The Census as a Political Battlefield In the early 20th century, the British Raj transformed the Indian Census from a mere demographic exercise into a high-stakes political weapon. In 1910, E.A. Gait, the Census Commissioner, issued a circular that would change the course of Indian history. He proposed ten tests to determine whether "Untouchables" and various lower-caste groups should be classified as "Hindus." This was not just a religious query; it was an existential threat to the upper-caste political establishment. If millions of lower-caste individuals were removed from the Hindu count, the "Hindu Majority" would vanish overnight, along with the political leverage held by the elite. The Catalyst: "Hindus: A Dying Race" To understand the panic of the upper castes, one must look at a pamphlet published just one year prior: "Hindus: A Dying Race" by Lt. Col. U.N. Mukerji (1909). Mukerji used 30 years of census data to ar...