Religious minorities in India a spatial perspective

Abstract

The quantitative aspects, numerical strength, increase or decrease in the growth and development of religious minority groups and their consequent economic contribution, have remained sensitive issues for decades and generations. Due to certain historical and even political reasons there have been continuities of unequal and poor access to resources among various religious minorities which have further resulted in a number of social disparities. In multicultural societies, religion based identity often tends to get misused to mobilize the vote bank politics and electoral gains, even in the absence of good governance. The present study deals with the issue of demographic differentials between religious majority and minority communities in a multi-ethnic, multicultural country like India. As society is not homogeneous and every religious community has different response mechanisms towards development impulses, it is pertinent to examine the demography of the religious minorities. This is especially true for the second largest democracy of the world. The positive impact of some metropolitans, administrative towns and highly urbanized industrial districts of Maharashtra and Gujarat can be seen on socio-economic development of most of the religious minorities (namely Jains, Sikhs, Buddhist and Christians). The demographic behavior of the Sikh religious minority differs as they move from their native Punjab to other parts of country. The Muslim and Sikh religious minority communities residing in agriculturally fertile regions displayed low levels of literacy and urbanization bringing down their socio-economic development. This research work also takes up the issue of how demographic behavior of various religious minority communities changes especially when they form a majority in a particular district. newline