condition of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) in the enumeration and reduction of the period of stay to six months to be counted as residence of that place or province will certainly cause friction and create controversy about the census. Every governmental function has been politicised, appointments postings and transfers, census, planning and development, distribution of economic and financial resources. It is politics everywhere. There is no merit, no planning,” he said.

“The politicians, political parties and ethic-cum-political parties have politicised everything. They have failed to evolve consensus on basic national issues. How will they ensure transparency in this census? They will fall into bickering particularly in Sindh and Balochistan unless they evolve a consensus on “you scratch my back, I will scratch yours.

NADRA and PBS are part of our bureaucratic set up, and we know how they work. Nadra has done a tremendous job unprecedented in comparative security, efficiency and honesty. But political parties will create controversy if their cross purposes are not served,” he said.

Brohi went on to say that certain parties will want to see a tremendous increase in the population of certain ethnic groups living in Karachi and Hyderabad forgetting the height of immigration of population from rural areas to urban centres for social and economic reasons.

“I doubt that the census can resolve the controversy about constituencies amicably. The PPP and MQM-P quarrel over constituencies in rural and urban centres, Baloch and Pashtun competition for more constituencies in Baloch and Pakhtun districts in Balochistan will not disappear even after this digital census,” he said.

Speaking about the traditional way of conducting census and the digital census, Internationally-known demographer Dr Mehtab Karim who served as a member of the Governing Council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said both are reliable methods depending on the quality of interviewers. However, since the digital census is paperless there is no possibility of changes after data has been entered on tablets.

Commenting on merits of digital census including a reduction in getting results, geographic information system (GIS)-based monitoring, real-time progress analysis, instant data availability and online task allocation, he said therefore many countries are moving towards the digital census.

He said traditionally in the Indian Sub-continent housing census is conducted prior to the population census which provides a complete picture of the number of households and their characteristics while the population census is conducted a few months later.

“Till the 1998 census of Pakistan, the same procedure was adopted.  However, in 2017 housing and population census were conducted simultaneously which caused some problems as the updated list of households were not available. In the 2023 census the same procedure is being adopted.”

“The Initiative being taken to involve representatives of political parties in the exercise to keep the exercise transparent is quite appropriate.  It will dispel any objections to census results.  But as the census results determine allocation of seats of national and provincial assemblies, the National Finance Commission (NFC) award and allocation of job quota, it is important that while conducting the census no interference by any political party is allowed to ensure that census data is secure and it is used judiciously.”

“Therefore, it is important that political parties are taken into confidence before the census but are not involved during the exercise.

About the self-enumeration method being used for the first time in Pakistan, he said it may not be effective outside urban areas. “

Even in urban areas, a vast majority of households do not have access to computers and therefore, people may not opt for self enumeration. However, it will be useful for those who are not available during the day time when census enumerators visit their homes and thus they could opt for self enumeration.

Commenting on the length of the questionnaire, he said that the questionnaire contains about 28 questions, whereas most demographers are not in favour of more than 7 or 8 questions. In many countries a short form is used to collect demographic information such as, age, gender, marital status, language, religion, education, employment status etc., whereas information about migration and handicapped persons are collected based on sample.

The first-ever regular population census in the India sub-continent in 1881. Since then regular censuses were conducted every 10 years in Pakistan as well with the exception of 1972 due to the civil war in then East Pakistan. According to the 1973 constitution a census should be conducted every 10 years. But since then only the 1981 census was conducted on time. Later, the respective governments failed to conduct regular census in 1991, 2001, and 2011. However, census conducted in 1998 and 2017 have remained controversial.

Karim said the digital census being conducted this year is well planned, will be properly monitored and since it will be followed by a post-enumeration survey, it is expected that it would not create any controversies.