Collaborations With Communities
We work with marginalised communities across India through participatory, community-owned methodologies to collect the disaggregated data, strengthening capacities of community members to document their own realities, inform policy, and facilitating dialogues to ensure that in a nation of extraordinary diversity, no one is left uncounted.
Why Do We Need Citizen Data?
India's marginalised communities reflect its diversity. There are 3,000+ Scheduled Castes (SCs) and an estimated 25,000 sub castes, alongside 700+ Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), and six religious minorities. Gender, age, physical and mental abilities, and geographic location add further intersecting dimensions of exclusion. ​Yet, the nation’s development data remains largely aggregated, grouping people into broad categories that mask community realities.​
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As the saying goes in statistics, what is not counted is not included. Without disaggregated data, who's being left behind stays unclear. The gap was evident: data robust enough to inform policy. ​Aiming to remedy this, in 2018, we began developing participatory, community-owned, and community-centric methodologies to collect this evidence.
What Is Counted Is Included
Starting with 100 Hotspots in 2018-19—pilot studies of 100 households each across 25 communities—the methodology has steadily expanded. Community Briefs in 2021 mapped Covid-19's impact on marginalised communities by studying 200 households across four locations. By 2023-24, Community Reports on Denotified and Nomadic Tribes in Rajasthan and Scheduled Tribes in Bihar documented 400 households each, revealing livelihood conditions and development gaps.
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The data in these publications were collected by people from the community, whose capacities were strengthened through training sessions on data collection using online survey tools. Their lived experiences and field observations strengthen the findings, creating evidence that has shaped global conversations on 'citizen data' for policymaking. These strategies have since evolved beyond data collection into community-based monitoring and mobilization for government entitlements
