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| Baseless fears over Census manipulation | | |
The Kashmir High Court Bar Association has decided to hold a seminar in Srinagar on Tuesday for making people aware of the importance of the census and its impact on the resolution of the Kashmir issue.In fact the only purpose that has motivated,rather provoked the Bar Association,to hold the seminar is the fears in the mind of its members that the enumerators were trying to fudge figures on population so that the new census records rapid decrease in the population of muslims.Well the alarm bells regarding the fudging census figures had been rung by the separatists,headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani.The current noise over the census operations is nothing new.It has been there earlier also and in 1991 the census exercise could not be completed because of militancy related violence.The 2001 census report was greeted with protests from a section of people in Jammu on the plea that major increase in the muslim population in the border district of Kupwara,which
had been ravaged by militancy related violence, was nothing but manipulation to show that the state had more muslims than the Hindus.There is no doubt that during the last 300 years the state of Jammu and Kashmir has remained a muslim majority state and that too when the area witnessed mass conversion of Hindus in the Kashmir valley .Since then and even after the partition of India,which left one third of the oiginal state with Pakistan,the muslim majority character of Jammu and Kashmir has never suffered any erosion or change.The Bar Association members,while alleging mischief in recording the demography of the state,have referred to the 2001 census saying that in the report mulims have been shown to be constituting 65 per cent of the total population in Jammu and Kashmir.Possibly the learned members of the Bar do not know that since the 1941 census there has been gradual decrease in the population of muslims.The decrease was but natural after a major section of muslims opted to stay in Azad Kashmir or Pakistan administered Kashmir.The Bar members need to be reminded that never in the past any attempt was made to show Hindus outnumbering mslims.Look at the 2001 census.Muslims constitute 97.16 per cent of the toal population in the Kashmir valley whereas Hindus constitute 1.84 per cent.In Ladakh region muslims constitute 47.40 per cent of the total population against 45.87 per cent by the Buddhists.This way out of the three regions muslims enjoy majority in two regions of Kashmir and Ladakh.It in the Jammu region that the Hindus constitute 65.23 per cent of the total population against 30.69 per cent muslims.In 1971 census Muslims were shown to constitute 67 per cent of the total population which declined to 65 per cent in 1981 census.Since then it has remained stationary despite the claim of the separatists that over one lakh muslims were killed in the Kashmir valley during the last 20 years
of militancy related turmoil and violence.Increase or decrease in the population of a community is connected with the fertility ratio of the elligible couples,the level of acceptance of family planning,exodus of people to different states and countries in connection with studies or employment,nonavailability of family members in their houses at the time of enumeration and usual reluctance of people in sharing information with the census enumerators.One need not ignore these factors.If tomorrow Kashmiri Pandits clamour over decline in their population as shown in the census their allegations are unfounded because over two lakh Kashmiri Hindus,after their exodus from the valley in 1990,have shifted to other states in India and to several foreign countries during the last 20 years.Hence stop raking up issues that have the potential of enhancing the level of communal and regional divide.(eom)
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