Christians question Census Religion Report’s time of release

New Delhi – Many Christians have raised questions over the recent release of the Religions Report of the India Census 2001 and have condemned the motive of the Census Commissioner. “Xenophobic, dangerous data, nationally orchestrated hate campaign against minority communities” – that is how a group of Christian human rights and peace activists described the recent religion–based census released by the Census Board.

“We are surprised at the timing of the report, which has been three years in the making but has been released at a juncture when the Hindutva elements, defeated in the last geenral elections, are launching their new campaign to polarise society on the eve of elections to some state Assemblies,'' All India Christian Council’s General Secretary, John Dayal, said in a joint press release.

In the joint release, John Dayal and Sister Mary Scaria of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Delhi Archdiocese said that the civil society in India was aghast at the Religions Report of the Indian Census 2001 which displayed xenophobia and a nationally orchestrated hate campaign against the minority communities launched by the rightwing extremist groups and their political allies.

The nation wonders what indeed was the pressing urgency for the release of this twistable data at this time, the release stated.

It also denounced the ''xenophobia and the nationally orchestrated hate campaign'' against minority communities launched by right wing extremist groups and their political allies following the release of the report.

The right wing propaganda of a total Christian North East was a lie given the fact that apart from a miniscule population states of Nagaland (90 per cent), Mizoram (87 per cent) and Meghalaya (70 per cent) all the other states had small Christian populations, it said.

The Christian community representatives called for an explanation from the Census Commissioner, Jayanth Kumar Banthia, an IAS officer, as to why such explicit and extensive data were released with blatant gaps and misrepresentations. “By deliberately including data for Kashmir and Assam, which were excluded from the censuses of 1981 and 1991, a false impression was given of galloping increase in the population of Muslims.”

And Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, allegedly home to mass conversions, have Christian populations of 0.3 and 1.9 per cent respectively, it added.