Share of majority population declined in India, increased in rest of South Asia: Study

A global study as part of the EAC-PM Working Paper Series has found that the population share of the majority religious has witnessed a sharp decline even as the rest of the countries in South Asia saw an increase in the percentage of the dominant community.

The result in India is in keeping with the global trends of declining majority, according to the paper Share of Religious Minorities: A Cross-Country Analysis (1950-2015), authored by Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), Shamika Ravi; Consultant EAC-PM Apurv Kumar Mishra and a young professional at EAC-PM Abraham Jose. The study revealed that India witnessed a reduction in the share of the majority religious denomination by 7.81 per cent.

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.

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On the Indian subcontinent, all the Muslim majority countries witnessed an increase in the share of the majority religious denomination except Maldives where the share of the majority group (Shafi’i Sunnis) declined by 1.47 percent. In Bangladesh, there was an 18 percent 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 percent in the share of the majority religious denomination (Hanafi Muslim) and a 10 percent increase in the share of total Muslim population despite the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

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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 percent in the period under study.

Of the three major religions in Nepal, the share of the majority Hindu population declined by 4 percent, the share of Buddhist population declined by 3 percent while the Muslim population increased by 2 percent.

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