Decadal decline of Hindu population in West Bengal

The population scenario in West Bengal, specially the decadal growth rates never come up as a serious issue of public debate for a variety of reasons, the prime one being inclination to avoid harsh realities. The incremental addition of population of a section of a religious minority is like a fluid bomb that has been ticking every second in
West Bengal.
West Bengal began with a population of 2,62,99,980 in census 1951 and by 2011 it had gone up to 91,276,115 with 13.8 per cent decadal growth and registering in the process 3.47 times growth since 1951.The density of population has shot up from 296 to 1028, making West Bengal the second most densely populated State of the country.
Beneath this alarming growth, there is another story that has emerged from the recent release of religion-wise Census data, 2011. It is a pointer to an impending demographic disaster. Of the two major religions, the Hindus began with 1,94,62,706 in1951 and reached 6,43,85,546 in 2011; the population thus went up 3.3 times in 60 years. The Muslims, after Partition started with 49,25,496 in 1951 and had reached 2,46,54,825 in 2011, nearly a five-fold growth. As per the report of the Census Commissioner of India, the decadal rate of growth of the Muslim population is 21.8 per cent against the decadal growth of Hindus at 10.8 per cent in 2011, i.e the decadal rate of growth of Muslims is more than double that of Hindus.
The decadal growth rate is usually taken as an indicator of the changing character of population. This growth rate is accordingly taken up to understand changing trend of composition of Hindus and the Muslims in West Bengal in Table 1.

It emerges from Table-1 that the decadal growth rate of Hindus has been less than the West Bengal average in every Census since 1951. It shows at the same time that the decadal growth rates of Muslims have always been significantly higher than rates of growth of Hindus as well as the West Bengal average. The Muslim growth rate was 8.18 percentage points higher in 1981, 15.80 points higher in 1991, 11.68 points higher in 2001 and 11 points higher in 2011 than the Hindu rate of growth.
The Muslim rate of growth is also 7.87 points higher than the average decadal growth of population of West Bengal in 2011. From a demographic perspective, such high differentials in growth rate consistently over time are indeed very alarming.
The relative proportion of a religious community is another indicator to understand the flow character of population growth. It would be desirable now to see how the relative proportion of Religious Population in West Bengal has changed over the years. In Table 2, the proportion of population growth religion wise has been shown to understand the trend of changed demographic character from 1951 to 2011.

It reveals that Hindus have been losing their prominent position in numbers with each Census after partition and the Muslims have been leap-frogging with higher presence in relative proportion of Religious Population in West Bengal.
The macro image of the growth of Muslim population in West Bengal and the points of its critical areas can be better appreciated if the state scenario is broken down into district figures, as in Table 3.
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 The spurt in the growth and size of Muslim population has taken place without any consideration for the carrying capacity of such incremental population and with complete disregard to the national family planning programme and quality of life. This would all be evident as with every census, higher growth rate of Muslims pushes up its corresponding proportion in all the districts of West Bengal as shown in Table 4.
image: http://www.thestatesman.com/cms/newsimages/image/Table%204.jpg
 

It would appear from the table that in Uttar Dinajpur, the TFR of Muslim women was as high as 6.1, followed by 5.1 in Malda. In 11 districts, the TFR of Muslim women was above 4, and in 5 districts it was 3 and above. Only in Kolkata district was it less than 3. The high TFR of Muslim women is the single biggest factor for the growth of the Muslim population and more particularly for the increased proportionate share of Muslims (25.2 per cent in 2001) of West Bengal. The percentage of Muslims in some districts in 2001 was – Murshidabad – 63.67; Malda – 49.72; Uttar Dinajpur – 47.36; Birbhum – 35.08 and South 24 Parganas – 33.2.
Given the almost identical social environment in the districts of West Bengal, the fertility behaviour alone may not be the only ground for this phenomenal growth as it defies all logic of natural human procreation. It is apparent that a substantial portion of this growth is due to influx and infiltration.
The incremental addition of Muslim population in 2011 was to the extent of 3,44,667 in Uttar-Dinajpur and 2,65,258 in undivided West Dinajpur; 3,83,879 and 4,08,980 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in Malda; 2,12,874 and 2,40,193 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in Birbhum; 4,12,208 and 2,26,258 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in Howrah; 4,04,219 and 4,20,626 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in North 24-parganas; 2,10,284 and 2,12400 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in Nadia and 8,25,160 and 9,72,193 respectively in 2001 and 2011 in Murshidabad. The political courage of all national and state parties is the dire need of the hour to ensure that West Bengal does not continue to remain a safe place for demographic assault and also a safe haven for influx and infiltration.
Unfortunately in India and especially in West Bengal, the subject of population growth has been mixed up with vote bank politics and as a result the demographic assault continues unabated without any public outcry. The silent march of numbers is too eloquent to be ignored.
Unfortunately, efforts are usually made to ensure that religious data do not come into the public domain for any objective and bias-free analysis. When such religious data does come, “secularists” raise a red flag against any objective analysis on ground of “communal distaste”, “communal passion”, “obsession with numbers” and the like, to pre-empt new learning on religious data.
Such secularists do not appear to advocate adherence to the national norm of two children in the interests of a higher quality of life of fellow citizens or cry against infiltration or address the limits of the state to absorb an unsustainable population.
The writer is a former Member of the State Finance Commission, West Bengal.