No, Pakistan's non-Muslim population didn't decline from 23% to 3.7% as BJP claims
During the debate on the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament, the BJP repeatedly claimed that population of religious minorities in Pakistan has declined from 23% in 1947 to 3.7% in 2011. Analysis of official data however shows this argument is faulty.
- Mukesh Rawat
- New Delhi
- December 12, 2019
- UPDATED: December 12, 2019 23:59 IST
It is a fact that religious minorities have been persecuted and face discrimination in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but the figures quoted by the BJP are untrue. (Photo: Reuters file)
While moving the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said at the time of Independence, non-Muslims comprised 23 per cent of Pakistan's population and that by 2011 their share was reduced to 3.7 per cent.
With regards to Bangladesh, he claimed that in 1947, non-Muslims comprised 22 per cent of its population and their share in 2011 fell to 7.8 per cent.
Amit Shah's verbatim quote in Hindi: "1947 main Pakistan ke andar alpasankhyakon ki aabadi 23 pratishat thi, aur 2011 main wog ghat kar 3.7 pratishat ho gayi. Bangladesh main 1947 main aplsankhyakon ki aabadi 22 pratishat thi aur 2011 main wo kam ho kar 7.8 pratishat ho gayi. Kahan gaye ye log? Ya toh unka dharm parivartan hua. Ya wo maar diye gaye, ya bhaga diye gaye, ya Bharat aa gaye."
(Refer to Amit Shah's speech from the video on his Twitter profile below from 9min 40sec onwards for this quote.)
On Wednesday, while moving the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Amit Shah reiterated his claim, saying Pakistan and Bangladesh have seen a decline of up to 20 percentage points in their populations of religious minorities.
"Whan ke alpshankyak kahan gaye? Ya toh vo maar diye gaye, ya unhone Bharat main sharan liya (Where did the minorities disappear in Pakistan and Bangladesh? Either they were persecuted or they took shelter in India)," Amit Shah said in the Rajya Sabha.
This has been a position maintained by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters. To highlight the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan (particularly of the Hindus), the BJP and right-wing Hindu organisations in India have been citing similar figures to argue that non-Muslims were brutally persecuted in an Islamic Pakistan after the Partition of 1947.
in 2013. The artilce 'Cleansing Pakistan of Minorities' was written by Farahnaz Ispahani, former member of Pakistan's Parliament. But she too did not mention the source of her figures.
The preceding figures on Pakistan's religious composition that are available are from Census 1941. But since it was conducted in an undivided India, referring to it is futile as it doesn't reflect the ground situation created just after the bloodied Partition in 1947.
After its formation, the first census in Pakistan was carried out in 1951. This census included both East and West Pakistan.
As per this census, the share of Muslims in Pakistan's overall population in 1951 was 85.80 per cent, while the share of non-Muslims was 14.20 per cent. (Pakistan here refers to East and West Pakistan taken together).
What is important to note in Census 1951 is that Pakistan's non-Muslim population wasn't evenly distributed.
In West Pakistan, the non-Muslim population was just 3.44 per cent, while in East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh) they had a significant share comprising 23.20 per cent of the population therein.
As per Census 1951, share of Muslims in Pakistan's overall population was 85.80%, while share of non-Muslims was 14.20%.
To understand the change in population of religious minorities in present-day Pakistan, we need to separately analyse the trends in West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
WHAT HAPPENED IN WEST PAKISTAN
In 1951, Muslims comprised 96.56 per cent of the total population in the territory that is today known as Pakistan. The table below details the religious composition of each of Pakistan's five provinces.
The next census in Pakistan was carried out in 1961 which said the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan had reduced to 2.83 per cent of West Pakistan's total population.
By 1972 when Pakistan carried out its third census, East Pakistan had been liberated and was now known as Bangladesh.
The 1972 census shows non-Muslims in Pakistan comprised 3.25 per cent of the total population. This was higher than their share in 1961. By the time the next census was carried out in 1981, Pakistan's non-Muslim population saw a miniscule rise--from 3.25 per cent in 1972 to 3.30 per cent in 1981.
Thus in a nutshell, based on Pakistan's census data we find:
1) Population of non-Muslims was never 23 per cent of Pakistan's total population.
2) Even in undivided Pakistan, share of non-Muslim population never even touched the 15 per cent mark. (The highest was 14.2 per cent in 1951.)
3) When it comes to today's Pakistan (i.e. erstwhile West Pakistan), non-Muslims comprised 3.44 per cent of the region's population in 1951.
4) Census data show that share of non-Muslims in Pakistan has hovered around 3.5 per cent over the decades.
THE SITUATION IN EAST PAKISTAN (today's BANGLADESH)
Now, since the trend of non-Muslim population in the region that comprises Pakistan today is clear, we shall look at what happened in East Pakistan, which in 1971 became Bangladesh.
Pakistan's census data show that non-Muslims formed 23.20 per cent of East Pakistan's total population in 1951.
Over the years, this share has indeed reduced significantly, but still not as much as the BJP has claimed.
By 1961, share of non-Muslims in East Pakistan had reduced to 19.57 per cent, In 1974 it further reduced to 14.60 per cent; in 1981 to 13.40 per cent; in 1991 to 11.70 per cent and in 2001 to 10.40 per cent.
Bangladesh's latest census carried out in 2011 revealed that the share of non-Muslims has gone below 10 per cent of the country's overall population. In 2011, non-Muslims comprised 9.60 per cent of Bangladesh's population.
Thus, between 1951 and 2011, population of non-Muslims shrunk from a high of 23.20 per cent to a low 9.40 per cent.
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WHERE BJP'S CLAIM IS WRONG
Having separately examined the trend in population change in the regions that are today known as Pakistan and Bangladesh, let's examine the claims made by the BJP.
The BJP has claimed:
1) Population of non-Muslims in Pakistan has reduced from 23 per cent at the time of Independence to 3.7 per cent in 2011.
2) Population of non-Muslims in Bangladesh was 22 per cent at the time of Independence and has been reduced to 7.8 per cent in 2011.
3) This decline in population share of non-Muslims in these two Islamic countries was due to widespread religious persecution.
As discussed earlier, there is no official data on the religious composition of Pakistan at the time of Partition (then including today's Bangladesh). The closest official figures available are from Census 1951. What happened between 1947 and 1951 is subject to individual interpretation.
It is a fact that thousands of non-Muslims were persecuted in Pakistan at the time of Partition in 1947 (just as thousands of Muslims were persecuted in India). Besides this, thousands of Hindus and other religious minorities left Pakistan and entered India in 1947 and thousands of Muslims left India to become Pakistani citizens. This widespread migration and killings did alter the religious composition of the regions concerned in comparison to the situation before Partition. But the exact scale of these persecutions and migration remains unknown in absence of data, and hence the population share of non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1947 remains unknown.
From an Indian source.
If this doesn't bust the myth of Pakistan's disappeared Hindu population, nothing will.
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