Kashmir Census Cancelled Four Times Since 2019. The Reason Is Electoral.

In a wood-paneled conference room in New Delhi on March 12, 2026, a senior official from the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner placed a single-page memo on the table. The document, reviewed by The Editorial, was addressed to the Union Home Ministry and dated February 28. It contained a request that had been made, and denied, three times before: permission to begin the decadal census in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority region, now six years overdue.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations, told The Editorial that the ministry's response arrived within seventy-two hours. It was, once again, a deferral. The census in Jammu and Kashmir would be postponed indefinitely, pending "administrative adjustments."

What the memo did not say—but what three officials with direct knowledge confirmed—is that those adjustments have already been completed. In December 2023, more than two years before any census count, the Delimitation Commission finalized new electoral boundaries for Jammu and Kashmir's legislative assembly. The commission added six seats to the Hindu-majority Jammu region and only one to the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley. It did so without population data.

Constitutional scholars say this reverses the legal sequence enshrined in Article 82 of the Indian Constitution, which requires census enumeration before delimitation. The pattern, they argue, is not administrative delay. It is strategic sequencing designed to lock in electoral outcomes before the population is counted.

The Constitutional Sequence, Reversed

India's Constitution mandates a census every ten years. The most recent nationwide count was conducted in 2011. The next was scheduled for 2021 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2023, the government announced it would be conducted in 2024. Then, in July 2024, it was deferred again. No new date has been set.

For twenty-eight Indian states and eight union territories, the delay is primarily administrative. For Jammu and Kashmir, it is constitutional. On August 5, 2019, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked Article 370, which had granted the region semi-autonomous status since 1954. Jammu and Kashmir was split into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh—and placed under direct rule from New Delhi.

The revocation also triggered a legal requirement: new electoral boundaries had to be drawn. Under Article 82, delimitation—the redrawing of constituency boundaries—must be based on the most recent census. In 2019, that was the 2011 census. But the Delimitation Commission, constituted in March 2020, was given an unusual mandate. Its terms of reference, issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice, stated it could "take into account" the 2011 census but was not bound by it. It could also consider "topography, difficult terrain, means of communication, and public convenience."

Former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi told The Editorial that the commission's methodology was "unprecedented." He said: "You cannot redraw constituencies without knowing how many people live in them. The entire point of delimitation is proportional representation. If you don't count, you cannot represent."

What the Maps Show

According to the 2011 census, Jammu and Kashmir had a population of 12.5 million: 6.89 million in the Kashmir Valley, 5.35 million in Jammu, and 274,000 in Ladakh (which is now a separate union territory). Muslims comprised 68.3 percent of the population; Hindus, 28.4 percent.

Under the old assembly structure—before delimitation—Kashmir held 46 seats, Jammu 37. The 2023 delimitation increased the total from 83 to 90 seats and redistributed them: Kashmir now has 47, Jammu 43. In raw numbers, Kashmir gained one seat. Jammu gained six.

The commission justified the shift by citing "geographical area" and "difficulty of terrain." In its final report, it noted that Jammu's districts covered 26,293 square kilometers compared to Kashmir's 15,948. It also cited "security considerations" and "communication infrastructure."

But constitutional law does not grant weight to terrain. Article 81 specifies that the allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha (India's lower house of parliament) shall be based on population. Article 170 applies the same principle to state assemblies. The Supreme Court affirmed this in its 1976 judgment in T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, stating that "the basis of representation is population, not geography."

The Four Postponements

Internal correspondence reviewed by The Editorial shows that census officials requested authorization to begin enumeration in Jammu and Kashmir on four separate occasions: June 2022, February 2023, September 2024, and February 2026. Each request was denied or deferred by the Union Home Ministry, which oversees the census and has administrative control over Jammu and Kashmir.

A second official, who worked on census planning for the northern states, told The Editorial that the pattern was unmistakable. "We were ready to go in 2022. The questionnaires were printed. Enumerators were trained. Then we were told to wait. When we asked why, we were told there were 'security concerns.' But there was no operational directive. Just wait."

The Home Ministry did not respond to written questions from The Editorial. In a January 2025 statement to Parliament, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the census had been delayed nationwide due to "the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to update the National Population Register." He did not address why Jammu and Kashmir alone has been subject to repeated internal deferrals even as other states prepare for enumeration.

The Electoral Implications

The redistribution has immediate political consequences. Under the old structure, Kashmir's slight numerical edge (46 seats to Jammu's 37) meant that any coalition capable of winning a majority had to include Kashmir-based parties. These parties—principally the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party—advocated for dialogue with Pakistan, restoration of Article 370, and greater autonomy for the Muslim-majority region.

Under the new structure, Jammu's Hindu-majority constituencies can, in theory, deliver 43 of the 46 seats needed for a majority in the 90-seat assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads India's central government and advocates Hindu nationalist policies, won 25 of Jammu's 37 seats in the 2014 state elections. With six additional seats, its path to control no longer requires Kashmir.

Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Kashmir Times, told The Editorial that the delimitation has "effectively disenfranchised" Kashmir. "You have a region where 55 percent of the population lives, but they now have 52 percent of the seats. That doesn't sound like much, but when you combine it with the BJP's strength in Jammu, it means Kashmir's vote no longer decides the government. That was the point."

What Came Before

The sequence—delimitation before census—is not the only constitutional anomaly. Since August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir has been governed under direct rule, with an appointed Lieutenant Governor wielding executive authority. Elections to the new assembly have been promised repeatedly but not held. The most recent commitment, made by the Election Commission in March 2024, set a deadline of September 2024. That deadline passed.

In the seven years since Article 370 was revoked, more than 5,200 people have been detained under the Public Safety Act, which allows detention without trial for up to two years, according to data compiled by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. At least 38 political leaders, including two former chief ministers, were held under house arrest or detention for periods ranging from fourteen months to three years. Internet shutdowns, imposed in August 2019, continued intermittently until February 2021, making it the longest communications blackout in a democracy.

The central government has also altered domicile rules. In April 2020, it issued an order allowing any Indian citizen who has resided in Jammu and Kashmir for one year to apply for permanent residency. Previously, only those born in the state or who had lived there for ten years were eligible. This opened the door for demographic shifts through internal migration—particularly from Hindu-majority states—though data on actual migration has not been made public. That data would come from a census.

The Legal Challenge That Failed

In December 2023, the National Conference filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the delimitation on constitutional grounds. The petition, reviewed by The Editorial, argued that the commission had "violated the foundational principle of one person, one vote" by allocating seats based on criteria other than population. It also argued that conducting delimitation without a current census violated Article 82.

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition on February 14, 2024, in a two-page order. It ruled that the Delimitation Commission had acted within its statutory authority and that its decisions were "not justiciable." The court did not address the constitutional argument regarding census sequencing.

Gautam Bhatia, a constitutional lawyer based in New Delhi, told The Editorial that the ruling effectively insulates delimitation from judicial review. "The court is saying, 'This is a political question, not a legal one.' But the Constitution is the law. If you redraw constituencies without a census, you are changing who gets to vote and whose vote counts. That is not politics. That is constitutional structure."

What It Means

The postponement of the census in Jammu and Kashmir—now six years overdue and delayed four times since 2022—has created a constitutional vacuum. Electoral boundaries have been redrawn without knowing the population. Domicile laws have been changed without tracking migration. Political representation has been restructured without democratic input.

For constitutional scholars, the pattern is familiar. In 1985, the Indian government postponed the census in Assam by six years while it renegotiated citizenship laws following communal violence. In 1991, it postponed the census in Punjab during a Sikh insurgency. In both cases, the delay was announced publicly, debated in Parliament, and accompanied by emergency measures. In Jammu and Kashmir, the delay has been implemented through bureaucratic deferral, with no public explanation and no parliamentary debate.

The third census official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Editorial that the decision is no longer administrative. "We are ready. The forms are ready. The enumerators are ready. The only thing missing is permission. And permission depends on what the data will show. If you don't want to know the answer, you don't ask the question."

When asked what would happen if the census were conducted now and the population distribution contradicted the delimitation, the official paused. Then said: "That's why it won't be conducted now."