State governments are unable to answer most of the queries posed by a high-level committee studying demographic changes, as government departments do not ordinarily maintain much of the information sought by the panel on a religion-wise basis.
The High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) has sought religion-wise data for the past 15 years on birth and vehicle registrations, school enrolment and property transactions, as well as district-wise details of religious structures and unusual increases in Aadhaar, voter ID and ration card registrations. It has also sought intelligence assessments and commission reports on religious conversions among Scheduled Tribe communities, and details of operational detention centres, among other information.
State government officials told The Hindu that the set of 35 questions asked by the committee was difficult to answer, as the secular construct of the Constitution prohibited the collection of data under religious categories. Other than birth registration, where the religion of the newborn is mentioned on the certificate, and the number of undocumented migrants apprehended or deported, the religion-wise data on all other categories were unavailable, said officials.
States have been asked to collate data on Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Parsis and Buddhists in all the categories.
As the principal Opposition in 2006, the Bharatiya Janata Party opposed the Sachar Commission recommendations and questioned their constitutional validity, stating that they promoted religious quotas and were socially divisive. The commission was appointed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2005 to examine the social, economic, and educational status of the Muslim community.
One of the questions of the HLCDC reads: “Details of districts showing unusual school enrolment trends inconsistent with historical birth rates, along with reasons”. Another seeks district-wise data on religious structures (temples, mosques, churches, etc.) established in the past 15 years, including details of any GIS mapping or other technology used for their identification.
The committee had also sought data on district-, religion-, and year-wise voter registration data of the last 15 years for individuals “without prior-generation birth certificates or familial legacy records, including observed trends and concentrations”.
The committee has sought district-wise data on changes in religious composition, particularly in cities, industrial centres, border districts, tribal areas and Fifth/Sixth Schedule areas. It has also asked for State studies, intelligence assessments, commission reports and White Papers examining demographic changes.
States have been asked for information on changes in the religious composition of Scheduled Tribe populations and any studies or intelligence assessments concerning religious conversion among tribal communities, including reasons, district-wise trends and actions taken.
Also sought was religion-wise and district-wise information on birth registrations, including delayed registrations and institutional/non-institutional births. It also sought data on unusual increases in Aadhaar enrolments, voter IDs and ration cards, and cases involving forged identity documents.
The questionnaire requested 15 years of religion-wise and district-wise data on transport and non-transport vehicle registrations, as well as unusual increases in commercial vehicle licences, particularly in border and highly urbanised districts.
The committee has asked for religion-wise details of property transactions and information on unusual land acquisition, demographic clustering and ownership patterns. Separate questions concern tribal land transfers, illegal transfers and encroachments in tribal and Scheduled Areas.
States have also been asked to provide information on religion-wise distribution of ration cards and school enrolments, fraudulent access to welfare schemes, unusual school-enrolment patterns, and government, private and religious educational institutions in tribal-dominated districts. The questionnaire also asks about GIS mapping of religious educational institutions, including madrasas.
States must also furnish information on detention centres, identification, detention and deportation/repatriation of undocumented migrants, cases involving forged documents, and cases linking illegal migrants with organised crime, human trafficking or narcotics offences. Another question deals with intelligence, technical and community mechanisms used to identify undocumented migrants.
The committee has also asked States what policy directives, executive orders or amendments to land and municipal laws they have introduced over the past 15 years to curb unauthorised migration and settlement. It has also sought suggestions on whether new legislation was required to strengthen surveillance and take action to “reverse abnormal religious demographic change”.
The HLCDC, led by a retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar, was constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs on May 26 to study the demographic changes arising from illegal immigration and other abnormal reasons, and to suggest measures to deal with these demographic changes.
The questionnaire seeks to collect information on five broad areas – demographic trends, migration, administrative challenges, institutional mechanisms, studies and measures adopted by States/UTs.
On May 27, the Supreme Court, while upholding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, said that the Election Commission of India (EC) was well within its authority to verify citizenship to the limited extent of determining inclusion or exclusion from the electoral roll. The court directed the EC to refer, within the next four weeks, the names of electors who were part of the 2003 electoral roll but were purged in the Bihar SIR on the grounds of being non-citizens, to the Centre for adjudication by a competent authority under the Citizenship Act,1955.
Government sources told The Hindu that the EC was yet to provide this data to the committee. The committee has so far visited the Jammu region in Jammu and Kashmir and plans to visit Maharashtra next.
“We are yet to receive response from the State governments. A meeting was held with the EC officials last week, they are however yet to provide the data on people excluded from SIR on the grounds of being suspected foreign nationals staying here illegally,” said a member of the committee on condition of anonymity. The EC did not respond to queries from The Hindu regarding the reasons for the delay in submission of the data to the committee.
Published – September 28, 2026 11:04 pm IST
