Dip in majority population over 65 years: PM panel

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, May 7

The share of majority religious denominations in national populations globally fell by nearly 22 per cent between 1950 and 2015, with India witnessing a decline of 8 per cent in the population of the majority religious group over these 65 years.

GLOBAL SCENARIO

• The study finds that of the 40 nations that saw the biggest demographic changes, more than half are in Africa
• Animism was the majority religious denomination in 24 countries in 1950
• By 2015, it was no longer the majority in any of these countries; of the 94 countries that reported being Christian majority in 1950, 77 saw a dip in the share of the majority religious denomination
• In the same period, 25 of the 38 countries that reported being Muslim majority saw an increase in share of majority religious denomination
• 33 of 35 OECD nations included in analysis have seen a decline in the share of the majority religious denomination, of which 30 have seen a significant decline

The working paper entitled, “Share of Religious Minorities: A Cross-Country Analysis (1950-2015)”, released by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister on Tuesday covered 167 countries to assess the demographic transition in the populations. “Globally, the share of the majority religious denomination has gone down by approximately 22 per cent. In other words, on an average, the world has become more heterogeneous in the period under study,” the paper says.

The study says that in keeping with the global trends of declining majority, India too has witnessed a reduction in the share of the majority religious denomination by 7.81 per cent between 1950 and 2015. “This is particularly remarkable given the wider context within the South Asian neighborhood where the share of the majority religious denomination has increased and minority populations have shrunk alarmingly across countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

It is not surprising, therefore, that minority populations from across the neighborhood come to India during times of duress,” says the panel. On the Indian subcontinent, the researchers found that all Muslim majority countries witnessed an increase in the share of the majority religious denomination except the Maldives where the share of the majority group (Shafi’i Sunnis) declined by 1.47 per cent. In Bangladesh, there was an 18 per cent increase in the share of the majority religious group, which is the largest such increase in the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan witnessed an increase of 3.75 per cent in the share of the majority religious denomination (Hanafi Muslim) and a 10 per cent increase in the share of the total Muslim population despite the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Among non-Muslim majority countries, Myanmar, India and Nepal saw a decline in the share of the majority religious denomination. Myanmar witnessed the steepest decline of the majority religious group in the region with the share of Theravada Buddhist population declining by 10 per cent in the period under study.

The study says that of the three major religions in Nepal, the share of the majority Hindu population declined by 4 per cent, the share of the Buddhist population declined by 3 per cent while the Muslim population increased by 2 per cent.

Only Sri Lanka and Bhutan among non-Muslim majority countries have witnessed an increase in the share of the majority religious denomination between 1950 and 2015.

In Sri Lanka, the share of the majority Theravada Buddhist population increased by 5 per cent while the share of the Hindu population (the next largest religious group) declined by 5 per cent. In Bhutan, the majority Tibetan Buddhist population increased by almost 18 per cent while the Hindu population declined from 23 per cent to 11 per cent in the same period.

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