By R.K. Ohri, IPS (Retd.)
Hold your breath, the biggest quantum jump in Muslim population (in terms of percentage) in the coming decades will take place in Haryana where the ration of Muslim cohorts is almost 60 per cent higher than that of the Hindu cohorts! Next in descending order will be Assam, West Bengal, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Nagaland, Bihar and so on.
A further analysis of the 0-6 years cohorts data reveals that out of 35 States and Union Territories listed in Statement 7, the percentage of 0-6 years Muslim cohorts is higher than that of Hindus in as many as 31 States and UTs. The percentage of 0-6 years Hindu cohorts is marginally higher than that of Muslims only in two States of Sikkim and Madhya Pradesh and two Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. It means that in the coming decades the Muslim population will grow at a higher rate than that of the Hindus in 31 States and Union Territories. As recounted in Census 2001 India has a total of 35 States and UTs.
Statement 7 of Census 2001 Religion Data Report is self-explanatory. It vividly depicts the looming dark shadow of future demographic changes across the country. Here I must reiterate that future demographic trends, based on the data given in Statement 7, are totally unalterable, because these children are already born and will enter reproductive age between 2011 and 2016 and continue to reproduce for the next 30 to 40 years.
Statement 7 of Census 2001 Religion Data Report is self-explanatory. It vividly depicts the looming dark shadow of future demographic changes across the country.
It is very surprising how and why the Indian intelligentsia do not try to understand the reasons that prompted the Prime Minister of UK, Tony Blair, to advise all British couples to opt for the five children norm (two more than what Shri K.S. Sudarshan, Sarsanghachalak, RSS, prescribed for Hindus). Why have in recent years most European countries announced liberal cash bonuses to those couples who opt to have more children? Why did Peter Costello, Australia'sChancellor of the Exchequer, announce an attractive incentive of 2,000 Australian dollars for every child born after June 2004? Perhaps the growing fear of the huge population of jehad-infested Indonesia has prompted Australia to do a rethink on their population policy. Robert Costello gave a clarion call to his countrymen emphasising that every couple must have at least three children, preferably many more, saying: ?One for the father, one for the mother and one for the country.? (Source: Hindustan Times, May 13, 2004, P.1). Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI too has given a call to the Catholic community of Europe to opt for more children. Prima facie Shri Sudarshan is in good company of international leaders like Tony Blair, Nail Ferguson and Robert Costello, all keen observers of the latest global population trends and alerting their countrymen. Incidentally in the UK and Australia no one laughs at or ridicules Tony Blair or Peter Costello. Obviously, as a nation the British and the Australians continue to be much more rational and sagacious than us, the myopic Indians.
India has a growing tribe of sham-secularists who might ask why this global panic? What is the problem? Where is the problem? Well, the answer is that in the year 1900 the Muslims constituted only 12 per cent of the world population; they grew to 18 per cent in 1992-93 (when Huntington published his first thesis on the clash of civilisation). By 2003 the Muslims became 20 per cent of the global population. And by 2025, barely 19 years away from now, they will constitute 30 per cent of the world population. (Source: Spangler, The Decline of the West, cited by Samuel Huntington). According to some demographic estimates, Muslims might constitute anything between 37 to 40 per cent of the world population by 2100 AD. Correspondingly, in recent years the numbers of jehads worldwide have also multiplied in tandem with the growth in Muslim population, our next-door neighbour Thailand being the latest entrant to the growing list of faulting conflict zones.
Nail Ferguson (a strategic analyst who teaches contemporary history at Harvard) wrote in The Sunday Times, London, in April 2004, that in another 50 years time Europe was likely to become a Muslim-majority continent. And his warning has alerted most countries of the continent. Some enterprising futurologists have renamed Europe as ?Eurabia?. According to a write-up, which appeared sometime ago in The Economist, London, fearful of the growing Albanian clout in the Balkans, many well-to-do Macedonians are migrating out and the destination of choice is New Zealand. Apparently they no longer consider Europe safe for their children and grand children. Nail Ferguson has drawn further attention to the fact that due to low fertility rates and increasing life expectancy by 2050 one in every three Italians, Spaniards and Greeks is likely to be 65 years or older. So the ?old Europe? will become more older. He has drawn attention to the fact that the birth rates of Muslim societies (i.e., including those Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries) are more than double the European average. Citing the example of Yemen he has pointed out that by 2050 its population could exceed that of Russia (based on United Nations forecast assuming constant fertility rate).
In regard to the growing hostility of French Muslims towards fellow Christians, a common leftist refrain (heard both in France and India) is the inability of the French government to resolve the massive unemployment among Muslim youth. In the context of the recently witnessed car-burning frenzy in France, a gentleman questioned the obsession of leftists about unemployment problem, at the house of a friend. He asked point blank how an economically debilitated country like France, which has a growth rate of less than two per cent (like most EU nations), could create millions additional jobs for the galloping Muslim population. Additionally, France is burdened by an overwhelming national debt and remains steeped in the traditional culture of 35 hours work-week.
The Indian intelligentsia do not try to understand the reasons that prompted the Prime Minister of UK, Tony Blair, to advise all British couples to opt for the five children norm (two more than what Shri K.S. Sudarshan, Sarsanghachalak, RSS, prescribed for Hindus). Why have in recent years most European countries announced liberal cash bonuses to those couples who opt to have more children?
It is time that the Indian middle class and opinion-makers understood the long-term climactic consequences of the existential demographic crisis writ large across the Indian horizon. While analysing socio-economic aspects of the latest census, the well-known demographer, Prof Ashish Bose, has estimated that presently in 49 districts Muslims already constitute more than 30 per cent of population. (Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai, January 29, 2005, p. 371, table 4). A back-of-the envelope calculation made by us, in the light of the Muslim growth rate of the last two decades, shows that Muslims will attain majority status in all these 49 districts, any time between 1991 and 2111, perhaps even earlier. What might happen thereafter is anybody'sguess. It has the potential to give a massive fillip to the growing jehadi fervour in the sub-continent.
The foregoing cold facts should ring a loud alarm bell good enough to wake up all those who want to ensure long-term survival of secularism in India. The problem has global dimensions, too. It is unfortunate that while the world has woken up to the threat of changing demography, we Indians continue to slumber under the influence of dopelaced lullabies broadcast by communists and fellow-traveller sham-secularists.
(The writer is a retired Inspector General of Police and author of the book, Long March of Islam.)
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