Kumar, Vikas
(2019)
The limitations of India’s census legislation.
Working Paper.
Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.
Abstract
Most discussions on the quality of government data overlook the legal
framework within which data are collected. This paper examines India’s Census
Act, 1948, which provides the legal-administrative framework for conducting
human population census. The Act stipulates punishment for interfering with the
process of enumeration, but the punitive provisions are rarely used and have not
been invoked to deal with cases of mass manipulation of the census. Major instances
of manipulation were, in fact, reported in 1951 and 2001 after the government
introduced additional punitive measures in 1948 and 1994, respectively. This paper
compares the Census Act, 1948 with other Indian laws related to the collection of
statistics as well as census laws of other common law countries and identifies the
structural flaws of the Indian law vis-à-vis manipulation. It uses simple games to
explain why the punitive provisions of the Census Act, 1948 are redundant in the
event of mass manipulation and suggests that the problem can be addressed without
recourse to law. The insights drawn from the games are examined in light of the
experience of Nagaland, a state of India where census statistics were manipulated
on a large scale in 2001.
| Item Type: |
Monograph
(Working Paper)
|
| Authors: |
Kumar, Vikas |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Census, conflict, data quality, India, law, Manipulation, multiple
equilibria, Nagaland |
| Subjects: |
Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology |
| Divisions: |
Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Development |
| Full Text Status: |
Public |
| Note: |
The working paper series aims at reflecting the range of work done across the Azim Premji Foundation, including the Field Institutes and the University, and disseminating this work to a broader audience. University faculty, members of Field Institutes of the Foundation as well as students graduating from the University may contribute to the series. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in these papers are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Azim Premji University. |
| URI: |
http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/2273 |
| Publisher URL: |
https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/pdf/... |
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