Mapping India: The world's largest count

India is undertaking the biggest population count the world has ever attempted - a digital census designed to capture the lives, identities and realities of more than 1.4 billion people. With three million field staff, self‑enumeration in 16 languages, and real‑time monitoring across cities, forests, floodplains and megacities, the operation is both a national ritual and a vast technological experiment.

The census reaches far beyond population totals. It records religion, language, housing, migration, education, work, and for the first time in nearly a century, caste. As India prepares to update data last collected in 1931, the return of caste questions has sparked debate about identity, inequality and political power. Linguists warn that hundreds of mother tongues risk disappearing into broad categories. Demographers highlight blind spots in counting women’s work, disability, homelessness and the country’s rapidly shifting fertility patterns. And migration specialists track new corridors reshaping India’s social and economic landscape.

Through voices from Assam to Delhi Brishbhanu Baruah explores how this enormous civic exercise will redefine India’s understanding of itself. What does the world’s largest count reveal about a nation changing faster than its data, and how will the results shape India’s future?

(Photo: People wait on the platform to board a local train at Boriwali railway station in Mumbai, India, 20 April 2023. Credit: Divyakant Solanki/EPA-EFE/Rex/Shutterstock)

Presenter: Brishbhanu Baruah in Assam
Producer: Ashley Byrne
A Made in Manchester production for the BBC World Service