The Demographic Siege
BY KEONRAAD ELST
1. Visions of a demographic
doomsday
1.1.
Hindus, the dying race
Demography can change the cultural orientation
of a country or region by making an originally small group numerically dominant. Thus, demographic success was a decisive
factor in the Christian take-over of the Roman Empire: in the first three
centuries, Christian numbers grew by 40% per year, due to conversion and to
the rejection of birth control (whether primitive contraception, abortion or
infanticide).[1] Demographic shifts can lead
to violence: in Lebanon, the tilt of the demographic
balance in favour of the Muslims, leading to demands of a redistribution of
political power shared with the Christians, was one of the causes of the civil
war. Hindus ought to know, for they
themselves have also done it once: "After years of immigration by ethnic
Nepalis, [Sikkim] lost its sovereignty when a Nepali majority chose to be
part of India."[2] Finally, a certain demography
can lead to self-annihilation: many members of India's Parsi community have
resigned to the perspective that their community will soon disappear due to a
suicidal demographic self-forgetfulness.[3]
In today's India, demography is a hot
item, not just because of the economic and ecological burden of overpopulation,
but even more because of the differential between Hindus and Muslims with its
real or perceived political implications.
One of the classic statements of this concern is Hindu Sangathan,
Saviour of the Dying Race (Delhi 1926), in which Swami Shraddhananda
briefly sketches the problem of demographic decline threatening Hindu
survival: "while Muhammadans multiply like anything, the numbers of the
Hindus are dwindling periodically".[4]
1.2.
Ominous census figures
Swami Shraddhananda quotes from the 1911
Census Report (para 172 ff.) to show the reasons why the Muslim population is
growing faster than the Hindu population, whose percentage of the total
population is steadily declining. The
Census Director had written: "The number of Muhammadans has risen
during the decade [1901-11] by 6.7 per cent as compared with only 5 p.c. in the
case of Hindus. There is a small but continuous
accession of converts from Hinduism and other religions, but the main reason
for the relatively more rapid growth of the followers of the Prophet is that
they are more prolific."[5] Follow a number of social customs which encourage the Muslim birth
rate, e.g. fewer marriage restrictions and common remarriage of widows, and
the Muslim insistence that the children of mixed marriages be brought up as
Muslims.
In 1909, on the basis of demographic
trends visible in the census results (1881, 1891, 1901), Colonel U.N. Mukherji
had projected the rate of Hindu decline into the future in a strictly linear
fashion, and calculated logically (if somewhat simplistically) that it would
take less than 420 years for the Hindu race to disappear completely from the
face of India. This was a
"correction" on 1891 Census Commissioner O'Donnell's prediction that
the Hindus would die out in 620 years.
The series of articles in the Bengalee of 1909 in which Mukherji
proposed his analysis was titled: "Hindus, a Dying Race".[6]
This pessimistic prognosis of the
numerical Hindu-Muslim proportion defines the problem to which Swami Shraddhananda
(who knew Mukherji personally) tried to offer a solution. One of Mukherji's concluding sentences,
"They count their gains, we calculate our losses", became the title
of a Hindu Mahasabha pamphlet as late as 1979.[7] If anything, the fever of Hindu
demographic pessimism is only rising.
1.3.
"Hindus talking nonsense"
The Hindu suspicion that Islam is using
demography to increase its strength and to wrest territories from Hinduism is a
constant theme in Hindu Revivalist writing from at least 1909 till today. The rhetoric is often shrill and exaggerated
and the case is wrapped in the wrong arguments, most notably the claim that
"Muslims have lots of children because they have four wives". A typical example, referring to the official
birth-control slogan, "we are two, our [children] are two",
is the following: "For the Hindu the slogan is: We are two, and we have
two. The slogan for a Moslem is: We
are five and we have twentyfive."[8] Sometimes, outside
authorities (the BBC, the WHO) are falsely claimed as confirming the Hindus'
worst fears: "The United Nations census projections have indicated that
the uncontrolled birthrate of the Moslems of India coupled with huge
infiltrations will turn India into a Moslem majority country before the year
2000 AD."[9]
It is, therefore, no surprise that The
Economist ridicules these demographic doomsday scenarios: "Hindu
militants are talking nonsense by predicting that chunks of the country will
gain Muslim majorities and then secede".[10] There is no doubt that some of
the rhetoric generated by this Hindu unrest about the future is plain
nonsense, but it doesn't follow that the proportional decline of the Hindus is
mere fantasy. The Economist
itself acknowledges the numerical gains of the Indian Muslim community, and
explains that Muslims are less willing to use birth control, and that the
infant mortality rate is lower among Muslims because they are more concentrated
in the cities where medical care is better.
For those who dismiss U.N. Mukherjee's
reasoning as an obvious and ridiculous case of paranoia, it may be useful to
verify this prediction for the subsequent 80 years. Official census data show that the Hindu percentage has declined,
and the Muslim percentage increased, in every single successive census in
British India, free India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. As we are about to demonstrate in some detail, the demographic
trends confirm Mukherji's general prediction of a steady decline, though a
quantitative prognosis is more complex than he envisaged.
1.4.
Demography: the facts
Considering the pivotal role of the Hindu
Revivalist perception that Hinduism is besieged and that demography is one
of the weapons used by Islam against Hinduism, I believe that a meaningful
discussion of Hindutva ideology is only possible after verification of this
fundamental perception. Indeed, on
this verification depends whether we ought to consider the Hindutva movement
as a bunch of dangerous lunatics spreading lies and paranoia (a fairly common
assumption among India-watchers) or merely a group of realistic people who try
to face up to real challenges.
The following table shows the percentage
of Hindus and Muslims in British India in every successive census since 1881:[11]
yr. 1881 1891 1901 1911
1921 1931 1941
H.
75.09 74.24 72.87
71.68 70.73 70.67
69.46
M. 19.97
20.41 21.88 22.39
23.23 23.49 24.28
And these are the figures for the Indian
Republic:[12]
year 1951 1961
1971 1981 1991 est.
H.[13] 84.98 83.51 82.72 82.29
81.8
M.
9.91 10.70 11.21
11.73 12.2
These official figures are not altogether
accurate for 1981 and 1991, for Assam was not counted in 1981 and neither was
the state of Jammu & Kashmir in 1991.
Adjusted on the basis of an estimate for these states, the figures for
1991 become: Hindus 81.54%, Muslims 12.60%.[14] The figure of 12.60% for
Muslims in 1991 is confirmed by independent secularist observers on the basis
of official data and standard procedures for extrapolation.[15] I will use that figure in preference to the Government
figure. This brings the Hindu
percentage down to ca. 81.5%.
In truncated India, the Muslim
population has grown 2.69% in forty years (from 9.91% to 12.6% in 1951-91), but
Muslim leaders like Imam Bukhari routinely claim that the true figure of the
Muslim population in the Indian Republic is about 3% higher.[16] There are indeed some problems
with the official figures for the Indian Republic, e.g. there is a suspicion
that many illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are lying low and avoiding the census
personnel because they are used to a regime which is not so lenient with unsolicited
immigrants (Bangladesh pushed back the Muslim Rohingya refugees from
Myanmar in 1992-93). But for the
present discussion, it is probably best to keep these alleged unregistered
millions outside our considerations and stick to verified figures. Even without this unknown "dark
figure" of unregistered Muslim inhabitants, it is only very slightly exaggerated
to say that in the Indian Republic, ever since 1951, "the proportion of
Muslims has been gradually but steadily increasing every decade by roughly
one percentage point".[17]
All kinds of local and regional data
confirm the faster muslim growth rate.
The two provinces with the highest relative population growth between
1981 and 1991 are Kashmir (28%) and Lakshadweep (27%), both with a Muslim
minority though in very divergent economic and political conditions; followed
by Madhya Pradesh (26%) and Uttar Pradesh (25%).[18] In Uttar Pradesh, between 1981
and 1991, the Muslim percentage rose from 15.53% to 17.33 %, in Bihar from
14.13% to 14.81%, in West Bengal from 21.51 to 23.61%. While in Bihar birth control seemed to have
a slight effect in a decrease of the decadal increase from 30.03% in 1971-81 to
29.5% (still more than 5% higher than the Hindu figure) in 1981-91, there was a
much larger increase in the decadal increase in U.P. from 29.11% to 36.54%, and
in West Bengal from 29.55% to 36.89%.[19]
1.5.
Extrapolation
How does all this work out for U.N.
Mukherji's demographic doomsday prognosis?
Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Congress Party's leading anti-Hindutva polemicist,
predicted in 1993 that until at least the mid-21st century, the proportion of
Muslims will remain stable "bar a decimal point up or down from time to
time, at 11.2 per cent."[20] But even the conservative
estimate for 1991 (not yet published at the time of his writing) already refuted
his prediction by putting the Muslim population more than 1% higher. In the contest between Mukherji's prediction
of a continuous Muslim growth and Aiyar's prediction of a stable percentage
for the next sixty years, Mukherji has obviously won.
Other secularist observers admit that
"it is true that the growth rate amongst Muslims is higher than amongst
Hindus", and have calculated, on the basis of the 1971 and 1981 census
figures, that "if both the communities continue to grow at the same
rate, Muslims at the turn of the century will account for only 13.55% of the
country's population."[21] That constitutes a refutation
of the still-recent rumour that Muslims will outnumber Hindus by the year
2,000, but also an admission that the Muslim percentage shows a continuous
substantial increase. For the long
term, their estimate is: "It will take 316 years for Muslims to outnumber
Hindus".[22] Here, the difference with
Mukherji is merely one over the exact quantity of time needed to do the job.
The projection just quoted is a strictly
linear extrapolation of the Hindu-Muslim differential in the decade
1971-1981. But this approach fails to
take into account at least two important factors which we will now consider
more closely: the Muslim increase is not linear, but is itself increasing;
and there is a large immigration of Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh,
which can only increase.
1.6.
The long-term trend
Ever since regular census operations were
started, the percentage of Muslims has grown every decade in British India, independent
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The
only seeming exception is Pakistan between 1971 and 1981, due to the
official declaration of Ahmadiyas (ca. 3%) as non‑Muslims in
1974. We will include the Ahmadiyas in
the Muslim category, as they themselves also do.
In the subcontinent, Muslims were 19.97%
in 1881 and 24.28% in 1941 when the last pre-Partition census was held. According to the last census (1991), the
Muslim percentage in the subcontinent was as follows:
Bangla Desh: 86.8% of 108,760,000, or ca.
94,403,608.[23]
Pakistan: 97.0% of 126,406,000, or ca.
122,613,820.[24]
India: 12.6 % of 846,349,050, or ca.
106,639,980.[25]
Total: 29.92% of 1,081,515,050, or
ca. 323,657,480.
The Muslim percentage has not only increased,
but the rate of increase itself has increased.
This is very clear when we take a long-term perspective: in the fifty
years between 1941 and 1991, their percentage has risen 5.64% (from 24.28% to
29.92%), substantially more than the 4.31% gain in the sixty years between
1881 and 1941. At this rate, the
Muslims in the Subcontinent must have passed the 30% mark in the mid-1990s and
will pass the milestone of becoming more than half the number of Hindus (ca.
32% to ca. 64%) before the census of 2011.
Similarly calculating from the available
figures for the three countries, the Hindu percentage had come down to
65.15% in 1991.[26] To evaluate the trend of the
Hindu percentage, we must take into account that the pre-Independence census
always had a tentative category "tribal" or "animist",
variously defined and therefore making odd quantitative jumps (but always
between 2.26% and 3.26%), from 2.57% in 1881 to 2.26% in 1941.[27] After Independence, this
category was included in the Hindu category.
So, putting everything on the post-Independence denominator, we
include the "animists" in the Hindu percentage to get a total Hindu
percentage of 77.35% for 1881, 71.72% for 1941, and 65.15% for 1991. Here again, we see a long-term acceleration
of the observed trend: a decrease of 5.63% in the sixty years between 1881 and
1941, and a larger decrease of 6.57% in the shorter period of fifty years between
1941 and 1991.
So, all the predictions quoted above are
far too conservative, for they are based on a linear projection. In reality, the observed trends are
accelerating, so Muslims will need far less than 316 years to outnumber the
Hindus. According to Mukherji, the
Hindu percentage of ex-British India (including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Burma) should now have declined by about 13%, down to 54% of the
total. This was too pessimistic, he
overestimated the rate of Hindu decline, but in the future the increasing rate
of Hindu decline will catch up with Mukherji's estimate.
1.6.
Muslim testimony
A very unexpected prediction which more
than confirms this trend is implicitly given by one of those authors who
ridicule Hindu fears about the demographic evolution: Rafiq Zakaria claims
that to outnumber Hindus, "Muslims will need no less than 365
years"[28], but in another discussion in the same book he complains that
according to an all-India governmental survey in 1984, Muslim children were
underrepresented among primary school pupils: "the enrolment of Muslim
children at the primary school level in the relevant period was 12.39 per cent
as against the child population of 16.81 per cent."[29] So, Rafiq Zakaria claims that
in 1984, Muslim children in the primary-school age group constituted 16.81%
of the total.
This means that approximately by the
time this group reaches the median position on the age pyramid of their
community (i.e. when the number of people younger than them will equal the
number older than them), certainly before 2010 (when they will be in their
mid-thirties), the native Muslim population of India, not counting the
millions of post-1984 immigrants, will be 16.81% of the total. That is even faster than all the above
(admittedly cautious) calculations suggest, as if the religious
differential in the use of birth control since the 1960s is having a bigger
impact than hitherto assumed.
It gets even more dramatic when you look
at it this way: in 1984, a generation of Muslims which was about 12% of the
population had produced a generation of children, certainly not more than 30
years younger on average, which constituted more than 16%. This would mean an unprecedented growth
rate of more than 4% in less than 30 years, or rather, a growth with over a
third of the original percentage (4 to 12).
For a little thought experiment: if this differential growth rate is
kept constant, we get 16.81% of Muslims in ca. 2014, over 22% in 2044, nearly
30% in 2074, 40% in 2104, crossing 50% in ca. 2125 etc., all without counting
the effect of Muslim immigration.
Of course, demographic prediction is a
difficult task, which has to factor in many different types of data and
influences, so we should not take any amateur predictions too seriously, nor
those of specialists paid by political institutions with an interest in
popularizing this or that impression about demographic trends. Let us not pin ourselves down on precise
predictions but let us not ignore the generally visible trend either. The one general prediction to which the data
certainly compel us, is that the Muslim percentage will be increasing at an
accelerating rate for at least another generation; and also beyond that,
unless the present generation of young adult Muslims brings it procreation
rate down to the average Indian level.
1.7.
The Subcontinental context
The subcontinental total shows a faster
growth of the Muslim percentage than the official figures for the Indian
republic, and should be considered the more important indicator for the long‑term
evolution, given the increasing spill‑over of population surplus from
Pakistan and especially Bangladesh.
Apart from the millions of Bangladeshis staying illegally in India,
there is also an increasing number of Pakistanis overstaying their visas or
otherwise settling in India.[30]
In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Muslim
percentage has continually increased, partly by pestering the non-Muslims
out, partly by conversions under pressure (pressurizing people to marry
their daughters off to Muslims, allocating jobs on conditon of conversion,
etc.), and partly by higher birth-rates.
Bangladeshi Muslim expansion has already destroyed the Chakmas and
other non-Muslim populations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, with the ethnically
cleansed minorities fleeing to India's North-East, there to create friction
with the host population. But the most
worrying from the Indian viewpoint is not the rise in percentage but the rise
in absolute figures: in parts of Pakistan and in the whole of Bangladesh,
sheer living space is becoming extremely scarce, and these countries may pursue
a policy of pushing their surplus population into India.
Incidentally, in Nepal the breakthrough of Islam (nearly non-existent in the 1970s) is simply spectacular, and is again due in large measure to immigration from Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, the Muslim percentage is slowly rising by demographics alone.
So, every decade the Muslim percentage in the Subcontinent increases by more than 1%, with the rate of increase itself increasing. In India, the rate of increase in the Muslim percentage is considerable, though lower than the subcontinental total, but is rising faster due to the differential in the use of birth control and the increasing Muslim immigration. In Hindutva circles, this remarkable demographic differential is interpreted as the result of Muslim "demographic aggression".[31]
[1]
Estimate given by Rodney Stark: The Rise of Christianity (1996);
this book has received jubilant reviews in Christian circles because it downplays
the factor of suppression of Paganism by Christian emperors and highlights
positive factors such as the effectiveness of Christian charity in attracting
converts, see e.g. the review by Marcel van Nieuwenborgh: "Toen Nieuwe
Testament nog nieuw was", De Standaard (Brussels), 27-6-1996.
[2] "Etnisch
konflikt in Boetan leidt tot vluchtelingendrama" (Dutch: "Ethnic
conflict in Bhutan leads to refugee drama"), De Standaard,
11-8-1992.
[3] Among
the Parsis, 36% is over 55, and 25% of the adults are unmarried. Their numbers have plummeted to ca. 50,000,
half of what it was in mid-20th century.
See e.g. Nergis Dalal: "The Parsis are allowing themselves to die
out", Times of India, 20-3-1990; Bachi J. Karkaria: "Dying embers",
Illustrated Weekly of India, 28-1-1990; and Arnavaz Mama: "Survival
strategies", Sunday Observer, 7-1-1990.
[4]
Shraddhananda: Hindu Sangathan, p.99.
[5]
Shraddhananda: Hindu Sangathan, p.18-19.
[6] See
also P.K. Datta: "'Dying Hindus' -- Production of Hindu communal common
sense in early 20th century Bengal", Economic and Political Weekly,
19-6-1993, p.1307; and C. Jaffrelot: Hindu Nationalist Movement
(Viking/Penguin 1996), p.24. Typically,
both exclusively discuss the presumed sociological determinants and other
externals of Mukherji's analysis, not its degree of accuracy.
[7] Indra
Prakash: They Count Their Gains, We Calculate Our Losses, HMS, Delhi
1979.
[8] S.K.
Bhattacharyya: Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh (A. Ghosh,
Houston 1987), p.159. In the Hindi
original: Ham do hamâre do -- Ham pânch hamâre pachîs. The saying is sometimes accompanied by a
cartoon showing the Government poster (father, mother, boy, girl) plus its
Muslim variant: a man with goat-beard and four veiled wives surrounded by a sea
of children.
[9] S.K.
Bhattacharyya: Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, A. Ghosh,
Houston 1987, p.151.
[10] The
Economist, 7/11/1992.
[11]
Reproduced in K.R. Malkani: The Politics of Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim
relations (Har-Anand, Delhi 1993), appendix 4.
[12]
Reproduced in K.R. Malkani: The Politics of Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim
relations, appendix 4.
[13] Unlike
in British India, the census category "Hindu" here includes the
pre-Independence category "tribal" or "animist".
[14] Syed
Shahabuddin: "Census 1991, Muslim Indians and Sangh Parivar", Muslim
India, September 1995, p.386. The
estimate for Jammu & Kashmir is based on the assumption of a constant ratio
between the religions, which understates the Muslim percentage by ignoring the
higher Muslim birth rate and the Hindu emigration from the state.
[15] Ashish
Bose: "1991 Census data: Muslim rate of growth", Indian Express,
9-9-1995.
[16] In a
letter published in Organiser, 15-6-1997, Syed Shahabuddin opines that
the Indian Muslims may well be "the largest Muslim community in the
world", i.e. larger than the Indonesian Muslim community.
[17] Ashish
Bose: "1991 Census data: Muslim rate of growth", Indian Express,
9-9-1995.
[18]
Calculated on the basis of province-wise population figures given by
Joachim Betz: "Indien", Informationen zur politischen Bildung
no.257/1997, p.31.
[19] Figures given in
Violette Graff: "L'islam indien à la croisée des chemins", Relations
Startégiques et Internationales, p.118.
[20] M.S.
Aiyar: "Sex, lies and tushtikaran", Sunday,
24-1-1993. Tushtikaran:
"appeasement".
[21] Namita
Bhandare, Louise Fernandes and Minu Jain: "A pampered minority?", Sunday,
7-2-1993.
[22] N.
Bhandare, L. Fernandes, M. Jain: "A pampered minority?", Sunday,
7-2-1993.
[23] Encyclopaedia
Brittannica, Book of the Year 1992, entry Bangladesh, official
figure for 1991.
[24] UNO
estimate for religion-wise percentage given in Jaarboek 1996 of Winkler
Prins-Encyclopedie; the Encyclopeadia Brittannica yearbooks
1991-96 only give the 1981 figure: 96.7%.
[25] Total
population figure based on preliminary census data, given in various media,
e.g. W.M. Callewaert: "De moslims in India", Kultuurleven
(Leuven), 1997/3, p.44. The Encyclopeadia
Brittannica yearbook 1991 only gives a UNO estimate.
[26] This
assumes the Encyclopaedia Brittannica figure for the Hindu percentage in
Bangladesh in 1991, viz. 11.9%, which is probably too high.
[27] See in
Malkani: Politics of Ayodhya, appendix 4.
[28] R.
Zakaria: The Widening Divide (Viking/Penguin 1995), p.181.
[29] R.
Zakaria: The Widening Divide, p.146.
The survey was conducted by the "High Power Panel for
Minorities", with Dr. Gopal Singh as Chairman and Zakaria himself as
Member-Secretary.
[30]
"10,000 Pakistani untraceable after expiry of visas", Indian
Express, 13-7-1994.