The distribution of data is of the total population by six major religious communities – Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain – besides “Other religions and persuasions” and “Religion not stated”.
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The census data on population by religious communities registered that the Hindu population dipped by 0.7 percentage point while the Muslim population increased by 0.8 percentage point from 2001 to 2011.
There are 2.78 crore Christians, 2.08 crore Sikhs and 0.45 crore Jains.
The data release coincides with Assembly elections due in three states with significant Muslim population -Bihar in October this year and Assam and West Bengal in 2016.
My advice therefore to all those who are talking about “impending demographic imbalance” in next few years is: please do not use the recently released data selectively to raise false alarm. “It shows that both Hindus and Muslims have understood the importance of population control…and it is visible in the declining fertility”, demographer sociologist Subrata Mukherjee told bdnews24.com. This is in variance with the projections of 8 per cent fall in Hindu population made by certain quarters.
SP, DMK and some other parties have been asking the government to release the caste census figure.
The decadal growth rate for Christian population (2001-11) was higher than 100% in Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh, but the community recorded a negative growth in five states including Nagaland (-2.8%), Andhra Pradesh (-4.4%), Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
Hindus grew by 16.8 per cent between 2001 and 2011, while the growth was 24.6 per cent among Muslims.
The proportion of the Muslim population in India has grown marginally from 2001 to 2011, according to latest data released by the government.
While the world’s population is projected to grow 35% in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 73% – from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050.
Sex ratio (women per 1,000 men) among Muslims as per Census 2011 was 951 – better than the 939 among Hindus.
Among Buddhists also, there has been a sizeable decline in the growth rate from 35.3 percent during 1981-91 to only 24.5 percent during 1991-2001. Christians maintained their 2.3 percent while Sikhs also fell down to 1.7 percent from 1.9 percent.
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Another trend that should not be lost sight of is that the growth rate of Muslims in states where their share in the total population is higher have been muted.
