January 24, 2015

MUSLIM POPULATION IN INDIA GROWS 24% BUT SLOWER THAN PREVIOUS DECADE

[The census office had compiled this data by March last year, but the UPA government held back the release, perhaps fearing political repercussions of the findings on the eve of Lok Sabha elections. Union home minister Rajnath Singh last week gave his go-ahead when Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli asked whether the "sensitiive' figures should be released.]

Yahoo News India

NEW DELHI: The latest census data on the population of religious groups, set to be released shortly, shows a 24% rise in the Muslim population between 2001 and 2011, with the community's share of total population rising from 13.4% to 14.2% over the 10-year period.

While the growth rate of the Muslim population has slowed from around 29% between 1991 and 2001, it is still higher than the national average of 18% for the decade.

The data accessed by TOI showed that the most rapid rise in the share of Muslims in the total population was witnessed in Assam. Muslims constituted 30.9% of the state's population in 2001, but accounted for a 34.2% share a decade later. The state has had a persisting problem of the illegal influx of Bangladeshi immigrants.


West Bengal, another state where illegal immigration from Bangladesh has been an old phenomenon, has also registered a rise in the share of Muslims in total population from 25.2% in 2001 to 27% in 2011, a growth of 1.9 percentage points over the 10 years, more than double the national average.
  
Uttarakhand, significantly, has also reported a sharp rise in the share of Muslim population from 11.9% to 13.9%, a growth of 2 percentage points against the countrywide growth of 0.8 percentage points between 2001 and 2011.

Other states with a significant rise in the share of Muslims in the total population as per the 2011 census were Kerala (from 24.7% to 26.6%), Goa (6.8% to 8.4%), Jammu & Kashmir (67% to 68.3%), Haryana (5.8% to 7%) and Delhi (11.7% to 12.9%).

The census office had compiled this data by March last year, but the UPA government held back the release, perhaps fearing political repercussions of the findings on the eve of Lok Sabha elections. Union home minister Rajnath Singh last week gave his go-ahead when Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli asked whether the "sensitiive' figures should be released.

Singh on Wednesday confirmed that the data would be made public soon.

Interestingly, Manipur was the only state to show a fall in Muslim population as a percentage of its total population (a fall of 0.4 percentage points).


The high growth of Muslim population in Assam has been intensely debated and has been a source of political confrontation. In fact, a report prepared on the issue in 1998 by the then governor of Assam, Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha, had warned that illegal immigration was slowly changing the demographic profile in several districts. The Supreme Court has on more than one occasion expressed concern over the change in demography and chided the government for not stopping infiltration from Bangladesh.


[Madrasses have for long been associated with traditional Islamic religious teachings, but now most of them have joined the mainstream education system and are teaching mainstream subjects.] 

Press Trust of India

RAMPUR: Breaking stereotypes, 11 Hindu children have enrolled in a madrassa here while as many as 140 Muslim boys have joined an RSS-run school.

According to the principal of Madrassa Jameeatul Ansar, it is the parents' love for the Urdu language and literature which motivated them to put their children in the madrassa.

The Hindu students and their parents "love Urdu" and poets like Mirza Ghalib, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jigar Moradabadi and others have a following, cutting across distinctions of community religion. Also, the families are keen that the children learn the traditional etiquette," said Khalid Ansari, principal of the madrassa.

Madrasses have for long been associated with traditional Islamic religious teachings, but now most of them have joined the mainstream education system and are teaching mainstream subjects.

Ansari says 11 Hindu boys have been enrolled in the madrassa, who besides learning other subjects, study Urdu language with keen interest.

The students from both the communities also offer morning prayers together.

Meanwhile, about 140 children have been enrolled in a school run by the right-wing organisation RSS, known for its Hindutva ideology.

"As many as 140 Muslim boys have been enrolled in various classes of Saraswati Vidya Mandir Inter College," college principal Jitendra Singh said.

"The day starts for the students with surya namaskar and singing of Vande Mataram besides vedic hymns," he said.

Singh later said all the students take their lunch together.


Speaking about the Muslim students, Singh said that a pass-out of the institute, Danish Mustafa, has succeeded in getting an engineering job in Saudi Arabia, and claimed hundreds of Muslims students have availed very good jobs in various parts of the country.