According to military junta, military council or State Administration Council (SAC) the nationwide census taking is to create a correct voter list so that a free and fair election can be held in November 2025. But many are convinced that it is a repressive tool to control the population and to implement its militarization scheme in order to help prop up its tyrannical military regime by all means.

Reportedly, SAC report the nationwide census has started with some 42,000 “volunteer” enumerators and supervisors which is being conducted from October 1 to 15. But several reports from Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) said the process has started even one day earlier in various places in Shan State.

According to SAC and Frontier Myanmar reports, some 42,000 enumerators will cover 110,000 enumeration areas across the entire country.

RFA October 2 reported that audit and enumerators in Naypyitaw area Enumerators are staffed with (23) persons; (800) persons in Kachin State; (1,026) persons in 27 townships of Sagaing Region, (1,045) persons in Tanintharyi Region, (4,259) persons in Bago Region, (1,202) persons in Mon State, (7,077) in Yangon Region, (2,909) persons in Shan State, and 5,478 persons in Irrawaddy Region, who are said to be conducting the census.

Among these, Rakhine State, Kayah State (Karenni), Karen State, Chin State, Magwe Region, Mandalay Region and so on are not included in the list.

68 questions household questionnaire and 18 for the organizational questionnaire are being asked and collected for the 2024 census. The military council’s statement also stated that the preliminary census population will be released at the end of December.

The National Unity Government (NUG), ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) all objected the military council conducting census and warned that action would be taken against those involved in the census-taking.

According to the VOA report of October 3, Aung Thu Nyeen, who works for Institute for Strategy and Policy- Myanmar, said the last 2014 census cost about 75 million USD and the Myanmar government paid 15 million USD. But this time it is wholly on the military junta.

He also pointed out that some of 2014 census were not made public and thus there is a question if it will publicize the real result this time around. Another thing is that international community is waiting to see if this census will be reliable and trustworthy.

Real SAC motive

While the official reason of SAC leader Gen Min Aung Hlaing is to create a valid voter list, the real motive behind is to make use of the census as an intelligence gathering tool in repressing the population, according to Mary Callahan whose piece in Frontier Myanmar on October 1, titled: “Myanmar’s census is a blunt counterinsurgency tool” pointed out correctly.

She writes: “Because the census is considered a key intelligence tool, Min Aung Hlaing seems unwilling to tolerate any delays – even in the face of nationwide flooding from Typhoon Yagi. At a natural disaster management meeting on September 17, he told state and regional chief ministers and high-ranking military and cabinet personnel that the hundreds of thousands of flood victims should be cleared out of relief camps and “returned to their respective homes as quickly as possible” so that the population count can proceed as planned.”

She further argued that the census isn’t about election and if it is aimed at voter list, enumerators would only need to ask 6-10 questions, not 68. “Essentially, it is a counterinsurgency operation, aimed in part at terrorizing the population but mostly at flushing out armed opposition fighters,” she said.

The vulnerable people in the process of census are those with Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), households of those who joined the armed resistance, and families receiving money from relatives or friends working abroad using informal transfer services, which the junta is keen to crack down, she pointed out.

Conscription, anti-junta and Burmanization

Only a few days into census taking, people are already feeling the pressure due to the census. Chief issues among them are forced conscription, harassment of families that joined the anti-junta resistance groups, angst of illegal money transfer for those working aboard, and fear of Burmanization among the people of ethnic states.

On October 2, military council conducted census in the villages north of Ywa Ngan in southern Shan State, where they threatened the villagers with forced conscription, according to the SHAN report of October 2.

A woman told SHAN that when the military council began collecting the census, with around ten soldiers as a backup security force and the ward administrator leading the census, she was threatened to summon back her child who is studying computer elsewhere to serve in the army.

“Census was taken yesterday. How many family members? Where are they now? Including all sorts of questions were asked. When I said my child is going for computer training, I was threateningly ordered to call him back, saying he has to serve in the army and so on,” she said.

National registration number, names, ages, addresses, and how many people there are in the family are being asked. Reportedly, those who fall within the specified age range for military conscription service planned for Badge Number 6 have been listed, according to the SHAN report.

No doubt, the same pattern might have happened in other places in the course of conducting census.

According to AFP report of October 3, the survey includes about family members who are away from home, which the critics say is for the junta to find out who has joined the armed groups or fled the country to avoid the junta’s conscription into the army.

“They mainly focused on a list of family members in the household and they also asked about family members who are living away,” Daw Wai Wai, a mother of three in Lewe township near the military-built capital of Naypyitaw, told AFP.

In a recent interview with The Irrawaddy on October 4, a young rebel named Min Yan ( it may be a pseudonym) who joined an anti-junta armed force aired his angst for the security of his family and that they might be harassed or blackmailed if the junta finds out that he is with the resistance.

Apart from that the anguish of the non-Bamar that the census may also be a tool to further Burmanization or forced assimilation is quite evident, as the census now asked what kind of language is primarily used within the household, rather than to which ethnic group the family belongs to, which has always been the practice.

“The important thing for our ethnic people is that some of the questions in this census are intentionally aimed at ethnic minorities. For example, instead of asking about race (ethnicity), it asks about ‘mainly spoken language at home’. We see that this has the purpose of making (assimilating) into Burman for some of the ethnic people who do not speak their mother tongue. Therefore, we, the New Mon State Party Anti-Military Authority (NMSP – AD), cannot recognize and accept the census,” said Naing Ba Nyar Mon in a VOA report on October 3.

In addition, according to the outcome of the results the junta will possibly be able to control the migration pattern and as well influence the (non-Bamar) ethnic groups, he said.

Anti-junta forces against the census

Almost all the anti-junta groups are against the census needless to say about the planned nationwide election by the junta in 2025. The NUG called for the boycott and most EAOs threatened violence against those taking part in the census and they at least suggested non-cooperation by giving false information.

The NUG together with its PDF have warned beforehand to take action against those involved in the census.

The underground role of PDF in junta’s controlled city carrying out their threats going against the census can be seen by the “explosions occurred on September 30 afternoon at the administrative offices of Alatt Chaung and Sat San wards in Kyimyindaing Township, Yangon Region, injuring over 10 people in the capital,” according to the Eleven Media Group report of October 1.

Previously on the evening of September 26, two PDF members shot and killed U Zaw Min Tun, an administrative body member, living in Aung San Ward, in front of Aung San Market in Insein Township. On September 20 also, gunmen entered the 107th Ward administrative office in Dagon Myothit (South) Township, and opened fire, resulting in the deaths of the ward administrator and a member, and injuring a clerk.

The PDF group “Anonymous Force (Yangon Military Division Branch)” claimed responsibility for the September 20 attack at the 107th Ward office, according to some exile media outlets. However, on September 28, the junta announced the arrest of 12 individuals, including the leader of the Anonymous Force group, reported the Eleven Media Group.

To date, NMSP-AD together with Mon Liberation Army (MLA), almost all Chin revolutionary organizations, Karen National Union (KNU) and so on have made public their anti-census position and vowed to work against it.

On October 1, The Chinland Defense Force (CDF) in Hakha attacked regime forces providing security for census-takers in the Chin State capital. Junta staff collecting census data turned back after nearly 30 minutes of fighting near a police station in the city, said residents, according to The Irrawaddy report of October 3.

Chin State Residents said that a member of the township administration of the military council in Tedim City and a participant in the census was arrested by the People’s Defense Forces (PDF Zoland) on the morning of October 4.

“The person who has been arrested now is the most reliable person of the non-CDMs when it comes to taking the census. If he is detained, it is considered that it may be an obstacle to the census collection. That is why he was arrested and detained. In the past, there have been cases of taking households registration under the pretext of reading electricity meters,” according to RFA October 4 report.

Most of the rest EAOs all already rejected the junta’s recent peace overtures offer prior to the census-taking and thus it is not necessary to reject it, as census-taking and holding election are linked according to the junta’s five stage road-map, of which election is the last stage, to retain political power of the country.

Analysis

Looking at the recent available data we could determine whether the census will be successful and legitimate, including what the junta is determined to do with the outcome for its own benefit. In the same vein, the ant-junta forces may also have to map out how they will counter the junta’s implementation of the newly acquired intelligence data.

The first question of junta’s success and degree of legitimacy in census outcomes can be answered with a straight “no”.

The whole population don’t buy the junta’s reason of collecting census in order to create a correct voter list, as it is a ploy to posture itself as a good-doer and sincere stakeholder player, when in fact it is seen as a villain from day one of the military coup in February 2021. The more than three years of barbaric, tyrannical oppression of the people buttressed the people’s opinion of rejection and even multiplies hatred upon the junta, so much so, all are for the uprooting of the military dictatorship system. The same is also true with most of the EAOs and assorted civil society organizations.

And since there is absolutely no trust and motive to cooperate with the junta, the data collected will not be reliable and even outright wrong. In this sense the outcome of census will be not legitimate and no legitimacy can be given to the outcome.

On top of it, the junta controls less than fifty percent of the landmass and without the enumeration of the ethnic-democratic controlled area’s population, there is no way the census can be comprehensive, correct, reliable and should be accepted for national socioeconomic development plan implementation. And even thousands upon thousands of people fleeing the country abroad and hiding as internally displace persons are not even taken into consideration. From this point of view the international community and bodies won’t see it as a legitimate census and thus no legitimacy will be given.

However, the junta will definitely make use of the data collected to militarize the people in its controlled territories through forced conscription into the Myanmar army and militias setup, suppressed dissidents, control migration, excessive taxation legal and illegal, including reining down on illegal remittance from those working abroad to their respective families, tied to the renewal of passport extension and so on.

Now the anti-junta ethnic-democratic forces must come up with a counter-measure as soon as possible, at least in view of the people under the junta’s reign of terror. And to add more worries to all these, they also need to ponder on how to counter the big regional power, which is openly backing the junta to derail the people’s aspirations of establishing a federal democratic union and uprooting the military dictatorship before it is too late.