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Another day, another Islamophobic post makes the round on social media, aiming to tear asunder the social fabric of India. Recently, a post titled “Bitter Truth” in Hindi surfaced with an intention to horrify and mislead the general public with its content.
And truly, the post horrifies the rational observer with its lack of logic and even effort given it glaring mathematical inaccuracies. It is indeed a crude visualisation of daily bile of the kind that only reinforces the insecurities of Hindutva supremacists.
Consider the content itself. For example, on the subject of Muslim population in India, it uses wrong percentages… twice! Then is lists crimes such as sexual assault, theft, terrorism, for which the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) keeps detailed information. Hence the data can easily be cross checked consequently junked.
But how did the creator get religion-wise data when the NCRB categorises data by regions, years, and, in the case of sexual assault, age? In fact, no form of record-keeping at the national-level bothers to segregate data by religion.
The meme talks about “charitable subsidies” and “government health services”. No details are given. Full marks for lazy rumour mongering.
The post then takes the cake by saying Muslims’ contribution in tax payment is as low as 0.1 percent! The DoDT does not keep or publish a record of the taxpayer’s religion. Neither does the ITR form have a field for religion. So, one wonders how the learned meme-maker come up with this figure. And for those interested in figures, only 4% of all Indians pay income tax – all religions combined. (Source: CBIT figures for AY 2020-21)
It goes on to cite exact percentages of aggregate topics like population growth (300 percent!), access to subsidies (700 percent!) and access to government health services (800 percent!)
What do these figures mean? Hyperbole much? Does it mean that 8 times more Muslims access health services than other religions out together? From where are they getting these figures? Clearly, it is just a figment of the fertile imagination of a hate mongerer.
Some actual statistics
As per Census 2011 records, Muslims accounts for 14 percent of the Indian population. Whatever the trend with the following decade, that includes the Covid-19 pandemic, it is unlikely that this minority figure could have sprinted to overtake the Hindu population in India (79.7 percent). The 18 percent figure of Muslims as part of total population may have been mistakenly taken from NCRB Prison Statistics for 2019. In it, Muslims accounts for 18 percent convicts. This was the second highest group but far short of 67 percent of Hindus inmates.
Other than education, it is unclear which subsidy the post may be referring to. However, as per the Sachar Committee Report, Muslims had the lowest enrolment rate barring that of SCs/STs in 1999-2000. At the time, the national enrolment rate was 78 percent – not a great number of itself. This only slightly improved in 2004- 05 when the Muslim community’s enrolment rate was slightly higher than that of OBCs. During Covid-19, Bebaak Collective and other organisations put up reports that talked about how Muslim girls were denied education in schools for “fear of spreading the disease”.
Since the NCRB does not maintain data by religion-based categories, it is impossible to verify the crimes figures. However, Muslim women are the only ones to suffer having their photos shared over “auction” apps online. Over 180 women had their photos shared on the infamous S**li Deals and B**li Bai platforms. Shockingly, the maker of one of these apps finally got bail on “humanitarian grounds”!
Theft is indeed condemnable but what about communities that were robbed off of their livelihoods during the pandemic? According to CJP’s Silence of The Looms report, weavers (who are predominantly Muslim) across 13 locations of Uttar Pradesh reported an estimated loss of ₹ 3,000 cr to their handicraft, handloom and power loom business during and after the Covid induced Lockdown.
Around March 28, after Assembly elections, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)– Karnataka voiced concerns about the “economic boycott” of Muslims in at least two districts. Add to that, the 10 incidents of hate after the release of The Kashmir Files and 6 hate speeches flagged by CJP during UP elections, there is a greater need to look at the violence against Muslims than generate fake numbers and contribute to hate.
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