Panel Seeks Religion-Wise Data on Schools, Voters and Vehicles; States Say Records Don't Exist

State governments are finding it difficult to answer most of the questions put to them by a high-level committee examining demographic changes, because government departments do not ordinarily maintain information on a religion-wise basis.

The High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) has sought religion-wise data for the past 15 years on births and vehicle registrations, school enrolment and property transactions. It has also asked for district-wise details of religious structures, and for information on unusual increases in Aadhaar, voter ID and ration card registrations. The questionnaire, reported to contain 35 questions, further seeks intelligence assessments and commission reports on religious conversions among Scheduled Tribe communities, and details of operational detention centres.

Officials in the States said the queries were hard to comply with, as the secular construct of the Constitution prohibits the collection of data under religious categories. Apart from birth registration, where the religion of the newborn is recorded on the certificate, and data on undocumented migrants apprehended or deported, religion-wise information in all other categories is not available, they said. States have been asked to collate data on Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Parsis and Buddhists across these categories.

Among the specific questions is one seeking "details of districts showing unusual school enrolment trends inconsistent with historical birth rates, along with reasons". Another asks for district-wise data on temples, mosques, churches and other religious structures established in the past 15 years, including whether any GIS mapping or other technology was used to identify them.

The panel has also asked for district-, religion- and year-wise voter registration data for the past 15 years, specifically for individuals "without prior-generation birth certificates or familial legacy records, including observed trends and concentrations".

Other queries cover district-wise changes in religious composition, particularly in cities, industrial centres, border districts, tribal areas and Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas. States have been asked to share their own studies, intelligence assessments, commission reports and White Papers examining demographic changes, as well as information on shifts in the religious composition of Scheduled Tribe populations and any assessments of religious conversion among tribal communities, along with reasons, district-wise trends and action taken.

Religion-wise and district-wise details of birth registrations, including delayed registrations and institutional and non-institutional births, have been sought. So has information on unusual increases in Aadhaar enrolments, voter IDs and ration cards, and cases involving forged identity documents.

The questionnaire requests 15 years of religion-wise and district-wise data on transport and non-transport vehicle registrations, and on unusual increases in commercial vehicle licences, particularly in border and highly urbanised districts. It also seeks religion-wise details of property transactions, information on unusual land acquisition, demographic clustering and ownership patterns, and separate responses on tribal land transfers, illegal transfers and encroachments in tribal and Scheduled Areas. Religion-wise distribution of ration cards and school enrolments, and fraudulent access to welfare schemes, also figure in the list.

The exercise has a political backdrop. In 2006, while in Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party opposed the recommendations of the Sachar Commission and questioned their constitutional validity, stating that they promoted religious quotas and were socially divisive. That commission was appointed in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government to examine the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community.

The present panel's requests place States in a difficult position: they rest on categories that public records do not, as a rule, capture. Whether the data can be assembled at all, and in what form, remains unclear, officials said.