10.0 Introduction
India has a long history of Census. There are references in Rigveda, Artha Shastra of Kautilya and Ayine-e-Akbari about census of contemporary periods. The present form of Census to be taken across the country at a regular interval of ten years was introduced by the British Government in India from the year 1881 vide Home Department Circular no.
2 of 23 July 1856. Thus, there was no enactment for it. However, the Census Act was passed in the year 1948 only after independence. The Seventh Census of the country and the first after independence was conducted in the year 1951 and the subsequent censuses are being conducted under this Act. The Census organisation collects, tabulates, and publishes the data based on actual information voluntarily furnished by the informants during the census enumeration. On the subject of religion, census instructions to the enumerators allow all religions to be recorded fully and faithfully as reported by the respondents. The enumerators are specifically instructed to record the religion as returned by the respondents and not to involve into any dispute. The informant has the liberty to check/verify the details recorded in the Census Schedule. There is no change in the instructions for the recording of religion from the earlier censuses. Thus, all the religions have a fair and equal opportunity to be recorded during the census as reported by their followers. It is noteworthy that every decennial census provides an interesting picture of the religious persuasions of the people of the country. In this chapter an attempt is made to present followers of tribal religion as recorded in census reports following the classification of these people by the administration in every census.10.1
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