Lies and statistics: EAC paper spreads alarming half-truths about Muslim population growth

Released in the middle of the election and amplified by media, the working paper says minorities in India are not just protected but also thriving.

Muslim devotees offer prayers during Eid al-Fitr celebrations at a mosque in Kochi in 2015. | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT / THE HINDU

In mid-May, in the midst of the general election, a working paper released by the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to the Prime Minister made its rounds in the media. The 67-page paper in the EAC-PM Working Paper series, “Share of Religious Minorities: A cross-country analysis (1950-2015)”, authored by Shamika Ravi, Abraham Jose, and Apurv Kumar Mishra, argues that minorities in India are not just protected but also thriving. This, according to it, was proven by their increased share in the population over a 65-year period.

The paper, however, exposes its own biases by lamenting the decline of the Hindu population in the subcontinent and highlighting the increase in the number of Muslims as a share of the overall populations.

Relying on data from the 2019 Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project (RCES-Dem, 2017) for 1950-2015, the paper analyses the status of minorities measured in terms of their changing share in a country’s population over 65 years. It says that the share of the majority religious denomination, including in India, has gone down. However, the share of the majority religious denomination saw an increase in as many as 25 of 38 Muslim-majority countries, whereas in 33 of 35 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries this metric recorded a decrease. Also, in 94 countries with a Christian majority, the share of this majority registered a decrease.

However, the focus of the study is on India. The share of Hindus in India has decreased by 7.82 per cent (“from 84.68 to 78.06 per cent”). This, the paper notes, is “particularly remarkable” in the South Asian context in which the share of the majority religion in every other country has gone up while the minority denominations have shrunk “alarmingly” in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. The report states that “it is not surprising therefore that minority populations from across the neighbourhood come to India during times of duress”. This suggests that India is a haven for minorities.

The paper says that all Muslim-majority countries in the subcontinent, except Maldives, have witnessed an increase in the share of this majority in the population. Bangladesh’s 18 per cent is the largest increase in the subcontinent, while Pakistan’s Hanafi Muslim population increased by 3.75 per cent, and the overall Muslim population rose by 10 per cent despite the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Population figures put up by the International Institute for Population Sciences at Govandi in Mumbai, a 2018 picture. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives

What the report does not say, however, is that currently India is the most populous country in the world, followed by China, the US, and Indonesia. According to Worldometer data, sourced from the UN Population Division, India ranks first in the list of 10 most populous countries, whereas Pakistan and Bangladesh rank fifth and eighth. India accounts for 17.76 per cent of the global population, whereas Pakistan accounts for 2.99 and Bangladesh 2.17 only.

The report states that minority populations (Muslim, in particular) have been growing in non-Muslim-majority states. Three countries, Myanmar, Nepal, and India, have seen a decline in the share of their majority religious denominations. In Nepal, the Hindu population declined by 4 per cent (from “84 per cent in 1950 to 81 per cent in 2015”), Buddhists by 3 per cent, while the Muslim population rose by 2 per cent (from 2.6 per cent to 4.6 per cent). The Christian population went up from 0 to 2 per cent.

In Sri Lanka and Bhutan, the Hindu population declined by 5 and 12 per cent respectively, while the share of Theravada Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Tibetan Buddhists in Bhutan increased. Notably, the paper focusses on the increase or decrease in the share of majority populations in relation to the Hindu population, exposing a bias in its interpretation.

Share of minorities in population

The authors posit that changes in the religious composition of a population are a complex phenomenon involving several factors, but they decide to “abstract away from the causes of this change and instead focus on the share of the minority population as a cumulative outcome measure of their well-being”. The paper’s principal hypothesis is that a society that provides a congenial environment for minorities is likely to see their number increase or stabilise over a period of three generations. Just as the sex ratio is a marker for the status of women in society, the share of religious minorities in a population is an effective marker for determining well-being, the paper says.

The paper examines the demographic changes in the subcontinent with expressions laden with distinct bias towards the Hindu population and against the Muslim population. For example, while describing the changes in the demographic composition in Bangladesh (formed in 1971), it says the Hindu population declined to 8 per cent in 2015 from 23 per cent in 1950, while minorities increased by 22 per cent globally. “This helps us understand the scale of demographic shock that the Hindu population in Bangladesh was subjected to in the 65-year period from 1950-2015,” it notes, while observing that the Buddhist population remained constant while that of Christians trebled.

Likewise, it draws a tentative conclusion, based on media reports, of forced evictions of Nepali Hindus to explain the reduction in the Hindu population in Bhutan in the said period. In Sri Lanka, it says, the Buddhist population increased to 67 per cent compared with the “stark decline” of Hindus from 20 to 15 per cent. Likewise, Pakistan’s Hindu population has seen a “monstrous decline”, from 13 per cent in 1950 to 2 per cent in 2015. In India, while the population of Hindus decreased by 7.82 per cent, that of Muslims increased to 14.09 per cent from 9.84 per cent. The share of Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists also rose, whereas that of Jains and Parsis declined.

The broad conclusions of the paper with respect to India are as follows: one, within the immediate neighbourhood of South Asia, India has witnessed the biggest decline in the majority population next to Myanmar; two, minorities are “not just protected but thriving”; three, there is a conducive environment to foster diversity in the country; and four, India is among the few countries that has legally defined minorities and provided constitutionally protected rights for them.

The report says that these progressive policies and inclusive institutions have led to the rising number of minority populations in India. The paper lauds India’s “civilizational tradition of harbouring persecuted populations” and its assimilation of refugees: Tibetan Buddhists from China, Matuas from Bangladesh, and other refugees from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Afghanistan.

Muslims offer prayers at a mosque in New Delhi. The report states that minority populations (Muslim, in particular) have been growing in non-Muslim-majority countries. | Photo Credit: MANISH SWARUP/AP

While claiming to examine demographic trends, the paper glosses over fertility rates. It makes no attempt to inquire into the drastic variation in the total fertility rate (TFR, the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive life) across regions. It is a known fact that wealth quintiles, education attainment levels, and economic status determine fertility rates. If Muslims were indeed thriving because their numbers had risen, then the same could be said of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe populations. According to the Planning Commission, between 1961 and 2011, the percentage of SCs as a share of the total population went up from 14.7 per cent to 16.6 per cent and that of STs went up from 6.9 per cent to 8.6 per cent.

Selective portrayal

The Population Foundation of India (PFI), an independent think tank, has expressed concerns about the media misreporting the findings of the paper and spreading alarm about the growth of the Muslim population. Poonam Muttreja, its executive director, said that the selective portrayal of data to highlight the increase in the Muslim population was an example of misrepresentation that ignored broad demographic trends.

Highlights

• A working paper “Share of Religious Minorities: A cross-country analysis (1950-2015)“ notes that the share of the majority religious denomination has decreased in India.
• The paper also notes that all Muslim-majority countries in the subcontinent, except Maldives, have witnessed an increase in the share of this majority in the population.
• The paper examines demographic changes in the subcontinent with distinct bias towards the Hindu population and against the Muslim population.

In a statement, the PFI pointed out that, according to the Census of India, the decadal rate of growth for Muslims had been declining over the last three decades: from 32.9 per cent in 1981-91 to 24.6 in 2001-11. The decline was more pronounced than that of Hindus whose growth rate fell from 22.7 per cent to 16.8 over the same period. On the basis of census data from 1950 to 2011, the TFR for all religious groups was declining, the highest decrease was among Muslims by 1 percentage point followed by Hindus by 0.7 percentage points. The trend showed that fertility rates were converging for all religious groups.

Muttreja said the PFI statement was issued quoting data from government sources such as National Family Health Surveys, Census, and the Sample Registration System to provide a perspective and evidence-based narrative. She said using demographic data for sectarian political objectives would lead to divisiveness, misrepresentation, and marginalisation of certain groups.

Asked whether the increase or decrease in the share of religious denominations signified anything by itself, she said the fertility decline was influenced by development factors rather than religious affiliation. Fertility rates itself are related to education and income levels. States with better access to health and education, such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu, exhibit lower TFRs for all religious groups. The TFR for Muslim women in Kerala is lower (2.25) than the TFR for Hindu women in Bihar (2.88).

The conclusion that Muslim minorities were thriving in India as their numbers had increased therefore was flawed. First, the Narendra Modi government has received considerable flak for its treatment of Muslims. Modi’s words to describe Muslims, as infiltrators and those who beget more children, has been widely condemned. There have been repeated references to Muslim appeasement, and claims that the opposition would take away SC and ST reservation and give it to Muslims. Such narratives belie the assertion in the EAC paper of a conducive environment that fosters diversity. In fact, as soon as the EAC paper was published, the BJP began to claim that the Congress would provide a quota for Muslims if elected to power. The working paper provides an academic cover to the BJP’s political campaign centred around minorities. In hindsight, it does not seem to have worked.