Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Hindus. Show all posts

Friday, January 26, 2024

Indian Muslims: The Poorest Group in Modi's Hindu Rashtra

Muslims are the poorest group in India. They will most likely face further marginalization after the recent inauguration of the Ram Temple built on the ruins of the historic Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The medieval mosque was demolished by right-wing Hindu groups in 1992. While consolidating the power of the upper caste Hindus in India, the newly built Ram Temple, inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will also not benefit the vast majority of Hindus either. It will, however, help Mr. Modi's BJP party win the upcoming election by a wide margin.

Average Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure in India. Source: Hindustan Times

Analysis of 2021-22 data from AIDIS (All India Debt and Investment Survey) and PLFS (Periodic Labor Force Survey) shows that Indian Muslims have the lowest asset and consumption levels among major religious groups in the country. Even upper caste Muslims (Ashrafs) are poorer than Hindu OBCs (Other Backward Castes).

Average MPCE (Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure) for Muslims is only Rs. 2,170, lower than Rs. 2,470 for Hindus, Rs. 3,194 for Christians and Rs. 3,620 for Sikhs. Average MPCE for upper caste Hindus is Rs. 3,321, the highest of all groups.

Average Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure by Caste in India. Source: Hindustan Times

The economic inequality is the lowest among Muslims, far lower than among various Hindu castes. Average MPCE for lower caste Muslims is Rs. 2,164 while it is Rs. 2,180 for upper caste Muslims (Ashrafs). Inequality among Hindu castes is the highest. Lower caste Hindus average MPCE is only Rs. 2,095, far lower than Rs. 3,321 for upper caste Hindus.

India is almost totally dominated by the upper caste Hindus. It is not just the 220 million Dalits (untouchables), or the 190 million Muslims, or the 110 million from “scheduled tribes” (Adivasis) who are under-represented in positions of power and privilege, but also the 40-50% of Hindus who come from the widest tier of the pyramid, the shudras or laboring castes, known as Other Backwards Classes (OBCs), according to a report in The Economist Magazine. Here's an excerpt from The Economist:

"Out of the 89 highest-ranked civil servants in the central government, according to a recent survey, just four are not upper-caste Hindus, and not one is an obc. Two-thirds of the Supreme Court’s 31 judges and more than half of all state governors are high-caste Hindus. When the home ministry recently formed a panel to revise the criminal code, its five experts were all men, all from north India and all from upper castes. The trend is just as stark outside of government. A study published last year of the mainstream Hindi and English press revealed that out of 121 people in senior jobs, such as editors, all but 15 were upper caste. Not a single one was a Dalit."

------------------------------

PS: Since I published this post in January this year, there has been a barrage of comments (all rejected) claiming without evidence that the Indian Muslims are richer than Pakistani Muslims. The fact is that the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) in Pakistan was PKR 5,959 in 2019-20, the year closest to the 2021-22 for which the Indian MPCE data is available. Using the 2019 average exchange rate of 2.136 PKR to INR, this works out to MPCE of INR 2,789 in Pakistan, higher than for Indian Hindus (INR 2,470) and Muslims (INR 2,170). As to the cost of living in the two countries, Pakistan is 15.8% cheaper than India without rent and 20.1% cheaper with rent, according to Numbeo.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Fact-Checking Farahnaz Ispahani's Claims in "Purifying the Land of the Pure"

In "Purifying the Land of the Pure", the author Ms. Farahnaz Ispahani, the wife of Mr. Husain Haqqani who served as Pakistan's Ambassador in Washington from 2008 to 2011, asserts that "by 1949, the non-Muslim population of Pakistan had been significantly diluted.....the percentage of Muslims in the areas constituting Pakistan rose from 77% in 1941 to 83% in 1949".

In other words, the population of minorities, mostly Hindus, was 17% in 1949 in Pakistan. This included both east and west Pakistan. Let's examine what has happened to the minority population in Pakistan since 1971 when East Pakistan split off to form Bangladesh. More specifically, let's focus on the Hindu population that constitutes overwhelming majority of religious minorities population.

Hindu population of the areas that now constitute post-1971 Pakistan was 15% in 1931 India Census. It declined to 14% in 1941. Then first Pakistan Census in 1951 showed it was 1.3% after the massive cross-border migration of both Hindus and Muslims in 1947. During the partition, 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India from what became Pakistan, while over 8 million Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan. Since 1951, the Hindu population of what is now Pakistan has grown from 1.3% to 1.9% now.

Pew Research reported in 2017 that nearly half of India’s migrants are in just three countries: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and the United States. About 3.5 million Indians live in the UAE, the top destination country for Indian migrants. Over the past two decades, millions of Indians have migrated there to find employment as laborers. Pakistan has the second-largest number of Indian-born migrants, with 2 million who, according to the World Bank, send nearly $5 billion a year in remittances to their poor Muslim relatives in India.

The biggest exodus of Muslims from India was from the Indian Punjab where the Muslim population declined from 32% in 1941 to 0.8% in 1951.

Source: Hindustan Times

Muslims in Indian Punjab. Indian Census Data

Contrary to the sensational media headlines about declining Hindu population in Pakistan, the fact is that Hindu birth rate is significantly higher than the country's national average. Although Hindus make up only 1.9% of Pakistan's population, it is among the worlds fastest growing Hindu communities today, growing faster than the Hindu populations in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Hindu Population in West Pakistan Source: Census Data

`Pakistan Census data. For 1931 and 1941, the figures are for West Pakistan in undivided India. For 1951 and 1961, the figures are for West Pakistan in undivided Pakistan. Data for 1971 could not be accessed.

Hindu population of the areas that now constitute Pakistan was 15% in 1931 India Census. It declined to 14% in 1941 India Census. Then first Pakistan Census in 1951 showed it was 1.3% after the massive cross-border migration of both Hindus and Muslims in 1947. During the partition, 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India from what became Pakistan, while over 8 million Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan. Since 1951, the Hindu population of what is now Pakistan has grown from 1.3% to 1.9% now.

Top Countries With Hindu Populations Source: Pew Research Center

Fastest Growing Religions By Countries

Sindhi Hindu Woman

Hindu fertility rate (TFR) of 3.2 children per woman in Pakistan is much higher than national fertility rate of 2.86. With 3.33 million Hindus, Pakistan is currently home to the world's 5th largest Hindu population. By 2050, Pakistan will rank 4th with 5.6 million Hindus, surpassing Indonesia which is currently ranked 4th largest Hindu country, according to Pew Research.

While it is true that some Pakistani Hindus have been targets of religious bigotry and intolerance by some extremists in the majority Muslim community, there are also many many examples of mutual tolerance and respect between Hindus and Muslims in the country. In the city of Mithi in Sindh's Tharparkar district, for example, Muslims do not slaughter cows out of respect for their fellow citizens of Hindu faith, and Hindus, out of respect for Muslim rites do not have marriage celebrations during the month of Muharram. Hassan Raza, a student journalist, quoted a resident of a village near Mithi as saying:

"In our village, Hindus and Muslims have been living together for decades and there has not been a single day, when I have seen a religious conflict. No loud speaker is used for Azaan at the time when Hindus are worshiping in their temple, and no bells are rung when it is time for namaz. Nobody eats in public when it is Ramazan and Holi is played by every member of the village."

Diwali Celebration in Mithi, Pakistan

Another example is Rohiri in Sindh where a visiting Canadian-Indian Hindu diplomat saw a thriving Hindu community. Here's an except of how he describes his visit to Rohiri:

"One of the most interesting elements of the trip was visiting my father’s town, Rohiri, his birthplace. I found there was still a sizeable Hindu community there. That totally took me by surprise. We still think there was a massive religious cleansing in Pakistan and there were no Hindus left. Then I came across this family of shopkeepers who said, “Don’t worry about anything. Stay with us.” They gave me lunch and dinner and put me on the night train to Lahore. Talking to this family in the neighbourhood where my father grew up and was married was fascinating. The question that came to mind was why did my father’s family leave Pakistan and why are these people still here? Official figures suggest 14 million people were displaced after partition and that half a million to a million people were killed. And yet 60 years later these Hindu people in Rohiri are still there. They felt connected to the place where they were born. In the three towns I passed through I kept meeting Hindus — traders, professionals. Their numbers were small, 300 or 400 families in each of these towns. They have their own places of worship. I dared to ask: “Are you happy here?” and they said, “Yes, this is the land where we were born.”"

Pakistani Fashion Designer Deepak Perwani in Karachi

A successful Karachi-based Hindu Pakistani fashion designer Deepak Perwani said the following while talking to Indian media in 2012:

"People keep asking me, 'Oh you guys didn't migrate?', 'How are you treated there?' and so on. The questions show a lack of awareness." Perwani is part of Karachi's flourishing Hindu community, which is small but visible and influential even today. One lakh of Karachi's 1.3 crore population is Hindu.

As Perwani puts it, a lot of what people say about Pakistani Hindus shows "a lack of awareness".

Monday, June 22, 2015

Altaf-Zardari Predicament; Charleston Shooting; Pakistani Hindus

Why are PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and top MQM leader Altaf Husain lashing out at the Pakistan Army? What is it that they fear? Will they face prosecution for alleged crimes? How will their reactions shape Pakistan's and Sindh's politics? Where will it lead the country?

Why did a young white male shot to death 9 Black worshippers at AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina? Is this a act of terrorism? What role did race play in this tragedy? Did lack of any gun control contribute to the scale of this massacre? Has racist terror in America claimed many times more lives than "Islamic" terror since 911? Will FBI now focus on it more vigorously than"Islamic" terror in America? Will it give impetus to renewed gun control efforts?

How is Pakistani Hindu population doing? Is it really declining rapidly as frequent headlines proclaim? Or is it increasing faster than the general population in Pakistan? What does the recent Pew survey show?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Misbah Azam discusses these and other questions with Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com):

https://vimeo.com/131394960

Viewpoint from Overseas June 20, 2015 from WBT TV on Vimeo.

https://youtu.be/pGtOAFXGwGs

http://dai.ly/x2v6sdd

Viewpoint from Overseas June 20, 2015 by ViewpointFromOverseas

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Anti-Corruption in Illinois and Pakistan

Zardari Corruption Conviction in Switzerland

We Hang Petty Thieves and Appoint Great Ones to High Offices

Gangster Politicians of Karachi

Gangs of Karachi

FBI Entrapping Young Muslims

Gun Deaths in America

Pakistan's Hindu Population Growth

Viewpoint From Overseas Vimeo Channel

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Bigotry Bedevils Silicon Valley's Indian Eatery

Tamil Hindu operators of Vaigai, a South Indian restaurant in Sunnyvale, CA, that serves the ever popular dosas, are facing charges of anti-Muslim bias brought by two Muslim cooks.

In a lawsuit filed in late January in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Abdul Rahuman, 44, and Nowsath Malik Shaw, 39, both of San Jose, allege they were harassed for being Muslim by Vaigai's two owners, a manager and a top chef — a violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.

According to the complaint, restaurant personnel regularly used ethnic slurs such as "Thulakkan," a pejorative term for Muslims in Sri Lankan Tamil dialect, to harass the two Muslim cooks. Also according to the complaint, restaurant staff were encouraged to call the plaintiffs by names such as "Rajan" or "Nagraj" under the pretext of not wanting to upset customers who might stop patronizing the restaurant if they heard the men referred to by their Muslim names.

The complaint also states that the plaintiffs were forced to participate in a religious ceremony despite telling the owners it was against their Islamic beliefs. The complaint alleges that the restaurant owners insisted on their participation and proceeded to smear a powder on their foreheads, making the religious marking known as a "tilak."

Named in the complaint as defendants are: co-owners Vijay Anand (who also goes by Vijayanand Krishnan) and Shridar Nataraj, Manager Sudakar Jothinathan, and Chef Balaguru, whose first name is never mentioned.

"These incidents clearly violated the Muslim workers' rights and the treatment they received speaks of a level of intolerance that is deeply disturbing," said CAIR-SFBA Programs and Outreach Director Agnes Chong. "There is a need for communities to be respectful of similarities as well as differences of other faiths, and it is all the more important in the workplace."

As in many other Indian states, Tamil Nadu, the southern state the restaurant owners originally come from, has also seen instances of increasing bigotry and violence against Muslims in recent years. In a piece titled "Terrifying Testimonies", Indian writer Yoginder Sikand has documented cases of imprisonment on trumped up charges and police violence against Muslims in many parts of India. One of the cases he talks about is that of Yakoob Khan and his friend, Tamil Muslims in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Sikand writes as follows:

"27 year-old Yakoob Khan from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, was arrested at the age of 17, accused of being involved in the Coimbatore blasts in 1998, a charge that he vehemently denies. 'On the day of the blast I attended class at the Industrial Training Institute where I was enrolled, and when I was returning home I heard about the blasts'. In the wake of the blasts, the police went on a rampage, indiscriminately picking up Muslim youth. Some days later, Yakoob found himself in prison, where he was to spend almost the next ten years, much of it in solitary confinement in a small cage- like cell. 'I was accused of being in possession of explosive material, and of being associated with the Islamic group Al-Ummah, although I had never even heard its name.' In addition to routine torture, while in jail he was often abused for his religion. 'I would be beaten up if I wanted to say namaz. My torturers would tell me to face them while praying, rather than the Kaaba. They tore my Quran, and while beating me they would scream "Bharat Mata ki Jai"'. 'They ruined ten precious years of my life, my youth, falsely branding me as a terrorist', he says."

"Yakoob Khan's friend, 34 year-old Shiv Kumar, alias Abdul Hamid, is a Hindu convert to Islam. He eked out as livelihood selling old newspapers and utensils for recycling. He was accused of being involved in the Coimbatore blasts, a charge that he denies. The police forced him to sign a blank piece of paper which they later filled out themselves, threatening him that if he refused to do so they would arrest his family as well. He was remanded to the Coimbatore jail on the basis of this forced 'confession' and his repeated applications for bails were rejected. Because he was the sole earner in his family, his wife was forced to beg in order to survive. He was finally acquitted only recently, after almost ten years in incarceration. 'I was mercilessly tortured in prison. I was constantly told that if I had not become a Muslim and had remained a Hindu I would not have been beaten like this', he says."

The Mercury News quotes Mani Manivannan, former president of the Bay Area Tamil Manram, an association of 500 members who hail from Tamil Nadu as saying, "Tamil Nadu used to be one of the most secular states in the Indian union. They went out of their way to make sure people were treated the same. Muslims used to feel like full citizens."

Unfortunately, Manivannan added, the growing rift between Hindus and Muslims in India, has now spilled outside the country.

"That disease has spread to the U.S. as well," said Manivannan, a Hindu who had not heard about the case until called by the Mercury News. "Not a lot. But enough people get influenced by the news in India."

Still, Manivannan said there are plenty of Hindus and Muslims who get along. He pointed how everyone he knows, no matter their background, is extremely proud of AR Rahman, a Muslim from Tamil Nadu who made history by becoming the first Indian to win two Oscars for his music in the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire".

Related Links:

Slumdog Millionaire

India's Guantanamos and Abu Ghraibs

Muslims--India's New Untouchables