From: nagappa@Rosie.UH.EDU (C Nagappa - behind the scenes)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: India's Muslim population
Date: 12 Nov 92 15:28:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: menudo.1992Nov12.152831.22585
Reply-To: nagappa@Rosie.UH.EDU
Organization: University of Houston


	The following article has been lifted from the November 7th-13th issue
of The Economist, and reproduced here without permission. I am not responsible
for its contents. All flames may be directed towards The Economist.


			INDIA'S NUMBERS GAME
			====================

			From our Delhi correspondent

	Religion is a touchy business in secular India, witness the thousands
who have died in sectarian strife since partition in 1947 gave Muslims a home in
newly created Pakistan. But whatever the risk of still more bloodshed, the 
Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) constantly accuses India's 
Muslims of shunning contraception in order, with time, to convert Hindu-majority
areas into Muslim-majority ones.

	In 1951 Muslims's accounted for 9.9% of India's population. They may 
now be 12% (the details of the 1991 census have not yet been announced), hardly 
a threatening increase. Still, the question remains; why do Muslims breed faster
than Hindus?

	Hindu militants advance several reasons: that Muslims are allowed four
wives; that their mullahs claim birth control is against Islam; and that their
illegal immigration from Bangladesh is swelling the Muslim ranks. Secular 
politicians offer different reasons: that Muslims are poorer and less literate
than Hindus; and that Muslim women are held back by Islamic traditions. Poverty
and illiteracy go together with high birth rates. Tackle these problems, the
secularists argue, and there will be little difference between Hindu and Muslim
growth rates.

	The truth may be a little more complicated. Some surveys suggest that
only one in 100 Muslim men has more than one wife, whereas millions of Hindus,
despite a ban on Hindu bigamy, maintain a second wife. Certainly, female 
fertility is higher among Muslims than Hindus, but the difference is most
marked after the age of 30 - not least because Hinduism forbids widows to 
remarry. These is also some evidence that more Hindus than Muslims migrate to
find work, which presumably reduces the opportunities for conception within
wedlock. Clearly, the BJP's conspiracy theory is wrong.

	Surveys do show that more Hindus than Muslims practise contraception. In
1988-89, 46% of Hindus used some form of birth control, compared with 34% of 
Muslims. The difference is narrowing, but may not dissapear completely since 
some Muslims do, indeed, regard birth control as unIslamic.

	The secularists are right in arguing that fertility rates drop as
people grow richer, but not all Muslims are poorer than Hindus. Some people note
the lower infant mortality rate among Muslims (92 per 1,000, in 1981, compared 
with 122 for Hindus) as evidence that Muslims are relatively well off. That
difference, however, is probably explained by the fact that 31% of Muslims
live in urban areas compared with only 21% of Hindus.

	But if the Hindu militants are talking nonsense by predicting that
chunks of the country will gain Muslim majorities and then secede, the nonsense
still gains willing listeners. The implicit message is that Hindus should shun
birth control in order to wage a demographic war. In a country whose population
each year grows by 18m - equivalent to another Australia - that must be madness.


			<end of article>

Chetan Nagappa
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian