Consider the following statements with reference to Census in India: 1. The first All India Census was attempted in 1872. 2. From 1881, decennial censuses became a regular feature. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — C, Both 1 and 2. The first attempt at an all-India count was made in 1872, in Lord Mayo's viceroyalty, and the word ‘attempted’ in the statement is well chosen. That operation was spread over 1871 and 1872, was not taken on a single reference date, and left out parts of the country, so it is remembered as a first try rather than as a finished census. The count of 1881, under Lord Ripon, was taken synchronously and covered the country far more completely, and from that year the exercise settled into a ten-yearly rhythm that ran unbroken through 1891, 1901 and on to 2011 — through two world wars, the influenza pandemic of 1918, partition and independence. That unbroken run is itself the evidence for statement 2. Both statements therefore stand, which is why the both-correct option is the one to take.
- (a)1 only — Concedes the 1872 attempt but denies the decennial pattern, when the decade-by-decade list of Indian census years from 1881 onwards is one of the easiest things in the syllabus to check.
- (b)2 only — Denies 1872, which is the date every account gives for the first attempt at an all-India enumeration.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects two statements that support each other — the 1872 attempt is precisely why 1881 is treated as the start of the regular series.
The Indian census is the largest administrative exercise of its kind anywhere. Counts were taken in individual provinces from the 1860s; the first attempt to cover the whole of British India came in 1872. The 1881 count was the first taken synchronously across the country, and every tenth year after it produced another, which gives India a run of comparable population data longer than almost any other country's. After independence the operation passed to the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, working under the Census Act of 1948.
The item rewards the difference between ‘attempted’ and ‘completed’. Statement 1 is careful with its verb, and a candidate who has learnt that the 1872 census was incomplete and non-synchronous may wrongly read the statement as false. Take the sentence as written. Anchor the two dates to their viceroys — Mayo in 1872, Ripon in 1881 — and the item resolves itself. Present-day position, which has moved since this paper was set: the census due in 2021 was postponed and then repeatedly deferred, the first such break since the series began under the British. House-listing for the next census began on 1 April 2026, with population enumeration set for February 2027, and it will record caste for the first time since 1931.
- The first all-India census was attempted in 1872, during Lord Mayo's viceroyalty; the operation ran across 1871 and 1872 and was not synchronous.
- The 1881 census, under Lord Ripon, was the first taken synchronously, and the ten-yearly series runs unbroken from that year to 2011.
- The census is now conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, on the authority of the Census Act, 1948.
- The 2021 census was the first ever to be postponed since the exercise began under the British.
- House-listing for the next census began on 1 April 2026 and population enumeration is scheduled for February 2027, with caste to be enumerated for the first time since 1931.
- Reading ‘attempted’ as ‘completed’ and rejecting statement 1 because the 1872 census was patchy.
- Swapping the viceroys — Mayo belongs to 1872, Ripon to 1881.
- Assuming the decennial run is still unbroken; the 2021 census was postponed.
As a two-statement item on the origin of the census, or as a pairing of a census year with the viceroy of the day.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The first synchronous census of India was taken during the viceroyalty of which of the following?
- (a)Lord Mayo
- (b)Lord Ripon
- (c)Lord Lytton
- (d)Lord Curzon
Answer(b) Lord Ripon — the 1881 count, from which the ten-yearly series runs.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under which law is the census of India conducted today?
- (a)The Census Act, 1948
- (b)The Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969
- (c)The Citizenship Act, 1955
- (d)The Collection of Statistics Act, 2008
Answer(a) The Census Act, 1948 — administered by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs.