Census 2027 Hindi notification calls disability “nihshaktata”; Registrar General calls it inadvertent

The news

New Delhi. Disability rights activists have objected to the term “nihshakt” (incapable) in Census 2027, calling it “derogatory” and “illegal”, The Economic Times reports. The Home Ministry’s Hindi gazette notification of August 14, 2026 lists 40 parameters for census officers; at serial 13 it uses “nihshaktata” (incapacity), while the English version says “disability”. Activists say the Registrar General of India (RGI), who conducts the Census, copied the 2011 parameters without noting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Akeel Ahmad Usmani of the Disability Rights Advocacy Group called it “derogatory and defunct”; Arman Ali of the NCPEDP said the chance to be counted “has come after 15 years”. The RGI office told ET the earlier use was “an inadvertence”, that “divyangata” is now used in the enumeration form, and that the gazette may need amending. This is new on a thread so far about caste and self-enumeration.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The RPwD Act, 2016 widened who counts as disabled. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the 1995 Act and raised the recognised disabilities from seven to 21, adding conditions such as autism, thalassaemia and acid attack. A “person with benchmark disability” has at least 40% of a specified disability and gets 4% reservation in government posts and 5% of seats in government higher education institutions.
2. The Act carries out India’s commitment under the UN Convention. India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007. The Convention treats disability as arising from the interaction between an impairment and barriers in society, the social model. The older medical model sees disability as a defect in the person to be cured, and “incapable” is that model’s vocabulary.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Laws for vulnerable sections recur in GS2. The GS2 line “mechanisms, laws, institutions and bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections” covers the RPwD Act directly, and Census data quality falls under GS1 “population and associated issues”.

Analysis

1. Lens — Tradition and social justice: the word carries a model, and the model decides the count. Asking people whether they are “incapable” invites the answer no, because few describe themselves that way; a question about difficulty in seeing, walking or learning gets honest replies. So language affects not only dignity but the number the State gets, and that number decides budgets and reservations. A careful officer would conclude that the form must speak the language of the 2016 Act, because a stigmatising word produces an undercount.
2. Self-enumeration raises the stakes of the wording. An enumerator can explain a question gently; in digital self-enumeration the citizen reads the official word alone on a screen. Some families will skip the question, especially for children and older relatives. A slip that might pass in an interview becomes serious online.
3. Replacing one word with another is not reform. The government prefers “divyang”, roughly “divine body”, and several disability groups have themselves questioned it, arguing that people seek rights and access, not reverence. The counter-view is that a respectful word signals intent. The Act’s real test is accessibility and equal treatment, which no word supplies.

Administrator's brainstorm