Cover Story : Demography in Transition

It is evident that in Bharat, wherever the demographic balance is tilted towards non-Hindu communities, those places, whether it is the Christian dominated North-eastern states of the country or Muslim dominated Jammu and Kashmir, have turned out to be grave yards of Hindu populace. The state of West Bengal seems to be moving in the same direction. West Bengal recorded the highest growth rate in Muslim population in the last Census 2011 constituting 27.01 per cent of total population of the State. In contrast to the Census report 2001, the state has witnessed an asymmetrical growth in Muslim population which rapidly increased from 2,02,40,543 to 2,46,54,825.
As per the Census 2011, Muslims have outnumbered Hindus in three districts of West Bengal. They are Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur with a Muslim population of 66.27 per cent, 51.27 per cent and 49.92 per cent respectively.
The Census 2011 further gives details of Malda District, it has a total population of 39,88,845 of which Muslims and Hindus are 20,45,151 and 19,14,352 respectively.
Extracting constituency-wise data of Malda District from Census 2001, six assembly constituencies, out of a total of 12 constituencies, have overwhelming Muslim majority. They are Sujapur (88.39 per cent), Malatipur (71.89 per cent), Mothabari (71.12 per cent), Harishchandrapur (68.73 per cent), Ratua (68.33 per cent) and Chanchal (65.83 per cent). A block-wise report on 2001 Census reveals that among all other blocks, Kaliachak—I has the highest number of Muslims in Malda. More precisely, 88.39 per cent of the total population of Kaliachak I was constituted by Muslims. It might  
have further increased  in the Census of 2011, its details are yet to be published.                           —Ganesh Krishnan R