CPI(M) Strongly Opposes Census 2027 Questionnaire Citing Privacy Risks And Political Bias

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued a stern condemnation of the proposed questionnaire for the upcoming Census 2027, alleging that the exercise is tailored to advance a narrow political agenda while dangerously compromising citizen privacy. In a detailed statement released by the party leadership, the CPI(M) expressed severe reservations regarding the nature of the questions being drafted, warning that the inclusion of intrusive parameters risks turning a standard demographic mapping exercise into a tool for state-sponsored profiling and social division.

The decennial census exercise, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2021 but suffered prolonged delays due to administrative and logistical disruptions, is now expected to roll out in a modernized digital format by 2027. While the transition to digital enumeration has been framed as an efficiency upgrade by central authorities, political opposition groups contend that digital data collection without independent oversight heightens risks of unauthorized surveillance, security breaches, and data sharing across government ministries.

According to the left party, the central government's newly structured questionnaire strays far beyond traditional census parameters such as population density, literacy rates, employment status, and basic household infrastructure. Instead, the CPI(M) claimed, the draft includes questions that dive unnecessarily into sensitive personal details, caste affiliations, religious practices, and individual socio-economic choices. The party highlighted that collecting such granular data without a robust, comprehensive statutory framework for data protection exposes millions of citizens to severe privacy vulnerabilities.

A major point of contention raised by the CPI(M) involves the potential integration of the digital census mechanism with national biometric and identity databases. The party cautioned that linking census entries with registries like the National Population Register or Aadhaar creates an environment susceptible to mass profiling and targeted exclusion. CPI(M) leaders argued that such linked databases could be misused by the ruling administration to selectively deploy social welfare schemes, manipulate demographic narratives, or gain unfair advantages in key electoral battlegrounds.

Beyond privacy concerns, the CPI(M) criticized the central executive for failing to engage in meaningful dialogue with state governments and major political stakeholders before finalizing the draft parameters. Since state administrations bear the primary operational responsibility of conducting the census on the ground through local enumerators, bypassing federal consultations represents a direct blow to cooperative federalism. The party emphasized that consensus among all state governments is essential to ensure that the enumeration exercise remains impartial, transparent, and trusted by the public.

In its formal appeal, the CPI(M) Politburo demanded an immediate review of the proposed questionnaire and called for the matter to be tabled before a parliamentary standing committee for rigorous scrutiny. The party urged the central government to strip out all controversial and privacy-infringing queries, focusing strictly on macroeconomic and objective socio-economic data required for national planning. Furthermore, the left party insisted that clear legal safeguards must be established to guarantee that census data remains completely anonymized and strictly protected from commercial exploitation or political misuse.