Why should the police publicize the increase in the Muslim population and the number of their mosques and ‘madrasas’ (Islamic seminaries)? Why sensationalize the issue without proper evidence? Has the population of Hindus and other communities not increased in India? The total population of India was 36 crores in 1951 and it has now grown to above 135 crores. While the Muslim population now is reported to be around 15 crores only, Hindus and other communities undoubtedly account for the rest of the population. So, why so much hoopla about the rise in the Muslim population? If the increased population of Hindus doesn’t cause a threat to India’s security, how could Muslim population growth pose a threat to national security? Does advertising the Muslim growth from the angle of threat perception to national security not amount to stigmatizing the Muslim community and thus create an anti-Muslim environment across the country?
Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—Is the increase in the population of Muslims, particularly in border districts with Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh a threat to India’s internal and external security?
This is what the media in English and Hindi languages have tried to convey after Home Minister Amit Shah raised concerns over what he called demographic changes registered in the border districts. The home minister made his comments while speaking at a conference of the National Security Strategy (NSS)-2022 in New Delhi on August 18.
However, the home minister did not mention the reasons for the demographic changes if this is really the truth. The media has also not pointed out the reasons for the demographic changes. Media reports, quoting police and intelligence sources, say that illegal migration from other countries may be the reason for changes in population patterns in border districts.
However, media reports have not cited any evidence to the allegations about presence of “illegal foreign migrants” in the districts under the discussion in police reports.
Population explosion a sensitive issue, administration must avoid sensationalization
The issue of demographic changes is very sensitive and has the potential to cause law and order problems on a large scale as we have seen in the past in Assam where thousands of Muslims of Bengali origin were massacred on February 18, 1983, on the citizenship issue.
The police and intelligence agencies that have planted news should have made effort to find out the exact causes of the increase in population.
Simply saying that the Muslim population in border districts has gone up without giving reasons and then saying that it could be a threat to the internal security of the country amounts to irresponsibility keeping in view what happened in Nellie and other places in Assam in the early 1980s on the same ground. If the new residents happen to be natives of the places where the Muslim population is said to have risen, does it amount to a threat to the security of the country? Don’t the natives have the right to settle down and live in their ancestral villages? Should they quit their native places because their population has risen? If the Muslim population has risen, so is that of the Hindu population. India’s population was merely 36 crores in 1951 but it rose to 120 crores in 2011 and it is said to have gone up to 136 crores now. Though there is no exact official data available about the current population of Muslims, estimates say that their population is not more than 15 crores. This indicates that the population of all communities has gone up. Then why target Muslims alone?
‘Reverse’ migration from cities to villages
Moreover, it is the job of the state governments to find out if it is the local population that has increased or if there is a ‘reverse migration’ from cities and towns where the local Muslims had gone for jobs and employment and are now returning to their native places. Earlier, many people with low income were not able to maintain two households and a large number of such people, particularly from Eastern UP and Bihar, left their native villages and settled down in towns where they found sources of livelihood and opportunities for educational and economic growth of their future generations. This happened on a large scale in the 1970s and 1980s. However, when the income of the people increased after economic liberalization under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, many people set up their housing units in their ancestral villages again because they were able to maintain two households. Reports from villages in East UP and Bihar say that Muslims form the majority who returned to their native places from cities and towns. An increase in income-generating avenues in villages owing to liberalization also halted migration to the cities.
CAA also forced Muslims to return to their roots in villages
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019 and the Modi government’s determination to implement it by linking it with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), gave a further fillip to Muslims to return to their roots from big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. They felt that they will not be able to prove their Indian citizenship in cities where they were not locals but migrants. Hence, they set up their establishments again in the villages where their ancestors lived for centuries and their names are registered in government records for generations. They feel that it will be easy for them to procure the documents required for the NRC exercise from their villages. This led to a further increase in the population of Muslims in villages. However, Hindus are not returning to their native places in the same manner because CAA protects them and they would be granted Indian citizenship even if they are not able to provide the documents required for NRC.
‘Internal migration’ of Muslims in rural areas
Reports say rural UP and Bihar have also witnessed internal migration, particularly of Muslims, following the Ramjanmabhoomi movement in 1992 that deeply communalized the Indian society and posed a threat to Muslims’ life and property. Muslims in smaller numbers living in big Hindu villages are gradually shifting to nearby Muslim-dominated villages for security reasons. This also contributed to the rise of the Muslim population in villages. Since communalization in villages in the periphery of Ayodhya was much deeper than in other areas, there was greater internal migration of Muslims in this area. The districts mentioned in police and media reports in East UP and Bihar regarding the increase in the Muslim population fall within this area. Moreover, the concentration of Muslims was already higher in these districts even prior to Partition. So, it is quite natural for the Muslim population to rise in these places.
But the way the respective state police have prepared the rise in figures of the Muslim population and the media have copied and presented the same thing without applying their mind is highly misleading.
Population figures in percentages misleads, security threat causes Muslim ‘ghettoisation’ in urban centres
The police have doled out the population increase in percentage only. They have not provided the increase in actual figures. So, if the police data claim an increase of 15 percent, it means an increase of 150 people in a village with a population of 1,000 people. This is not a significant increase given the ‘reverse migration’ taking place from towns and cities as also owing to the migration of Muslims from Hindu-dominated villages where Muslims feel the threat to their life and property owing to changes in the communal situation since 1992 and drastic changes in political situations since 2014 after BJP came to power at the Centre with an overwhelming majority. A series of developments like mob lynching, and attacks on Muslims on trains, buses, and in public places due to their Muslim identity created further insecurity among Muslims. They felt that they would be secure where their co-religionists are in the higher number and hence, migrated to Muslim-dominated villages. The same phenomenon is witnessed even in cities and towns like Delhi, resulting in coming up of new Muslim localities, contemptuously described as “Muslim ghettoes” by the mainstream and traditional media. Should the Muslim migrants from mixed areas to Muslim-dominated localities in Delhi and other metropolitan cities be declared “outsiders” and “foreigners” because of shifting to Muslim-concentrated areas? This is happening due to failure of the government and the police to provide proper security to Muslims.
Hence, the police figures in percentage are not only misleading but send a wrong message to the general population having the potential to create an anti-Muslim environment in the districts mentioned in police reports. It has the capability to further communalize and divide Indian society, posing a direct threat to Muslims in particular areas. The respective state governments must come out with exact data based on the actual number, not on percentages, to give a correct message to the political class, legislature, executive, judiciary, and the common masses in the interest of peace and harmony in the country.
Haphazard way of population data collection
The police data, according to reports, is based on the figures given by the village heads who are called ‘pradhans’ or sarpanches in the Hindi belt. Have the ‘pradhans’ mentioned any particular reason for an increase in the Muslim population? As ‘pradhans’ are locals, they know each and everyone in their villages. They are the most reliable source to find out the number of people returning from towns and whether those migrating from nearby villages are locals or from outside. Why the police did not conduct this exercise to verify this important aspect while collecting data on the Muslim population? The police exercise seems to have been conducted in a very haphazard manner.
Why don’t police deport “infiltrators”?
The reports appearing in the media, quoting police and intelligence sources, say that there is a 32 percent increase in some of the border districts of Assam and Uttar Pradesh. A report published in the online edition of the Organiser, a right-winger publication, claims that “illegal camps comprising illegal infiltrators are cropping up in many border districts”. What the Organizer, a right-winger media publication, has reported is based on the UP and Assam police reports. This is a very serious issue. If the police and the administration are sure that the people living in camps are foreign infiltrators, it becomes their duty to identify them and initiate the process for their deportation because foreign infiltrators are a threat to national security. And if the police and administration are keeping silent and not doing anything to tackle this issue, does this mean that what they have doled out to the media is not truth but to serve the political agenda of some political party trying to polarize the majority community voters in its favour by raising the bogey of rising Muslim population without reason.
The districts where the Muslim population has increased by about 32 percent are Bahraich, Siddharthnagar, Pilibhit, Sravasti, Kheri, Balrampur and Maharajganj. The Organizer report, quoting police data, says that the Muslim population has increased by 50 percent in 116 villages and by 30 percent in another 303 villages, which is higher than the state average of 12.5 percent.
Similarly, the Assam police report, as per a report of the Organiser, says that the Muslim population increase in border districts of Dhubri, Karimganj, South Salmara, and Cachar was 32.45 percent, much higher than the state average of 13.54 percent.
The police have also tried to sensationalize the issue by giving the figures of growth in the number of madrasas (Islamic seminaries) in these border areas. It says that the number of ‘madrasas’ and mosques that were 1,349 in border districts of Assam in 2018 has gone up to 1,688 now. The growth of mosques and ‘madrasas’ is quite understandable when the population of Muslims has increased. Why should it be hyped? Don’t new temples and religious places of Hindus and other communities come up with the increase in their population? What is the purpose of the police to advertise the increase in the number of mosques and ‘madrasas’?
