It has now been 18 years since Pakistani last conducted a census and the government is still looking for excuses to delay it further. Law Minister Zahid Hamid told the Senate earlier this week that it will not be possible to hold the census till at least March of next year. Even that date seems optimistic since the Pakistani Bureau of Statistics told the Supreme Court that the census could be held in March or April, but only subject to the availability of the armed forces. The Supreme Court was not convinced by that argument, with Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali arguing that this should be a job for the civilian argument. And indeed if our criterion for the census is waiting for the army to be free then we will have to postpone it indefinitely. The operations in the tribal areas are far from over and tensions with India and Afghanistan mean we need more soldiers than ever to man our borders. The PML-N government has now had more than three years to come up with an alternative plan but it is still trying to buy more time. But the date of March 2017 was rejected by the Supreme Court earlier this year and there was no reason for the government to come back with the same date.
In its last hearing back in September, the Supreme Court had warned that it would not be possible to conduct the delimitation of constituencies for the 2018 elections should a census not be conducted. This explains why the government is trying to put off the census for as long as possible. An updated census could change the number of seats given to various cities in the National Assembly – thereby affecting political strongholds in rural Punjab. The effects of the government’s delaying tactics on this necessary task will be felt by everyone. A census is needed for updated statistics on poverty and how best to hand out welfare, to figure out urban and rural planning and for just about every other measure of development. The government needs to realise that holding a census is a constitutional requirement. There is no reason why civilian officials cannot carry out the census themselves, even if they have to do it in stages. Not agreeing to hold the census at the right time is only making the matter worse and more controversial than necessary.