Mangaluru: Present Population Trend Moving Towards Making Hindus Minority by 2061 – S V Vadiraj

Mangaluru: Samarasya Vedike (SV) held a meet to analyze the 2011 census at Sanganikethana here, on January 19.

Speaking on this occasion, Prantha Sanchalaka of SV, Vadiraj said that the first census was conducted in India in the year 1861 and has been conducted every 10 years ever since. He went on to show the census data from Pakistan and Bangladesh on a Power Point presentation, which showed the percentage of population based on religion. The slides showed increase in the Muslim and Christian population where as a significant decrease in the population of Hindus and other religions combined. The census data from Pakistan showed that in 1901, Muslim population stood at 83.87% whereas in 2011, it had increased to 96.6%. The Christian figures stood at 0.19% in 1901 and 1.8% in 2011. The Hindu population however saw a major downfall from 15.93% in 1901 to mere 1.6% in 2011. “This fall might have been due to migration and deaths during the partition,” he added.

Vadiraj then went on to show the census data of India. In 1951, the percentage of Muslim population was 10.43% which saw an increase to 14.23% in 2011. The Christian population seemed to fluctuate just a little with 2.33% in 1951 to 2.03% in 2011. The Hindu population however had declined in India with 87% in 1951 to 82.59% in 2011. “A Chennai based NGO, Centre for Population Studies (CPS) published a book named Religious Demography of India. If we go through the page 37 in the book, we will see a study which shows that if this trend continues, Hindus will be a minority in India by 2061,” he said.

The slides further showed the states that already have the Hindu community as a minority with Punjab with 36.9% Hindus and Lakshwadeep at the lowest with just 3.7% of the total population being Hindus. Jammu and Kashmir had 29.6% Hindus, Nagaland had 7.7%, Mizoram 3.6%, Meghalaya 13.3%, Manipur 46% and Arunachal Pradesh at 34.6%. “Other states which are on the brink of attaining a Hindu minority status are, Kerala 54.7%, Assam 61.4%, West Bengal 70%, Uttar Pradesh 79%, Bihar 83%,” Vadiraj said.

Vadiraj further said, “There has been a lot of insurgency of Muslim population from neighbouring country of Bangladesh. The political leaders in the states provide the migrants with Indian identity by issuing voters ID cards, Aadhar cards, ration cards for the sake of votes.” He said that the appeal of Taslima, a Bangladeshi writer to seek asylum in India was rejected for political reasons. Taslima is a controversial writer who had fatwa’s issued against her for her writings against certain practices in Islam. “When they can’t give asylum to a woman in distress, how can they give refuge to so many insurgents?” he questioned.

Vadiraj said that Karnataka was the only state that hadn’t seen any decrease in the population of Hindus. He cited the migration of Hindus to cities like Bengaluru seeking employment as the reason for this. However, the neighbouring state of Kerala had a different story to tell. There was a significant increase in the population of Christians and Muslims in Kerala. “There are 24 lakh Muslims from Kerala who are working abroad and are not included in the census data. India has lot of money flowing in from the gulf countries, with the district of Mallapuram itself contributing Rs 84000 crores annually from these NRI’s,” he said.

“The percentage of Hindus having just one child has gone up to 40% in 2011 from 10% in 2001. This will further reduce the population of Hindus. If we see the voting pattern in Kerala, Christians and Muslims vote for the Congress party. So far it was only the Hindus and a few Muslims who were voting for the Communist party. Now the trend is changing and Hindus are voting for the BJP. This is a big threat for the communist party as no Muslim state or nation has ever had a communist party,” Vadiraj said about the possible change in fate of the Communist party in Kerala.

He further said, “If we just consider the children below the age of six, we will see that 18.7% of the population is Muslim, 15.6% are Hindus, Christians are 13.5%, Sikh 12.8%, Buddhist at 14.4% and the rest belong to other religions. So in the future, the majority will be Muslims.”

He said that 60% of the parliamentarians had won the seat with just 30% votes. “The so called Regional parties should be called caste parties as they depend on votes from the people of their caste. Why don’t we see JD(S) win in Dakshina Kannada? KJP didn’t contest even in Bengaluru as there was none form their caste in Bengaluru to give them votes. The aim of the candidates is to secure votes from their caste and get votes from the Muslim community, this will give them more than 30% votes and if we see the statistics, these many votes are enough to secure a majority,” Vadiraj said.

He said that Right To Education (RTE) should be made compulsory in minority institutions as well. “Even minority institutions should be asked to reserve 25% seats to students of poor economic background,” Vadiraj added.

He said that in India Hindus were turning to be a ‘little too sophisticated’ as on the day of elections, Hindus preferred to go out on a picnic rather that exercise their franchise.

Vadiraj said that Muslims are usually not involved in the practice of agriculture and instead belonged to a class of traders and merchants. They were the ones who gave work to others and Hindus were the workers under them. Muslims being entrepreneurs have amassed huge wealth. When Hindus migrated to bigger cities for a better future, their ancestral land was bought by rich Muslims and not Hindus. “If we see the property listed in Kerala, we will find that Muslims ranked first followed by Christians and Hindus are on the third spot,” he said.