India’s Hindu population drops below 80%

NEW DELHI: India’s Hindus have dropped below 80 percent of the population for the first time since independence and media had speculated the previous government deliberately delayed the release of the data because it showed a rise in the Muslim population.
Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, which swept to power last year, have expressed growing concern about the rising numbers of Muslims.
The census data shows that Hindus declined to 79.8 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people in 2011, from 80.5 percent a decade earlier.
The share of Muslims rose to 14.2 percent from 13.4 percent in 2001, the only major religious group to record a rise. Christians stayed at 2.3 percent and Sikhs fell to 1.7 percent from 1.9 percent.
In the first census, conducted after Britain carved India and Pakistan out of colonial India in 1947, Hindus accounted for 84.1 percent of the Indian population.
Although population growth is slowing in all religious groups, India is still set to overtake China to become the world’s most populous country by 2022, according to a United Nations forecast.
India’s population grew by almost a fifth during the period between the last two censuses, straining supplies of land, food and water and bloating its underemployed, poorly skilled workforce.
While the Muslim share in population had increased, their growth since 2001 has recorded a sharp decline, local media reported while commenting on the census.
“In fact, the ... growth rate of all communities has slowed down, suggesting a stabilizing trend for fertility rates, the data showed.”
The latest data was ready to be released in January 2014 but the then Congress-led government chose not to make it public ahead of the general elections that year.
In the first census, conducted after Britain carved India and Pakistan out of colonial India in 1947, Hindus accounted for 84.1 percent of the Indian population.
Although population growth is slowing in all religious groups, India is still set to overtake China to become the world’s most populous country by 2022, according to a United Nations forecast.
India’s population grew by almost a fifth during the period between the last two censuses, straining supplies of land, food and water and bloating its underemployed, poorly skilled workforce.