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The US-based Pew Research Center has released a report titled ‘Religious Composition of India’. The study, which used census data as well as that from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), tracked population growth and changes in religious composition in India since Independence.
Salient features of report
- Every religious group in India has seen its fertility fall, including the majority Hindu population and Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain minority groups.
- While Muslims have the highest fertility rate among India’s major religious groups, their total fertility rate has declined dramatically.
- From 1992 to 2015, the total fertility rates of Muslims declined from 4.4 to 2.6, while that of Hindus declined from 3.3 to 2.1,
- Between 1951 and 1961, the Muslim population expanded by 32.7%, 11 percentage points more than India’s overall rate of 21.6%. But this gap had narrowed. From 2001 to 2011, the difference in growth between Muslims (24.7%) and Indians overall (17.7%) was 7 percentage points.
- Between 1951 and 2011, the number of Hindus grew from 304 million to 966 million. Muslims grew from 35 million to 172 million and the number of Indians who called themselves Christian grew from 8 million to 28 million.
- Between 2001 and 2011, the difference in growth between Muslims (24.7 per cent) and Indians overall (17.7%) was 7 percentage points. Christians registered the slowest growth among the three largest religious groups in the country over the last census decade, growing by 15.7 per cent.
- The report says that Hindus comprised 84.1 per cent of the population in 1951, and 79.8 per cent in 2011, while Muslims comprised 9.8 per cent of the population in 1951, and 14.2 per cent in 2011.
- The average fertility rate in India today was 2.2, which was higher than the rates in economically advanced countries such as the U.S. (1.6), but much lower than what it was in 1992 (3.4) or 1951 (5.9).
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