Blurb:
It is evident that the minority population is growing at a faster rate, but comparison with 2001 data shows that it is slowing down at a faster rate than that of Hindus and experts believe that both rates will eventually converge and stabilise
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At one level the census data on religion reads like the stock market -- proportion of Hindus slides below 80 percent, growth rate of Muslims up, fertility rates of Christians dips, and so on. At another level the data painted a broad picture of the size of religious communities in the country. What was lost in between was the role played by regions and states and the co-relation between religion-based data and the overall picture of population growth.
Census data can be of use to planners only if it is interpreted properly. What the raw data tells us is that the Hindu population has grown to 96.6 crore, but its proportion to the overall population fell to 79.8 %. The number of Muslims grew to 17.22 core and now comprises 14.2 per cent of the population. The data also shows that between 2001 and 2011, the Hindu population grew by 16.76 % while that of Muslims by 24.6 %. It is evident that the minority population is growing at a faster rate, but comparison with 2001 data shows that it is slowing down at a faster rate than that of Hindus and experts believe that both rates will eventually converge and stabilise.
To view the data through the prism of religion alone would throw up a set of results that would be quite meaningless in the larger context. India is a diverse and complex nation and economic growth is uneven. One has to superimpose region on the present data for a clearer image to emerge. And once this is done the single most important discovery that come to the fore is that religion has nothing to do with fertility rates. On the contrary growth in population is governed by economic conditions, access to healthcare, mortality rate and education, among some of the factors. For example 60 to 65 per cent of Muslims live in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam where the overall growth of population has been high. In comparison, Kerala which comprises 25% Muslims, has registered growth of only 5 per cent, which is due to the state's impressive health, education and economic growth indices. Also, if religion was a dominant factor in population growth then how would one explain Bangladesh and Indonesia, which despite being Muslim-majority nations, have outperformed India in terms of falling birth rates? Another factor that is often ignored is the mortality rate which impacts growth rates and it is higher for Hindus than Muslims.
More than giving a comparative strength of religious communities, the census data gives a pretty clear picture of states that are lagging behind on development indices. The rule of thumb is a state with a higher population growth rates needs to upgrade governance and streamline delivery of services, especially healthcare and education and spur the economy into creating better choices for the individual. The good news though is that as the country transforms from a rural agricultural society to an industrial one, fertility rates will fall and the population, irrespective of religion, will stabilise.
