A look at India's extraordinarily diverse population helps explain New Delhi's reluctance to make concessions to the Kashmir separatists who recently hijacked an Indian Airlines jet. Concessions on Indian rule of the predominately Muslim territory, it is feared, might encourage breakaway movements in other parts of country. Language and religion are two important measures of the diversity found in the country's population of 1 billion. The world's largest democracy has 114 languages, each with at least 10,000 speakers. Hindi is spoken by 40.2 percent of the population, followed by Bengali, 8.3 percent, and Telugu, 7.9 percent, according to the 1991 national census.
Individual languages are heavily centered in specific regions.
For example, 96.6 percent of Kerala State population speak Malayalam, 92.2 percent of Punjab State population speak Punjabi and 91.5 percent in Gujarat State speak Gujarati. Of India's 31 states and union territories surveyed in 1991, only four didn't have a majority of the population speaking the same language. About 63 percent of Punjab State population are Sikhs, and more than 85 percent of the Mizoram and Nagaland populations are Christians. Like China, Russia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Spain and many other nations, India feels challenged by population diversity. See our copyright policy for permission to reproduce or reprint information from the Population Reference Bureau.