The Economic Advisory Council’s report on religious demography has understandably incurred criticism on both its timing and its findings. https://thewire.in/communalism/a-disingenuous-report-on-indias-religious-demography
Released last week, bang in the middle of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it underlines a 7.8% decrease in India’s Hindu population share and a 43.1% increase in its Muslim population share between 1951-2015. These figures, however, represent a rate of change not its quantum, and in the current context are highly misleading. In percentage points the figure for Muslim share increase is 4.2 and for Hindu share decrease is 6.6. These are not significant changes over a period of sixty-five years. Putting them in comparison to other countries only confirms that India’s demography remained largely the same until 2015.
The PM’s Economic Advisory Council has given no explanation of why its report was released during an election campaign when its subject was bound to be contentious, apart from a weak comment by council member Shamika Ravi, that its findings should not be contentious since they merely demonstrate that India is a liberal democratic country in which minorities are doing well. Demographic diversity is an indicator of liberalism while demographic domination is a sign of autocracy, she said in an interview to India Today television.
by Radha Kumar
15/05/2024