Communalising Population Growth: Understanding Demographic Data
Ram Puniyani
The biases and misconceptions about
conversions and population growth have been used by communal forces to
divide the society. This became apparent once again when Minister of
state of Home, Kiren Rijuju tweeted that that Hindu population is
decreasing in the country as Hindus don’t convert and that minorities in
India are flourishing unlike in the neighbouring countries.
Threat of decline in Hindu population
and increase in population of minorities is being propagated time and
over again. As per the data of 2011 census figures, Hindu population now
stands at 79.8 % and Muslim population at 14.23%. “The data on
Population by Religious Communities of Census 2011 show that between
2001 and 2011, Hindu population grew by 16.76 per cent, while that of
Muslims by 24.6 per cent. The population of both communities grew faster
during the previous decade, at 19.92 per cent and 29.52 per cent,
respectively. As a long-term trend, say demographers, the communities’
growth rates are
converging.” This means that the decadal rates of growth of both
communities is declining and converging closer to each other.
This is pointer to the fact that while
charting out the future projections it is important to keep in mind that
the rate of growth of Muslim population will be falling and will
stabilise closer to that of rate of rise Hindu population. In the total
population Muslims will remain a religious minority for the times to
come. Interestingly the population increase of Hindus during the period
of 2001 to 2011 has been 133 millions, which is close to the total
population of Muslims in 2001.The scare being spread through word of
mouth campaign and through social media about Muslim population taking
over the Hindu population holds no water, as there are clear trends of
decline in the decadal rate of growth of Muslim population as well.
The demographers point out that the
higher rates of fertility are due to lack of education and poor health
facilities. Muslims in Kerala have a lower fertility rate than many
Hindu communities in North India and even in Kerala. The economic
profile of Kerala Muslims is much different than the Muslims in Assam,
West Bengal, UP and Maharashtra for example. If we broaden this point we
will see that the rise in population among Dalits (Schedule castes) and
Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes) is much higher as such . As per the 2011
census STs are 8.6% while they were 6.23 % according to 1951 census. SCs
now are 16.6%, while as per 1951 they were around 15%.
As such the whole truth will show us
that the propaganda of communal forces has nothing to do with reality of
society and deeper causes of the same. It is in this background that
the likes of Praveen Toagadia said that two child norm should be
imposed, while the likes of Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Prachi have been
extolling the Hindus to produce more children.
BJP President has called for the ‘Look
North East’ to raise the scare about the Christian population in the
North East. This primarily Tribal area saw the increase in percentage of
Christians in the decades of 1931-1951. The rise in percentage of
Christian population has a lot to do with the spread of Civil
Administration with Independence and also with the spread of education
in the region. Country wide we can see that the percentage of Christians
is static from last few decades. If at all it has declined and
stabilised. If we see from 1971, we see that Christian population was
2.60% (1971), 2.44 (1981), 2.34 (1991), 2.30 (2001) and 2.30 (2011). In
the meanwhile the propaganda of Missionary activities and increase in
the number of Christians has dominated the scene. The anti Christian
violence came to the public attention with the ghastly murder of Graham
Stewarts Stains (1999). Dara Singh of Bajrang Dal, which is affiliated
to RSS, incited the local people that the Pastor is doing conversions
which is against Hindus. Wadhwa Commission, which investigated Pastor
Stains murder, concluded that he was not involved in the work of
conversion and that in Keonjhar, Manoharpur Orrisa where the Pastor was
working, there was no increase in the percentage of Christian
population. Similarly Kandhmal anti-Christian violence was unleashed on
the pretext of murder of Swami Laxmananand. Gujarat also saw anti
Christian activities again due to propaganda that the Missionaries are
converting. At the same time we see that the national population of
Christians remains static. Some people do allege that conversions to
Christianity are there but the converts are hiding their religion, this
is again a matter of conjuncture and nothing definite can be said. Any
way it cannot be a large number in any case.
As such conversions have been a part of
the agenda of Hindu nationalism times and over again. During freedom
movement two parallel processes of conversions were going on. One was
Tanzeem, which was to convert the people to Islam, the other was Shuddhi
which was aimed at those who were supposed to have left their
‘religion-home’ and were converted to alien religions.
The premise was that conversion to other religions has made them impure
so they need to be brought back through a process of purification. Last
several decades RSS-VHP-Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram have been active in what
is called Ghar Wapasi (return Home) to bring back the Dalits and
Adivasis who it is alleged have been converted through force (to Islam)
and allurement or fraud (to Christianity). This Ghar Wapasi campaign has
been undertaken through many newly devised rituals like bath in hot
spring or rituals around fire. This has been rampant in Adivasi areas and in slums-villages.
Adivasis are animists, while RSS claims
they are Hindus. To Hinduize them Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, now runs a
growing network of schools and hostels in large numbers in North East.
Such assertions and accompanying activities have more to with politics
rather than social welfare as such. The attempt of RSS combine is to
link religion with Nationalism.
