India, Nov. 14 -- The first Indian census was carried out in 1871, in the aftermath of the Revolt of 1857. Shaken by the revolt, the Crown resolved that it could not govern a land it could not measure. Early enumeration, therefore, was a colonial tool of classification and control. Following Independence, the census was transformed into the foundation of governance and planning. Over subsequent decades, it adapted to reflect the nation's shifting imperatives. Conducted every 10 years, the unbroken chain of counting was interrupted for the first time in 2021, amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Combining insider expertise with rigorous scholarship, former Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India C Chandramouli demonstrates how the exercise is far more than a simple counting of heads. It is both a mirror in which the nation sees itself and a map by which it charts its future....