Maharashtra Government Urges Citizens to Disregard Census Misinformation

The Maharashtra government has issued an alert regarding a misleading social media message that makes false claims about Census 2027 and the Marathi language. The viral message has been circulating across various platforms, prompting officials to issue a formal clarification.

According to state authorities, the deceptive message urges Marathi speakers to exclusively list Marathi as their spoken language during the upcoming census registration, even if they are proficient in other languages. The false narrative claims that acknowledging knowledge of additional languages like Hindi or English would classify respondents as bilingual, thereby artificially reducing the official count of Marathi speakers in Maharashtra.

The fabricated message further alleges that this apparent statistical reduction would have significant financial implications, suggesting that government budgetary allocations are determined according to linguistic demographics. This unfounded claim appears designed to create anxiety among Maharashtra’s Marathi-speaking population.

“Even if you know other languages, mentioning only Marathi will ensure that you are counted as a Marathi speaker,” states the misleading message, which also encourages recipients to share it widely among Marathi-speaking communities to maximize its reach.

The Directorate General of Information and Public Relations (DGIPR), which serves as Maharashtra’s official communication department, has categorically labeled the message as fraudulent. In an official statement published on X (formerly Twitter), the DGIPR declared: “The message circulating on social media regarding the Marathi language in connection with #Census2027 is false, and people are advised not to believe such misinformation.”

The government department has urged citizens to exercise caution and verify census-related information only through official channels, specifically mentioning the authorized websites censusindia.gov.in and se.census.gov.in as reliable sources of information.

This incident highlights the growing challenge of misinformation surrounding official government activities, particularly those with cultural significance like language enumeration. Maharashtra, where Marathi is the official state language and an important cultural identity marker for millions, has previously seen language-related sensitivities emerge in public discourse.

Census operations in India have become increasingly complex in recent years, with the planned 2021 Census being significantly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next census, now informally referred to as Census 2027, will be crucial for policy planning and resource allocation across various sectors.

Language data collection forms a vital component of India’s census operations, providing insights into linguistic diversity and shifts across states. The last census revealed Maharashtra had approximately 83 million Marathi speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in India.

Experts note that such misinformation campaigns often exploit existing cultural anxieties and can potentially undermine the accuracy of important demographic exercises. Language enumeration in the census has legitimate policy implications, including for educational planning, but the connection to direct budgetary allocations suggested in the viral message represents a significant distortion of actual governance mechanisms.

The Maharashtra government’s quick response to debunk this misinformation demonstrates the increasing vigilance of official agencies toward false information that could affect public participation in essential national exercises like the census.

Citizens are encouraged to approach census enumeration with factual information and to report suspicious messages to relevant authorities rather than forwarding them to others.