Author: Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: September 25, 2004
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040925/asp/opinion/story_3796479.asp
The census bungling was bad enough,
what lies behind it is worse
The furore over the census figures
for Indian Muslims recalls Ying Ma, a Chinese American campaigner against
black militancy, describing racism as "the hate that dare not speak its
name". Hate begets hate. It also often masks fear which explains the far
more crude posturing of Britain's shadowy White Nationalist Party. Indian
Muslims owe it to themselves and to national harmony not to give the WNP's
Hindu equivalent any excuse for mischief.
Statistically, fears of being overwhelmed
are not without substance. Two east London townships already have more
Afro-Asians than native whites. The demographic composition of Assam, Nagaland,
Manipur and West Bengal's border districts has changed. Substantial groups
of people in both countries are disinclined to treat such change as normal
evolution, unlike the United States of America which faces a mixed future
with equanimity. Bill Clinton's acknowledgment in 1998 that "a half century
from now.there will be no majority race in America" means that whites,
blacks, Chicanos and Asians will balance each other in the world's greatest
melting pot.
WNP literature preys on the fear
that Britain's coloured population (Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Africans,
Indians, West Indians in the order of family size), which increased from
6 per cent in 1991 to 9 per cent in 2001, will be the majority 64 years
from now. "We're being bred out of existence," it laments. No wonder the
British Office for National Statistics did not disclose ethnic figures
until 1991. In India, Jayanti Kumar Banthia's report for 2001 was the first
ever based on religion. Political sensitivity explains official reticence
on the subject of minorities, racial or religious. While enlightened white
Britons are now prepared to co-exist amicably with the Asians and Africans
in their midst, the 1991 finding that whites accounted for 94.5 per cent
of the population also assures them that WNP propaganda notwithstanding,
they have little reason to be afraid of being swamped.
British liberals and Indian secularists
both pay lip service to the concept of a society based on the universal
brotherhood of man but ideals often vanish the moment tribal loyalties
are seriously challenged. There is, however, an internal reason for the
difference between the US on the one hand and Britain and India on the
other. Regardless of origin, all minority groups in the US subscribe to
the American dream and aspire to the same totems of success. Harmony is
based on the uniformity of taste in food, dress, housing, education and
leisure activities. In contrast, most immigrants in Britain still live
in cultural isolation, while Indian Muslims seem more and more determined
to keep the mainstream at bay.
How great the gulf is was unwittingly
exposed when the respected population expert, Ashish Bose, was at pains
to announce that despite Banthia's controversial figures, "the Muslim community
has actually declined at a greater rate than the Hindus." What he should
have declared bluntly was that religious composition makes no difference
to the national label in a state that sees all its citizens as equal, and
that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh anxieties reflect disgracefully on India's
casteless, creedless ideal. But such a claim would be too far removed from
reality to be taken seriously. Hence, a well-meaning statement that actually
concedes, albeit implicitly, the legitimacy of the fears expressed by M.
Venkaiah Naidu and other RSS worthies who warn darkly that at this rate
the subcontinent will have more Muslims than Hindus by 2050.
Bose advised them not to worry on
this score because the statistical evidence does not support their misgivings:
the RSS can note with relief that there is no danger of Muslims ever equalling
or outnumbering Hindus. Of course, it was not Bose's intention to support
the RSS thesis that it would be calamitous for "India's unity" if they
did but that is the effect conveyed. It is all the more revealing of general
Hindu thinking for being unintentional and instinctive.
Repeated in a British or Indian
context, Clinton's revolutionary view of the future would overthrow all
accepted notions of what either country stands for. Understandably, therefore,
the Bharatiya Janata Party government shied away from allowing Banthia's
figures to be published. The BJP might arguably have been able to make
political capital out of the suggestion of high Muslim growth but the claim
would also have been social dynamite. The BJP may have felt that the risk
of a violent fall-out outweighed the possibility of electoral gain.
It is curious, however, that it
did not tumble to the astonishingly simple explanation offered by the present
government. We are now told that the Muslim growth rate appeared to have
gone up by 1.5 per cent to 36 per cent in 1991-2001 only because Jammu
and Kashmir's 6.7 million Muslims were not included in the 1991 census
and that this was no more than a "clerical" error. The plea is that when
the figures are "adjusted" in light of the Jammu and Kashmir population,
they prove comfortingly that there is no need to worry: the Muslim growth
rate actually plummeted from 34.5 per cent to 29.3 per cent during this
period. Hindu ascendancy faces no danger.
If this were all, why did the BJP
not spot the omission? Why, for that matter, did Banthia himself not make
the correction before being forced to do so by the public reaction? There
may well be innocent explanations for both lapses but the lay public is
always sceptical about official figures and does not take kindly to chopping
and changing. Mark Twain's comment about lies, damned lies and statistics
comes to mind.
Returning to the underlying cause
of the census controversy, the parallel between India and Britain is valid
only up to a point. The crucial difference lies in the minority's identity.
While Britain (like France, Germany and the Netherlands) faces the challenge
of settlers from abroad (though 50 per cent of coloured British were born
in the country), India's minority is indigenous and, therefore, immune
even to the theoretical threat of deportation. Our 138 million Muslims
are as Indian as our 19 million Sikhs, 24 million Christians, or Hindus
who comprise 80.5 per cent of the population. The problem of adjustment
and accommodation is thus a national problem, as much a problem of Muslims
as of Hindus.
Whether Muslims are conscious of
their responsibility in this respect is another matter. The worldwide spirit
of assertiveness is most evident in countries where Muslims are in a minority.
Bangladeshis have absorbed rituals like gaye holud into their marriage
ceremonies as part of the Bengali heritage but that would be unthinkable
in India. Mention has been made in these columns before of a Calcutta seminar
where a maulvi ruled out ordinary schools or even part-time religious instruction
because a Muslim child has to read the Quran first and last. From early
childhood, therefore, he is taught to see himself as different. Similarly,
Muslim housewives told a family planning worker I know in Andhra Pradesh
to preach birth control to Hindus until numbers were equal. Syed Shahabuddin's
objection to smashing a coconut at a ship launch or the insistence on a
personal law that violates many canons of natural justice are other instances
of the exclusiveness that plays into the hands of Hindu bigots. They are
ready to accuse Muslims of deliberately making a bid to achieve numerical
parity (or superiority) and of seeking to dilute what are generally regarded
as the cultural characteristics of the Indian nation. Politicians pander
to this separateness instead of enforcing Amartya Sen's prescription of
women's education as one way of countering Muslim inversion.
The census bungling was bad enough.
What lies behind it is infinitely worse. A community in a mental ghetto
does honour neither to god nor to Caesar. By blurring the distinction between
the two, it perpetuates its own backwardness and weakens the overall social
fabric.
