Former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Education and former Inner Manipur MP Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh has urged the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to introduce enhanced precautionary safeguards and greater methodological rigour in the conduct of the 16th National Census in Manipur in 2027.
In a letter dated August 14 addressed to Union Home Minister, Dr. Ranjan said the measures were necessary in view of the serious ethnic and social unrest in Manipur, large-scale internal displacement and cross-border movement of population from Myanmar in recent years.
Dr. Ranjan said there was “considerable and widely expressed public concern” that the Census exercise, if not conducted with additional rigour, might fail to accurately capture Manipur’s demographic reality or inadvertently enumerate persons who may not be entitled to be counted as residents or citizens of India.
The former Union minister, however, stressed that his representation was being made in the spirit of ensuring accuracy and transparency rather than excluding or targeting any community.
“I recognise that Census enumeration is, by law and design, a neutral statistical exercise,” Dr. Ranjan stated, adding that reliable and verifiable demographic data would serve the interests of all communities and residents of Manipur and contribute to the state’s peace process and long-term stability.
The former Union minister, Dr. Ranjan proposed six specific safeguards for Census 2027.
Detailed age-group data sought
First, he called for detailed age-cohort data to be published for Manipur at the district and sub-division levels. According to him, such disaggregation would enable a transparent assessment of population structure, dependency ratios and generational changes over successive census cycles.
Accurate recording of Manipuri mother tongue
Second, Dr. Ranjan urged the Census authorities to ensure that Manipuri, or Meiteilon, is accurately and consistently recorded as a distinct mother-tongue category.
He said this was necessary to prevent the language from being conflated with other Tibeto-Burman languages of the region and to enable reliable tracking of linguistic demographic trends across census cycles.
Cross-checking census figures with vital records
Third, the former minister proposed that Census population figures in Manipur be cross-verified with authenticated birth and death registration records maintained under the Civil Registration System and the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969.
He suggested that significant differences between the recorded natural increase – births minus deaths – and enumerated population growth in individual districts should be flagged for further scrutiny.
He also suggested verification of the date of recognition of villages and records relating to the collection of Hill-House tax.
Independent review in districts facing demographic concerns
Dr. Ranjan further sought focused verification in districts where public representations and local reports have raised concerns over population growth.
He specifically mentioned Kangpokpi and parts of Chandel and Churachandpur, including Chakpikarong/Tengnoupal and Tipaimukh/Pherzawl, and called for an independent methodological review of enumeration in such areas.
The purpose, he said, should be to establish through reliable data whether population-growth trends can be explained by natural demographic factors, rather than allowing concerns to remain unresolved.
Religion and belief enumeration
Fourth, Dr. Ranjan called for religion and belief to remain a mandatory field in the Census schedule, with data tabulated at the district and sub-division levels.
He said such data would allow changes in Manipur’s religious composition over successive decades to be studied alongside linguistic and ethnic demographic trends, describing the proposal as consistent with the established practice of the Census of India.
Separate identification of undocumented population
The former MP also urged the Centre to establish mechanisms for clearly identifying undocumented or unverified populations encountered during the enumeration process.
He proposed coordination between the Census authorities, Foreigners Regional Registration authorities and State agencies operating under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Foreigners Act, 1946.
Any undocumented or unverified population identified during the process, he said, should be recorded separately and should not be conflated with the lawful citizen population for purposes including representation, resource allocation, land and constitutional protections.
Dr. Ranjan requested the Union Home Ministry to examine his representation in consultation with the Office of the Registrar General of India and offered to present the issues in greater detail if required.
Copies of the letter were also sent to the Secretary to the Governor of Manipur, the Chief Minister, the Manipur Home Minister, the Registrar General of Census and the Director of Census, Manipur.
The representation comes ahead of the 2027 Census, at a time when demographic change has emerged as a major public and political issue in Manipur amid the prolonged ethnic conflict, displacement and concerns over cross-border population movement. Former Union Minister Dr. Ranjan’s letter places the emphasis on verifiable demographic data and methodological safeguards, while explicitly framing the proposed measures as an effort to improve the accuracy and transparency of the Census rather than to target any particular community.
