The Census. Britain and British-India, a partial quantitative archival piece
Essay: A short text. A reflection piece. A pre-cursor and after-effect of creating ‘The Archive of Tables’. SHARVAREE PRASHANT SHIRODE
The collection of population data, commonly known as the Census, has been taking place periodically every 10 years in the United Kingdom, specifically in England, since 1801. The only exception was made in 1941 when the Second World War took precedence over population enumeration. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is responsible for conducting the Census in England and Wales, states: "The census is a survey that takes place every 10 years. It gives us the most accurate estimate of all the people and households. It asks questions about you, your household and your home, and it builds a detailed snapshot of society. Information from the census helps the government and local authorities to plan and fund local services, such as education, doctors' surgeries and roads." (ONS, 2022) It is the complete enumeration method for every unit of the population, and one of the only methods statisticians use for primary data collection, informing thousands of other surveys around the country and the rest of the world. The modern definition, as stated by the United Nations (UN), outlines the four main features of a census: 1. It must count individuals separately. 2. It must cover everyone within a defined area. 3. It must present a "snapshot" of a population (i.e., it is taken on a specific date to prevent double-counting). 4. It should be part of a series, at defined intervals (e.g., every 10 years to be able to identify trends over time). (UNSD, 3, 2017). In this essay, I explore why definitions and parameters such as these for a census can facilitate coercive methods of data collection, past and present-day, as well as quantitative and qualitative. The essay will also probe the question of an inherent need to categorise populations in foreign (coloniser and colonised) contexts. Throughout the narrative, the focus will be on the British-Indian census; what it means to separate qualitative and quantitative data, and what it means to quantify a community, a country, a whole sub-continent. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the distancing of numbers from text, pre-empting the archival exercise of doing so. This is an exploration, not for "What are the numbers behind British imperial Raj in India, and what are the categories?" but rather, "Why are there numbers? Why are there categories?" It is these numbers that sanction a systemic change