If we take an even earlier figure for Hindus and Muslims, we will find that the Hindu population has grown from 9.2 million in 1951 to 11.1 million in 1991 or just 1.9 million. This is impossibly low, given the ‘Hindu rate of growth’, according to R. Natarajan, one of our respected demographers. The Muslim population in this period increased from 32 million to 93 million, or an absolute increase of 61 million (nearly 300 per cent).

By no stretch of the imagination can it be argued that Hindus are less virile! Far from it, for they procreate at an alarming rate, all over the subcontinent, at Natarajan’s ‘Hindu rate of growth’ of about 2.4 per cent per year or 24 per cent per decade. In the same space of time (1970s to 1991), a total of 32 million Muslims were added to the population at an overall growth rate of 24 per cent. Even to the most casual observer of the demographic scene, the inequality in these figures is obvious.

The 24 per cent decadal growth rate is held to be generally correct wherever Hindu populations exist, wherever they may be located. If we hold this as accurate, then taking the base figure of Hindus of 1974 (9.6 million), we are looking at a prospective population of approximately 14.7 million Hindus. But the census informs us, there are not more than 10.5 million. So where have these prospective numbers gone? No one is even suggesting for a moment that they have all converted to Islam or been butchered. The answer is much more simple: they have moved into India, which for better or worse, like it or not, is still viewed as the Hindu homeland.

This means that not less than four million Hindus who are missing have, to a near certainty, illegally settled in India.

The BJP likes to call them refugees. In my view, an immigrant who comes in illegally, without following the proper procedures, remains an illegal immigrant. The colour of his skin, or the faith he/she proclaims is not material, although those who have fled religious rioting have a better right to settlement that those who have just sneaked over.

One could quibble and say that these are ‘Indian’ figures. Let’s look at what Meghna Guhathakurta, a Bangladeshi scholar, has to say about ‘their’ figures. ‘The status of Hindus in Pakistan . . . became like “fishes in a water tank”, as one Hindu milkman described his situation in the aftermath of a riot. In other words, they became hostages to the politics of the dominant society. They were kept alive’ as long as the dominant society’s interests were served, but were ‘eaten’ i.e. used as scapegoats or targets, whenever revenge was taken on India. ‘Mass out-migration of Hindu population was estimated to be 5.3 million, or 538 persons per day since 1964, going as high as 703 persons per day during 1964-1971.’23