3. The Muslim birth rate
3.1.
Muslim fertility
Is
there anything demonstrably intentional about this Islamic demographic
expansion? In an article seeking to
"explode the myth" of Muslim demographic aggression, journalists
Namita Bhandare, Louise Fernandes and Minu Jain themselves admit that according
to official surveys, "the disapproval of family planning is highest among
Muslims", while "the practice of family planning methods in 1980 was
lowest amongst Muslims (only 23% of those surveyed practised it as opposed to
36% Hindus)".[1] They further
admit that between 1971 and 1981, "the Hindu population was up by 24.15%,
whereas the Muslim population shot up by 30.59%". Further, they give the decline in fertility
levels in the same period: 20.1% decline for urban and 20.0% for rural Hindus,
18.5% for urban and 17.3% for rural Muslims.
This means that the already lower fertility level of the Hindus is
declining faster than that of the Muslims.
Let us hear the same indications from an
official source: "The total fertility
rate (TFR) is 3.4 children per woman. (...) Muslims have considerably
higher fertility than any other religious group. Muslim women have a TFR of 4.4, which is 1.1 children higher than
the TFR for Hindu women."[2]
The implication of these data is that the
Muslim rate of growth in percentage of the Indian population will go on increasing. Instead of extrapolating across centuries,
we may make a safer prognosis for the next few decades. It is safe to predict that the 2001 census
will show another sharp increase in the rate at which Muslims are demographically
catching up with the Hindu majority. It
is then that the full effect of the birth control campaigns of the 1960s and
70s will become visible. Given the
higher Hindu participation in the birth control effort of the 1960s and 70s, we
must now be witnessing a cumulative effect, of a proportionately smaller
number of Hindu mothers (born in that period) having in their turn each a
smaller number of children than the proportionately larger number of Muslim
mothers, on average.
3.2.
The economic explanation
Unable to refute the Hindu Revivalist
perception of a visible and increasing Muslim demographic growth, the
journalists retreat to their next line of defence: they admit the fact of
Muslim demographic expansion but disconnect it from Muslim identity. They offer as their explanation that it has
nothing to do with Islam as such nor with any aggressive designs: it is all
due to Muslim poverty, "the reason has to do with economics and not with
religion".[3] This is the old Marxist
cliché: reduce everything to economic factors. It is still the most common explanation
for the higher Muslim growth rate: the average Indian Muslim is poorer and less
educated than the average Hindu, and poverty and low education both happen
to lead to a higher birth rate.
Baljit Rai, a retired police officer who
was a personal witness to India's failure in containing the rising tide of illegal
immigration from Bangladesh, refutes this argument by pointing to the birth
rate among Kerala Muslims, who have a high level of education and a relatively
high standard of living. Mani Shankar
Aiyar had claimed on the basis of statewise figures for the southern states
that "Muslim birth rates in all these enlightened states are very much
lower than Hindu birth rates in unenlightened states like Uttar Pradesh".[4] However, Rai's closer
analysis of the figures shows that the Kerala Muslims have a
higher birth-rate than the national Hindu average and even than the Hindu
average in poor and backward states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan:
the population growth (+28.74% for 1981-91) in the Muslim-majority district of
Malappuram (with female literacy at 75.22%, far higher than among Hindus in
the Hindi belt) is more than twice as high as the average for Kerala (+13.98),
and well above the Hindu national average (+23.50).[5]
A secularist journalist confirms:
"In spite of this 'near total literacy' the population growth rate of
Muslims who constitute one-fourth of Kerala's population is as high as 2.3 per
cent per year, which is more than even the national PGR [= population growth
rate] of 2.11 per annum and is almost double the PGR of Hindus in Kerala itself."[6]
The figures for Kerala exemplify a
general rule: at any given level of literacy and economic status, Muslims will
have a markedly higher birth rate than their Hindu counterparts, even to the
extent of having a higher birth rate than Hindus in a lower educational or
income bracket. A secularist
journalist, Pranay Gupta, estimates that in Hyderabad, which has a large Muslim
middle-class, a typical Muslim family has eight children while a Hindu family
has four.[7]
3.3.
The literacy factor
Ever since the propagation of birth
control among the Hindu masses, rich and literate Muslims
have more children than poor and illiterate Hindus -- the religious determinant
overrules the economic determinant.
This comes out clearly when we compare with the admittedly high growth
rate for the Scheduled Castes: "The high growth rate of Muslims, due to
poverty, illiteracy etc., is comparable to the growth rate of Scheduled
Castes", writes Ashish Bose; but he himself gives the SC growth rate as
31% for the decade 1981-91 against the Muslim growth rate of 32.8%.[8] True, some Muslims
fall in the same low-income category as the SCs; but taking into account the
Muslim middle-class, some old landed gentry and a lot of guest workers in the
Gulf states, the average Muslim income is considerably higher than the average
SC income.[9]
Likewise, illiteracy is definitely
higher among the SCs than among Muslims.
And yet, the Muslim growth rate is still 1.8% higher than that of the
SCs. "Even after controlling for
the level of education among women, religious differentials in fertility persist. Scheduled Caste women have a higher TFR
(3.9) than Scheduled Tribe women (3.6) and non-SC/ST women (3.3)"[10] -- all of them considerably less than the Muslim TFR of 4.4.
The same is true for the rural-urban differential:
just like in other countries, Indian rural couples have a higher fertility
(5.7 for Hindus, 6.2 for Muslims) than urban couples (4.2 for Hindus, 4.9 for
Muslims), but this secular determinant of fertility is overruled by the
religious determinant, for Muslims are more concentrated in the cities but
have a higher over-all birth rate nonetheless.[11]
Incidentally, the source just cited,
Mohan Rao, provides an example of the misplaced confidence with which
secularists berate Hindu Revivalists as unreliable, mendacious etc. Though riding a very high horse in his denunciation
of "communal propaganda", Rao himself makes a conspicuously counterfactual
statement: "The Hindu population increased by 0.71 per cent between
1961-71 and 1971-81. The population of
Muslims rose by 0.05 per cent, much less than that of Hindus. (...) the growth
rates of Hindus will continue to be higher than those of Muslims."[12]
He confuses the figures for the increase
in population with the actual population figures. The Hindu growth rate increased between 1971 and 1981, from
23.71% to 24.42% (a finding on which Mani Shankar Aiyar builds a similarly mistaken
case against a further Hindu decrease and Muslim increase)[13], but remained far below the Muslim growth rate of 30.85% c.q. 30.90%,
so that the effective Hindu percentage decreased (by O.37%). Moreover, this increase was a freak
development in a long-term decrease of the Hindu growth rate due to family
planning, and was easily undone by a decrease twice as big (to 22.78%) in
1991.[14]
3.4.
The Muslim growth rate worldwide
The same trend as witnessed in India is
conspicuous at the international level: Muslim countries are among the
champions of demographic growth. The
economic explanation for high and low birthrates breaks down when confronted
with the figures for Muslim countries: the rich and orthodox Saudi Arabs
procreate much faster than the relatively poor but more secularized
Turks.
The yearbooks of the Encyclopedia
Brittannica give a wealth of countrywise data, including the
population's doubling‑rate, which is a more accurate indicator of effective
demographic growth than the birth rate.
It turns out that no Muslim country has a markedly lower growth rate
than India. Indonesia, Turkey and
Tunisia are at about the same level as India, which is already seen by many as
a demographic disaster area itself (doubling in ca. 33 years). It is no coincidence that these are the
three most secularized Muslim countries.[15] The more Islamic a country,
the higher the birthrate: Iran, Jordan, Lybia, Kuwait and Eritrea
double their populations in 20 years or less, up to twice as fast as India.[16]
The Arabs are the champions: "In no
Arab country does the population increase at a rate lower than 2.5% per
year. In practically every Arab
country, more than 4 inhabitants in 10 are youngsters below 15."[17] Pakistan is Asia's fastest-growing
non-Arab country, doubling its population every 24 years.[18] No country is known to have a
higher birth‑rate among non‑Muslims than among Muslims, but countries
where the opposite is true are numerous.[19] The starkest differential is
probably found in the European countries. Thus, to use another demographic indicator,
the percentage of the under-25 age group in Britain is 33 for natives, 48
for Indians (mostly Hindus) and Caribbeans, 60 for Pakistanis and 63 for
Bangladeshis.[20] A similar indicator for the
Subcontinent: the under-15 constitute 46.3% in Pakistan, 45.1% in Bangladesh,
and 35.2% in India.[21]
In Belgium, the average native
couple (Christian or secular) has 1.7 children, the immigrant Moroccan
couple (Muslim) has 3.25 children, i.e. nearly twice as many.[22] About American Islam, a Pakistani
observer makes an estimate for the year 2,000: "The US (...) may by then
become the 14th or 15th 'largest Islamic country'. Islam, in fact, is the fastest-growing religion in the
US". Though the growth is largely
due to immigration, he also sees "a higher birth rate" as "a
major factor".[23]
3.5.
Islamic government policies
In Malaysia, where Muslims were only 50%
at the time of independence, just enough to declare it an Islamic state, the
Government pursues a natalist policy at least as far as the Muslim Malays are
concerned (non-Muslims are mostly members of the Chinese and Tamil Hindu
minorities). It is only in countries
where Muslims are in an overwhelming majority and demographic competition is
simply not an issue that Islamic governments and religious leaders, faced with
the problems resulting from overpopulation, have made an effort to curb the
birth rate.
Iran now tries to encourage a
three-children-per-family norm, and prides itself on reducing the yearly
increase in population to 1.75%, about half of what it was in the 1980s.[24] But this will not markedly curb
population growth in absolute figures for
the next few decades: "Although the rate of population growth has come
down (...) the girls born in response to Khomeini's call for more Muslims will
soon reach marrying age; 45.5% of the population is under 15."[25]
Given the extremely high birth rate in
the generation now growing up to become the fathers and mothers of the next
two decades (much more numerous than the generation presently in their
twenties and thirties and trying to stick to the three-children-per-family
norm), even a two-children-per-family norm would still amount to an impressive
demographic growth for two more generations.
With a norm of three children per family, Iran is not even pursuing a
policy aimed at achieving demographic zero growth, but even if it were, it
could only achieve it at a much later date, and at a much higher population
level, than countries with a more stringent commitment to demographic responsibility.[26]
There is no indication that even one
Muslim country will achieve a substantially lower growth rate than India's Hindu
community within the next decades.
[1] "A
pampered minority?", Sunday, 7-2-1993, with reference to a 1980
survey by the Operations Research Group.
[2] K.M.
Mathew, ed.: Manorama Yearbook 1996, p.458-459.
[3] "A
pampered minority?", Sunday, 7-2-1993.
[4] M.S.
Aiyar: "Sex, lies and tushtikaran", Sunday, 24-1-1993.
[5] See
Baljit Rai: Is India Going Islamic?, p.103 ff.
[6] K.B.
Sahay: "Incentives and Disincentives", Hindustan Times,
19/12/1995.
[7] P.
Gupta: India, the Challenge of Change (Methuen/Mandarin, LOndon 1989),
p.219.
[8] A.
Bose: "Muslim rate of growth", Indian Express, 9-9-1995.
[9] As
Ashish Bose regretfully notes, the 1991 census gives no cross-tabulation
between the data on religion, income and literacy, so we have to make do with
old data, informed guesses or separate regional investigations into the connections
between these factors.
[10] K.M.
Mathew, ed.: Manorama Yearbook 1996, p.458-459. TFR: total fertility rate.
[11] Figures
given in Mohan Rao: "Not born of faith", Indian Express,
9-11-1993.
[12] M. Rao:
"Not born of faith", Indian Express, 9-11-1993.
[13] M.S.
Aiyar: "Sex, Lies and Tushtikaran", Sunday, 24-1-1993.
[14]
"Census 1991", in S. Shahabuddin, ed.: Muslim India,
Sep.1995, p.386.
[15] Mohan
Rao ("Not born of faith", Indian Express, 9-11-1993) argues
that "the percentage of couples using contraceptives in predominantly
Muslim countries is very high", and to prove his point, he cites figures
for Indonesia, Turkey and Egypt, three countries where the Government policies
are denounced as un-Islamic by the guardians of orthodoxy.
[16] Figures
taken from the countrywise data in the Encyclopedia Brittannica Book of
the Year 1994.
[17]
"Arababy's", Trends (Brussels), 6-9-1990.
[18]
Confirmed in a different set of demographic indicators given in The
Economist, 3-10-1992.
[19] The
only countries competing with the top Muslim countries for the highest
demographic growth rate are some African countries (Kenya, Ivory Coast); at
least on paper, for their projected doubling-time will have to be revised
downwards because of the AIDS epidemic.
[20] Figures
given by Prof. Judith Brown, Beit Professor of Imperial History, Oxford,
speaking at the Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, October
1995.
[21] Encyclopedia
Brittannica, 1996 yearbook.
[22] Guy Tegenbos:
"Gezinnen kroostrijkst bij Marokkanen en Israëlieten", De
Standaard, 17-8-1994.
[23] Abdus
Sattar Ghazali: "Middle East poised to confront demographic
explosion", Dawn (Karachi), 3-11-1989.
[24] "Iran
brengt groei bevolking sterk terug" (Dutch: "Iran strongly reduces
population growth"), Volkskrant (Amsterdam), 13-7-1995.
[25]
"Arrows in the heart of Iran", The Economist,
3-10-1992. The title is a pun on
Ayatollah Khomeini's natalist exhortation that "every Muslim child born
is an arrow through the heart of America".