Church-wide census begins in India: The Church of England Newspaper, April 16, 2010 p 8.

Indian President Pratibha Patil

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Church of North India has initiated a church-wide census, conducting the first formal count of communicants and members in its 40 year history.

The church’s census, which began on Feb 15 and is scheduled to conclude on Oct 15, with the results released in time for the church’s anniversary celebrations on Nov 29, is being conducted alongside India’s national census.

On April 1 Indian President Pratibha Patil completed the first national census form.  The Union Government has hired 2.5 million officials who are tasked with visiting every household in the country of 1.2 billion people.  The census will be conducted in two parts.

The first round will gather data on each household, and the second round will collect individual demographic information on age, sex, place of birth, marital status, education, family history, language, religion, literacy, and employment.

Christian leaders have expressed concerns over the reliability of past census results.  In 2001 the government’s census reported there were over 24 million Christians in India.  However, that same year the Roman Catholic Church claimed 17 million members, while the National Council of Churches in India, an association of the country’s 29 mainline Protestant and Orthodox Church groups, claimed 13 million members.

Church leaders believe that many Dalit Christians will tell the government that they are Hindus.   The Indian Constitution allows quotas in educational institutions and government jobs for members of castes once considered “untouchable,” to support their social and economic advancement.  According to the 1950 Presidential Order however, scheduled caste privileges are meant only for Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, but not Christians or Muslims.

The majority of Indian Christians come from the scheduled castes, and church officials fear the current laws give an incentive for underreporting the strength of Christianity in India.  The 2001 census found that Hindus comprise 80.5 per cent of the Indian population, Muslims 13.4 per cent, Christians 2.3 per cent, Sikhs 1.9 per cent, Buddhists 0.8 per cent and Jains 0.4 per cent.

“The first phase of the census covers only the household questions,” the General Secretary of the CNI synod the Rev. Enos Das Pradhan told UCA news, adding that church leaders were concerned with how the second stage of the census would be conducted.

Each of the CNI’s 27 dioceses is responsible for collecting data and forwarding it to the synod offices in New Delhi for the CNI’s census.  “Through this exercise, we will come to know what kind of people we have,” Mr. Das Pradhan said, adding that “we want to know about our size and situation in the 40th year of our journey.”

Having hard numbers of its own membership will also assist the church in pressing the claims of Dalit Christians for equal treatment under the government’s scheduled caste programmes, Indian sources tell The Church of England Newspaper.