Opinion: Shun divisive politics
It may bring prosperity to a minuscule political group, but the nation — Hindus, Muslims and all other religious groups — will suffer at the end
By Geetartha Pathak
Perhaps no other politician than the present Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has the deftness to juggle words so instantly as to give an opposite meaning to what he has said. After his remark that the opposition Congress was planning to take away Indians’ wealth, including women’s mangalsutras, and give it to “infiltrators” who “have more children,” which led to a controversy and drew flak from the opposition parties, the Prime Minister gave a twist to its meaning. He said in an interview with News 18: “I am worried how the remark about people with more children is linked to only Muslims! Why do they treat Muslims this way? It is the situation of poor families in our country.”
Whatever twist Modi wanted to give to his own words, the targeted audience understood that his words allude to Muslims. Although Modi’s party and the government have practically excluded the so-called infiltrators and people that raise more children from the word ‘sab’ (all), Modi’s slogan, “sabka saath, sabka vikas,” promises “prosperity for all” and continues to echo from the official chamber.
No Divident
Turbocharging Islamophobia during the general elections could not give better electoral dividends for the BJP. The PM made an allegation that the Congress wanted Muslims to engage in what he called “vote jihad” and was planning to lock up the Ram temple built on the ruins of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Political observers and analysts thought the ruling party would tone down its anti-Islamic rhetoric after the setback in the Lok Sabha polls. However, that was a delusion as these leaders continue to revisit the anti-Islamic theme even now. The recent directives of the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh governments mandating eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names and identities of owners on the plea to ensure peaceful and orderly pilgrimage is another example of the BJP’s continued anti-minority stance. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in its interim order stayed the directives.
Union Minister for Textiles Giriraj Singh, who has risen rapidly through the ranks in the first two terms of the Modi government and who periodically spits venom against Muslims, recently said “The biggest mistake was to let Muslims live here. If the country was partitioned on religious lines, why were Muslims allowed to remain here? Had they not been allowed to live here, this situation would not have been created.” Going one step further, the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, in a party meeting in Kolkata on the same day, unabashedly called for scrapping the minority cell of the ruling BJP and for throwing away the slogan “Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas.”
According to government’s own data, Muslim fertility rates are seeing the fastest decline among all major religious groups in India
One of Modi’s trusted Chief Ministers, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam and the BJP’s co-in-charge for the upcoming State Assembly elections in Jharkhand, recently said in Jharkhand that the entire demography of the tribal-dominated region of Santhal Parganas is changing rapidly due to ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’ for unchecked Bangladeshi Muslims there. He alleged that Bangladeshi Muslims are marrying tribal girls to grab their land and ancestral properties. He also said in Ranchi that in Assam, the Muslim population today has reached 40 per cent. According to him in 1951, it was 12 per cent. He said many districts of Assam have been lost to the Muslims, and that this was not a political issue for him but a matter of life and death. However, the fact is, according to the First Census of India 1951; the population of Muslims in Assam was 24.68%. He also sparked another controversy by raising the alarm that Assam will be a Muslim-majority State by 2041. He said so without citing any Census data, as the 2021 Census was yet to be conducted in the country.
DataSpeak
A working paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister titled ‘Share of Religious Minorities: A Cross-Country Analysis (1950-2015)’ was published just before the Lok Sabha elections, raising questions over its timing. The report says that the share of the Hindu population in the country decreased by 7.82 per cent between 1950 and 2015, while that of Muslims increased by 43.15 per cent, suggesting that there is a conducive environment in the country to foster diversity. The report lauds India’s “civilisational tradition of harbouring persecuted populations.” It relied on statistics from the Association of Religion Data Archive (ARDA), a free online database of global religious data, and not on the decadal National Census that was last conducted in 2011.
Contrary to the BJP’s narratives, according to the government’s own data, Muslim fertility rates are seeing the fastest decline among all major religious groups in India. The fertility rate — the average number of children a woman gives birth to — among Muslims fell from 4.41 to 2.36 between 1992 and 2021, while it dropped from 3.3 to 1.94 for Hindus. The Population Foundation of India, an NGO, citing the Census, said that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) among all religious groups has been steadily declining, reflecting broader socioeconomic factors rather than religious affiliation. The Census shows that over the past three decades, the decadal growth rate among the Muslims has been decreasing. Access to education and healthcare correlates with lower fertility rates across religious groups. Kerala and Tamil Nadu are prime examples of this reality.
The bigger question is if the percentage of Muslims in the country at 14.2, and 34.22 in the case of Assam, is a threat to the Hindus, then why the 79.8% of Hindus cannot be perceived as a threat to the minority Muslims? In fact, the minorities and majorities in this country are living peacefully in a normal atmosphere without counting their heads for decades to prosper together. Divisive politics may bring prosperity to a minuscule political group and help place the ruling classes at the centre of power, but the nation — the Hindus, the Muslims, and all other religious groups — will suffer at the end of the day.
(The author is a senior journalist from Assam)
