ISLAMABAD: The much-delayed census process is heading towards completion amid controversies and challenges both for the government with regard to policy and the enumerators with regard to the precarious security situation in the country.

But, this is not the end. 

New controversies are expected to surface once the numbers are released. 

The sixth most populated nation on earth last held the exercise in 1998 and the next one was due after a decade, in 2008. However, the exercise was delayed due to a breakdown in security.

While the terrorist attack on the census team in Lahore was a serious attempt that claimed precious lives with an aim to demoralise the census teams, the process continued unhindered without any fear. Similarly, an attack on census team along the Pakistan-Afghan border in Chaman, Balochistan was another such incident.

Almost all targets were achieved at an operational level. The census teams in the field deserve appreciations for making this tricky task a success story, the officials claim.

The 60-day long lengthy process was carried out in every single district of the country in two phases. And during the next 60-day exercise, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) would present a summary of the numbers to the government.

PBS officials say, the summary will contain details of total population – number of men, women and transgenders living in the country. The exercise will also count the number of persons with disabilities for the first time.

The next and important phase of the process, which can take months, data about literacy rate, age wise break-up of the population, details about main languages and followers of different religions will also be made public. Marital status of the population will also be part of the final results.

However, there are certain areas which the exercise has little or no information to share.

The census results will have nothing to say about internal migration trends and about unemployment. The result will be silent on mortality and fertility rates as well.

The government has pledged to get these crucial results later while conducting sample surveys, said Asif Bajwa, chief statistician. He added that due to limited availability of armed forces, these significant questions have not been made part of the census process.

Controversies

Regional languages and religions have been neglected in the process. The government defied the Sindh High Court’s orders to count at least 12 major religions; the PBS only gave space to some eight religions in the census forms.

According to earlier surveys, Pakistan is a country with 74 languages. But the government has counted only nine major languages in the exercise.

The statistics bureau picked two languages from each province. Urdu and Sindhi were selected from Sindh, Punjabi and Siraiki from Punjab, Balochi and Brahvi from Balochistan and Hindko and Pashto from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Similarly, the data collection forms only listed Islam, Hinduism, Scheduled Hindus, Christianity and Ahmadiyya under the religion section. All other religions have been enlisted in others’ block.

It would not be easy to identify how many Sikh, Parsi, Jews or Buddhists are living in the country. The existence of these religions can only be proven through their registration in Nadra or through the registered votes of their community in the election commission.

Sikhs, who once ruled Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (previously NWFP) provinces, staged protests against the policy for not being counted as followers of Sikh religion. They also petitioned the government to get their identity in the process but their attempts were in vain. 

The Christians were not happy with their identity as they were listed as ‘Essai’. They demanded that this term should be replaced with ‘Massihi’. 

But this request could not be entertained under the pretext that forms had already been printed.

MNA Asia Ishaq, a representative of the Christian community from Quetta, said the census staff was not properly trained to write correct spellings of names of followers of other religions. She said that many people of her community complained that like their religion their names were not written accordingly on the forms by the enumerators.

Census Member Habibullah Khan admitted that SHC’s verdict on religions couldn’t be implemented because the PBS was not able to count more than eight religions. He said that only those religions were counted which were also counted in the previous census exercises carried out in 1991 and 1998. The same formula was applied for languages in the light of an advisory committee’s decision, he added.

In many cities and towns, the government’s projection about population was flawed. The PBS had to arrange additional staff to ensure counting of remaining houses. Lahore for instance was cited as a case study.

According to PBS staff, they have counted many towns and areas in the urban areas of Lahore which they registered previously in the rural of the city.

Some political parties still have apprehensions about the transparency of the process. PPP, the ruling party in Sindh, MQM, the main opposition in the province, also raised objections over the census strategy.

Few dissenting voices were also raised by the lawmakers from Balochistan about the counting of Afghan refugees in the process. They expressed their fear that this exercise will bring demographic change in the province.

The legislators from FATA also questioned the census exercise in the tribal belt before settling down the displaced population of the area. They said that all estimates about scattered population of tribal areas would be wrong till their final settlement.