Are Muslims growing faster than Hindus in India? Latest Pew reports brings data for a reality check

subscribe to our youtube channel and press the bell icon to get the latest updates politics as we know in a democracy particularly is about the numbers and one of the eternal controversies in indian public debate public discourse in indian folklore popular arguments among the pundits and phd's and dses and deletes of whatsapp university but this is a debate that dominates our political arguments now is whether the number of muslims is rising much faster in india than hindus and in the course of time in it not not such an unforeseeable future but in a foreseeable future muslims will outnumber hindus or they'll become so close to the hindu population that india will become an islamic dominated country if not an islamic country and then all the stereotypes come in that all the muslims will vote together hindus will be divided muslims will rule india and india will cease to be a democracy because india can only be a democracy and a secular state as long as the hindus are in a majority so i'm not endorsing any of this i'm just setting up the debate which we are trying to answer today as usual with data because what we do is we use data and facts particularly in cut the clutter we keep where we keep opinion out and when we give opinion we warn you we give you a health warning and we alert you so if you look at data what is the picture that data is telling us and we have data to tell us what is the fact what is not a fact and i'll be honest with you as as usual or at least i'll try to be as honest as the fact that i have informed me that there might be some truth some little sliver of truth truth maybe a little bit of smoke to justify some arguments but this is just a little bit of smoke and that spoke is actually dying out so what is the smoke that yes since 1951 the population of muslims has been rising a little faster than that of than that of the hindus so that is the smoke so to say that no no it's absolutely wrong that muslims are not rising in numbers faster than the hindus that's wrong and you know to hide the truth doesn't help anybody least of all the cause of indian secularism or liberalism secular whether a secular liberal as we must be uh we are a secular country as a constitution defines us and our constitution also gives us equality freedom of religion then we must also be informed by facts there is no point hiding away from the fact so it's true that since 1951 if you see the data from census after census we have decennial censuses every 10 years then it shows that muslims have been rising in numbers a little bit faster than the hindus now we have all these data come by compiled and also then cross checked so two sources and both of these are indian official sources one is the indian decennial census we have a census every 10 years unfortunately this year census could not take place because of covet because it preparation has to begin much earlier and last year preparation could not begin and hopefully it will happen next year and we'll get data now also so we'd have we have data until 2 2011. but with that if you also see that in the light of the data that is thrown up by very extensive national family health service that's also by the government of india if you look at both these sets of data you can arrive at many conclusions and a big service has been done once again just as few research have produced this marvelous survey on religious beliefs in india on religion in india they have now produced this study on population growth among different religions in india or the growth of different religions in india and what this data does is this data answers many questions and this data cuts into many of today's current debates with facts so what are these debates muslims are rising much faster in number than the hindus a lot of hindus are converting to islam and christianity so obvious so obviously numbers of christians also must be zooming and hindus must be declining then a lot of conversion is taking place so many of these questions the best way is to look at data because you know sunshine is the best disinfectant so take everything out in the open and data is in the open so if you look at this data as i told you that there is an iota of truth so i'm not saying it's all propaganda this is nonsense and this is right wing hindu conspiracy if you look at the facts it is true that since 1951 muslim populations in india have been rising faster than the hindu population now what is the evidence of that the essential evidence of that the basic evidence of that is that in 1951 84.5 percent of india was hindu today as estimated by extrapolating the national family health survey data and 2011 census roughly 80 percent that is 79.8 percent so from 84 percent to 80 so the percentage of hindus overall as a proportion of india's population has declined by four percent so it is wrong to say that anybody who says that hindu hindu percentage has not gone down is lying it is not propaganda once again dismissing a truth or hiding from a truth doesn't serve any purpose least of all that of liberalism or secularism or equality constitutional equality but see the other figures i told you there's a little bit of smoke but that smoke is also not fading the other figure is don't go right back to 1951 in fact if you go even beyond 51 in the 30s and the 40s than the number of muslims were rising even faster than the hindus since 1951 since india came into being at the birth rates have declined among both hindus and muslim until 1991 both were declining but still the gap was not not that small between the two so if you look at the data that comes out of the 1991 census so again extrapolated for 1992 in 1992 an average muslim woman produced 4.4 kids in her reproductive age 4.4 kids an average hindu woman produced 2.6 kids in her reproductive is not obviously nobody can produce 2.6 kids or 4.4 kids so i will simplify it for you 10 women in their reproductive age if they were hindus produced 26 kids in 1992 and if they were muslims they produced 44 kids in 1992. so 10 women on this side 10 women of this side the number of kids produced the difference was 18 and so the muslim 10 women produced 18 more kids than 18 hindu women look at what's happened now projected to now it is much less it is now 10 hindu women produce 21 kids so one hindu woman now in her reproductive age produces 2.1 children so 10 will produce 21 children 10 muslim women now produce only 26 children still more than the hindu women but where the difference was 18 just in 1992 it is now five and this gap is narrowing further so first of all yes there was some truth that muslim numbers were rising faster because if that was not the case then hindu percentage would not have come down from 84 to 80 and muslim percentage would not have gone up from about 10 that is 9.8 percent to 13.8 percent so hindu population declined by 4 percentage points muslim population increased in overall percentage by four percentage points so that was a clear distinction the six and the christians remained about the same so that was a clear distinction but as you can see now the current data tells you that politics is not needed you don't have to enforce any birth control on the muslims just as india is becoming less poor just as more women are going to school and college birth rates are coming down everywhere maybe india's muslim populations were a bit behind the curve in terms of that social and economic development as that is happening they are catching up also so first of all overall numbers you can see this chart and i'm grateful to pew research because it produces marvelous charts which we are allowed to borrow so i'm borrowing these for you please see these charts on the screen as i talk so you can see the hindus have declined from say 84 to about 80 percent and you can see the decline was a bit steeper earlier but after that it's leveling off and now it's almost leveled off the muslims on the other hand have gone up from 9.8 to say 13.8 but as they are going up once again you see it leveling off so this gap is now narrowing that's a very important thing second look at net birth rates that is number of babies re produced by a woman in her reproductive years so muslims are at this point 2.6 that's why i said 10 women produced 26 kids against the national average of 2.2 whereas hindus are 2.1 which is just a little bit below the national average of 2.2 but you can see that if you just use basic statistical tools that 2.1 will become 2.6 on a national average because you will see the muslims at 2.6 so that is a small skew but the difference between hindu and muslim growth rates now is very small what used to be say 1.8 per woman is now 0.5 per woman and that is a very big difference and the gap is narrowing and then you can see christians for example are two buddhists six are about 1.6 1.6 and then very interestingly the giants are the slowest growing they are 1.2 and they actually have seen the steepest decline in their birth rates and you can understand that possibly because genes have become genes have been ahead on the economic growth curve economic and socio-economic growth curve and it is well known across the world as that as countries societies people becoming more well to do better educated richer they produce fewer babies now we have done a couple more episodes of qatar data earlier using data from world bank and using data from other research organizations telling you or to explain how india's population growth has actually slowed down much faster than anybody had estimated then even the optimist said estimated and they are nowhere near all those who spread this care saying will be so many people what will happen those are disorder right all those scared stories are not coming true that's what all of the data tells us and i can tell you that when we get the results of the 2022 census now they will also say something else something like that they will also surprise us on the on the optimistic side right because india has done very well and once again this pew survey also tells you let's say between 1951 61 india's population growth that is for the decade was 21.6 percent between 2001 and 11 it was 17.7 and it is now declining from there so that is the big difference that's come about in india and in fact india will reach replacement levels very soon replacement level levels means when a country produces only as many babies as the number of people who pass away and this reflects in everything so to just give you an example and you will see again a screenshot from the pew survey which we have marked which tells you that birth rates also reflect in mean age so in india for example the mean age that is the average age of indians is about 28. in pakistan say it's about 23 right in afghanistan it's 17 why is it so that is because the more babies a society produces the less its average age so in india the mean age of the hindus is 29 according to this survey the mean age of the muslims is 24. but as time goes ahead you will find that this gap will now be narrowing so india's movement is in in a virtuous direction whether hindus or muslims or sikhs christians in fact the survey makes an interesting point the survey says this survey buys into the idea that maybe christians are under counted a bit particularly since obesity reservations and that's because when an indian of an obesity or a scheduled caste converts to christianity they lose their reservation benefit so in censuses quite a few people who might be christian actually report themselves as hindu so as the so as to continue getting scheduled cost benefits and these are the demands that christians have had for a long time but on the other hand the hindu side says that look if we allow preservation benefits to those those who convert to christianity on the promise that christianity has no caste then we are incentivizing conversion so that is a different debate that goes on now i'll run through some more charts look at this chart when you look at this chart it's color coded you will see where women produce more babies which also tells you the state of development that those states or those regions have so if you see the central belt in india like the like the entire belly of india that is where maximum number of babies are produced per woman and that is uttar pradesh madhya pradesh rajasthan chhattisgarh bihar bihar is the highest of all 3.4 india's average is 2.2 bihar is 3.4 and you can't even blame any particular faith for it right so that is what you see other other states generally are getting their act together and women are producing fewer and fewer babies so once again you know big states are underdeveloped you be you can also see which big state is the most underdeveloped that is bihar and if you address that then all of india's population picture will change dramatically once again uh this is a chart that tells you how the percentage of muslims in india states has changed and this chart shows you as we had shown you the larger figure muslims have grown slightly as a share of the population in some indian states and these some indian states you can imagine one is kashmir one is assam west bengal haryana which may be due to migration within india but very interestingly the hot button issues which are west bengal and assam where you say oh millions and millions of bangladeshis have come in and democratic demographic shift has taken place and suddenly now these have become effectively muslim majority states muslims have a veto and who will rule these states these states are darker on this map they are coded darker that means the percentage of muslims has increased but let me also read for you why do i read better without my glasses in the psalm it has only increased by 3.3 percent above the overall increase just by 3.3 percent that's all that is the only difference between 2001 and 11. that is when people say a lot of immigration etc has been going on in west bengal it's only gone up by 1.8 percent so don't just look at this dark patches and this color coding as you see gotcha we told you this and similarly numbers of muslims have gone up in kerala and a little bit in goa which again might be due to inter internal migration within india but overall numbers as i told you are within what they are then see the percentage of hindus in india states and again you can see it's color-coded you can see where they've gone up a little bit and you can see they've gone down a little bit so once again you can see that hindus continue to be a very decisive vast majority in all states of india except two also pew reminds us that 94 percent of all the hindus in the entire world live in india of course nepal is the only other country in the world where hindus are in it majority so i think that is really unique for any major faith in the world now having seen all this let me just conclude by saying that debate is good raising questions is good but it's always important to look at fact so remember as we keep on saying quite often that in what we trust the rest of you bring data so we are bringing data for you and let that tell us what's going on and that also tells us that there is no communal or religion based linked to population growth there is a socio-economic political link to population growth so look at indonesia the largest muslim population is that rising humongously fast some african countries it is rising but that is not to do with the faith there that's that is to do with the state of development and the state of the of the economic status there similarly if we look at the subcontinent about 40 percent of all of the world's muslims live in the subcontinent between pakistan india and bangladesh but there which is the country with the fastest growing population it is pakistan so can you then say that oh pakistan is the fastest growing in terms of population because it is it has such a vast muslim majority because i'll give you the counterpoint with data with bangladesh bangladesh also has a very vast muslim majority its overall population growth at this point is even tending to be lower than india's so once again this is not a link with religion this is a link with socio-economic status and politics and also the quality of governance [Music]

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Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021