Getting Muslim maths right: High growth rate but falling

Speaking to The Indian Express, Bainthia said: ‘‘What we gave out was without any adjustments…we did say that J&K and Assam had been excluded…We also gave out the adjusted rate of growth replying to a question,’’ he said.

But releasing ‘‘unadjusted’’ figures did create an inaccurate picture of the religion-wise growth of population in the decade 1991-2001. In the 1991 census, J&K was not surveyed. As a result, the number of Muslims reported in 1991 excluded those who lived in J&K.

The correct way to measure the change in the population is to either exclude the J&K Muslim population from the 2001 Census and then calculate the increase or to make a projection for the 1991 J&K number and then use that number to see how much is the increase.

The ‘‘unadjusted’’ rate suggested that the growth of the Muslim population had accelerated from 34 per cent to 36 per cent from the decade of the 1980s to that of the 1990s, while that of the Hindu population has decelerated from 25 per cent to 20 percent.

The proportion of Muslims in J&K is 67 per cent according to the 2001 census. This means that in 1991, when the projected population in J&K was 7.7 million, the population of Muslims was about 5 million.

In 1981 this number was 3.8 million. If this is included then the total number of Muslims in 1991 was 107 million.

The total number of Muslims in 2001 is reported to be 138 million, whichis a growth rate of 29.4 per cent.