Sorry,
Wrong Number: Venkaiah Naidu And The 247-Year Hitch
By Shankar Raghuraman
11 September, 2004
Times Of India
BJP
president Venkaiah Naidu says the differential growth rates for Hindu
and Muslim populations in India are a matter of "grave concern"
for those bothered about the country's unity and integrity. The "imbalance",
he suggests, raises "serious questions of a long-term nature"
when seen in conjunction with the phenomenon of Bangladeshi infiltrators.
To most normal people, pseudo-secular as they are, it does not automatically
follow that if Muslims grow faster than Hindus national unity is imperilled
or that more Indian Muslims being born is akin to infiltration from
across the eastern borders. But, then, such connections are not only
obvious but axiomatic to those bred on the sangh parivar's ideology,
particularly on its cruder manifestations.
The paranoia that
Hindus will one day be reduced to a minority in India is neither new
nor exclusive to Naidu. It is as old as his ideological fraternity and
as widely shared. It is time perhaps to offer them some statistical
comfort. After making the necessary adjustments to the Census data on
religious groups released a few days ago, it turns out that the Muslim
population has grown by 29.3 per cent over the last decade, while the
Hindu population has grown by 19.9 per cent.
Guess how long it
would take, if these growth rates were maintained, for Muslims to outnumber
Hindus in India. It's not a matter of a few years or even a few decades.
We would have to wait till the 2251 Census for that to happen. That's
about 247 years from where we are located in time. Naidu can, therefore,
exit panic mode. In fact, he can do even better. He can start celebrating.
For, if Indian Hindus and Muslims continued to grow at the current rates
till the year 2251, their combined population by that date would be
about 158 billion. Since that's about 30 times the current population
of planet Earth, we would then unquestionably rule the world, which
is by all accounts unlikely to come even close to matching such growth
over two and a half centuries.
If Naidu does need
some impending demographic imbalance to worry about, there is a more
proximate candidate available. The Sikh population in Punjab grew by
14.3 per cent between 1991 and 2001; the Hindu population of the state
grew by 28.7 per cent over the same period. In 2001, Sikhs constituted
just under 60 per cent of the state's population while Hindus constituted
about 37 per cent. If both groups maintain their current growth rates,
Punjab will have as many Hindus as Sikhs by 2041, just about 37 years
from now. Isn't it interesting that this particular demographic shift
does not seem to bother Naidu or his partymen? Perhaps while all demographic
shifts are equal, some are more equal than others.
Has the BJP noticed
that neither the Akalis nor anyone else in Punjab is getting worked
up about demographic
"imbalances" or perceiving them as threats to Punjab's unity?
If they have, they might ask themselves why this is the case. Could
it be that unlike Naidu the average Punjabi, Sikh or otherwise, recognises
that numbers do not make communities more or less powerful? If the BJP
were to bother to study history it could reach that conclusion on its
own. The upper castes have dominated Indian society, politics, industry...
not because they outnumber the rest. But, of course, the sangh parivar
is not much of a votary for studying history. Itbelieves that making
up your own history as you go along is a rather more rewarding occupation,
apart from being more creatively satisfying.
But it could still
look at the very demographic trends it is so concerned about. If it
is really true that having larger numbers is an advantage, why is every
community moving in the other direction? Why are growth rates coming
down, not going up? Even more importantly, it is surely no coincidence
that as we move up the socio-economic ladder, we find the growth rate
coming down. Thus, the more developed states tend to have lower growth
rates, communities with smaller numbers of the socio-economically deprived
again have lower growth rates than those that have few people among
the privileged.
There may be temporary
movements away from this trend, but the long-term progress towards lower
growth rates is secular and across the religious spectrum. If Naidu
feels this trend needs to be accelerated, there are simpler ways of
achieving the goal than striving for a uniform growth rate across communities.
Kerala has some
pointers to offer on this score. The prescription is obvious
raise literacy, particularly female literacy, enhance economic growth
and distributive justice, make basic health facilities accessible to
all. Population stabilisation will follow, not because the state mandates
it as a goal, but because it becomes rational for indivi-duals to optimise
the size of their families.
>From the BJP's
point of view, however, there is a serious problem with this pres-cription.
It might settle the demographic problem that the party is so worked
up about, but it will also in the process leave no room for a paranoia
that has served its political cause rather well for decades.
That is a problem,
of course, but luckily for the rest of us, it is one that the sangh
parivar has to confront, not one that affects pseudo-secular Indians
like us. It certainly isn't one that threatens the country's unity and
integrity or pose serious questions of a long-term nature that would
have us losing our sleep over them. Sorry Naidu, you're on your own
on this one.