What to Read in Indian Express Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

Editorial 1 : The Census of 1931

Context

The Centre on Wednesday announced that the much delayed Census 2021 will be held in two phases beginning October 1, 2026 and March 1, 2027.

First since 1931

• This will be the first Census since 1931 to capture granular caste data, beyond the broader classifications of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) that have been enumerated in every post-Independence Census.

Brief history

• In 1931, British-ruled India stretched from Baluchistan (Balochistan) in the west to Burma (Myanmar) in the east.
• It also faced political challenges. The census of 1921 had the misfortune to coincide with a wave of non-cooperation.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 5, 1931,which effectively ended the Civil Disobedience Movement, was signed a week after the date of enumeration on February 27.
• The Congress boycotted the Census, observing January 11, 1931 as “Census Boycott Sunday”.
• What did have an effect, however, was the Great Depression and the economic distress it brought.
• It was another of the misfortunes of the 1931 census that it coincided with a fall in revenue and a period of economic depression which left no choice but to cut expenditure.
• Even in absolute terms — not taking inflation into account — the 1931 Census was cheaper per capita than a decade earlier,costing Rs 12.8 per thousand population compared to Rs 14 per thousand population in 1921.
• There were other challenges such as the Bhils refusing to have their houses numbered on “superstitious grounds”, and of enumerators in “less law-abiding places” getting beaten up by locals.At places, enumerators were attacked by wild animals.

Key findings of Census

• The 1931 Census captured crucial demographic data about (undivided) India and its people.
• It found the total population of British India (including Burma and various princely states) to be 35.05 crore, up from 31.89 crores a decade ago.
• This equated to a decadal population growth rate of 10.6%, much higher than in the last three cycles.
• It also  cited significant improvements in public health (particularly a reduction of deaths from the bubonic plague, cholera, and smallpox), an absence of major epidemics and, interestingly, the “universality of marriage” as the reason for the population growth.
• The variation of density of population in India depends not on industry, as in the United Kingdom, but on agriculture, and is greatest of course in the most fertile areas.
• However, the actual rate of increase in population was the greatest in the less populated and less fertile areas.

The enumeration of castes

• Like in earlier censuses, the 1931 Census enumerated individual castes among the Hindu population.
• This exercise faced strong opposition in Punjab; even in the previous Census of 1921, a total of 20,993 Hindus — about half of them from Bahawalpur State — had declared their caste as “unspecified” due to the influence of Arya Samaj.
• The Census of 1931, like previous censuses in India, included a question on “Race, Tribe, or Caste,” which had been part of the census since 1872.
• The wording and focus of this question evolved over the years, with earlier censuses asking about “Caste or Class,” “Caste of Hindus & Jains,” and similar variations.
• The Census report also highlighted the difficulties in categorizing caste accurately due to the use of different surnames for the same caste and the fluidity in caste names.
• This lack of consistency made it challenging to gather correct data.

Conclusion:

The question of caste in Indian censuses, especially in 1931, revealed the challenges of accurately capturing caste data due to the fluidity and complexity of caste nomenclature. These issues persisted throughout the censuses, highlighting the difficulty in organizing and interpreting caste information reliably for census purposes.

 

Editorial 2 : Food for tiger

Context

With prey base declining, the animal can stray out of reserves.

The recent crisis

• Conservationists were jolted in 2006 when the country’s tiger population plummeted to an all-time low of about 1,400.
• Course corrections in wildlife managementhave led to the majestic animal staging a remarkable recovery since that crisis.
• The country’s protected areas have more than 3,600 tigers according to the latest enumeration of the animal in 2023.
• That Tiger Census also underlined areas of concern. The data revealed a dip in tiger numbers in Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
• Now, another national assessment by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has flagged an emerging conservation challengein the protected areas of these states.
• It has revealed that the prey that sustains these big cats — chital, sambal and the Indian bison — are declining.
• A sufficient prey base is not just elemental for the nutritional needs of the big cat, it’s also necessary to obviate human-wildlife conflict.
• With enough herbivores within the protected areas, the tigers are less likely to stray out in search of alternative sources of food.

The correlation

• A study published in the journal Science earlier this year also joined the dots between tiger population and the animal’s declining prey base.
• The reserves where tiger populations have come down — Guru Ghasidas, Indravati, and Udanti-Sitanadi in Chhattisgarh, Simlipal and Satkosia in Odisha, and Palamau in Jharkhand — are situated in some of the poorest districts in the country.
• The study linked poverty with the poaching of ungulates.
• These reserves are known to have high incidences of bush meat consumption, often with the use of traps and snares that are usually indiscriminate in killing prey and predators, the study found and made a strong case for linking “biodiversity recovery” with socioeconomic improvements.
• It drew a contrast with tiger habitats in proximity to relatively prosperous areas, where people have received the benefits of conservation-related tourism.

The revival strategy

• To revive the prey base, the WII and NTCA study recommends on-site breeding of ungulates in enclosures designed to keep predators away.
• This should, at best, be seen as a short-term measure. Herbivores raised in a protected environment are known to have a weak anti-predatory response. They cannot provide a sustainable prey base for the tiger in the long-run.

Way forward

• More critical for the tiger’s recovery is improving the quality of the animal’s habitat. The good news is that some of the areas where the tiger and its prey are on the wane — in Chhattisgarh, for example — still have good-quality forests.
• Left-wing extremism is also on the decline in these areas. More needs to be done to make people partners in sustainable conservation.