A year has passed since the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power. Many people believe it is too early to pass a judgement. Others say that expectations have been firmly belied. BJP spokespersons tom-tom a list of achievements. Their opponents proclaim that this is merely propaganda: no segment of society is happy, not the farmers, not the poor, not the middle class, and not even the corporates (except the one or two who are favourites). One thing is certainly true: few governments which came to power with such a majority have so quickly lost so much of their popularity. The Delhi elections, and the general mood of disaffection in the country, are incontrovertible evidence of this.
But as I had argued in my previous column (Saffron blues, May 10), the real danger of the Sangh Parivar is the ideological brainwashing they seek to institutionalise. One of their favourite themes is that Hindus are somehow “threatened” in India. On January 6, 2015, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj issued a peremptory command to all Hindu women to produce at least four children “to protect the Hindu religion”, which, he said, would otherwise be swamped by those who have “four wives and 40 children”. On January 13, BJP leader from West Bengal, Shyamal Goswami, said Hindu women should have five children. A week later, Vasudevanand Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Badrikashram, merrily doubled the demand: every Hindu woman should have 10 children, he thundered at the Magh Mela at Allahabad. Not 40 “pillas” (puppies) but four children should be the reproductive duty of every Hindu woman, reiterated Sadhvi Prachi on February 13.
What we are witnessing is a new campaign of demographic scaremongering. At one level, this insensitively reduces Hindu women to subordinate child-producing machines at the beck and call of every irrational demagogue. At another level, the entire campaign has no real co-relation to facts. The categorisation of our population according to religion is done every decade by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. The last census, which provided these figures, was that of 2001. (The 2011 census figures have not been released yet.) According to the 2001 census, Hindus constitute 80.5 per cent of our population and Muslims 13.4 per cent. The corresponding figures in 1991 were 82.6 per cent and 11.4 per cent. It is quite clear, therefore, that Hindus continue to constitute the overwhelming majority and are under no threat of “extinction” as the rabble-rousers seek to project.
Moreover, even with these overwhelming figures for Hindus, their actual numbers could actually be higher since there were several methodological errors that need to be factored in. Firstly, in 1991, Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir was not included in the detailed census because it was categorised as a “disturbed region”. Since in several districts of Jammu and Kashmir, the total fertility rate (TFR) — a measure of the number of children born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years — has actually dipped to below replacement levels, the rate of rise of the Muslim population, as reflected in the final census figures, was exaggerated. Secondly, for the first time, the census questionnaire took cognisance separately of Buddhists, Jains, adivasis and others, who were in the past docketed as Hindus. According to the census, India has eight million Buddhists, four million Jains, six million adivasis and others. If these 18 million were added to the total tally of Hindus, as was done in the past, the percentage of Hindus would be higher.
Several Sangh Parivar websites cite polygamy and aversion to birth control as the reasons for the alleged rise of the Muslim population. Narendra Modi himself publicly and derisively labelled Muslims as “Hum paanch, hamare pachees” people in 2002. However, whatever the popular stereotype, the truth is quite at variance. According to the 1961 census, polygamy is practised most by the adivasis (15.2 per cent), the Buddhists (7.9 per cent), Jains (6.7 per cent) and the Hindus (5.8 per cent) come next. The figure for the Muslims is the lowest (5.7 per cent). Although these figures are dated, they do indicate that polygamy while permissible is not widely practised by most Muslims. Besides, according to empirical data, there are 936 women for every 1,000 Muslim men. If, in these circumstances, each Muslim male was to marry four women, 75 per cent of Muslim men would remain unmarried!
On family planning, the fact is that population growth is falling in almost all countries with large Muslim populations. In Turkey, for instance, 63 per cent of all reproductive couples use contraception. In more conservative Indonesia, the comparable figure is 48 per cent. Misguided religious evangelism has rarely prevented people from making rational choices about themselves. Family planning was once frowned upon in Catholic conservative Italy and Spain, but in both these countries the TFR is as low as 1.2 per cent. Even in India, Muslims in more prosperous and educated Kerala, have one of the lowest TFRs at 1.6 per cent.
The fundamental truth is that poverty breeds. Countries where people are abysmally poor and deprived of education and healthcare, and where women empowerment is low, population growth rates are higher. This has nothing to do with religion or geography and applies equally to Hindus and Muslims. Those couples who choose to restrict their families to two children don’t have fewer “religious” cells in their brain. They are merely able to make more informed choices about their well being as a consequence of socio-economic empowerment.
Hindus are, and will remain, the overwhelming majority in India. The ratio between Hindus and Muslims has remained relatively stable over the decades. The figures for the 2011 census are awaited and one wonders why their release is so delayed. As more Muslims benefit from economic development and as more Muslim women get empowered, the Muslim population growth rate will inevitably fall further, just as in the case of Hindus. The fear psychosis being created by the Sangh Parivar has no basis in facts, but is entirely based on perpetuating false stereotypes with the aim of stoking religious hatred for electoral gains. The pity is that the BJP leadership is largely silent — and therefore complicit — in this despicable game.
Author-diplomat Pavan K. Varma is a Rajya Sabha member
