Mischievous propaganda

A polarising propaganda is being run based on a PMEAC paper.

A ‘working paper’ titled ‘Share of Religious Minorities’ by a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council is being misused by BJP politicians for polarising propaganda.

The report itself is mischievous and misleading in many ways, not least in the timing of its release in the midst of the election campaign.

The ‘working paper’ purports to study the increase or decrease in the share of religious majorities in the overall populations of 167 countries between 1950 and 2015. It adopts the simplistic hypothesis that if the share of the majority population decreased (or tautologically, as it says, the share of the minority population increased) in the overall population of a country, then that means the country has a conducive environment for its minorities to thrive.

The purpose of the paper, ostensibly, is to assure the world, particularly the West, that the minorities, especially Muslims, enjoy such a conducive environment in India even today under the Modi dispensation, notwithstanding that it is based on the last Census conducted in 2011 and even its projected estimates are only up to 2015.

Yet, even if we disregard its overly simplistic, even erroneous, hypothesis, the same report that is meant to send a positive message to the world is being used domestically in exactly the opposite way – to propagate the “Hindus are in danger” narrative. The ‘working paper’ shows that the share of the Muslim population in the overall population increased by 43.15% between 1950 and 2015 while that of the Hindu population decreased by 7.82%. 

It has often been said in the past that there is a population bomb ticking away in India. But population is now being used as a bomb in an election campaign to scare and polarise voters. It is well established that India’s population growth rate has been decelerating and minorities, including Muslims, are part of this trend. There are credible figures which show that the rate of growth of the Muslim population has been declining in India since the 1990s. In some parts of the country, the Total fertility Rate (TFR) of Muslims is actually less than the replacement level, which means their population may actually be declining. It has been proved that the population growth rate of a community depends on its socio-economic conditions. Poor socio-economic conditions lead to higher rate of population growth, as seen among Hindus in North Indian states. That is the case with Muslims also. Improving the socio-economic conditions of all is the best method to keep the population in check. 

Instead, Muslims are being demonised as a community that grows exponentially, eats up national resources, and denies the majority community its share of them. It is prejudice and hatred that drive these arguments and they are being deployed as a weapon in the election campaign. If the government were to conduct the long-due Census, the truth about population figures would be known. Why is it not doing so?