The Times of India - 22 January 2015 - Edit Page
My religion isn’t state business
Renuka Bisht
Our secular state has no religion, meaning that while people are free to be devout followers of diverse faiths state policy must be based on religiously neutral considerations. Therefore our census also should have no religion.
It enumerates the entire country every decade so the state can do a better job of planning to improve citizens’ quality of life. But whether it’s education or healthcare or roads or electricity or irrigation or banking or any other in a long list of services the state has a role in supplying, religion ought not to be a factor for a secular state. Enumerating religion in the census impairs the idea of modern secular India. Let’s stop doing this as it only strengthens the social barriers and bigotry that the state must work to dilute.
With the caste census unfortunately India is moving in reverse. Ostensibly this is to improve reservations – but these should have been ended decades ago, as was expected by those that gave them birth. Nehru himself had strong feelings about how they led to ‘inefficiency and second rate standards’. The point here is not to deny historical or continuing injustices but to say that the modern secular state should tackle them by universalising basic provisions, improving institutions and service delivery for all – rather than perpetuating the tyranny of group identities. The growing core of modern identity is flexibility and personal choice. Census should catch up.
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