Mumbai’s Christian population falls

MUMBAI: The Christian community in the city recorded negative population growth as against Hindus and Muslims who are growing at a faster rate, birth and death figures from the civic health department showed.

Last year, 3,763 infants were born to Christians while 3,887 members of the community died, indicating a fall in growth rate. In this period, there were 1.2 lakh Hindu births and 74,003 deaths; the Muslim community saw 50,353 children being born as against 16,898 deaths. The birth-death rate ratio of Muslims is almost double that of Hindus, showing a much more robust population growth.

Demographers and community leaders said family planning and migration seemed to be the main reasons behind the shrinking of the Christian population. “The trend here is in tune with the national trend. The stress has been on providing quality life to one child than having more children,” said Dolphy DSouza, former president of the Bombay Catholic Sabha.

Wille Shirsat, a parishioner of the 400-year-old IC Church in Borivali, said the decrease in birth-death rate reflects the socio-economic progress made by the community. “Though there has not been any conscious programme by the church, five years ago the church did suggest that it was the duty of every couple to provide quality life to their infant. Since most of us hail from the middle class working background, many couples on their own decided to have just one child,” Shirsat said.

Social activist Edwin Britto agreed, citing his own family’s example. “We were nine bothers but our nine brothers have just eight children. Since both the husband and wife work in most Christian families and they live in a nuclear family set-up, they find it difficult to have more than one child,” he said.

“Many Christian youths have migrated to the US and Canada. In many Christian-dominated areas like Bandra and IC Colony, there is a large population of senior citizens and, perhaps, this is also a reason for the increase in Christian deaths,” RTI activist Chetan Kothari, who filed a query on the issue, said.

A two-year comparison of birth-death figures show there has been an overall increase in births as compared to deaths. While there was an increase of 9,618 births, in the corresponding period there was an increase of 7,388 deaths.

Social scientists and Islamic scholars who have been tracking demographic changes among Muslims attributed the higher population growth to lack of adequate family planning and poverty. “The belief that more pairs of hands can earn more seems to be holding sway in the lower middle class Muslim community. Many community members have more than four children though there has been a high incidence of infant mortality among the poorer sections,” said Asghar Ali Engineer, director of the Institute of Islamic Studies.

He said the increase in birth rate has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. “It is related to issues like poverty, illiteracy and lack of women’s empowerment. In 1998, we did a survey which showed that the population in Malappuram, a predominantly Muslim district in Kerala, had lesser population growth as compared to such a district in Uttar Pradesh. This is because of high literacy rate there,” Engineer said.

He said a majority of the upper class Muslims today undertakes family planning measures. “As the socio- economic status of a community improves, the population comes down,” he explained. End of Report

Viju B, TNN