Yesterday the International Crisis Group issued a Myanmar conflict alert. At issue is the nationwide census planned for March 30 – April 10, 2014. Long viewed as a necessary technical exercise in a country that last enumerated its population in 1983, the current census is now generating deep political anxiety. Chiefly concern focuses on complex issues of identity that the census seeks to map, though its probing interest in a range of taxable items is also a worry. One consequence is that ethnic minority leaders are objecting to a requirement that individuals select a single identity from a discredited list of 135 ethnic groups drawn up by the Ne Win government in the early 1980s. Another is that communities on both sides of a growing divide between Buddhists and Muslims are mobilizing to ensure that census returns on religious identity come out in their favour. In Rakhine State, there is a potent risk of violence as majority Buddhists seek to ensure that no significant Muslim population is registered, and minority Muslims work to secure documentation for blocked citizenship claims. In these circumstances, the proposal made by the ICG looks sensible. In this fragile transitional period, cut the census down from a sprawling 41 questions to just six addressing basic demographic issues of age, sex and marital status.