Why is Mamata going after CAA? Recent EPW paper on India’s district-wise religious composition gives the best answer

(File) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. PTI

Does a forensic analysis of ‘district-wise’ data on ‘religious composition in India’ give us a better understanding of the significant demographic changes underway in the country? Does it enhance our grasp of the ground realities that might not be perceptible solely through national-level or state-level aggregate figures?

A recent paper published in EPW by scholars Shamika Ravi, member of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to the Prime Minister, Mudit Kapoor of Indian Statistical Institute, Sunil Rajpal of Flame University, Pune and SV Subramanian of Harvard University, provides an empirical answer to the question by scrutinizing the differential in growth rates across religions at the district-level.

For their research, the scholars have considered Indian census data on religion from 2001 to 2011, which remains the latest and only available set of data on the population of religious groups. This is also the set of data used by American think tank Pew Research Center for its 2021 study of India’s religious demography in states and Union territories.

We already know going by the relevant Census data from 2001 and 2011, that India’s population grew by 17.7 per cent during this period. Hindus remained the dominant religious group. Their population share dropped from 80.46 per cent in 2001 to 79.8 per cent in 2011, a decline of approximately 0.7 per cent. The decline seems negligible. In comparison, Muslims grew 13.43 per cent in 2001 to 14.23 per cent in 2011, an increase of 0.8 per cent which again appears marginal. In terms of rate of population growth, Muslims were the fastest at 24.6 per cent, followed by Hindus at 16.8 per cent. These numbers, however, argues the paper, conceal more than they reveal.

To dissect the religious composition of a billion-plus people, the authors pore over the changes in religious composition across all 640 districts in the country, to “find that the share of the population of a religious group appears to depend on the differences in growth rates across religions (and not on the absolute growth rates of any given religion) and the baseline share of religion in the previous period.” They add that “similar growth rates across religions will still generate different compositions in the districts, underscoring the importance of understanding religious composition in contextual terms.”

With general elections approaching in weeks, what better than the unfolding political theatre to illustrate the points being made by the authors? Let’s turn to the ongoing debate over the recently implemented Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to demonstrate how demographic changes in India are affecting social and political narratives. I’ll need to digress a little.

The CAA was passed in 2019 but on March 12 this year, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre notified the rules for its implementation and has made operational a web portal through which applicants may apply for Indian citizenship.

The CAA facilitates the granting of Indian nationality to non-Muslims (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians) from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who suffered religious persecution in the Muslim-majority Islamic nations and were forced to migrate to India before December 31, 2014. Religious persecution, crimes against women, forced conversion and daily discrimination are well-documented realities in these countries neighbouring India.

For instance, according to a 2013 report by the US-based think tank Hudson Institute, “At the time of Partition in 1947, almost 23% of Pakistan’s population was comprised of non-Muslim citizens. Today, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined to approximately 3%.”

Since the CAA focuses on non-Muslim persecuted minorities, the Opposition has tried to interpret the CAA as an ‘anti-Muslim law’. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has clarified multiple times that the CAA accords Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities and has “no provision to take away anyone’s citizenship.”

At a recent event in New Delhi, the minister stated, “I want to make it very clear that there is not even a gene of NRC in the Citizenship Amendment Act. The CAA has no provisions for snatching the rights of the people. The Opposition is instigating the minorities of the country. I humbly request my Muslim brothers and sisters not to trust them. They are once again doing politics. The CAA can only give citizenship to refugees coming from three neighbouring countries.”

That has meant little as Opposition leaders such as Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, has launched a campaign of disinformation against the newly enacted law, claiming with little justification that “citizens will become refugees the moment they apply through the CAA web portal” and “will be sent to detention camps”, that the “law discriminates against Muslims”, and “aims to divide people”.

It may seem that Mamata is trying to instigate the electorate to consolidate the Muslim votes that is critical to her political survival. The Bengal chief minister at a rally in January had urged Muslim voters not to “waste their votes” by supporting any party other than the TMC, hinting at alliance partner Congress.

If we look at Mamata’s actions and utterances over the years, it becomes clear that securing the support of Muslims remains her top electoral strategy. The West Bengal government’s order against Durga idol immersion in view of Muharram was revoked by the Calcutta High Court in 2017. In 2019, she had vowed to attend “iftar a hundred times” since the Muslim community votes for her party (https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/attend-iftar-mamata-muslim-appeasement-allegations-1534819-2019-05-26) and last year she had hiked the ‘honorarium’ for imams and muezzins in the state by Rs 500. https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/mamata-banerjee-hikes-honorarium-for-imams-and-muezzins-in-bengal-by-rs-500/cid/1960634

Political leaders have their ear to the ground. To better understand Mamata’s motivations, we need to look at the demographic situation in West Bengal. This is where the EPW paper comes in.

The authors find that “the share of the Hindu population has declined in 468 (73 per cent) districts, while in 227 (35 per cent) districts, it has reduced by more than 0.7 per cent (which is the overall decline in the share of the Hindu population).” How do these numbers explain the situation in West Bengal? We need to dig a little deeper. The EPW paper observes a “U-shaped pattern in the fall in the share of Hindus between 2001 and 2011 and the share of the Hindu population in 2001”. It means that the “decline was the lowest in districts with a substantial share of the Hindu population (more than 80%), or where the share of the Hindu population was less than 20% and was higher in districts where the share of the Hindu population was between 20% and 80%.”

In other words, in districts where the Hindu population fell in the ‘80% to 20%’ band, the decline was the steepest. Let’s now turn to a study by America’s Pew Research Center on India’s religious composition in 2021, where it focused on ‘state-level’ data. The study showed that according to the 2011 census, Hindus formed 71% of the population in West Bengal, which falls right into the ‘80%-20%’ band as described by the recent EPW study. Do remember that these are 2011 figures, and the trend, if anything, would have deepened by now. This is further illustrated by a graph that shows the geographical distribution of change in the share of religion between 2001 and 2011, as shared by Ravi, one of the authors of the paper.

The paper reinforces the fact that differences in growth rates among different religious groups affect districts differently and has a critical bearing on the demographic shift even if the overall rise or decline of a religious group or groups remains marginal.

This happens because the growth of a group isn’t uniform, and as the paper points out, “in districts where one religious group constitutes a significant majority, the change in population share due to these growth rate differences will be much smaller compared to districts where religious groups are more evenly spread out.”

Going by this methodology, the authors discover that the Hindu population has plummeted (more than the overall decline of 0.7%) “substantially” in certain parts of the country such as “in the north-eastern states, West Bengal and Assam in the east, and in the north-western districts of Uttar Pradesh.” Concomitantly, further skewing the demographic structure, “the eastern districts in West Bengal and Assam experienced a substantial increase in the share of the Muslim population”, as has “the central districts in Maharashtra, the coastal districts in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and the Malabar region” even though the Muslims have reduced in numbers in districts in Jammu and Kashmir.

The reasons that drive the West Bengal chief minister’s political strategy are now evident.

Plotting the geographical change in religious composition through district-level data is therefore critical to our understanding of demographic shifts. To press the point further, let’s again look at the Pew survey conducted in 2021 that looked at ‘state-level’ data and found that “In most Indian states, Hindus have stayed stable or declined modestly as a share of the population”.

The EPW paper takes a microscope at the data and figures out that though India’s overall population grew by 17.7 per cent between 2001 and 2011 across 640 districts, in reality, 348 (54 per cent) districts recorded a growth rate less than the overall population growth, and in 25 (4 per cent) districts, the population in 2011 was less than the population in 2001, which means a growth rate of less than zero per cent.

It indicates that the population growth was concentrated over certain regions and not evenly distributed. The implication is that even if state-level data sees Hindu population remaining “stable”, district-level data punctures that impression by adding important context.

For example, in 458 districts (72 per cent), the growth rate of Muslims were greater than the overall population growth of 18 per cent (approax), whereas the corresponding number for Hindus is 268 (42 per cent) districts. To demonstrate the demographic swing even more effectively, the authors look at distribution of change in the share of the population across districts by creating two benchmarks – +0.8 per cent (that signifies the overall rise in Muslim population between 2001 and 2011) and -0.7 per cent (that signifies the overall decline in Hindu population).

Taking +0.8 per cent as the first benchmark, the paper finds that “in 150 districts, the share of the Muslim increased by more than +0.8 per cent; correspondingly for Hindus and Christians, the share of their population increased by more than +0.8 per cent in 60 and 50 districts, respectively.”

Taking -0.7 per cent as the second benchmark, the authors find that “in 227 districts, the share of the Hindu population decreased by more than -0.7%, while the corresponding decline in the number of districts for Muslims and Christians was 24 and 32, respectively”.

The paper confirms through granular data that religious diversity in India is taking newer forms and shaping the ground realities faster than it appears on the surface. Ask the politicians.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.