Manika Premsingh and R Jagannathan
Census 2011 is likely to throw up a psychologically important figure on India’s religious demographics. For the first time in over a century, the proportion of the Hindu population in the country will probably fall below the 80 percent mark — in keeping with the long-term trend of a significant divergence between Hindu and Muslim growth rates.
Hindus have among the lowest overall sex ratios and child sex ratios in the country as per Census 2001.Amit Dave/Reuters
Demographers like Ashish Bose and SC Gulati have varying viewpoints on the subject. While Bose believes that “it is quite likely that the proportion will be below 80% in 2011”, Gulati says that “A secular trend cannot be predicted for religions based on past data”. The latter view is also backed by another Economic & Political Weekly (EPW) research paper “Hindu-Muslim Fertility Differentials”, which says: “It is true that a Hindu-Muslim differential in fertility persists in India’s demographic reality, but it is no more than one child. It is also not too large to swamp India’s Hindu majority in the foreseeable future. Nor is the gap likely to persist for a very long time as we find that the fertility level among Muslims declines with increasing level of education and standards of living. The faster increase in family planning among Muslims supports this conjecture”.
In a country where Hinduism is the majority religion, it is a unique trend that the proportion of Hindus has shown a secular decline since 1961, matched by a corresponding increase in the proportion of Muslims. While religion is a contentious issue to analyse at any point in time, it is equally imperative to analyse trends deeply enough to understand its socio-economic ramifications.
Firstpost is raising this issue not to pander to any scare-mongering among Hindus, but because it needs to be understood in the right context. As we await the Census 2011 results on religious demographics, we undertook an analysis of this trend and what it means for the future. Our detailed analysis indicates that while the population of Muslims is indeed growing faster than Hindus, this is only partly due to higher birth rates among them; Hindus, on the other had, also carry a responsibility for the trend in the form of lower longevity, as well as widespread prevalence of gender discrimination and higher mortality among children.
Explaining the trend
The proportion of Hindus has in the population shrunk from 83.4 percent in 1961 to 80.5 percent according to the 2001 census. This trend matches with an almost equivalent proportional rise among the Muslims — from 10.7 percent to 13.4 percent from 1961 to 2001 (and for this reason we also restrict our study to a comparative analysis between these two religions). A declining proportion of Hindus means either that the growth of Hindus is declining or that of other communities is rising. Or, as in this case, a combination of both. Decadal growth in the Hindu population has fallen to 19.3% compared with 23.8% in 1961, as per our estimates based on data from the National Minorities Commission and the Census of India 2001. In comparison, the growth in the Muslim population accelerated from 30.6% in 1961 to 34.6% in 2001. (Figures for religious demography in 2011 are yet to be made available).
For a country that has been battling the population problem for decades, while a decline in the proportion of Hindus has been flagged as a source of concern by religious organisations, to others it actually indicates social progression. It is seen as socially progressive since population growth depends on factors like fertility rates and birth rates. These, in turn, are influenced by social factors like literacy, in general, and female literacy, in particular, awareness about contraception methods, average age of marriage and the proportion of working women. Lower fertility and birth rates then are pointers to the development of societies as such.
The social factors
On some metrics, Hindus do perform better. According to estimates published in an EPW research paper on “District level fertility estimates for Hindus and Muslims” in 2005, Crude Birth Rates (CBR, as defined by number of births per 1,000 persons) for Muslims are a much higher at 30.8 as compared with the Hindu number of 24.9 and the all-India average of 25.9. This is also mirrored in a higher Muslim Total Fertility Rate (TFR, as defined by the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years) of 4.1 as compared with 3.1 for Hindus and 3.2 for all India.
It is hard to overlook the fact that trends in birth rates and fertility rates are seen as commensurate with the expected trends for literacy, use of contraception and workforce participation, despite the differences in methodology of estimation and sources.
Hindu women have slightly higher literacy rates than Muslim women at 53.2 percent and 50.1 percent, respectively as per Census 2001, which has been considered as compared with Census 2011 to keep time periods comparable. Moreover, the last National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in 2005-06 found that while 57.8 percent of Hindus were using contraception, the figure was much lower at 45.7 percent among the Muslims — suggesting, at least in part, a greater awareness about use of family planning among the Hindus. We also observe a higher proportion for working women among the Hindus — at 27.5 percent, this is higher than even the all-India average of 25.6 percent, with the Jains, Muslims and Sikhs accounting for a lower than average proportion.
However, this is only half the story told.
However, this is only half the story told.
The other side
True, the Hindu population growth has declined because of some social progression. However, Hindus also show dismal performance when it comes to other crucial social attributes, namely, focus on healthcare and gender bias. According to a study by the International Institute for Population Sciences, “Inequality in Human Development by Social and Economic Groups in India”, the life expectancy at birth for Hindus in 2005-06 was 65 years while it was higher at 68 years among Muslims. There is, of course, an element of economic prosperity here as well, with the gap between life expectancy for “poor” Hindus and Muslims being wider than that for the “non-poor” in the two communities. The overall point, however, remains, that at birth a Muslim has a chance of living longer than a Hindu.
This is clearly related to the fact that in childhood itself a higher proportion of Hindus die. Hindus have an infant mortality rate of 58.5, while the same rate among the Muslims is at 52.4, according to the National Family Health Survey (2005-06), where the infant mortality rate is defined as the probability of dying before the first birthday. Similarly, under-5 mortality is at a high of 76 compared with 70 for Muslims. This fact is also echoed in a research paper by the University of Bristol on “Religion and Childhood Death in India”, which says “Muslim children in India face substantially lower mortality risks than Hindu children. This is surprising because one would have expected just the opposite: Muslims have, on average, lower socio-economic status, higher fertility, shorter birth-spacing, and are a minority group in India that may be expected to live in areas that have relatively poor public provision.”
While it remains to be conclusively proved whether Muslims as such provide better healthcare, it has been pointed out that gender bias is one explanation for this trend. According to a 2004 research paper on “Religion and Fertility in India: The role of son preference and daughter aversion” by researchers at University of Ulster and University of Cambridge, “Muslim fertility in India may be higher than Hindu fertility, but we argue that an important, albeit neglected, issue is not that Muslims have more children than Hindus, but that they treat them better on account of significantly lower levels of daughter aversion.”
As per their estimates, male infant mortality rates (where infant mortality rate is defined as the number of infant deaths as a proportion of live births) among Hindus and Muslims are at 4.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, but the difference in female infant mortality rates is much higher, with the rate among Hindus at 6.3 percent and that among Muslims at 4.6 percent, respectively. The numbers are further corroborated by the fact that Hindus have among the lowest overall sex ratios and child sex ratios in the country as per the Census 2001. The overall sex ratio is higher only than the Sikhs at 931, compared with the Muslims’ sex ratio at 936. The child-sex ratio for Hindus is even worse than Muslims at 925 as compared with 950 for Muslims. In Census 2011, the overall sex ratio has risen from 933 to 940, but the child-sex ratio has fallen from 927 to 914. The religion-wise breakup will be available only later.
Looking Ahead
So what do these trends mean for the future? That’s tough to say. While for now it might be difficult to know for sure how religious demographics will develop over the coming decades, what is clear is that it looks to be less about one religion’s growth versus the other, and more a reflection of serious demographic issues to be addressed by both.
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Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists
Carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, it was the world's first modern nation based solely on Islam.
Monday night's arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American accused of planting a car bomb in Times Square on Saturday, will undoubtedly stoke the usual debate about how best to keep America safe in the age of Islamic terrorism. But this should not deflect us from another, equally pressing, question. Why do Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora churn out such a high proportion of the world's terrorists?
Indonesia has more Muslims than Pakistan. Turkey is geographically closer to the troubles of the Middle East. The governments of Iran and Syria are immeasurably more hostile to America and the West. Yet it is Pakistan, or its diaspora, that produced the CIA shooter Mir Aimal Kasi; the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef (born in Kuwait to Pakistani parents); 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's kidnapper, Omar Saeed Sheikh; and three of the four men behind the July 2005 train and bus bombings in London.
The list of jihadists not from Pakistan themselves—but whose passage to jihadism passes through that country—is even longer. Among them are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atta, shoe bomber Richard Reid, and John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban. Over the past decade, Pakistani fingerprints have shown up on terrorist plots in, among other places, Germany, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands. And this partial catalogue doesn't include India, which tends to bear the brunt of its western neighbor's love affair with violence.
In attempting to explain why so many attacks—abortive and successful—can be traced back to a single country, analysts tend to dwell on the 1980s, when Pakistan acted as a staging ground for the successful American and Saudi-funded jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. But while the anti-Soviet campaign undoubtedly accelerated Pakistan's emergence as a jihadist haven, to truly understand the country it's important to go back further, to its creation.
Pakistan was carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, the world's first modern nation based solely on Islam. The country's name means "Land of the Pure." The capital city is Islamabad. The national flag carries the Islamic crescent and star. The cricket team wears green.
From the start, the new country was touched by the messianic zeal of pan-Islamism. The Quranic scholar Muhammad Asad—an Austrian Jew born Leopold Weiss—became an early Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. The Egyptian Said Ramadan, son-in-law of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, made Pakistan a second home of sorts and collaborated with Pakistan's leading Islamist ideologue, the Jamaat-e-Islami's Abul Ala Maududi. In 1949, Pakistan established the world's first transnational Islamic organization, the World Muslim Congress. Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the virulently anti-Semitic grand mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed president.
Through alternating periods of civilian and military rule, one thing about Pakistan has remained constant—the central place of Islam in national life. In the 1960s, Pakistan launched a war against India in an attempt to seize control of Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority province, one that most Pakistanis believe ought to be theirs by right.
In the 1970s the Pakistani army carried out what Bangladeshis call a genocide in Bangladesh; non-Muslims suffered disproportionately. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto boasted about creating an "Islamic bomb." (The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, A.Q. Khan, would later export nuclear technology to the revolutionary regime in Iran.) In the 1980s Pakistan welcomed Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Palestinian theorist of global jihad Abdullah Azzam.
In the 1990s, armed with expertise and confidence gained fighting the Soviets, the army's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spawned the Taliban to take over Afghanistan, and a plethora of terrorist groups to challenge India in Kashmir. Even after 9/11, and despite about $18 billion of American aid, Pakistan has found it hard to reform its instincts.
Pakistan's history of pan-Islamism does not mean that all Pakistanis, much less everyone of Pakistani origin, hold extremist views. But it does explain why a larger percentage of Pakistanis than, say, Indonesians or Tunisians, are likely to see the world through the narrow prism of their faith. The ISI's reluctance to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism—training camps, a web of ultra-orthodox madrassas that preach violence, and terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba—ensure that Pakistan remains a magnet for any Muslim with a grudge against the world and the urge to do something violent about it.
If Pakistan is to be reformed, then the goal must be to replace its political and cultural DNA. Pan-Islamism has to give way to old-fashioned nationalism. An expansionist foreign policy needs to be canned in favor of development for the impoverished masses. The grip of the army, and by extension the ISI, over national life will have to be weakened. The encouragement of local languages and cultures such as Punjabi and Sindhi can help create a broader identity, one not in conflict with the West. School curricula ought to be overhauled to inculcate a respect for non-Muslims.
Needless to say, this will be a long haul. But it's the only way to ensure that the next time someone is accused of trying to blow up a car in a crowded place far away from home, the odds aren't that he'll somehow have a Pakistan connection.
Mr. Dhume, the author of "My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist" (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009), is a columnist for WSJ.com.
India's Anti terror Blunders
Years of appeasing militants has made the problem worse.
New Delhi
As the story of the carnage in Mumbai unfolds, it is tempting to dismiss it as merely another sorry episode in India's flailing effort to combat terrorism. Over the past four years, Islamist groups have struck in New Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, among other places. The death toll from terrorism -- not counting at least 119 killed in Mumbai on Wednesday and Thursday -- stands at over 4,000, which gives India the dubious distinction of suffering more casualties since 2004 than any country except Iraq.
The attacks highlight India's particular vulnerability to terrorist violence. But they are also a warning to any country that values what Mumbai symbolizes for Indians: pluralism, enterprise and an open society. Put simply, India's failure to protect its premier city offers a textbook example for fellow democracies on how not to deal with militant Islam.
The litany of errors is long. Unlike their counterparts in the West, or in East Asia, India's perpetually squabbling leaders have failed to put national security above partisan politics. The country's antiterrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbors -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft.
Finally, India's inability to modernize its 150-million strong Muslim population, the second largest after Indonesia's, has spawned a community that is ill-equipped to seize new economic opportunities and susceptible to militant Islam's faith-based appeal.
To be sure, not all of India's problems are of its own making. In Pakistan, it has a neighbor founded on the basis of religion, whose government -- along with those of Iran and Saudi Arabia -- has long been one of the world's principal exporters of militant Islamic fervor.
Bangladesh also hosts a panoply of jihadist groups. As in Pakistan, public sympathy with the militant Islamic worldview forestalls any meaningful effort against those who regularly use the country as a sanctuary to plan mayhem in India. America's unsuccessful Pakistan policy -- too many carrots and too few sticks -- has also contributed to a fundamentally unstable neighborhood.
Nonetheless, the reflexive Indian response to most every act of terrorism is to apportion blame rather than to seek a solution that will prevent, or at least minimize, its recurrence. Even Indonesia -- a still-poor Muslim-majority nation where sympathy for militants runs deeper than it does in India -- has done an infinitely better job of recognizing that the protection of citizens' lives is any government's first responsibility. A superbly trained, federal antiterrorism force called Detachment 88 has ensured that country has not suffered a terrorist attack in more than three years.
By contrast, India's leaders -- who invariably swan around with armed guards paid for by the taxpayer -- can't even agree on a legal framework to keep the country safe. On taking office in 2004, one of the first acts of the ruling Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism law that strengthened witness protection and enhanced police powers.
The Congress Party has stalled similar state-level legislation in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. And it was a Congress government that kowtowed to fundamentalist pressure and made India the first country to ban Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" in 1988.
The BJP hasn't exactly distinguished itself either. In 1999, the hijacking of an Indian aircraft to then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan led a BJP government to release three hardened militants, including Omar Sheikh Saeed, the former London School of Economics student who would go on to murder Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
More recently, the BJP, driven by tribal religious solidarity and a penchant for conspiracy theories, has failed to demand the same tough treatment for alleged Hindu terrorists as it does for Muslims. Minor parties, especially those dependent on the Muslim vote, compete to earn fundamentalists' favor.
In sum, the Indian approach to terrorism has been consistently haphazard and weak-kneed. When faced with fundamentalist demands, India's democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream. The country's diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood. The ongoing drama in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.
Mr. Dhume is a Washington-based writer and the author of "My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist" (Text Publishing, 2008)
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