Spectres of demographic pollution and inundation inhabit all modern right-wing ideologies. They kindle fears of conversion, miscegenation, the blurring of identities and, above all, in a democratic age where numbers matter in politics, the swamping of native populations by barbarian others.
A recent book launch had L.K. Advani, home minister and deputy prime minister, eulogise Religious Demography in India authored by A.P. Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and J.K. Bajaj of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai. The authors classify the people of India as either Indian Religionists (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and tribal) or non-Indian Religionists (Muslim and Christian) and, implicitly, Indian and foreign. This is a thesis articulated by Savarkar, Hedgewar and Golwalkar and now preached by the Hindutvavadis extolling ‘cultural nationalism’, an exclusivist political creed with little reverence for true faith and tradition.
The detailed study of the changes in the religious demography of India, for the last 120 years, has been made in a recent publication entitled Religious Demography of India#. The book has 38 detailed tables, 105 text tables and 29 maps along with detailed references. The use of the population data of the censuses of 1881 to 1991 make the study authentic.
The Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai, has sponsored the publication of Religious Demography of India based on research by a team consisting of AP Joshi, MD Srinivas and JK Bajaj. The volume has been published with the financial assistance of the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, a government institution under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, presided over by MM Joshi. And the foreword has been contributed by LK Advani, another leading light of the Sangh Parivar, both members of the Vajpayee government.
Ganashakti , December 2003
Demonising Demography As ‘Social Science’
by Nalini Taneja
A DEMONISING demography is crucial to all right racist and communal political theories, the Hindutva theories of the Sangh Parivar being no exception. But a vision of a Muslim majority overwhelming the Hindu population succeeds as an image of a horrific future only in conjunction with a horrific image of the Muslim minority in the first place. Otherwise why should one care whether it is Hindus or Muslims, or people of any other religion for that matter, who constitute the majority in our country? A concern with such fraudulent demography is therefore only one plank, although a major plank of Hindutva offensive in this country.
Contiune … … …
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