There’s a new minority to contend with and, at a little over 33,000, they are fewer in number than the Parsis. But the unbelieving atheists - counted separately for the first time in Census 2011 - just cannot agree with the figure.
To be precise, only 33,304 of India’s 1.2 billion citizens have declared themselves as atheists in the census - a minuscule 0.0027 per cent.
In an overtly and fervently religious country, this low figure may not come as a surprise, but atheists are simply not buying it. They accuse the powers that be of everything from “dishonesty” to “unscientific” methodology -- all aimed at “mischievously” skewing the data.
As far as Prabir Ghosh of the Science and Rationalists’ Association of India is concerned, the very reason for the skewed numbers are these “orthodox people” who dominate those tasked with conducting the census - the enumerators.
And he speaks from experience. When the enumerator who visited his house failed to ask him his religion, Ghosh questioned him.
Ghosh protested to this and told him to write ‘atheist’ against his name.
Ghosh was born in a god-fearing Bengali family but took to rationalism as an adult. He is now General Secretary of his Kolkata-based association.
There are quibbles as well over the numbers at the state level. The Census data, for instance, puts the number of atheists in Tamil Nadu – a state with a strong rationalist tradition – at a mere 1,297, a figure that “does not reflect the actual position”, according to Suba Veerapandian, General Secretary of the Dravida Iyyakka Tamizhar Peravai.
A good number of active atheists believe the low numbers may be a result of lack of awareness about what can and cannot be said in the Census form.
“Many Indians are not aware that they have an option to say ‘no caste’ or ‘no religion’,” says Vijayam, whose father founded the Atheist Centre that has fought many battles on behalf of those who wrote ‘nil’ in caste and religion columns of various government forms.
Veerapandian concurs, but adds that it is up to atheists and rationalists to power change - the matter hardly being a priority for the government. “It should be made known to people, and organisations like ours will have to do that before the 2021 Census.”
In fact, many atheists and rationalists want the government to entirely remove the caste and religion columns from not only the Census forms, but all forms.
Are atheists playing it safe by not declaring themselves openly? It is a legitimate question as three prominent rationalists - Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi - have been killed in the last two years for challenging obscurantism, allegedly by religious hotheads.
But Ghosh and Veerapandian dismiss the idea.
Given that there are nearly 2.9 million people who did not tell enumerators their religion – though they did not declare themselves as atheists – there may well be many more atheists than the declared number.
In any case, the non-believers are upbeat. Ghosh, for instance, contends 22 per cent of the world population is now atheist, and that the number is growing. He believes the trend will be replicated in India as well.
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