The Ministry of Home Affairs on 16 October 2026 amended the Census Rules, 1990, to allow state governments and Union territory administrations to appoint "any person" they consider suitable as a census enumerator, according to ThePrint. Until now the rules allowed teachers from government and private institutions and clerks from government departments and specified establishments such as public sector undertakings, banks, companies and trusts. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the change creates a "Rozgar Guarantee Yojana for thousands of RSS/BJP workers" and linked it to an RSS training camp on the census held in Belgaum from 10 to 12 July. The notification does not mention the RSS, the BJP or any political criteria, and ThePrint reported no government response.
The argument that the change is a practical response to a staffing problem rests on the size of the exercise and on court orders. The Centre has approved an outlay of Rs 11,718.24 crore for Census 2027, which needs a very large number of enumerators. Courts have already interfered with the old route: the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed Haryana's recruitment of private school teachers for the work, and the Allahabad High Court stayed orders in Gautam Budh Nagar, according to ThePrint. Private school teachers had also raised a legal challenge to the staffing plan, so the pool the rules allowed was being questioned. Widening the category to "any person" gives governments flexibility if teachers are not available, and it can be defended as a way of meeting a deadline.
The argument that the change is open to misuse is made by the wording and by Congress. "Any person, as the state government or the Union territory administration may consider suitable" sets no criteria, so the choice rests entirely with the authorities. Jairam Ramesh argued that the timing, two days after a call for inputs by the High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes on 14 October and after the RSS camp, points to a political purpose. The notification itself contains nothing that supports or refutes that claim, and the government has not responded. A census collects information on every household, so the neutrality of those who collect it matters for the credibility of the figures, and critics may ask for safeguards such as training, verification and rules on conflicts of interest.
The matter is important for the whole country because the census is the basis for the allocation of resources and representation, and the figures from Census 2027 will be used for years, including in the argument over delimitation. For states, the new rule means more freedom to find enumerators. For the government, it is a way of answering the objections already raised in court. For the opposition, the allegation is part of a wider argument about the independence of institutions, which has also featured in the protests over electoral rolls.
The rule widens the pool of enumerators to anyone considered suitable and has drawn a charge of partisanship that the government has not addressed. The safeguards it adds, or fails to add, will affect trust in the count.
Featured image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking part in self-enumeration for Census 2027 (file photo). Photo: Prime Minister's Office, GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons.