THE CHANGING FACE OF RELIGIOUS DEMOGRAPHY

A new study shows that minority population shares have grown in India over half a century, even as they have shrunk in the neighbourhood’s Muslim-majority nations

- A SURYA PRAKASH

A Nimportant study undertaken by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) an analysis of the evolving status of religious minorities around the worldprovides significant and renewed evidence of the demographic decline of the majority and the growing population of minorities in most nations including India.

The working paper, which examined demographic change between 1950 and 2015 across 167 nations, found that the share of the majority in India-Hindus declined by 7.8 percent to 78.06 percent of the population. During the same period, the Muslim population in India rose from 9.84 percent to 14.09 percent. The Christian population rose marginally from 2.24 to 2.36 percent during this period and that of Sikhs from 1.24 to 1.85 percent. India's population is estimated to be 1.45 billion today.

Now let's look at what's happening in India's neighbourhood. All the Muslimmajority countries have witnessed an increase in the share of the largest denomination, except in Maldives, where there has been a small decline of 1.47 percent.

In Bangladesh, where the Hindu minority has crashed from 23 percent to 8 percent (a 66 percent decrease), the Muslim majority has risen 18 percent. The researchers describe this as a "demographic shock" that the Hindu population has been subjected to in that nation. Similarly, Pakistan has seen a rise of 10 percent in the total Muslim population.

The situation has been just the opposite in the subcontinent's non-Muslim nations.

The population of the majority declined in India, Myanmar and Nepal. In Myanmar, the Theravada Buddhist population shrunk by 10 percent, while in Nepal the Hindu and Buddhist populations registered 4 percent and 3 percent declines, and the Muslim population rose 2 percent. The Hindu population has also declined 5 percent in Sri Lanka and dropped 12 percentage points to 11 percent in Bhutan.