Nations rise, nations collapse, nations expand and nations shrink. The keyword here is ‘Nation’, which in its correct, original definition refers to a people and not a State, and the truth is, the Hindu Nation has been shrinking for more than a thousand years. The partition of India was nothing but just one of many outcomes resulting from the said phenomenon over time. But even as the optimists on the Hindu side would’ve hoped that the partition would put an end to the many problems of the Hindu Nation vis-a-vis Islam, it did not do so, for the Hindu Nation kept shrinking.
Shrinkage here is a relative term, not an absolute one. So it refers to shrinkage in terms of proportion of the population, or the shrinkage or territorial distribution, and not total numbers. In that sense, the past 140 years provide a rather sobering picture of the demographic reality of the territory of ‘Undivided India’ (India+Pakistan+Bangladesh), as the following numbers will show:
Year %age Muslim
1881: 19.97%
1901: 21.88%
1941: 24.28%
1951: 24.28%
1991: 29.25%
2001: 30.38%
2020: 32.44%
In essence, what this data tells us is that the Indian sub-continent has gone from 1/4th Muslim to 1/3rd Muslim in the span of 70 to 80 years, which is like the blink of an eye in the life of a civilisation. Hindus (and other Indic religionists) have gone from outnumbering Muslims 4:1 some 140 years ago, to just 2:1 today. Quite critically, this shrinkage isn’t just a macro-level Indian sub-continent phenomenon, but is also occurring in India when we take the country into isolation. Muslims were 9.8% of the Indian population in 1951, while Hindus were 84.1%. By 2011, Muslims had become 14.2% of the Indian population, while Hindus had fallen below 80%, to 79.8%. What this means in more easy to understand terms is that Hindus outnumbered Muslims by a ratio of 8.6 to 1 in 1951, but now outnumber them by a ratio of only 5.6:1, which is a huge change in itself. And this trend isn’t going to stop in the near future, as the following numbers for the country as a whole will show you:
Age Group %age Muslim
0-4 17.23
5-9 16.92
10-14 16.16
15-19 15.85
20-24 14.93
25-29 13.73
30-34 13.03
35-39 12.77
40-44 12.27
45-49 11.7
50-54 11.37
55-59 11.02
60-64 11.13
65-69 10.59
70-74 10.32
75-79 9.52
80+ 10.65
If these numbers are any indication, then the demographic advantage of Hindus over Muslims had dropped further in the 0-4 age group, to just 4.4:1 by 2011 (since the numbers are from the 2011 Census). In 2020? Who knows, but what is likely is that we are at a point where the Hindu to Muslim population advantage in the 0-4 age group has already dropped below a 4:1 ratio, and that is nothing but a window to the future.
Past experience would dictate, that given these demographic trends, Muslim demands for greater autonomy and exclusive rights will again reach fever pitch some time in the near future. The Indian State currently has enough resources and manpower to follow a carrot and stick policy to keep the sole openly rebellious Muslim region in check, and also to keep an eye on other pockets of small-time extreme. But what happens when there is not one Kashmir like scenario, but 3 or 4 or even 5? Then the costs associated with policing and appeasement will not be justifiable or even maintainable for too long, and like it or not, the Indian State will have to begin a painful process of ceding territory.
What will this hypothetical scenario look like? Well, for one we can guess that it will be so messy that it would make the original partition look like a unique exercise in dispassionate competence and clarity. The issue this time around would be that the emerging belts of Muslim majority areas are all located quite far apart from each other, in different parts of the country. Firstly we have the Kashmir Valley and some adjoining districts of the Jammu division and Ladakh, where State authority is already being openly challenged, next we have North-West UP and Southern Uttarakhand, and other nearby districts like Mewat, Palwal, etc. Then there is another belt consisting of the northern districts of Awadh and Poorvanchal in UP adjoining the Nepal border.
After that we have parts of Seemanchal in Bihar, plus almost all the districts of West Bengal bordering Bangladesh. Further East, we have Lower Assam and parts of the Barak Valley, again bordering Assam. Heading straight to the South after this, we have North Kerala, where every district from Palakkad northwards is quickly falling to Islam demographically. Lastly, there are some border districts like Kutch and Jaisalmer where worsening demographic trends in the future. could make them to susceptible to Pakistani encroachment. Overall, the territorial losses would be something like the blackened areas of this map:
In this hypothetical ‘Partition 2.0’ much of J&K and the Kargil district of Ladakh would be ceded to Pakistan (de facto or de jure as well, doesn’t matter). Kutch and Jaisalmer would also be ceded to Pakistan. A Hindi-Urdu speaking Muslim state would be created bang in the middle of the North Indian heartland, while most of the districts we talked about in the East and the North-East would go to Bangladesh, with a narrow corridor being preserved by India to retain access to its remaining territories in the North-East. North Kerala, again, would become an Independent Muslim State.
If this dystopian scenario seems shocking to you, do note that this is just based off of projecting our current demographic trajectory just 40 or 50 years into the future. If we were hypothetically talking about demographic trends till let’s say 2100 or even further beyond, then the demographic and territorial losses could be so catastrophic that the existence of an independent Hindu-majority India as a viable State would itself be put into jeopardy.
So we may be the final few generations whose decisions will determine whether the fate of Hindu Civilisation in the land of Bharat is sealed this century or not. That is a massive responsibility to shoulder, but alas, it is a burden which cannot be passed along to our future descendants any longer.
A lawyer by training, Ibn Kufr is a blogger and YouTuber who writes at Frontier Indica. He particularly maintains a keen interest in International Relations, Demography & Indian Politics.
