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Religion Data of Census 2011: III

 
 
Tentative restoration of the balance: the case of Bihar    
 
As we have said earlier there are two major stories emerging from the religion data
of Census 2011. The first is the usual story of Muslims considerably improving their
share in the population of India, and both Muslims and Christians recording
extraordinary growth in specific regions of the country, mostly where they already
have significantly high presence. But there is also a second story in the religion data
of Census 2011 and it is about an unusual, though yet nascent, recovery of the share
of Hindus in parts of India.

The main religious demographic issue in the country still remains the excessively high
growth of Muslims and Christians in various regions. If one were to point out the two
most significant aspects of the religion data of the latest Census, besides the
aggregate increase in the share of Muslims, these shall have to be the unexpected and
extraordinary rise of the Muslim share in Assam and the long anticipated, yet
unstoppable, expansion of Christianity into Arunachal Pradesh. But, before looking at
these issues of obvious national concern, we look at the newer story of the Hindu
recovery; and we begin with Bihar, a State that has a fairly high Muslim population,
shares borders with Nepal and Bangladesh and has seen a robust rise in the Muslim
share for several decades. During 2001-11, Hindus have recorded a higher rate of
growth than the Muslims in 15 of the 38 districts and 200 of the 534 sub-districts of
the State. This post narrates the story of this tentative restoration of the demographic
balance among different communities in Bihar.

Slowing down of the rise in Muslim Share

Muslims have a considerable share of 16.87 percent of Share of Muslims in Bihar,
the population of Bihar in 2011; but it has increased 1951-2001
only by 0.33 percentage points over their share in 2001. Decadal
Census Percentage
During 1991-2001, they registered a much more Year Share
Increase
substantially rise of 0.83 percentage points. The in Share
increase was somewhat less during 1981-91 and 1971- 1951 12.34 –
81; but in the two decades before that the Muslim share 1961 13.48 1.14
in the State had risen sharply by more than 1 percentage 1971 14.53 1.05
points every decade. The 2011 data thus clearly 1981 15.09 0.56
indicates a sharp slowing down of the process of rise in 1991 15.70 0.61
Muslim share, which has been going on since 1951 and 2001 16.53 0.83
in the course of which the Muslims have added 4.53 2011 16.87 0.34
percentage points to their proportion in the population. Increase in percentage points.
The process has of course not been reversed, but the slowing down is certainly more
significant than what was seen earlier for a couple of decades from 1971 to 1991.

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Narrowing of the Growth Gap

between Muslims and IR Narrowing of the Gap in Growth of IR and Muslims
To comprehend the extent of this IR Muslim GR Gap Normalized
phenomenon, it is instructive to   Growth R Growth R (Percentage GR Gap
look at the Growth Rates   (percent) (percent) points) (percent)
recorded by Muslims and Indian 1951-61 18.25 30.86 12.61 69.10
Religionists (IR, comprising the 1961-71 19.35 30.34 10.99 56.80
total population minus Muslims 1971-81 23.38 28.92 5.54 23.70
and Christians) in the six 1981-91 22.53 28.33 5.80 25.74
decades since Independence. As 1991-01 27.32 35.49 8.17 29.90
seen in the Table here, the
2001-11 24.83 27.95 3.12 12.57
Normalized Gap between the
growth rate (GR) of Muslims and IR (GR of Muslims minus GR of IR divided by GR
of Muslims) was very high in 1951-61 and 1961-71. It declined to around 24 and 26
percent in the next two decades, and rose again to about 30 percent in 1991-2001. In
the current decade, the Gap in GR has narrowed to below 13 percent. The decadal
Muslim growth has declined sharply from the all time high of 35.5 percent of the
previous decade (1991-2001) to about 28 percent in this decade, while the IR rate has
declined more moderately from 27.3 to 24.8 percent.

This narrowing of the wide gap between the

growth rate of Muslims and Indian IR Muslim
Religionists can also be seen in the graph here. 38.00 35.49
In this graph, it is clear that though there was 36.00
34.00
some bridging of the gap during 1971-1991, 32.00 30.86 30.34
28.92 28.33
but it widened again and substantial coming 28.0030.00
27.95
together of the growth rates of the two 26.00 27.32 24.83
communities has happened only in this 24.00
22.00 23.38 22.53
decade. The difference between the average 20.00
growth rate of Muslims and others in the State 18.00 18.25
19.35
16.00
is so small that it is natural to expect the
1951-61

1961-71

1971-81

1981-91

1991-01

2001-11

Muslim growth to have been slower than

others in at least some of the districts. We see
below that in as many as 15 of the 38 districts of the State, Muslim share in the
population has actually declined, though marginally in most cases, between 2001 and
2011. These are also the districts, where the growth of Hindus has been higher than
that of Muslims.

Districts with higher Hindu Growth

We show these 15 districts where Hindus have registered higher growth than the
Muslims in Map A. The Map also shows the remaining 23 districts where the Muslim
growth has been higher than Hindus and also gives the normalised gap between the
Muslim and the Hindu rate of growth for all districts. In Map B, we give the percent
share of Muslims in the districts.

Looking at Map A and Map B together, we find that in general the districts where
Muslim growth has been lower are also the districts where the share of Muslims in the
population is relatively low. On the other hand, the districts where the Muslim share is
high are also the districts where Muslim growth has been considerably higher than
that of the Hindus. Thus, where Hindus dominate, there the Hindus have generally

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improved their share and where Muslims have a high presence, there has been
significant accretion to their share. The latter has been happening always, but the
former has happened at any significant level only in this decade.

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Of the 15 districts where the Hindus have shown a higher rate of growth than the
Muslims, 12 are in the contiguous Saran-Bhojpur-Patna-Gaya-Munger region forming
almost the entire western half of the State. These 12 comprise Patna and Nalanda
carved out from undivided Patna; Gaya, Nawada, Jehanabad, Arwal and Aurangabad
carved out of undivided Gaya; Sheikhpura and Lakhisarai components of undivided
Munger; Bhojpur component of undivided Shahbad district; and, Saran and Gopalganj
components of undivided Saran district. As seen in the Map, the growth advantage in
favour of Muslims in the remaining Kaimur and Buxar components of undivided
Shahbad and Siwan of undivided Saran is only marginal. In this whole contiguous
western region, it is only in Rohtas component of Shahbad and Jamui of Munger that
Muslims growth rate is above the Hindus by more than 5 percentage points. Munger,
Begusarai and Khagaria of undivided Munger are outside and towards the east of this
region of higher Hindu growth.

Growth in the share of Muslims has been relatively slow in the Patna-Gaya region in
the past also; but their share has never declined in any of the component district,
except in Nalanda, where the proportion of Muslims had declined from 8.52 percent
in 1991 to 7.46 percent in 2001 and has now declined further to 6.88 percent. But in
the districts of undivided Saran, Bhojpur and Munger region, the share of Muslims
had been rising fairly robustly.

The remaining 3 districts, where Hindus have grown at a rate faster than the Muslims
are Sheohar component of undivided Muzaffarpur; Darbhanga component of
undivided Darbhanga and Saharasa of undivided Bhagalpur-Saharasa region. In this
whole region, the Muslim growth in the past has been much higher than the Hindus.
Incidentally, the difference between the Muslim and Hindu growth during 2001-2011
of just about 2 percent in favour of Muslims in Vaishali component of Muzaffarur
also. Increase in the share of Muslims in this component was not very high in 1991-
2001 also.

Among these 15 districts, the phenomenon of higher growth of Hindus as compared to

the Muslims has been the most marked in Jehanabad, Nalanda and Sheikhpura; in
Sheikhpura, the share of Hindus has increased by 1 percentage point. It must be
remarked that the Hindu share has not necessarily increased in all the 15 districts that
have recorded a higher growth than that of Muslims; in some of them the Hindu share
has declined, but the decline is less than that suffered by the Muslims; in these cases,
it is often there has been a considerable increase in the share of the census category of
RNS.

From the above analysis, and the Maps, it is clear that in a very large part of Bihar,
comprising nearly the entire western half of the State and also certain districts in the
eastern half, the nationwide trend of Muslim growth being almost always higher than
that of Hindus has been largely reversed. The phenomenon is widespread, and cannot
to be taken to be a mere statistical coincidence.

Muslim growth remains robust in Purnia region

As seen in Map A, difference between the growth of Muslims and Hindus remains
high in three of the four districts that formed part of the undivided Purnia district,
Araria, Purnia and Katihar; the difference is not significantly high in Kishanganj,

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where the proportion of Muslims is the highest at 67.98 percent. The Muslim growth
has also been relatively high in the Supaul and Madhepura, in the immediate
neighbourhood of this region. The share of Muslims has increased by more than one
percentage point only in Araria, Purnia and Katihar. This region forms a contiguous
belt with parts of the Santhal Pargana region of Jharkhand; Dakshin Dinajpur-
Murshibad-Malda-Birbhum region of West Bengal; and then passing through
Bangladesh, with the Goalpara-Kamrup-Darrang-Nagaon region of Assam. In this
whole border belt, Muslim growth remains robust and has been unusually high in
West Bengal and Assam parts of it. In the Purnia region of Bihar as a whole, Muslim
share has increased by 1.63 percentage points, which is only marginally lower than
the accretion of 1.80 percentage points in 1991-2001.

Thus, though there in Bihar, as elsewhere in the country, we see a widespread

demographic resurgence of Hindus, the situation in the critical regions of the country,
especially along and near the borders, remains unchanged. We shall continue
exploring both these phenomenon in some depth.

Dr. J. K. Bajaj
Centre for Policy Studies
[Link]@[Link]
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October 29, 2015

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