Louis T. March
(ZENIT News – MercatorNet / Virginia, 02.26.2025).- Say the word “demography” in most places and nary an eyebrow will raise. But halfway around the world the subject is fraught with controversy, especially within the political class of India.
Subcontinental colossus
At over 1.4 billion, India is the world’s most populous country. The total fertility rate (TFR) is 2.0 and slowly declining. That’s about 5 percent below replacement level. India is also emerging as a prominent player on the global stage. The demographic dividend (a disproportionately large working-age population) is upon them. A founding member of the BRICS Alliance, India is important as a source of cheap labour. Much as indentured Indians came to Guyana and South Africa to work the sugar cane fields, today they’re in the Gulf States and elsewhere working on mammoth construction projects.
India is also a “middleman” in global trade: vast amounts of sanctioned Russian oil is sold to India, then refined and resold to Europe. Beating sanctions is a “win-win” for both countries. While India’s government is adept at global wheeling and dealing, it is also practically fixated on the country’s demography, but not in the way Westerners might expect. In India, religion is the demographic hot button.
History
India was the “Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire, by far the UK’s largest and most productive colonial possession, exporting vast amounts of tea, cotton, spices, indigo and other agricultural commodities. From the time of the Sepoy Mutiny (1857), aka the First War for Indian Independence, the British Empire began losing its grip. There were many reasons for the revolt, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a religious issue, the introduction of new rifles and cartridges for Indian troops that were supposedly greased with lard (pork fat) and beef tallow. This was highly offensive to both Muslims and Hindus.
The rebellion was brutally suppressed. The British Raj supplanted the East India Company, but the damage was done. After World War II an exhausted British Empire, facing surging Indian nationalism, realized that continued British rule was not an option. Lord Louis Mountbatten was dispatched to formulate a scheme for independence. The powerful Muslim League insisted upon a Muslim state; thus the subcontinent was partitioned into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India.
Partition began in August 1947. It sparked the largest mass migration in history. Millions of Muslims made their way into Pakistan as millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed for India. With 15 million displaced, a refugee crisis ensued; an estimated 2 million died. Partition cemented a lasting animus between Hindus and Muslims. That deep-seated religious antagonism flourishes today and seems to be intensifying.
Religion
In the 1990s the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as a champion of Hindu rights. After brief stints in government, the BJP won an outright parliamentary majority in 2014 and has consolidated its rule. The BJP espouses Hindutva, the doctrine of political and religious hegemony of Hindus and the Hindu religion. It is demographic considerations that foment widespread concern for “Hindu rights.”
India’s first census (1951) revealed a population 84.1 percent Hindu and 9.8 percent Muslim. The last national census (2011; the 2021 census was postponed during the Covid crisis) Hindus were 79.8 percent of the population; Muslims 14.2; Christians 2.3 and Sikhs 1.7. The slow but steady decline of India’s Hindu percentage is cause for alarm among the religious Hindu majority. This significant shift was due to the differential fertility rates of Hindus and Muslims. Not only that, Muslim Pakistan’s TFR is 3.4, almost 60 percent higher than India’s 2.0.
In 2020 the World Religion Database survey (cited by the US Department of State) had Hindus at 72.4 percent; Muslims, 14.0; Christians, 4.8; and Sikhs, 1.8. This report was a further shock to the BJP, as it reported a further shrinking Hindu percentage with more than a quarter of Indians belonging to other faiths.
India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), conducted from 2019-21, reported on the differential TFRs:
Differential fertility between Hindus and Muslims – the two major religious groups in India – has always fueled controversy among academicians and policymakers. According to NFHS-5, TFR among Hindus was estimated to be 1.9, while among Muslims it was 2.4.
While India’s Muslim population is only 14 percent, a 10 percent decline in Hindu population plus a 20 percent Muslim/Hindu TFR differential is deeply troubling to Hindutva advocates. But those differential rates are converging. In 1992 the TFR differential was 1.11. In 2019 it was .42. From all indications that trend continues. Birth control is a significant factor.
Sectarian tension
Earlier this month India’s Business Standard reported the findings of a Jawaharlal Nehru University study: “Illegal migration reshaping Delhi’s demography, impacting polls: JNU report; The JNU report on Delhi’s demography notes a marked rise in the Muslim population due to migration from Bangladesh.”
According to the report… “The creation of fraudulent identification documents undermines the integrity of legal and electoral systems.”
The study also notes a marked rise in the Muslim population due to migration from Bangladesh. It suggests that these demographic shifts have contributed to changes in the socio-political landscape of the city.
India has the world’s third largest Muslim population (almost 200 million) behind Pakistan and Indonesia. Local BJP politicians frequently voice anti-Muslim sentiments, though party leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi stresses religious tolerance. Muslims are sceptical.
In 2021 the Pew Research Center published a study aptly titled “Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation.” In the West, toleration and segregation are viewed as incompatible, though Indian commentators have said that continued religious segregation is the way to prevent sectarian violence.
Indians’ concept of religious tolerance does not necessarily involve the mixing of religious communities… [M]any Indians seem to prefer a country more like a patchwork fabric, with clear lines between groups.
Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian.
[A]mong Hindu BJP voters who link national identity with both religion and language, 83% say it is very important to stop Hindu women from marrying into another religion.
[T]hree-quarters of Muslims in India (74%) support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts.
Some Indian commentators have voiced opposition to Islamic courts along with more broadly negative sentiments against Muslims, describing the rising numbers of dar-ul-qaza [Islamic courts] as the “Talibanization” of India.
India’s constitution refers to the country as India, Bharat and Hindustan (land of the Hindus). A solid majority of Indians conflate national and Hindu identity. They believe that Hindus are “true Indians.”
Perceptions
In Western countries, walking down the street people notice the colour of your skin and socio-economic cues such as dress, style and demeanour. These are casual and innocent observations, first impressions. However, in some non-Western locales, religious cues are what passersby note. This is especially true in the Middle East and to a great extent in India. Indians are much more religious than Westerners. Religiosity is weaponized for political purposes. The Hindu fear of a Muslim-majority India is real. That sentiment fuels support for the ruling BJP.
Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, posits that India’s Muslim population will peak at 18 percent by century’s end, thus claims by Hindu activists that the country is on track to have a Muslim majority are unfounded. Muttreja says that the slow but sure convergence of the differential Muslim-Hindu TFRs will ensure a continued Hindu majority. However, hers is a scholarly voice lost in the wilderness as the public square is flooded with warnings about “Talibanization,” Sharia law and Islamic terrorism.
According to Muttreja, “Once fertility rates decline, they never increase again, no matter what policies governments introduce.» She cites the thus far losing battles to regain replacement-level fertility in places like Russia, China and Japan. While it is true such initiatives have had limited if any success, the battle against falling fertility has only begun. Widespread public consciousness of population collapse has yet to be realized, and positive change, if it comes, will take decades.
To understand the importance of demography on daily life, study India, where religion can be a matter of life or death.
My advice: keep the faith, tolerate and respect other folks, and have zero-tolerance for evil. If more of us did that, we’d have a better world.
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