By Imkong Walling
India’s long-overdue headcount, officially Census 2027, is scheduled to begin in April 2026. The world’s largest statistical exercise will start with house-listing in April, and culminate with population enumeration in the first quarter of 2027. Nagaland is set to begin its house-listing process in July, as revealed recently by the Chief Minister.
For the state, however, the upcoming Census is backdropped by a 2011 count that defied logic. After decades of recording growth trends over 50 percent — two to three times the national rate —Nagaland’s growth rate suddenly nosedived into the negatives. The -0.58 percent growth recorded in 2011 stood in stark contrast to the staggering 64 percent growth reflected in the preceding 2001 Census.
The data translated into a population dropping from 19,90,036 to 19,78,502. It suggested that there were more deaths than births in the state during 2001 to 2011 without any observable cause, casting doubt on the reliability of the state’s enumeration data.
The peculiar statistical inconsistency had the Neiphiu Rio-led DAN-I government (2003-08) rejecting the 2001 population data, and unsuccessfully lobby for a fresh Census exclusively for Nagaland.
A formerly ‘fecund’ state recording an unexplained drop in population became a case study of a 2013 paper titled, 'Nagaland's Demographic Somersault.’ The authors– Ankush Agrawal and Vikas Kumar noted the phenomenon was “unprecedented,” a first in the history of independent India. No other state had witnessed such a drop in population without famine, plague, natural calamity or major conflict.
Over the years, the incumbent Chief Minister has broached the topic intermittently, citing how an inflated head-count has had programme implementation in disarray. According to the CM, distorted population data has cost the state dear.
The CM’s stand is not bereft of truth. An accurate count is essential to drawing policy roadmap, and allocating resources accordingly, besides redrawing electoral constituencies.
Beneath the rhetoric however lies a contradictory reality. As fund and foodgrains allocation is proportional to population, projecting falsely inflated population data has become a lucrative business in Nagaland. The charade is glaring in the Rural Development sector through Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) like the MGNREGA (now renamed Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), and the Food Security programme, also known as the Public Distribution Scheme.
Grassroots institutions and the associated state agencies have a vested interest in maintaining an inflated population because it means pocketing the share of beneficiaries, who only exist on paper.
This same motive drives electoral politics, where a village’s importance is determined by the size of its vote bank, prompting grassroots leaders to enhance numbers with the tacit understanding of authorities.
While the Chief Minister’s rhetoric is for a truthful Census, the implementing departments under his government’s control are more than happy to ignore data manipulation. The motive is visibly financial— the bigger the pie, the bigger the slice for the programme implementers on the ground, and their administrative overlords.
The consequences are visible today in a skewed teacher-student ratio, where the state maintains schools with more teachers than pupils or no enrollment at all.
The charade has created an economy built on ghosts, siphoning resources away from genuine development. It remains an open secret but one that the system is unwilling to rectify.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
