By Taha Amin Mazumder,
New Delhi, 3 Sept 2015: It might take a wild guess to trace any kind of similarity between the turbaned Sardars and shaven-head Buddhist monks, but there lies at least one common fact. Well, the similarity lies in the latest Indian religious census data released on 25 August, per which the populations of both these religious communities are shrinking. While a showpiece Laughing Buddha, a likely incarnation of the future Buddha Maitreya, is one of the most trendy items absorbed by the Indian urban culture, the actual Buddhist population constitute a mere 0.7 percent of the total Indian population, with only 0.84 crores of Buddhists. Sikhs also constitute merely 2.08 crores among 121.09 crores of Indians, standing only at a moderately better position than Buddhists with 1.7 percent of the total Indian population.
The proportion of Sikh population has seen a decline by 0.2 percent, and the Buddhist population has gone down by 0.1 percent during the decade of 2001 to 2011. This seems worrisome because almost all other religious populations have reasonable shares among Indians. An anatomy of causes behind this decline in Sikh and Buddhist population, however, finds interesting facts. While Sikhs are generally accepting the data, Buddhists are questioning veracity of the census, the data for which was released after about 4 years.
Sikhs, drugs and migration
According to an IANS report that buzzed the media on 31 August, Sikh leaders in North America cited conversions, drugs and migrations as the reasons behind the fall of Sikh population from 1.9 percent in 2001 to 1.7 percent in 2011. Incidentally drug abuse is a major concern in Punjab, where the maximum Sikh population is based.
Buddhists reluctant to accept census figure
While Sikhs are in acceptance mode, Buddhists seem to be hardly ready to accept the census figures showing a decline from 0.8 percent in 2001 to 0.7 percent in 2011.
Vehemently denying the census data, Amar Visharat, chairman of the Delhi-based charitable Lord Buddha Trust, interestingly considers there are crores of Buddhists in India. This is a huge difference between the census data and public perception, for which he reasons that “the census was not conducted honestly. People were asked about their religious status but the data were not recorded accordingly.”
Categorically attacking the government, Visharat said, “Census has a direct impact on the government. Leaders of the governments, such as the Prime Ministers, always come from the majority communities.”
“We in fact ran an SMS campaign called ‘Walk to Buddha’ before the census to persuade Buddhists to register their religion correctly and received massive responses. Many even got back to us, saying they have been registering themselves as Buddhists,” added Visharat.
Incidentally, Visharat said even the Delhi Government’s Revenue Department’s form (DOR – 01) to apply for Scheduled Caste certificate didn’t have Buddhism as an option until recently. “Only a couple of months ago this year, they included Buddhism in the forms because of our relentless demands. So you can easily guess why the census showed a decline in our numbers.”
The Delhi government revenue department webpage for SC/ST certificates, however, shows it was updated the last time on 13 April 2015.
Bihar-based Buddha Mission of India’s President Dr. Kamal Prasad Buddha also has the opinion that the census had loopholes. “The people entrusted to the task of collecting data would visit an area and ask community leaders about who’s who and fill the forms. They did not visit a large number of Buddhist households, or when visited, the family head was not present. Others like women at home could not respond properly. This created a major gap between the actual number of Buddhists and the census figure.”
Lack of education among the economically-backward Buddhists belonging to scheduled castes and other backward classes is also being considered a major cause behind a difference between the perceived figure of population and the census data. “Many Buddhists from the downtrodden castes were not even aware of the census. Without preparation, they could not respond correctly to the census officials, which made the data collectors perceive a sense-based response, and accordingly they updated the data, which remained faulty,” added Dr. Buddha.
Conversion: perception of Sikhs versus Buddhists
While Sikhs consider conversion a major cause for the decline in their population, Buddhists think it is the opposite in their case with many converting to Buddhism instead. The Buddha Trust chairman Visharat said, “Many Indians go abroad and convert to Buddhism. The process is tough here in India, so people out of the country to convert to Buddhism.”
When asked if he had any data to support his claim, he however said he does not maintain any data on this but knows this as a fact because, according to him, there are a huge lot of people in India who practice Buddhist customs.
So while the census data are there to show some religious communities have become microscopic minorities in India, perceptions actually vary between communities, which poses a serious question on the veracity of the process of the religious census. Only the next census of 2021 can exactly tell what stand vindicated, the perceptions or the data.
