PERSPE CTIV E

Myths about Muslims in Bengal

jections published by Government of
India show that West Bengal’s
growth rate will be significantly
lower than India’s in the coming
years.
It can be argued, however, that
Official data available in the public domain show that the claims made looking at gross population figures
will not solve the problem. The ac-
against Muslims in West Bengal in the election run-up are false. cusation is that the Muslims are in-
filtrating into the State even now,
B Y S U B H A N I L C H O W D H U R Y A ND S A S W A T A G H O S H particularly in the border districts.
We have calculated the growth rates
of Hindu and Muslim populations in
THE 2021 Assembly election in using official data published by the that West Bengal’s decadal growth West Bengal and of all the districts
West Bengal is going to be historic government, is to demonstrate that rate from 1951 to 1961 was signific- individually for the last two Census
because the Bharatiya Janata Party these claims are utterly baseless. antly higher than India’s in the same rounds. The population growth rate
(BJP) has for the first time emerged period, but it decreased between of Hindus and Muslims in 2001 was
as the main challenger to the incum- BOGEY OF INFILTRATION 1961 and 1971 and almost equalled 14.2 per cent and 25.9 per cent re-
bent government. Until a few years If there had been a substantial infilt- the national rate. By 1981, West spectively. By 2011, the growth rate
ago, the BJP was a marginal force in ration in West Bengal, then the Bengal’s population growth rate was of the two communities came down
the State, but it polled more than 40 decadal growth rate of population in lower than India’s and continued to to 10.8 per cent and 21.8 per cent
per cent of the votes in the 2019 Lok the State would have been signific- be so up until 2011 when it turned respectively. Even if we look at the
Sabha election. Not surprisingly, antly higher than that of India. Fig- out to be significantly less than that districts bordering Bangladesh, the
with the rise of the BJP, some famil- ure 1 shows this is not true. It shows of India1. Even the population pro- population growth rate of Hindus
iar myths are being propagated has declined by 6.75 percentage
about Muslims in West Bengal. points, while for Muslims the decline
First, the agenda of the Citizen- is 4.27 percentage points between
ship (Amendment) Act, the National 2001 and 2011.
Register of Citizens and the National
Population Register (CAA-NRC-
NPR) is based on the premise that
there has been a huge influx of illegal
immigrants into the State from
Bangladesh. BJP State president
Dilip Ghosh is on record that there
are more than one crore illegal
Muslim immigrants in West Bengal,
a State where the total population is
marginally less than 10 crore. His
party promises to drive them out
once the NRC exercise is complete.
Second, another kind of propaganda
says that Muslims have a large num-
ber of children and will soon over-
take Hindus as the majority in the
State. Third, there is appeasement of
the Muslim community and it gets a
larger share of the benefits that the
State government provides.
The main purpose of this article,

E I D PRA Y E RS at Red Road in

R A JEEV BH ATT

Kolkata, a file photograph. Muslims

constitute 27 per cent of the population
of West Bengal.
FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021 58 59 FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021

UN I O N HO M E M IN ISTE R Amit Shah (centre) with Kailash Vijayvargiya (right)
and State BJP president Dilip Ghosh at a public meeting in support of the
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, in Kolkata on March 1, 2020. The party’s constant
harping on the narrative of the entry of illegal Muslim immigrants into West
Bengal from Bangladesh makes the CAA menacing for the State’s Muslims.
For non-bordering districts,
too, both communities have wit-
nessed a decline in the growth rate
of population between 2001 and
2011.
If there had been a large-scale
Muslim immigration, this decline of
growth rates would not have been
possible. However, to further explore
the issue, we calculate the growth
rates of population in each district
for Hindus and Muslims and their
difference from their respective State
average. This is shown in Table 1.
In Table 1, a positive sign indic-
ates that the growth rate of popula-
tion in a district is higher than the
State average and a negative sign
shows the opposite. It is clear from
the table that there is no particular
pattern with respect to border dis-
tricts and otherwise. For example,
Nadia is a border district where
Hindus and Muslims have both re-
gistered a growth rate that is lower
than their respective State average.
But in North Dinajpur, the growth
rates are significantly higher than
the State average for both com-
munities. Similarly, for Purulia,
which is not a border district, the
growth rates of both communities
are higher than their respective State
average.
The second important observa-
tion from Table 1 is that wherever the
Muslim growth rate was higher than
the State average, so was the Hindu
FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021
Nadia and North 24 Parganas. These
people have come from Bangladesh
at various points and are currently
legitimate citizens of India. Most of
them are actually Hindus belonging
to the deprived sections. Therefore,
the claim made by the State BJP
president that there are more than 1
crore Muslim immigrants in West
Bengal is not correct.
B I K A S DA S / AP
THE FERTILITY ARGUMENT
A frequent grouse of Hindutva ad-
vocates against Muslims is that they
apparently produce more children
and hence they threaten to overtake
the Hindu population in the not-so-
distant future. Fertility rate denotes
the number of children born to wo-
men of reproductive age and is the
most important demographic para-
growth rate. Had there been signific- meter to determine child-producing
ant migration into the border dis- patterns of communities and coun-
tricts from Bangladesh, the tries. Is the fertility rate of Muslims
population growth rate of Muslims very high in comparison with that of
would have been higher than that of other communities? In order to an-
the Hindus. But this is not the case, swer this question, we first take a
which shows that the nar- look at international
rative of large-scale data. Table 2 shows
Muslim immigration the fertility rates of In-
from Bangladesh is dia and some selected
simply not true. Muslim-dominated
This point can be fur- countries.
ther corroborated by an- Table 2 shows that
other statistic. In Census apart from Pakistan,
2011, around 22 lakh Muslim-majority
people reported that their countries like
place of birth was in Bangladesh, Maldives
today’s Bangladesh. Fifty and Malaysia have fer-
per cent of these people tility rates that are
were from two districts, lower than India’s or
60
almost the same as India’s. Muslims,
clearly, do not have a higher
propensity for producing children.
In the case of West Bengal, there
has been a significant reduction in
fertility rates among both Hindus
and Muslims over the years, as Fig-
ure 2 shows. The State’s fertility rate
declined rapidly between 2001 and
2015-16. The decline, which happens
to be the largest among all States in
India, is sharpest for Muslims. The
fertility rate for Hindus has also wit-
nessed a decline way beyond the re-
placement level (2.1).
To get a further insight into the
fertility behaviour of Hindus and
Muslims, we undertake another ex-
ercise. We select districts of five
States where the Muslims constitute
more than 15 per cent of the popula-
tion—West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pra-
desh, Kerala and Assam. We plot the
district-level fertility rates in these
States for Hindus and Muslims in
Figure 3.
Three points can be made from
Figure 3. First, except in Kerala, the
fertility rates of Hindus and Muslims
are positively related. This implies
that in districts where the Hindu fer-
tility rate is high, the Muslim fertility
rate is also high. Only in Assam are
the fertility rates for Muslims signi-
ficantly higher than those for
Hindus. Second, in West Bengal, the
fertility rate of Hindus is lower than
2.5 in all districts, while for Bihar the
fertility rate is higher than 2.5 for
both Hindus and Muslims in all dis-
tricts. In Uttar Pradesh the fertility
rates are spread out for both Hindus
and Muslims, while in Kerala they
are less than 2 for Hindus and less
than 2.5 for Muslims for all districts.
Third, in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
the fertility rates for Hindus and
Muslims are higher than in other
States. These two States are also the
most underdeveloped in terms of de-
velopment indicators. Thus, the
higher fertility rates for both com-
munities there are a result of various
developmental indicators rather
than religious beliefs or behaviours.
In West Bengal, too, an analysis
of district-level fertility rates indic-
ates that districts which have better
development indicators have lower
fertility rates than those that are un-
derdeveloped. Therefore, fertility
rates depend on development indic-
ators and not on religious beliefs.
Strikingly, the regions of Bangladesh
which share a border with West
Bengal also have fertility rates that
are much lower. Rangpur, Rajshahi
and Khulna, the three divisions bor-
dering West Bengal, have fertility
rates of 2.1, 2.1 and 1.9 respectively
(Bangladesh Demographic and
Health Survey 2017-18). It can be
argued that the entire Bengali-
speaking region comprising West
Bengal, Tripura and Bangladesh has
a relatively lower fertility rate.
Therefore, the idea that Muslims
breed more rapidly is not backed by
any data and reflects prejudice.
Demographic transition requires
decades to take place. West Bengal
reached replacement level fertility
rate (2.1) in the year 2003. The popu-
61
lation projection report of 2019,
based on 2011 Census data, shows
that Bihar will reach replacement
level fertility in 2039, Assam in
2020, Chhattisgarh in 2022, Mad-
hya Pradesh in 2028, Uttar Pradesh
in 2025. West Bengal achieved re-
placement level fertility 18 years ago
owing to a rapid fall in the total fertil-
ity rate both for Hindus and
Muslims. In a State where Muslims
constitute 27 per cent of the popula-
tion, such a rapid decline of fertility
so long ago would not have been pos-
sible without a rapid reduction of the
fertility rate in the community. A re-
lated canard against Muslims is that
Muslim men are polygamous. It is
often claimed that Muslims men
have four wives. A calculation based
on the National Family Health Sur-
vey 2015-16 data shows this to be
false. For example, 1.64 per cent of
Hindu women in West Bengal, and
1.44 per cent in India, have reported
that their husbands have more than
one wife. For Muslims, the percent-
age is 2.77 per cent in West Bengal
and 2.05 per cent in India. In other
words, a minuscule proportion of
both Hindu and Muslim men are
polygamous.
BOGEY OF APPEASEMENT
Lastly, there has been a consistent
claim that Muslims in West Bengal
are appeased and they are a
FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021
 R ESE RV AT IO N

Clamour for quota

pampered lot. In order to test this
claim, we look at employment figures
in this piece (there is no space to look
at other parameters).
Firstly, the Periodic Labour
Force Survey 2018-19 data on em-
ployment and unemployment in In-
dia show that 52.7 per cent of
Muslims in West Bengal are self-em-
ployed, a figure that is almost the
same as the corresponding national
statistic. Only 13 per cent of Muslims
have regular salaried jobs in West
Bengal, while the corresponding fig-
ure for India is 22.1 per cent. Around
34.3 per cent of Muslims in West
Bengal work as casual workers, while
the figure for India is around 26 per
cent. In other words, compared with
the rest of India, greater numbers of
Muslims are engaged in precarious
casual employment or self-employ-
The earnings of
Muslims in
West Bengal are
lower than those
of Muslims in the
rest of India.
ing to the All India Survey of Higher
Education, only 3.12 per cent of
teachers in colleges were Muslims in
2012-13. The figure increased to 7.8
per cent in 2018-19—a prominent in-
crease in Muslim representation but
still way below the community’s pop-
ulation proportion of 27 per cent in
established in 1780) from the list,
then the proportion of Muslim fac-
ulty in West Bengal universities
comes down abysmally. A policy of
appeasement would have produced a
reverse situation.
CONCLUSION
With the elections approaching in
West Bengal, there has been a sys-
tematic attempt to spread untruths
and half-truths about Muslims in the
State. We have showed through an
analysis of publicly available data
that all of the claims made by the
right-wing ecosystem in West
Bengal against Muslims are incor-
rect. West Bengal has a syncretic and
secular culture. Hindus and Muslims
here have lived with each other
peacefully for many decades. It is the
need of the hour to preserve those
In Karnataka, Chief Minister Yediyurappa finds himself in a catch-22
situation as a Lingayat subsect wants to be reclassified within the OBC
list, while the Kuruba want to be redesignated as a Scheduled Tribe,
demands that are bound to stir up a hornet’s nest. B Y V I K H A R A H M E D S A Y E E D
THE past few months have wit-
nessed a heightened demand by
some caste and sub-caste groups in
Karnataka for a share in the reserva-
tion pie. Religious leaders of two
caste groups, Panchamsalis and Kur-
ubas, have been spearheading move-
ments to demand an increase in the
percentage of reservation for the re-
spective communities in the total re-
servation for Other Backward
Classes (OBCs). Panchamsali is a nu-
merically large sub-caste of the dom-
inant Lingayat community and
Kuruba is the third-largest caste
group in the State after the Lingayat
and Vokkaliga communities, if one
excludes the Scheduled Caste (S.C.)
and Muslim communities.
S UD H AK A RA J AI N

ment in West Bengal. As a result, the
earnings of Muslims in West Bengal
are lower than those of Muslims in
the rest of India. For example, on an
average, a Muslim self-employed
worker in West Bengal earns
Rs.6,197 per month as compared
with Rs.10,192 a month in other
States. Similarly, a regular salaried
Muslim worker in West Bengal earns
on an average Rs.9,460 a month
while she /he earns Rs.12,906 a
month elsewhere in India.
Even for casual Muslim workers,
the monthly average earning is lower
in West Bengal than in the rest of
India. These statistics do not point to
“appeasement” of Muslims. For a
better understanding of the “ap-
peasement” argument, we look at the
employment of Muslims in colleges
and universities in the State. Accord-
FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021
the State. We also look at the data of
certain prominent universities in
West Bengal to see whether the com-
munity has entered in a big way into
elite institutions of learning.
Table 3 shows that in elite insti-
tutions of learning such as Presid-
ency University, Calcutta University
and Jadavpur University, the num-
ber of Muslim faculty members is
abysmally low. Muslim teachers in
all the universities of West Bengal
accounted for just 4 per cent of all
university teachers in 2012-13. The
figure increased to 7 per cent in
2018-19.
However, if we remove Aliah
University (a university under the
Ministry of Minorities in West
Bengal, which was earlier a seat of
Muslim theological learning named
Calcutta Madrasa or Aliah Madrasa
62
secular values and expose the falsity
of the propaganda against our
Muslim co-citizens, whose under-
development in certain parameters
should be corrected through positive
government intervention. The com-
munity should not be demonised for
narrow electoral gains. ! Scheduled Tribe (S.T.). According to
Subhanil Chowdhury and Saswata
Ghosh are faculty members at the
Institute of Development Studies
Kolkata (IDSK).
Acknowledgement: The writers
acknowledge the contribution of
Dr Ishan Anand and Syamantak
Chattopadhyay in helping them
with data work.
ENDNOTES
1 It must be noted that in the years 1981 and
1991, Census operations could not be conduc-
ted in Assam and Jammu & Kashmir respect-
ively. As a result, the population growth of India
would be higher than what is mentioned here.
While Panchamsalis are de-
manding that the caste should be
moved from 3B to 2A category in the
OBC list, Kurubas are demanding
that the entire community, which is
currently classified under the 2A cat-
egory in the OBC list, be designated a
data gathered from the Social Wel-
fare Department, 50 per cent of gov-
ernment jobs and admissions to
educational institutions in the State
is reserved for OBCs (32 per cent for
207 castes spread across five categor-
ies), S.Cs (15 per cent for 101 castes)
and S.Ts (3 per cent for 50 tribes) in
the State.
Kurubas hope to benefit from the
weaker reservation pool by moving
to the S.T. category Similarly, if the
Panchamsali caste is moved from the
3B category (which has 5 per cent
K UR UBAS converge for a rally in Bengaluru on February 7.
reservation for 41 castes and mainly
includes Lingayat sub-sects) to the
2A category (which has 15 per cent
reservation for 102 castes), it will
gain from the larger reserved pool of
candidates.
On February 7, members of the
Kuruba community gathered for a
massive rally in Bengaluru held at
the culmination of a padayatra by
Niranjananda Puri Swami, the
pontiff of the Kanaka Guru Peetha of
Kaginele in Haveri district and reli-
gious head of the community. The
pontiff began his padayatra on Janu-
ary 16 from Kaginele.
63
Seers of the Panchamsali sect are
currently on a padayatra covering
450 kilometres from Kudalas-
angama in Bagalkot district to
Bengaluru. They are slated to join a
massive congregation on February
21 in a show of strength. Basava
Jayamruthyunjaya Swamiji, the
pontiff of the Panchamsali Peetha
based in Kudalasangama who is
leading the padayatra, articulated
the demands of the community in an
interview. “The Panchamsalis are
mainly farmers and a socially, eco-
nomically and educationally back-
ward community. We have only one
FRONTLINE . MARCH 12, 2021