Yogi in Bihar claims Muslim population increased in India due to privileges given to them, contradicts data

Addressing a rally in Gaya, Bihar organised by the BJP in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said defending the newly amended citizenship law that the Muslim community was given special rights since the partition in India. That is the reason the Muslim population has increased manifold in the country.

He criticised Pakistan for the alleged ‘ill-treatment’ towards the minorities and claimed that unlike Pakistan the Muslims are getting better facilities in India and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah should be ‘honoured’ and not attacked for bringing the CAA.

Adityanath said, “The Muslim population in India has increased manifold since 1947, it has gone up by seven to eight times. No one has any objection. If they, as citizens of the country, work for development, they are welcome. Their population has increased because they have been given special rights and facilities. All possible steps were taken to ensure their growth. But what happened in Pakistan?”

“Why the Hindu population has decreased in Pakistan since 1947?” he asked.

But the UP CM statement contradicts the 2011 census data which shows the fact that growth in the Muslim population is actually falling faster than the Hindu population growth rate. The Muslim population stands at 17.22 crore or 14.22% of India’s total population.

The Muslim community has registered a 0.8 per cent growth to touch 17.22 crore between 2001 and 2011, up from 13.8 crores but the rate of growth is considerably lower than in previous decades, whereas Hindu population has shown a decline by 0.7 per cent at 96.63 crores during the period, the census data said.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s claims that the non-Muslim population has drastically decreased in Pakistan also proves to be false when we look at the figures.

The BJP has been harping on this ‘falsified’ fact that the non-Muslim population in Pakistan has decreased from 23% to 3.7%. Even Home Minister Amit Shah while presenting the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill argued that the “minorities in Pakistan were either persecuted or took shelter in India”.

But the fact is that after Partition the first consensus took place in Pakistan in 1951 and the non-Muslim population stood at 14.20%. This non-Muslim population was also not evenly distributed in Pakistan. 23.20% non-Muslim population resided in East Pakistan and only 3.44% non-Muslim lived in West Pakistan. East Pakistan is today’s Bangladesh.

So, when we discuss Pakistan’s population, we have to focus on the West Pakistan which is Pakistan today. And in 1972 and 1981 consensus, the non-Muslim population in Pakistan showed a minuscule rise. In Pakistan, the non-Muslim population has since then been hovering around 3.50% and it was never 23% as is always claimed by the BJP and its leaders.