I was ‘Special Charge Officer’ at one of the Mil Stn, where Census 2011 was conducted.

The ‘religious faith’ of each individual was recorded as given by each person being enumerated. If an indl says that he doesnt practice religion, it was recorded as such. An indl who said that he had multiple faith – it was recorded as such. Even, to the extent that if different members of the same family practised different religions, it was recorded as such. The religious denomination of the head of the family doesnt automatically become the religious faith of all other members.

The bottom line for the conduct of census was that the information given by each indl was to be taken as truth, and not to be contested.

In fact, I would also like to add that in the Census enumeration task, all information given by each individual was ‘not challenged’ by the enumerator. Only, when the indl failed to give a satisfactory reply, the enumerator had been trained, using some special assistance tools, to help the indl in arriving at correct answer to each question. For example, if an indl was unable to recall his/her date of birth (more common in the older generation/citizens from rural India/illiterate citizens) then, assistance was provided to him/her to co-relate his/her date of birth with any important event on a calendar. Even if the person was able to identify the month only, the dob was recorded without the day (only month and year was recorded)