Last Sunday, a data collector came over for the economic census, and asked me the usual questions about my income and the source. Next, she asked my religion. When I said I had none, she made an entry. I wanted to see what she had written. I checked and saw that she had classified me as "others". She showed me that there were eight religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism and Buddhism, and the last entry was "others". I told her if I had no religion and was an atheist, she could not put me into "other religions". She said with the list structured as it was, she could not do anything else.
She is not to blame. But a separate classification of atheism should exist. By no stretch of imagination, can atheism be "other religions". I remember an entry for atheists in the 1971 Census. I read in newspapers that there were 10,000 atheists in Delhi. We have the right to know if we have become an endangered species. And, more importantly, what is the reason for this enormous waste of money? Why could the economic census not be done with the National Population Register or the General Census?
Sukumar Mukhopadhyay, New Delhi
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