While India Awaits Census, Demographic Shift is Evident in Panjab

Comparison of data from the Report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2023–24 with the 2011 Census data reveals that Panjab has undergone a demographic shift. Sikh children studying at foundational level—pre-primary to Class II in age group of 3–8 years—are an estimated 49%, which is 8.68% lower than the Sikh population of 57.69% in Panjab in the 2011 Census. Also, as per the National Family Health Survey 2019-21, Panjab’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is at 1.6, lower than the needed replacement rate of 2.1. There is yet another trend: bucking the rise in communalism across India where majoritarian Hindutva politics prosecutes Muslims, Panjab is embracing Muslim laborers from central India. Seasonal migration has been on the rise since the 1990s but now the workers are bringing their families with them too. There is also a concerted effort across Panjab to either revive Mosques from  before the 1947 Partition of India or build new ones. The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s (Muslim group) state unit representative said on condition of anonymity that 165 such mosques have come up or been restored in the past five years. Data shows Panjab was home to nearly 252,688 Muslims in 1971, which rose to 535,489 in the 2011 Census. This change in social fabric has ignited a debate over whether migration is being fuelled by an acute labor shortage in the state or by politics because political parties in power are quick to register such migrants, and give them identity cards in order to enrol them as eligible voters. In the past, senior Indian National Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira has raised the issue and urged the Panjab Assembly to consider his private member bill seeking a law to stop non-Panjabi’s from becoming permanent residents of Panjab.