NEW DEHLI: Amit Upadhyay repeats false information from the internet while claiming to understand why India’s population is increasing. He states that Hindu ladies must have more children because his Muslim neighbours have too many children.
Upadhyay, a pharmacist by profession, is one of many influencers on social media from India’s dominant religion who have built sizable followers by disseminating incorrect demographic information to suggest that the nation is being transformed into an Islamic state.
For them, the news that India had surpassed China to become the world’s most populous country last month was a call to action rather than a reason for celebration.
“I told all my Hindu customers to produce more children, to counter Muslims,” said Upadhyay, who in his leisure time runs a well-liked Facebook page from his house in Uttar Pradesh state, according to AFP. The Hindu religion in India will eventually be exterminated if they don’t stop being a menace. To his approximately 40,000 followers, Upadhyay frequently publishes widely circulated anti-Islamic articles.
An allegation that Muslims were planning to “multiply their population to take control of India” was made in an April post. 1.4 billion People live in India, including 210 million Muslims, but birth rates have fallen significantly over the past few decades in keeping with worldwide trends.
The most recent National Family Health Survey conducted in 2021 revealed a fertility rate of 2.0 children per woman nationwide, with a little increase to 2.3 among Muslim women. According to a prediction made by the Pew Research Centre that same year, India’s Muslim population would increase to 311 million by 2050.
By the middle of the century, Muslims would still make up a small minority in a nation of 1.7 billion people, despite their increasing proportion of the population. That hasn’t stopped the viral spread of false information that India will soon have a Muslim majority on Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms. One Facebook post mockingly thanked Muslims “for producing 5-10 children” apiece in response to the news that India’s population had surpassed China’s.
Another tweet claimed that the Hindu religion would soon vanish from India and that “Islamic law” would replace the current constitution due to a purported Muslim majority. Population management Hindu nationalist ideologues have long favoured conspiracy theories that claim a Muslim plot exists to ensure the faith’s numerical dominance in India. In other nations, the far-right has embraced the belief that immigrants and minorities are “replacing” the main population.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has occasionally engaged in the ideas. The BJP has dominated national politics partly because of its forceful appeals to the nation’s Hindu majority. One hundred twenty-five other MPs backed the population restriction measure that BJP member Rakesh Sinha filed into parliament in 2019, which called for restricting Indian households to two children.
When Sinha gave a speech on the allegedly stark difference between Hindu and Muslim birthrates, critics claimed he was targeting Muslims. Sinha refuted this claim. The bill was withdrawn as a result. These assertions have gained new life in the wake of the UN’s April statement stating that India currently hosts the most significant number of people worldwide.
