Indian Census: For A Better Understanding
By Yasser Arafath. P. K.18 September, 2004
Countercurrents.orgSometimes even a feather can be a savior for a drowning person. At least he could be on a great hope for few moments. That is what visibly happening with attitude of ousted BJP and its allies in recent times. New revelation by Census Commissioner became a political weapon in the hands of frustrated NDA front in the wake of upcoming state elections especially in Maharashtra. Venkaia Naidu, the President of Bharatiya Janatha Party already started hitting the roads with politically motivated statements about the 'increasing growth rate of Muslim community in India in the past decade. But it is very unfortunate that without seeing the entire picture, a very sensitive and alarming issue like religious growth rate of a particular community being misused for the unholy political trade.
New release of 2001 census termed as 'First Report on Religious Data' does not really show the population explosion among the Muslim community. This report reveals that the Muslim population in the country grew at the rate of 36 percent during the period of 1991-2001. The rate of the Hindu population was recorded at 20.3 percent during the same period. During the period between 1981-1991, the population rate of the Hindus was 25.1 percent while Muslim community reported a growth rate of 34.5 percent. Having stated this figures, the report also mentions that Hindus constitute 80.5 of the total population of the country with their 82.7 crores while Muslims are filling the 13.4 percent in the rest of the total population of 102.8 crores. As per the first revelation by the census commissioner, the growth rate of Hindu community came down to 4.6 percent in contrast to the Muslim community, which reported to have an alarming 1.5 percent growth rate. The censusn data also shows that Christians are accounting the third largest religious minority with their 24 million population while Sikhs have 19 million on their own.
By using the above-mentioned statistics, different Pro-Hindutva parties started targeting the Muslims with posters, protest march etc across the country. Here the propagators are deliberately forgetting some of the important factors which led to the so called 'high growth rate' in the Muslim community. The most important reason is that new census report have included Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state and strife-torn Assam, both left out of the 1991 census due to the blood shedding violence which made data collection impossible.
Another reason to be stated that last census included Jains in the category of 'Hindus' unlike in the present census report in which they are specified as 'Jains' itself. This fact is coupled with another important aspect that of 'Adivasis' (tribal people). In the past decades adivadis did not show any resentments of being categorized, as 'Hindus' and naturally they became a considerable chunk in the 'hindu' populace. But interestingly, with the growing socio-political consciousness among different adivasi groups in different part of the country they strongly wanted to be blocked from being grouped in the larger framework of the 'hindus' and instead they insisted on being categorized as 'other religions' groups. Here it should be remembered that the category of 'other religions' reportedly recorded a growth rate of 103.1percent in the total population while the 'non-religions' counted a 75.1 percent in the growth rate.
Having studied all these facts, population experts like Ashish Bose say that, far from increasing from 34.5 percent to 36 percent over the last decade the actual growth rate of the Muslim community declined to 29.3% provided the fact that growth rate of the Jammu and Kashmir population is excluded from the present census report as in the case of 1991 census. If it done so there is a clear fall of about 5 percent in the total growth rate in the Muslim community which is highly appreciable.
Beyond these facts there are also some other important factors should be looked in to. Even though the actual growth rate falls there is still a huge difference between Hindu and Muslim regarding the growth rate. Instead of recognizing the reasons of it, persons with ill feeling towards them started setting some unrealistic reasons concerning the phenomenon. They argue that growing illegal infiltration in the eastern part of the country especially in West -Bengal from bordering Bengadesh and the 'lack of interest' among the Muslims about family planning are the real reasons of 'alarmingly high' growth rate. This is a far away conclusion from the reality.
Instead of communalising the entire issue, people who are really bothered about the development of the country must look at the grass root reasons behind the disparities. By understanding the socio-economic conditions of the Muslims across the length and breadth of the country, the reasons of the high rate of the growth in the community in relation to other religious communities can be discovered. South Indian Muslims, who are generally, educationally and economically better off than the rest of the country, are a towering testimony to this matter. In southern most, Kerala reported a growth rate of 15 percent while Karnataka come with 16.1 percent. Both Andra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had recorded a better impression with the growth rate of 14.9 and 12.9 percent respectively.
As a religious group Muslims are said to be the least backward in all possible sense of the term. Barring some instances from Kerala and Karnataka they still live in the absolute poverty and backwardness. Low literacy, lack of awareness and nominal social mobility of female folk in the community and so forth are some of the culprits behind the scenario. It is evident from the fact that Muslim community registered the least average in the literacy rate (59.1%) among all religious groups like Hindus (65.1%), Christains (80.3%), Buddhist (72.7%), Sikh (69.4%) and Jains (90.6%). In fact this statistics shows that Muslims are about 5 percent behind the national literacy average of 64.8 percent.
Having stated all facts and findings it is clear that just not numbers would draw the entire picture of the larger issue. It is true that growth rate of the Muslim community is quiet high. Therefore it high time to find out and put solutions for the real reasons behind it. Instead of using this alarming situation politically let us study the sociological as well as the economical factors keep pulling Muslims and other backward communities from climbing up the socio-economic ladder.
YasserArafath P.K,is a P.HD scholar in the department of history ,Central university of Hyderabad.
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