Indian atheists seek recognition in the land of a million gods

Saumya SethiaSaumya Sethia
Jun 30, 2012, 03.10PM IST

NEW DELHI: Question 7 in the 2011 India census form asked respondents to disclose their religion and if it fell in the list of six major religions, then write a corresponding code. Most atheists and agnostics found this to be a closed question that compelled a religious response.

Though the union ministry of statistics and programme implementation had asked enumerators to record 'no religion' for the respondents who said so, yet technically, only the coded answers in the Indian census form were tabulated as classifiable data. In this scheme of things, a lot of minor or tribal religions as well as atheists and agnostics got lumped together in an unclassifiable category of 'Others'. In the 2001 Census, 0.1% (727,588 people) were reported as 'Religion not stated' and 0.6% as 'Others'. Neither categories logically accommodate atheists.

As far as administrative data goes, the state requires an enumeration of people born under certain communities and does not concern itself with individual beliefs. However, the complete lack of any official data regarding the number of atheists poses a larger concern. As Akshat Rathi, a doctoral student at Oxford University, UK, asks, "Given that the government doesn't do the job of counting atheists, who does?"

In most other countries, academic research and government funded social surveys is what estimates the number of atheists. "Unlike other countries, religion has a great political and social bearing in India," said Raghu De Souza, an atheist.

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