The whole superstructure of the Indian government’s citizenship amendment bill, now enacted, is erected on the claim that religious minorities had been brutally persecuted and were still being discriminated, in Pakistan since 1947 and also in Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
The persecution hypothesis is based on faulty statistics. India’s Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed non-Muslims comprised 23 percent of Pakistan’s population at the time of independence. By 2011, their proportion dropped to 3.7 percent. Concerning Bangladesh, he claimed that Muslims comprised 22 percent of the population in 1947, and their proportion in 2011 fell to 7.8 percent.
In West Pakistan, the non-Muslim population was just 3.44 percent, while it was 23.20 percent in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He insisted Pakistan and Bangladesh had witnessed a decline of up to 20 percentage points in their populations of religious minorities. But how true are his figures?
Adulterated figures: The BJP used the 23 percent figure of non-Muslims in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) in
1951 and compared it with the 3.7 percent figure of non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1998. This adulteration of figures led to the fallacy that the population share of non-Muslims fell from 23 percent to 3.7 percent in Pakistan. Myth of religious persecution: The fact is that not only non-Muslims but also Muslims migrated from Bangladesh to India. Better economic opportunities in India were the dominant lure for both non-Muslims and Muslims alike. India’s home minister did not quote the source of his data. He probably picked up the figure from co-authored Farahnaz Ispahani and Nina Shea’s article Thwarting Religious Cleansing in the Muslim World.
The authors postulate,’The percentages of Pakistan’s Ahmadi, Christian, Parsi, and Hindu communities have all plummeted over the past 30 years, with non-Muslims declining from 5 percent of the total population to just 3.5 percent. If Shiite Muslims are taken into account, the number of those emigrating from Sunni-majority Pakistan as a result of religious persecution is even greater’.
Naz expressed similar views in her another Hudson-Institute article titled ‘Cleansing Pakistan of Minorities’ published in 2013. Be it marked please that Naz is married to Husain Haqqani, a senior fellow, and director for South and Central Asia at Hudson Institute. After resigning as Pakistan’s ambassador to the USA, Haqqani kept participating in functions, particularly those held in India, that portray Pakistan in poor light. A judicial commission’s report (Memo Gate) alleged that he was not loyal to Pakistan.
Past Censuses: The only credible information emanates from the 1951 Census. In West Pakistan, the non-Muslim population was just 3.44 percent, while it was 23.20 percent in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). As per the 1951 census, the share of Muslims in Pakistan’s overall population was 85.80 percent, while that of non-Muslims was 14.20 percent.
In 1951, Muslims comprised 96.56 percent of the total population in the territory that is today known as Pakistan. The next census in Pakistan was carried out in 1961 which indicated the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan had fallen to 2.83 percent of West Pakistan’s total population.
By 1972 when Pakistan carried out its third census, East Pakistan had had become Bangladesh. The 1972 census showed non-Muslims in Pakistan comprised 3.25 percent of the total population. This was higher than their share in 1961.By the time the next census was done in 1981; Pakistan’s non-Muslim population registered a small rise from 3.25 percent in 1972 to 3.30 percent in 1981. After the 1981 census, Pakistan did not carry out a fresh census for more than 15 years and the next census was carried out in 1998. As per this census, Pakistan’s non-Muslim population stood at 3.70 percent of the total population in 1998. Pakistan carried out a fresh census in 2017 but its religious tables have not been published.
- The proportion of non-Muslims was never 23 percent of Pakistan’s total population.
- Non-Muslim population in undivided Pakistan was 14.2 percent in
- Non-Muslims accounted for 44 percent of the population in West Pakistan.
- Census data show that the share of non- Muslims in Pakistan remained 3.5 percent over the decades.
- There was no appreciable migration due to persecution.
Inferences from East-Pakistan (now Bangladesh) Census data:
- Non-Muslims formed 23.20 percent of erstwhile East Pakistan’s total population in
- Share of non-Muslims in East Pakistan fell by 1961 to 19.57 percent, then to 14.60 percent in 1974, to 13.40 percent in 1981, to 11.70 percent in 1991 and 10.40 percent in
- BJP cherry-picked and mixed-up data for the then East and West Pakistan to corroborate its hypothesis
Bangladesh’s latest census was carried out in 2011. It reflected that the share of non-Muslims was below 10 percent of the country’s overall population. In 2011, non-Muslims constituted 9.60 percent of Bangladesh’s population. Thus, from 1951 to 2011, the population of non-Muslims dropped from a high of 23.20 percent to a low of 9.40 percent. Bangladesh has promised to take back all illegal immigrants provided India proves its point. It also pointed out that minorities in Bangladesh felt safer in BD than in India.
Data refutes BJP’s claim: Official data does not bear out BJP’s claim that:
1: Population of non-Muslims in Pakistan dropped from 23 percent at the time of Independence to 3.7 percent in 2011.
2: Population of non-Muslims in Bangladesh was 22 percent at the time of Independence and fell to 7.8 percent in 2011.
3: The decline in the population share of non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh was due to widespread religious persecution.
Statistical inferences: Based on Pakistan’s Census 1951, the BJP cherry-picked and mixed-up data for the then East and West Pakistan to corroborate its hypothesis of minority persecution. Non-Muslims in East Pakistan’s population constituted 23 percent, not in both wings, as the BJP claimed. Clubbed together (East and West Pakistan), the share of non-Muslims was 14.20 percent (the highest ever) in 1951. BJP’s claim that non-Muslim share fell from 23 percent to 3.7 percent in Pakistan is incorrect. It averaged about 3.5 percent from the first census onwards. That is, 1951: 3.44 percent,1961: 2.80 percent,1972: 3.25 percent,1981: 3.33 percent, and 1998: 3.70 percent.
Partial truth: As alleged by BJP, the non-Muslim population did decrease significantly in Bangladesh, but not exactly as pretended by the BJP. It fells from 23.20 percent in 1951 to 9.40 percent in 2011, not from 22 percent to 7.8 percent, as alleged.
Indo-Bangla bonhomie unmasked! The NRC unmasks India’s equivocal policy towards Bangladesh. She suddenly banned export of essential commodities like onions to Bangladesh. D uring her recent visit to India, BD prime minister quipped “I’ve asked for food without onions” She contended that `the Government of India ought to have alerted the countries that import the commodity before rather abruptly announcing the decision’ (The Statesman October 11, 2024). The onion ban was Modi’s knee jerk to BD’s hesitation to supply natural gas to Tripura (India). India dubbed over 19 lakh Bengali refugees or settlers in Assam after 1951 as`infiltrators’.
The citizenship register establishes genealogical family trees going back until 1951. The forbears of some Assamese Muslims date back 500-700 years. But they possessed no document to prove their nationality. Most of the settlers were sheltered during 1971 war as precious raw material for mukti bahini (freedom fighters). While disenfranchising Bangladeshis, India would grant `citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India’. The citizenship criterion violated provisions of Article 14 of the Indian constitution.
The article guarantees `equality before the law and prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth’. The persecution argument more aptly applies to Nepal (Rohingya), Sri Lanka (Tamil settlers) and Bhutan (whence Christians trek to Indian churches for worship).