India launches world’s largest census with first nationwide caste count in nearly a century

Insights

• India began a yearlong digital census to count about 1.4 billion people across 28 states and eight union territories.
• For the first time since 1931, detailed caste or jati enumeration will be collected during the population phase.
• Over three million enumerators will use mobile apps and an online self-enumeration option to gather data under 33 initial questions.
• The census runs in two phases: house listing and housing details through September, and population enumeration including caste in February, concluding March 31 next year.
• Census results will feed policy planning, survey sampling frames and a planned delimitation that could redraw electoral boundaries and enable a one third women reservation in parliament.
• A delay since 2021 has created data gaps that experts say undermine survey representativeness and policymaking.
• Human rights groups and experts warn of risks that census data could be linked to citizenship checks or politicised, and call for statutory transparency to protect data quality and use.