Muslim devotees offer morning prayers to start the Eid al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of their holy fasting month of Ramadan, at the Jama Masjid Khairuddin in Amritsar on April 22, 2023. AFP
NEW DELHI 鈥� Amit Upadhyay repeats online misinformation as he claims to know why India鈥檚 population is growing: he says his Muslim neighbors are having too many babies, so Hindu women have a responsibility to bear more of their own.
A pharmacist by trade, Upadhyay is one of many social media influencers from India鈥檚 majority faith to have cultivated large audiences by spreading false demographic data to claim the country is being refashioned into an Islamic state.
For them, last month鈥檚 announcement that India had overtaken China to become the world鈥檚 most populous nation was not a cause for celebration, but a call to action.
鈥淚 tell all my Hindu customers to produce more children, to counter Muslims,鈥� Upadhyay, who in his spare time curates a popular Facebook page from his home in Uttar Pradesh state, told AFP.
鈥淥r else they will become a threat and eventually wipe out the Hindu religion from India.鈥�
Upadhyay regularly publishes widely shared Islamophobic posts to his nearly 40,000 followers.
One post in April warned of an alleged plot by Muslims to 鈥渕ultiply their population to take control of India鈥�.
India is home to聽1.4 billion people, including around 210 million Muslims, but birthrates have declined across the board over recent decades in tandem with global trends.
The country鈥檚 last National Family Health Survey in 2021 showed an overall fertility rate of 2.0 children per woman, rising marginally to 2.3 for Muslim women.
A forecast issued the same year from the Pew Research Center said that India鈥檚 Muslim community would grow to 311 million by 2050.
But despite their growing share of the national population, Muslims would remain a small minority in a country of 1.7 billion people by mid-century, according to the US-based think tank鈥檚 projections.
That has not stopped the spread of viral disinformation on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms claiming India is soon to become a Muslim-majority country.
One Facebook post sarcastically greeted news that India鈥檚 population had overtaken China鈥檚 by thanking Muslims 鈥渇or producing 5-10 children鈥� each.
Another post on Twitter said that the Hindu faith would soon disappear from India, while a supposed Muslim majority would replace the country鈥檚 constitution with 鈥淚slamic law鈥�.
Population control
Conspiracy theories that allege a Muslim plot to secure the faith鈥檚 numerical supremacy in India have been a staple of Hindu nationalist ideologues for years. Similar theories of immigrants and minorities 鈥渞eplacing鈥� majority populations have also been embraced by the far-right in other countries.
At times the theories have been indulged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi鈥檚 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has come to dominate national politics partly through its muscular appeals to the country鈥檚 Hindu majority.
BJP lawmaker Rakesh Sinha introduced into parliament a population control bill in 2019 that proposed to limit all Indian households to two children, garnering the support of 125 other MPs.
The bill was withdrawn after critics accused Sinha of targeting Muslims when he gave a speech on the supposedly glaring disparity between Hindu and Muslim birthrates 鈥� an accusation he denied.
The UN鈥檚 April announcement that India is now home to more humans than any other country on the planet has reinvigorated these claims.
鈥淗indus will get married once, and have two children,鈥� Ishwar Lal, a member of a Hindu-nationalist group affiliated with the BJP, said in a public speech after the announcement.
鈥淲hereas Muslims get married four times and have so many children that they can have their own cricket teams.鈥�
The same month, at a popular pilgrimage destination in the Himalayan foothills, a religious sermon exhorted a crowd of the Hindu faithful to wage their own demographic counter-offensive.
鈥淔rom two children, Hindus have come down to producing one child,鈥� priest Ravindra Puri told a crowd of hundreds at Haridwar. 鈥淭his is causing an imbalance in the population.鈥�
The solution to this imbalance, Puri said, was for the pious to have three children: 鈥淥ne to serve the nation, one to take care of the home and one to serve the religion by becoming a priest.鈥�
India鈥檚 former election chief, S.Y. Quraishi, has written extensively on the spread of disinformation about the country鈥檚 Muslim birthrate.
He said that claims Muslims would soon become India鈥檚 majority religion had proved to be a salient 鈥減ropaganda鈥� tool for Hindu nationalists.
鈥淭hey continue to provoke Hindus to produce more children by creating a fear that Muslims will outnumber them,鈥� he told AFP.
鈥淭his will never happen.鈥�
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