| The site has a picture of what appears to be a leaky bronze ink well on a metal tray, and a quill pen with the mystifying phrase, "We also count people in India" inscribed in royal blue on feathers stained with yellow. That clears up several things. |
| One, it might help the Census Department if someone gifts them a few computers, or at least some ball point pens, because using quill pens can be rather messy. |
| A blob of ink where a zero should be, for instance, could make all the difference between a 10 per cent rise in the population and a 100 per cent increase. |
| Two, the phrase "We also count people in India" can be interpreted in several ways""a) they count people in the intervals of playing cards, gossiping, swatting flies, knitting, and sundry other activities or b) their main task is to compute the animal, vegetable and insect population, and the job of counting people is incidental, or c) they have bagged outsourcing contracts for censuses in several other countries, and counting people in India is now strictly a low-margin side business. |
| In short, counting Indians is a mere offshoot of other, more lucrative activities, which accounts for the offhand manner in which the entire matter has been treated, Census Commissioner Banthia having other more urgent and important tasks on his mind. |
| Anyway, now that we know why the Census authorities have made a complete mess of analysing the census data, I hope people realise the importance of leaving this kind of job to professional analysts like yours truly. Presented below, accordingly, is a preliminary analysis of the data on religion. |
| The first awful truth that we discover, ladies and gentlemen, is the fact that the rate of growth of the "others", that is those who are not Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains, has increased from 13.2 per cent between 1981 and 1991 to a whopping 111.3 per cent in the last decade. |
| True, so far their numbers are limited to 0.7 per cent of the total population, but that's up from 0.4 per cent in 1991. |
| They have already overtaken the Jain population, and are almost as numerous as the Buddhists. It's clear that Hindu society faces an "other menace", far more potent than the Muslim bogey or the Christian threat. |
| The threat is all the more worrying because we have no idea who these "others" are. They aren't Parsis, because the Census people have said that the Parsis are a dwindling race. |
| Are we witnessing the revival of the tribal cults? Could there be a secret Confucian evangelical mission operating in this country? Or does the danger come from the sinister Taoists? Are they Satan worshippers? Do we face an Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Whoever these shadowy "others" are, they need to be thoroughly investigated and remedial steps taken. |
| Venkaiah Naidu should lose no time in pointing out that the phenomenal growth of the "others" is "a cause of grave concern for all those who think of India's integrity in the long run." |
| Notice that the "others" have the highest work participation rates among all communities, the rate being 48.4 per cent compared to 40.4 per cent for Hindus. |
| The worry is that, if the "others" work so hard, they could very well end up with all the money in the country, which would be a disaster. This Alien Peril must be nipped in the bud. Thankfully, there's a way out. |
| A look at the disaggregated data shows that work participation rates are the highest among the Jains in Mizoram (60.9 per cent), Buddhists in Daman & Diu (70.6 per cent), and, highest of all, a rate of 86.6 per cent for Sikhs in Tripura. |
| All that we need to do is encourage these hard-working communities to come out of Mizoram, Daman &Diu, and Tripura, multiply their numbers, and take over businesses owned by the "others." |
| And lastly, much attention has been focused on the deteriorating sex ratio, the poor literacy rates, and the low levels of work participation among large sections of the population, cutting across communities. |
| Pundits have proposed that we should learn from other countries in order to improve these ratios. Others have suggested following Kerala's shining example. |
| I propose, instead, to point to the Buddhist community of Lakshadweep. It has a literacy rate of 100 per cent, a female literacy rate of 100 per cent, and a work participation rate of 100 per cent. |
| True, there's only one Buddhist in Lakshadweep, but we need to learn from her. |
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