Centre’s

 Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Religion Data of Census 2011: VII

The Changing numbers of Other Religions and

Persuasions (ORPs)
In our previous post on the religious demography of Jharkhand, we have noticed that
the ORPs in that State are a significant player in the contention for demographic
space that is occurring between different communities almost everywhere in India.
The main players are, of course, the Hindus, the Muslims and the Christians. But, the
Sikhs, the Jains, the Buddhists and the ORPs add complexity to the situation; and, like
the changing numbers of Hindus, Muslims and Christians, any sharp changes in their
numbers in different regions also has important sociological, political and strategic
consequences. Before continuing with the larger story of the relative growth of
Hindus, Muslim and Christians in different parts of India, we discuss the details of the
changing religious profile of these less numerous communities in this and the
following post. We begin with the ORPs.

Five major religions and others

The Census of India compiles numbers for five major religious communities: Hindus,
Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. Persons belonging to religions other
than these five are added together under the category of Other Religions and
Persuasions (ORPs). In addition, there is a residual category of Religion Not Stated
(RNS).

The details of the relatively less numerous religions compiled together in the category
of ORPs are compiled and published separately in an Appendix to the main Religion
Tables. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, etc., themselves are also composite categories;
people tend to belong to many sects and beliefs within these larger categories.
Numbers of the followers of these diverse sects and beliefs are also recorded and
tabulated in an Annexure to the main Religion Tables.

In the Table here we give Religious Demography of India, 2001-2011

the numbers counted in Population in ’000s Share in Percent Decadal
the seven categories of the 2011 2001 2011 2001 Growth %
main Religion Tables of Total 1,210,855 1,028,610 100.00 100.00 17.72
2001 and 2011. As seen in Hindus 966,257 827,579 79.80 80.46 16.76
the Table, 96% of the Muslims 72,245 138,188 14.23 13.43 24.65
Indians belong to one of Christians 27,820 24,080 2.30 2.34 15.53
three largest religions, Sikhs 20,833 19,216 1.72 1.87 8.42
Hindu, Muslim or Jains 8,443 7,955 0.70 0.77 6.13
Christian. Of the total
Buddhists 4,452 4,225 0.37 0.41 5.37
population of 121 crore in
ORPs 7,938 6,640 0.66 0.65 19.55
2011, nearly 117 crore is
RNS 2,867 728 0.24 0.07 294.08
accounted for by these
three. Of the rest, about 2 crore are Sikhs, 84 lakh Buddhists, 44 lakh Jains and 79
lakh ORPs. The number of RNS used to be fairly small; in 2011 it has suddenly
increased to about 29 lakhs; this needs to be looked into it.

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   1     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Though the number of persons belonging to religions other than Hindu, Muslim and
Christian is small, yet their numbers can be fairly significant and the changes in their
relative presence quite consequential in some parts of the country. As seen in the
Table above, between 2001 and 2011, the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists have all grown
at a much slower pace than the total population and their relative share in the
population of India has declined. The ORPs have, however, grown at a somewhat
higher rate than the Indian average and there has been a slight rise in their share. In
the following, we discuss the demographic progression of the ORPs since
Independence and shall give detailed data about the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists later.

Background of the category of ORP

As we have noted, ORPs is a Census category that encompasses all persons belonging
to religions other than the five major religions—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain
and Buddhist—whose numbers are compiled in the main Religion Tables.

In the pre-Independence times, numbers for the Parsis, Jews and the so-called Tribal
Religions, also referred to as Animists in the earlier Censuses, were also separately
tabulated. The last was a very ambiguous category; in each of the Census Reports, the
then British Census Superintendents engaged in extensive anthropological discussion
about the meaning of Tribal or Animist and went through great intellectual
contortions to separate these religions from the underlying and overarching Hindu
religion. But they were unable to find a satisfactory definition and the instructions to
the enumerators had to be changed in every Census.

After Independence, persons belonging to religious other than the main five are
tabulated together under the category of Other Religions and Persuasions, ORPs. The
category includes a large number of local religious practices prevalent mainly in
States and districts with considerable presence of Janjati (Tribal) communities. It also
includes some relatively small religious communities of adherents of religions of
foreign origin, like the Jews, the Parsis and Bahais, etc. In addition, some rather small
communities like the Nirankaris and Ausho Commune International also have
managed to find a place in this category as distinct religious persuasions. As we shall
see below, a large majority of the persons counted among ORPs are in fact followers
of a handful of religious practices prevalent in specific Janjati areas.

Number and Share of ORPs

Number and Share of ORPs 1951-2011
The number and share of ORPs in India was
fairly small up to 1991. Their number, Census Persons Percent Decadal
Year in ’000s Share Growth %
however, more than doubled during 1991-
2001; the increase in the current decade of
1951 1,848 0.52 —
1961 1,607 0.37 -13.04
2001-2011 has, however, been modest and in 1971 2,185 0.40 35.97
line with their growth in the earlier decades. 1981 2,766 0.42 26.59
This moderation of the trend of rapid growth 1991 3,269 0.39 18.19
of ORPs is one of the more significant 2001 6,639 0.65 103.09
features of the religious demographic data of 2011 7,938 0.66 19.57
2011 and is perhaps another indicator of the noticeable resurgence in the Hindu
numbers in several parts of India that we have been noticing.

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   2     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Distribution of ORPs

Number of ORPs Percent Share

2011 2001 1991 2011 2001 1991
INDIA 79,37,734 66,39,626 32,69,355 0.66 0.65
0.65 0.39
Jharkhand 42,35,786 35,14,472 14,39,066 12.84 13.04
13.04 6.59
West Bengal 9,42,297 8,95,796 4,52,403 1.03 1.12
1.12 0.66
Odisha 4,78,317 3,61,981 3,97,798 1.14 0.98
0.98 1.26
Madhya P 5,99,594 4,09,285 45,087 0.83 0.68
0.68 0.09
Chhattisgarh 4,94,594 95,187 17,370 1.94 0.46
0.46 0.10
Maharashtra 1,78,965 2,36,841 99,768 0.16 0.24
0.24 0.13
Arunachal P 3,62,553 3,37,399 3,13,118 26.20 30.73
30.73 36.21
Manipur 2,33,767 2,35,280 14,066 8.19 10.86
11.53 0.76
Meghalaya 2,58,271 2,67,245 2,98,466 8.71 11.53
10.86 16.81

A large majority of the ORPs in India are concentrated in just 9 States of India listed
in the Table above. Of the total 77.9 lakh ORPs in 2011, 77.8 lakhs are in these States,
and 42.4 lakhs of them are in Jharkhand alone.

Within these 9 States, the ORPs are concentrated further in a few districts.
Consequently, we get 3 distinct clusters of ORP concentration comprising of several
contiguous districts of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha in the east; of some
contiguous districts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra in the centre;
and, of much of Arunachal Pradesh and some parts of Meghalaya and Manipur in the
northeast. These 3 clusters of ORPs are clearly visible in the Map VII-A below, which
gives the distribution of ORPs in the districts of India.

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   3     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Jharkhand-West Bengal-Odisha region

We have seen earlier that the ORPs in Jharkhand are concentrated in Singhbhum and
parts of Ranchi region. In West Bengal, they are concentrated in Bankura, Puruliya
and Pashchimi Medinipur districts lying on the east of the Singhbhum region; of 9.42
lakh ORPs in the State, 7.54 lakh are in these 3 districts. Of 4.78 lakh ORPs in Orissa,
3.52 lakhs are in Mayurbhanj and another 0.90 lakhs in Sundargarh. Both these
districts adjoin Singhbhum and Ranchi regions of Jharkhand. The considerable
increase in the share of ORPs in the population of Orissa is largely because of the
sudden rise in the number of ORPs in Sundargarh from 21.4 thousand in 2001 to 90
thousand in 2011; the proportion of Hindus in that district has therefore declined from
78.2 to 73.2 percent. Overall proportion of ORPs in this cluster, however, has
remained unchanged.

Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra region

In this region, there was a great rise in the numbers of ORPs between 1991 and 2001;
in that decade, their number went up from 45 thousand to 4 lakhs in Madhya Pradesh,
from 17 thousand to 95 thousand in Chhattisgarh and from about 1 lakh to 2.4 lakhs in
Maharashtra. During 2001-11, their number has increased again from 4 to 6 lakhs in
Madhya Pradesh; and, it has increased phenomenally from about a lakh to nearly 5
lakhs in Chhattisgarh. In Maharashtra, however, the ORPs have declined from 2.4 to
1.8 lakhs.

In 2001 ORPs in this region were concentrated largely in Dindori, Mandala, Seoni
and Balaghat of Madhya Pradesh; Kawardha, Bilaspur and Korba, and to a lesser
extent in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh; and, in Gondiya, Gahchiroli, Bhandara,
Chandrapur, Nagpur and Yavatmal of Maharashtra. These districts form a contiguous
region extending across the three States. In addition, there was considerable presence
of ORPs in Mumbai-Pune regions in the western part of Maharashtra.

In Madhya Pradesh, the number of ORPs in Dindori, Mandala, Seoni and Balaghat
has increased from about 3.60 lakhs to about 4.48 lakhs now; the proportion of ORPs
in Dindori of this region has declined considerably, but there has been a larger
increase in Mandala. Chhindwara in the same region has now acquired more than 25
thousand ORPs compared to only about 4 thousand in 2001. In addition, there are now
about 80 thousand ORPs in Shahdol, Umaria, Anuppur, Sidhi and Singrauli region
where there were only about 20 thousand of them in 2001. The ORP presence seems
to have expanded to several other areas like Betul, Satna and Katni. The proportion of
ORPs has also increased slightly in Jabalpur; this district accounts for another about
20 thousand ORPs. Thus, in Madhya Pradesh, the area of ORP influence in the
southeastern part of the State has clearly expanded beyond the few districts of 2001;
and within this region, there has been much change in the proportion of ORPs from
district to district, though overall the ORPs have registered a considerably high
growth.

In Chhattisgarh, the growth of ORPs has been much sharper than in Madhya Pradesh;
here the footprint of ORPs seems to have spread to almost all districts of the State as
may be seen in Map VII-A above. The proportion of ORPs in the State as a whole has
risen from 0.46 to 1.48 percent, leading to a nearly similar decline in the proportion of
Hindus. The rise in the presence of ORPs has been particularly remarkable in Uttar

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   4     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Bastar Kanker and Bastar districts; there were only about 7 thousand ORPs in these
two districts in 2001, their number in 2011 is 1.93 lakhs. In Kanker, the proportion of
ORPs has increased by as much as 13.24 percentage points and that of Hindus has
declined by 13.61 percentage points; in Bastar, the share of ORPs has increased by
6.02 percentage points and that of Hindus has declined by 6.59 percentage points.

In the Kawardha-Bilaspur-Korba region, where the presence of ORPs had become the
most marked in 2001, their share has increased considerably and has spread further to
Rajnandgaon and Durg. In Rajnandngaon, the share ORPs has risen by 4.21
percentage points from less than 0.2 percent in 2001; the share of Hindus in the
district has correspondingly declined by 3.67 percentage points.

The presence of ORPs has also expanded to Koriya, Sarguja, Jashpur region in the
north that adjoins Shahdol-Umaria-Anuppur region of Madhya Pradesh. In each of
these 3 districts, the share of ORPs has increased by about 1.7 percentage points and
there has been a considerable decline in the Hindu share.

Chhattisgarh thus seems to have experienced an unusual and widespread growth of

the ORPs and corresponding contraction of the Hindus.

In the adjoining districts of Maharashtra, on the other hand, the share of ORPs has
declined and their presence seems to have gotten restricted to fewer districts. In fact,
the share of ORPs has either declined or remained nearly unchanged in all districts of
the State. The largest declined, however, has occurred in Gadhchiroli, where their
share of 4.62 percent in 2001 was the highest in the State in 2001; in 2011, their share
has declined to 2.80 percent.

This rise of ORPs in some districts and some parts of central India and decline in
others, is obviously an indicator of the extremely dynamic nature of religious
demography in many parts of India.

ORPs in the Northeast Region

As seen in the Table above, the proportion of ORPs in Arunachal Pradesh has
declined considerably during 2001-2011; this decline comes on top of an even larger
decline during 1991-2001. This decline is a consequence of the large-scale conversion
of tribal communities to Christianity. Arunachal Pradesh is going through this process
since 1981; Nagaland, Mizoram, etc., have passed through this process earlier; there
the presence of ORPs has become negligible.

We see similar decline in the share of ORPs in Meghalaya. This too is because some
of the tribal communities in certain districts of Meghalaya have not been fully
converted; their share in the population, however, is declining from decade to decade,
as that of the Christians has been rising.

The situation of Manipur is however different. The tribal communities of Manipur,

inhabiting the hill districts, have already been converted and there are few persons
belonging to ORPs among them. The proportion of ORPs there was negligibly small
in 1991. In 2001, a considerable number of the Meiteis of the plains districts of
Manipur chose to get counted as adherents of Sanamahi religion, and this suddenly
increased the proportion of ORPs in Manipur to 10.86 percent. In 2011, the vigour of

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   5     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

that movement among the Meiteis seems to have waned and the proportion of ORPs
has somewhat declined in the State and in all of the four plains districts of Bihunpur,
Thoubal, Imphal West and Imphal East, where their presence had increased suddenly
in 2001.

The Religions and Persuasions counted among the ORPs

The Census category of ORPs includes, as we have The six larger ORPs, 2001
seen, several religious practices. The Census also Total ORPs 66,39,626
publishes detailed district-wise data for each of the Sarna 40,75,246
individual religions and persuasions included in Sari Dharma 6,38,266
the ORPs. Such data has not been yet published for
Gond/Gondi 5,86,723
the Census of 2011. According to the
Doni Polo/Sidonyi Polo 3,02,928
disaggregated data of 2001 for the ORPs, there are
a total of 108 religions and persuasions included Sanamahi 2,23,742
among the ORPs. Many of these religions and Khasi 1,22,694
persuasions listed in the ORPs Tables have only a few adherents; 62 of these have less
than a thousand followers and another 32 have between one to ten thousand followers.
Only 6 of these religions and persuasions have more than a lakh of adherents; these
six account for 59.5 lakhs of the total 66.4 lakh ORPs counted in 2001.

Among these 6 religions and persuasions, the largest is Sarna. Of 66.4 lakh ORPs,
40.8 lakhs are Sarnas. And of the 40.8 lakh Sarnas, 34.5 lakhs are in Jharkhand and
3.5 lakhs in of Odisha; of the latter 3.3 lakhs are in Mayurbhanj alone. Sarnas seem to
exhaust nearly all of the ORPs of Jharkhand and Odisha.

Sari Dharma is the second largest religion listed among the ORPs. In 2001, there are
6.38 lakh followers of Sari Dharma; of these 6.37 lakhs are in West Bengal, 5.52
lakhs in Bankura, Puruliya and Medinipur districts and the most of the remaining in
Hugli and Barddhaman.

Gond/Gondi is the third largest religious practice listed among the ORPs. Of 5.87 lakh
Gonds/Gondis counted in 2001, 4.00 lakhs are in Madhya Pradesh, 0.89 lakhs in
Chhattisgarh and 0.84 lakhs in Maharashtra. Gond/Gondi is thus the religion of the
Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra cluster of ORPs in central India that we
have mentioned above.

Of 3.02 lakh adherents of Doni Polo/Sidony Polo counted in 2001, 3 lakhs are in
Arunachal Pradesh. Of 2.24 lakh Sanamahis, 2.22 lakhs are in Manipur; and of 1.23
lakh Khasis, nearly all are in Meghalaya and of them 1.09 lakhs are in East Khasi
Hills district.

Thus, the main religions counted under ORPs are religious practices prevalent in
geographically limited regions that often have considerable presence of the Scheduled
Tribes. But these religions and persuasions are not exclusive to the Scheduled Tribes
alone. The Sanmahi adherents of Manipur are in fact the non-tribal Meiteis. But, even
a practice like Sarna, which prevails mainly in the Schedule Tribes of Jharkhand and
the adjoining districts of Odisha has considerable following among the non-tribal
people of that region. According to the published data of Census 2001, of 34.5 lakh

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   6     [Link]  

Centre’s  Blog  on  Religion  Data  of  Census  2011  

Sarnas in Jharkhand, only 31.4 lakh are from the Scheduled Tribes, and there are
more than 3 lakh non-tribal adherents of Sarna practice.

But the growth of the major religions and practices listed under the category of ORPs
seem to have been the result of systematic and intense campaigns among the
followers of these local practices to get themselves counted outside the Hindu fold.
Some of these movements, like those of Sanamahis in Manipur and of Gonds/Gondis
in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, are quite recent. Others, like that of Sarnas in
Jharkhand and Sari Dharma in West Bengal, have a longer history and seem to have
run their course.

Incidentally, many of these ORPs movements have been particularly strong in regions
that have significant Christian evangelical activity. During 2001-2011, there has been
a significant rise in ORPs in the particularly disturbed region of Bastar, and in the
whole State of Chhattisgarh.

Besides the locality specific religions that we have discussed above, the ORPs
category also includes Parsis and Jews; in 2001, their total number is 69,601 and
4,650, respectively. There are also 11,324 Bahais among the ORPs in 2001. These, of
course, are separate religions of non-Indian origin. But before closing this discussion
of the ORPs, we must ask whether religious practices like that of the Sarnas, Sari
Dharmis, Gonds or Doni Polos, etc., are really distinct religious practices or are these
sects and practices within the larger Hindu fold. The Census itself counts large groups
that follow distinct religious practices, like the Lingayats, as sects within Hinduism.
The Census also counts several distinct religious practices as sects within Islam or
Christianity.

The analysis of changing numbers of ORPs does point to the need for systematic
documentation of the diverse religious practices of the Indian people and an intense
sociological and philosophical reflection on which practices need to be counted as
separate religions and which are to be seen as distinct paths that have always
flourished within the vast umbrella of Hinduism. The analysis also points to the need
of a larger Hindu awakening that begins once again to emphasise the overarching
unity of thought and experience that underlies the great diversity of Hindu religious
practices.

Dr. J. K. Bajaj
Centre for Policy Studies
[Link]@[Link]
[Link]

December 2, 2015

Centre  for  Policy  Studies   7     [Link]