The politics of religion count

By Garimella Subramaniam

CHENNAI, FEB. 21. While in the past two decades, the country has been generally feeding on a high-pitched fascist majoritarian propaganda about religious minorities, the perpetration of falsehoods pertaining to questions of fertility, especially of minority religious communities, the Muslims in particular, predates the political ascendancy of the Hindutva campaign.

Although this tendency to link questions of population growth among different religious communities to the tenets of particular religions has little basis, an exercise involving the distribution of population among different groups may be the only way to disprove such claims.

The 1991 Census provides the distribution of the population among different religions. The percentage of population of the Hindus was 82.00, Muslims 12.12, Christians 2.34, Sikhs 1.94, Buddhists 0.76, Jains 0.40 and others 0.39 and religion not stated 0.05.

A set of findings based on earlier Censuses and other surveys are revealing of the kind of falsehoods propagated

about the numerical strength of religious groupings. The study conducted by Mr. Abusaleh Shariff on the `Socio-Economic and Demographic Differentials between Hindus and Muslims in India' (Economic and Political Weekly, November 18, 1995) effectively debunks myths such as ``appeasement of minorities'', an epithet that is generally targetted at Muslims.

The study brings out striking differences in the demographic profiles of different religious communities during the first three decades after independence; differences that arise out of historical and cultural factors. The country's population (in millions) nearly doubled from 361.1 in 1951 to 665.3 in 1981. During this period, the Hindus grew from 303.6 to 549.8 millions in the total population; the Muslims from 35.4 to 75.5 millions; Christians from 8.3 to 16.2 millions; and others from 9.7 to 25.8 millions.

In these three decades, the population grew at the rate of Hindus: 20.3, 24.7 and 24.2 per cent respectively, Muslims: 25.6, 30.8 and 30.6 per cent; Christians: 27.4, 32.6 and 17.4. The national averages to the total population for the different religious groups was: Hindus 82.6 per cent, Muslims 11.4 per cent and Christians 2.4 per cent. The Hindu population was in majority in 13 out of the 15 States considered in the study.

However, the Hindu population in Kerala and West Bengal was 58 and 77 per cent respectively which is less than the national average of 82.6 per cent.

Interestingly, 52 per cent of Muslims reside in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Jammu and Kashmir is the lone State where they form a majority (64 per cent) and Punjab is the other State where non-Hindus (Sikhs) constitute the largest religious group. After Jammu and Kashmir, the next largest proportion of Muslims, about 21 per cent each, were in West Bengal and Kerala.

Muslims constitute about 16 per cent in U.P., 14 per cent in Bihar, 11 per cent in Karnataka and 9 per cent in Maharashtra. The States where Muslim population is about 5 per cent or less are Tamil Nadu Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. Christians are mostly concentrated in Kerala, about 21 per cent, and in T.N. about 6 per cent of the State's population.

The other areas where Christians are found in significant percentages are some States in the Northeast. Against this distribution of the population among different religious communities in the background, it would be interesting to look at the socio-economic profile of Muslims in the first three decades after independence. That is the task for tomorrow.

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