D.K.Pandita
The quality of democracy depends on the degree of public participation and the true reflection of the success of democratic politics worldwide lies within India, the ancient country, where law and polity originated long before our European counterparts started contemplating on the nature of power and governance and the fact that it so happens to be, as our founding fathers used to cherish, ‘The worlds’ largest democratic system’. To achieve the true essence of what our independence movement handed us (an independent and fragile nation), we faced an immediate need for a far-sighted democratic policy planning, keeping in mind the over plus of problems accumulated on all fronts. The first and foremost issue at our hands was to evaluate the current scenario and to come up with effective policies, and luckily we had men of great caliber with moral standards and ideas as far ranging as Fabian socialism to the western capitalist system to accommodate. Through extensive reasoning and planning, India finally settled for a socialist public policy. Since independence, the Government formulated various programs and policies under the umbrella name of ‘The Five Year Plans’ inspired by the erstwhile USSR which stood erect during the global economic crises. Policies and programs, in phases, to uplift the population from abject poverty lingering over us as a developing economy, agricultural crisis, perennial epidemics and what not. We succeeded somewhat but with many costs to pay. Our dream of self-reliance was not in line with what was needed to survive in an over inter-depending global order. We then switched to liberalization to achieve the same dream, but this time we needed a deeper insight into our people which the erstwhile socialist planners had overlooked leading to fractured growth. It was and is still an uphill task, after more than 70 years of our freedom; we are yet to achieve what had been desired by our founding fore-fathers, though our work has been seen as nothing short of a miracle where millions were lifted out of poverty within a democratic framework much unlike China.
To fulfill the dreams of our policy planners particularly Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who stood to dream for India as a developed country by 2020. We must take lessons from the Britishers who conducted the first population census. We in India adopted their legacy to facilitate policy planning with a renewed sense of insight after every census and hence preparing for every coming decade. To make our country a developed country, it is essential that we must be aware of our weaknesses and our strengths in the form of either living or non-living resources with huge diversity, to fully utilize these resources it is must that we must have our strength on our finger tips to make the plans which will least fail but will fulfill the needs of our coming generations and the most important of them being, our people.
National Population Register (NPR) is a step in that direction. Government of India introduced the Citizenship Act in 1955, modified it many times to adjust with changing conditions so that to facilitate the planners from time to time. In 2003 Citizenship Rules, the government amended this Act to make the changes as per the then scenario to ensure all citizens are treated and tested equally and also to facilitate growth and development.
National Development should never be politicized. If the political parties indulge in such activities it not only hampers our growth and development prospects but leads to unwanted uncertainty which has been looming currently. The dipping GDP, mass unemployment and unattended rural and urban poverty is a product of such petty politics, which is not new to this country. The political parties, the government and the opposition alike, not only use this crucial issue to gain political mileage but vigorously defend their ideas keeping the national significance at bay. It is very difficult to reform and transform the country until and unless all its citizens do not take part in national building process.
In most of the developed countries majority of its citizens participate in all developmental activities actively but it is in India, developmental plans and policies are always kept under political microscope to measure the political mileage either using the red cards of caste or religion either by ruling class or by the opposition. India, what Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Nehru and a galaxy of our freedom fighters thought of was different; Mahatma Gandhi always advocated that country should be self driven not driven by the political thoughts.
Politics, Development and Religion must go hand in hand, but the politics and religion of human welfare, these principles are followed more suitably in US which is driven by long term policies not by the elected governments. It is the need of hour to think whether we need a digital population data i.e. NPR or we should still be dependent on the foreign figures printed and published by different countries and research agencies with their own interpretation, ideas and objectives. The need of the hour is to educate the people to participate in national building and to help the government to make long term plans, facilitated by a comprehensive pool of data; to end the title of the nation having the largest population living below poverty line.
The data for National Population Register was collected in 2010 along with the house listing phase of Census of India 2011. The updation of this was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey. The digitization of the updated information has been completed. Now it is the duty of every citizen to co-operate in the data collection i.e. National Population Register along with the house listing phase of decennial census 2021. To make these long term plans, the present government led by Narendra Modi cabinet has approved Rs 3941.5 Crores for the updating the National Population Register. The NPR exercise is to commence from April 2020 and conclude by Sept 2020. The NPR is a list of “usual residents” of the country. A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more. It is mandatory for every usual resident of Indian to register in the NPR. The data base would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars with a total of 30 lakhs field functionaries completing this gigantic exercise of national importance. It must be therefore, if not, the fundamental duty of every citizen to co-operate and give corrects data to these functionaries. Linking this with the much hyped NRC and the CAA is not only a result of fake propagation and ulterior motives of political hyenas.
( The author is an academician)
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