Census and Politics of Census
Census Report for Assam, Manipur and Tripura, 1951
In the Census of 1951, an attempt was made to underreport Bengali numbers due to pressure from ethnonationalists. WHen Bengalis of Goalpara got wind of it, they insisted on reporting themselves as Goalparia instead. However, the then Assam government decided that everyone who reported Goalparia should be clubbed under Assamese. This inflated the Assamese count by more than 20 percentage points, and Assamese count shot up to 55% from around 30% in the 1931 census!
Another census is going to happen in 2026, and Bengalis from Undivided Goalpara, Barak Valley and every other region of Assam must be very careful about what is being written by the census officer/personnel who are visiting every household in Assam.
What goes in the census records decides the future of Bengalis in Assam.