Muslim population growth in India
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South Asia has three large nation states that constituted the former British India (now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Combined with Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives, it is home to over 450 million Muslims or about one-third of total world Muslim population. Although Muslims are a minority in India with 13.4%[1] of the Indian population as per Indian Census of 2001, India has the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.
High population growth for Indian Muslims has been raised as an issue. There appears to have been a tendency on part of the nationalist parties to raise an alarm by exaggerating the trend, while the left and the Congress often dismiss the whole issue as propaganda. As detailed below, the annual growth rate of Muslim population in India has been about half a percentage point higher than that for the the general population. Over a long period of time this does show up as a significant change.
India has conducted a decennial census since 1881, and has always tracked religious affiliation as part of the census, thus leaving little room for controversy about the underlying facts. The Census of India is generally seen as one of the more reliable regularly conducted censuses outside of the developed world. However, due to disturbance in the Indian administered part of the disputed Jammu & Kashmir, no census was held there in 1991; and similarly the 1981 census missed disturbed parts of Assam in the north-east. This created some confusion in using the data, especially regarding trends concerning the growth of the Muslim population relative to non-Muslim populations during the periods from 1981-1991 and 1991-2001.
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[edit] Fifty-year trend
Since neither the first census after the independence in 1951 nor the latest census in 2001 had any such major omissions, it is possible to take a look at the issue of relative population growth during the 50-year period without worrying about the adjustments needed for the census of 1981 or 1991. As the following table shows, the population of India in 2001 was 2.84 times its 1951 population. The proportion of Muslims was 10.36% in 1951 and it increased to 13.4% by 2001. The compound average annual growth rate for population of India as a whole has been 2.11% during this 50-year period, though the fast growth rate has peaked a while back and is believed to be lower now in the 1.50% to 1.60% range. The 50-year multiple was 3.69 x for Muslim population as compared to 2.75 x for non-Muslims as a whole. This significant difference in multiple represents a 0.60% difference in average annual compound growth rate of 2.64% versus 2.04%.
INDIAN CENSUS - Post Partition (Source data: Census of India)
| 1951 | 2001 | 50 -Year Multiple | CAGR | |
| Total (millions) | 361.1 | 1,028.6 | 2.84 | 2.11% |
| Muslim (millions) | 37.4 | 138.2 | 3.69 | 2.64% |
| Others (millions) | 323.7 | 890.4 | 2.75 | 2.04% |
[edit] Confusion regarding 1981-91 and 1991-2001 trend
It is likely that a differential of about 0.60 percent or so in average annual growth rate has existed throughout the 50-year period. However, to establish the inter-decennial trend, one needs to adjust the 1981 and 1991 census data for the two areas with between 1% to 3% of India's population that could not be covered in the census of 1981 and 1991. An update of this write-up will cover the inter-decennial growth.
An article published by Census of India in 2004 only muddled up the issue by first making inter-decennial comparisons between 1981-1991 and 1991-2001 without making estimates for the areas missed. That publication was withdrawn and replaced by one making a comparison that simply dropped the two affected states to make a comparison for the rest of India.
