ISLAMABAD: With India set to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation this month, experts say the shrinking of its Muslim families demonstrates the success of its decades-long population control programs and signals demographic stability.
Reuters spoke with six Muslim women and men and seven community leaders, population experts, and Islamic scholars. Everyone agreed that there had been a significant increase in awareness of family planning and birth control among Indian Muslims.
According to the once-every-ten-year census, Muslims are India’s second largest religious community, accounting for 14.2% of the 1.2 billion population. Hindus made up 79.8% of the population.
The census for 2021 has been postponed, but the United Nations predicts that India’s population will reach 1.42 billion this month. After Indonesia and Pakistan, the country has the world’s third-largest Muslim population.
In the last 15 years, there has been a trend towards smaller Muslim families, with the National Family Health Survey showing a drop in the Muslim fertility rate – the average number of children a woman has – to 2.4 in 2019-21 from 2.6 in 2015-16 and 3.4 in 2005-06.
Although it is still higher than all other communities at 2.4, the decline has been the quickest, nearly halving from 4.4 in 1992-93.
Islam and birth control
In a mostly conservative community, some Muslim priests, or imams, have played a significant role in bringing about the change.
“There is a widespread misconception among Muslims that Islam forbids the use of
contraception,” said Maulana Khalid Rasheed, imam of the Lucknow Eidgah in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
“However, the Shariat talks about family planning,” he pointed out, referring to Islam’s sacred laws. “It is our responsibility to dispel these myths. We have held awareness campaigns, made appeals, and given speeches about what Shariat has said about such issues.”
According to experts, more must be done to target less educated, poorer Muslims living outside of cities.
Government health workers in the eastern state of Bihar said they meet with local mosque leaders on a regular basis and ask them to recommend birth control to men after Friday prayers. However, the results have not been encouraging.
“Islam promotes healthy families, and it is up to people to decide how many children they want,” said Ahmed Daikundh, the custodian of the Al Azar mosque in Kishanganj, a poor rural district in Bihar.
Despite the high birth rates in the area, Daikundh stated that his generation had fewer children than the previous.
“We are seven brothers and four sisters, with four or five children each,” he explained.
Unmet Needs of Muslims in India
Still, according to Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the non-profit Population Foundation of India, attitudes were changing among poorer Muslims, particularly among the younger generation.
According to experts, the public health system can now not meet the demand for birth control services from people aware of their utility, also known as an unmet need.
According to government data from 2019-21, 11.8% of the Muslim population had an unmet need to help space out or limit children. According to the data, the Muslim fertility rate of 2.4 is rapidly approaching the Hindu rate of 1.94.
