A declining population means a crumbling civilization

Population decline predicted in Europe and Asia

There is an interesting remark by French philosopher Auguste Comte that “demography is destiny”. Forecasts for 2100 published by the UN indicate that many countries in Europe and Asia will be witnessing the strange phenomenon of population decline in the coming decades. Europe has been losing population since 2021, according to numbers by the United Nations Population Division. Among the 10 fastest shrinking places on Earth are six on the continent: Greece, San Marino, and Belarus, as well as Balkan nations Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo. Many countries have a negative population growth rate. Some examples of this are Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Japan, Italy, Greece, and Romania. However, India is projected to have 228 million more people in 2050 compared to today, making it the country with the largest expected population increase. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) reports a significant decrease in global fertility rates. Currently, two-thirds of the global population lives in areas where the fertility rate is below 2.1 births per woman, the threshold needed for population replacement. In countries with populations over 500,000, the most pronounced decreases (up to 20% or more) are expected in Europe by 2050.

Several countries with declining populations are facing an influx of refugees, including Italy, Greece, and Germany, due to conflicts and instability in fundamentalist regions like Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, potentially leading to demographic shifts and social challenges. For example, Germany’s population grew by 1.7 million people between 2000 and 2020. But it would have shrunk by more than 5 million people without the arrival of new immigrants. During these years, many new immigrants arrived in Germany from Poland, Syria, Kazakhstan, and Romania. Women in Germany have 1.5 children on average – far below the fertility rate of about 2.1 children per woman needed for each generation to replace itself – and half of the people in Germany are older than 45.

In recent years, Europe has seen a massive influx of fundamentalist Islamic immigrants, primarily driven by religious conflicts and crises in the Middle East. These illiterate immigrant communities often adhere to fundamentalist Islamic customs and norms, clashing with the liberal and secular values of the host countries. This has ignited debates over the limits of multiculturalism and whether European societies can absorb large numbers of immigrants without compromising their religious and cultural identity.
With approximately 25 million Muslims now living in the 28 nations of the European Union, the presence of Islam has become a central issue, provoking fear, hostility, and divided opinions within host societies. Surveys reveal that many Europeans perceive Muslims as a potential threat to their national identity, security, and social cohesion. This climate has fuelled the rise of right-wing populism, with hardline leaders in countries like Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark embracing strong anti-immigration rhetoric, mainly targeting those from Muslim-majority countries. Their concerns resonate about the impact of antediluvian Islamic culture on European values and security.

A major driver of right-wing sentiment in Europe has been the rise in terrorist activities linked to radical Islam. The emergence of ‘grooming gangs’ in the UK, particularly in cities like Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford, has further stoked anti-immigrant sentiment. In some European cities, certain neighbourhoods have been described as “no-go zones” where Sharia law is said to operate informally. The perception that there are areas in Europe where state law is secondary to foreign religious law has been a powerful tool for right-wing rhetoric.

In India, the findings of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council say that between 1950 and 2015, the population of Hindus declined by 8 percent, whereas the population of Muslims grew by 43 percent. The findings of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC) are alarming and have dangerous consequences for India’s survival as a country of Sanatan culture. Those who would ignore this would do so at their own peril and risk of their progeny.

Around the time of independence, Muslims in India constituted 9.84 percent of the total population of about 350 million, that is, about 35 million. It has now risen to 14.09 percent of the current population, which translates to over 200 million. Similarly, the Christian population has risen from about 8 million (2.24 percent) in 1947 to 35 million today. This itself completely debunks the calculated and mischievous reports of minority harassment that are periodically injected into the mainstream media by inimical forces. What does the spiralling Muslim population hold for the future of the country?

The surging Muslim population is not an Indian phenomenon alone; rather, it is a global problem, worrying a large number of nations. The greater the proportion of Muslims in a country, visible dramatic changes occur in the society: exclusive Muslims only enclaves, ubiquitous rise in the number of huge mosques, madrassas, Arabic schools and colleges; forcible compulsion to wear Arabic clothing like Hijab and Burqa by all young girls and women; rampant proliferation of eateries and restaurants selling Halal certified food and Arabian non-vegetarian food; presence of innumerable illegal slaughter houses; rise of Arabic book shops, and perfumery (Attar) shops. All these kinds of visible signs of Islamization create fear in all non-Muslim communities and nationalities as to what the ultimate goal is. Adding fuel to the anxiety is the fiery rhetoric of Islamic scholars, calling for spreading Islam by destroying all other religions and cultures. The declining population of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains is facilitating the zooming Muslim population to quietly annex underpopulated areas and convert them into exclusive Muslim areas, impacting the electoral fortunes of many political parties. There seems to be no strategy, except bemoaning about the falling birth rate and the far-reaching consequences that await the nation.

This writer is of the considered opinion that Section 17 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, stipulating bigamy as an offence, needs to be scrapped to meet the Islamic population challenge. While this Hindu Marriage Act has incapacitated the Hindu birth rate, traditional Sunni and Shia Islamic marital jurisprudence allows Muslim men to be married to multiple women (a practice known as polygyny). Muslim men can have up to four wives at a time under Islamic law. Thus, while a Hindu man can rear only one child at a time, a Muslim man can rear four children in the same span of time. This gives the Muslims an unmatched quantitative edge. Even a cursory examination into history will reveal that the presumption of sexual exclusivity within a couple is a relatively modern arrangement. While in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China, the masses practised monogamy, the elites indulged in polygamy. Today, the Hindus are legally debarred from practising polygamy, as are Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians. But Muslims are not restrained by any such legal constraints.

History teaches that 56 Hindu Kingdoms were brutally destroyed, and 40 million to 50 million peaceful Hindu civilians were savagely massacred between 1000 BC and 2019. For the period of 1000-1500 AD, Muslim historian Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah (1560 – 1620), authored Tarikh-i-Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim wherein he describes the continuous medieval bloodbath in India during the Muslim rule. He pegged over 400 million Hindus got slaughtered during the Muslim invasion and occupation of India. He mentions that survivors got enslaved and castrated. From – “Islamic Invasion of India: The Greatest Genocide in History”. The erudite Indian Historian, Professor K S Lal, estimates that the Hindu population in India decreased by 80 million between 1000 AD and 1525 AD, an extermination unparalleled in World history. Yet, the Hindu population recovered, only because of the practice of polygamy. The population was never allowed to be depleted, despite traumatic historical happenings. The surviving Hindu men and women rose to the occasion, unrestrained by any selfish considerations. Their only aim was to ensure the continuity of Sanatana Dharma. Every time there was a holocaust, the Hindu survivors ensured a buoyant rebound.

However, the attainment of Independence and the passing of the Hindu Marriage Act have brought fresh legal and social challenges. Hindu nuclear families have created a piquant situation wherein the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) among Hindus has declined to 1.9, which is below the replacement level of 2.1, indicating that, on average, each Hindu woman is having fewer than two children in her reproductive lifespan. On the contrary, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, according to the American Think Tank Pew Research Center‘s 2021. The quantitative superiority of the Muslim population will mean a rise in religious fundamentalism, rapid Arabization in all spheres of social and economic life, and most importantly, slipping away of political power into the hands of fundamentalists, and replacement of Constitution and democracy, by Islamic law and Theocracy.

How to avert a population crisis? Currently, the focus is on trying to bring Muslims into the mainstream and convincing them to accept monogamy and family planning. Predictably, there is little success because of the overwhelming pressure of their religious instructions and religious rhetoric. But there is a simpler solution to arrest the birth rate decline of the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians.

As a temporary measure make bigamy legal, along with necessary legal safeguards to prevent misuse. A simple amendment can be made in Section 17 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, thereby averting the decline of Sanathan Dharma civilization, which is over 5000 years old. Those making devious plans and dreams of year 2500 and beyond, need to get a rude shock.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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