Malice, not ignorance behind opposition of CAA

Population registers have consolidated their status as a reality in several countries especially those in Northern Europe, where they form the most important source of information for various statistical surveys, including the population census.

Population registers have been used effectively as a statistical data source for decades and they may be considered the logical product of the evolution of a vital statistics system. Worldwide, there is recognition for the value of these registers.

It is strange that a section of the society is opposing the same in India. This is either due to ignorance or wrong inputs. Those who are converting CAA into a weapon to split the country on religious denomination accusing the ruling party, on the other hand should understand the consequences of the same.

The large scale processions being taken out in the country are slowly acquiring communal overtones. Even in Shaheen Bagh women are not hesitating to say that though the issue is pending in the apex court, they have little confidence in the court itself. Hence the government should withdraw the same, they argue.

Let us not brand those women as anti-nationals. If the BJP does it, it is wrong. Those women are anything but anti-nationals. Those who are taking a cue from them and hitting the streets are equally ignorant of the facts. No government could do away with population registers. It needs those registers to plan its programmes and schemes.

The devious design of some in the Opposition to encash on the misinterpretation of some of the laws enacted by the government will do greater harm to the country. The optics of protests are quite disturbing. These protests are slowly turning out to be representational of a particular segment of the society.

These sections have always been vulnerable to the machinations of communal politics. A great advantage of computing vital statistics from population registers is the possibility of calculating directly specific demographic rates with potentially no numerator-denomination bias.

For instance, it could be possible to co-compute specific fertility rates for employed and or immigrant women, parity progression ratios, life expectancy by educational attainment, indicators on mixed marriages by ethnic group/foreign background, divorce rates by socioeconomic class of the spouses etc.

This requires full matching between civil registration and population register data as well as the same level of detail of information in the two sources, meaning that the certificate of the event (birth etc) must contain the same topics - with the same classification - as those available in the population register.

In general, the use of the population register provides a broader opportunity to correctly identify the population at risk of an event. One could point out that several leading liberal and secular people are also opposed. Similarly, the Left and progressive forces, NGOs, artistes and even those among the BJP are opposed to it, one could say.

Well, are they really opposing the CAA because of its potential to disenfranchise or because of their hatred towards the Shah-Modi duo? Or is it because, as some of the Shaheen Bagh women put it, they lost trust in the SC after the Mandir-Masjid verdict?