Chapter 11

 

Manipulation of Population Census to Malign Sikhs

 

 

 

Prof. Jakobsh unhesitatingly points out:

 

The positive evaluation of Sikhs and their treatment of women was particularly striking, given the consistent census reports depicting conspicuously fewer females than males in Punjabi Sikh society. Female infanticide has long been associated with Jat and Sikh Khatris. The census report of 1881 tabulated the number of females per thousand males for each religious community. For girl children under the age of five, the Sikhs enumerated 839, Hindus 941, Muslims 962. The numbers decreased significantly for all the three when females of all ages were compared to males: Sikhs 765, Hindus 834 and Muslims 864 (ibid.). In the Census report of 1901, the proportion of girls to boys among children under the age of five ranged from 96 per cent among Muslims and 92 per cent among Hindus, to 76 percent among Sikhs, with some Sikh-populated tracts falling as low as 62 percent (Strachey 1911:446).1

      

Before responding to this ongoing malicious propaganda, I must alert the readers to not construe that I am denying discrimination against women within the Sikh community. For me female infanticide or mistreatment of even one woman is far too many. But what Jakobsh has brought out is hardly a scholarly or academic work, rather a calculated move against Sikhs and Sikhism. Jakobsh depicts Sikhs as “female killers” by manipulating the census figures to fit into her agenda. There are several problems with the census and census data.

 

a. The British authorities manipulated the censuses just as post-1947 Indian governments have done. For example, Jakobsh herself says:

 

Harjot Oberoi has questioned the oft-touted decline in the number of Sikhs in the nineteenth century. The 1868 census suffered severe limitations, as not all districts in the Province of Punjab were included in British numeration effort. Further, there was no indication as to what was meant by the classification ‘Sikh’. Punjabis in the first Census, of 1855, were delineated as either Hindus or Muslims. By 1868, Sikhs were included in the enumeration, but the definition of ‘Sikh’ remained unclear. By 1881, only true Sikhs who maintained the external indicators of the Khalsa identity were classified under the rubric ‘Sikh’. All others, including Sikhs who cut hair, as well as numerous Sikh sects, Nanakpanthis, Ramdasis, Nirmalas, Udasis, and other groups were classified as Hindus (Oberoi 1994: 208-13).2

 

Is it not strange that the British imperialists who fought bloody wars (1845-1849) against the Sikhs did not notice any Sikh in Punjab in the 1855 census? However, in 1868 they found 1,144,090 Sikhs among 17,611,498 Punjabis, making Sikhs 6.5 percent of the total population.2 So what were the imperialists trying to accomplish through the manipulation of census? Instead of questioning the motives of imperialists, Jakobsh had no compunction is using their census data to malign the Sikhs!

 

In the 1950s, the Indian government reorganised the provinces of the colonial period on the basis of language creating the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra and Gujarat but refused to apply the same principle to the bilingual state of Punjab by making it a communal issue. The central government led by Jawaharlal Nehru in collaboration with Hindu organisations like Arya Samaj, Hindu Maha Sabha and Brahmo Samaj exhorted Punjabi Hindus to declare Hindi as their mother tongue. It was surprising that illiterate Aad Dharmis (chamars, leather workers) and Valmikis (chuhras, sweepers) who could not speak a word of Hindi declared “in chaste Punjabi” that Hindi is their mother tongue. It is unbelievable that about 80% of the Punjabi speaking Hindus returned Hindi as their mother tongue in the 1961 Census. Moreover, Sikhs have always been undercounted in the censuses since 1950.

 

After a long struggle by Sikhs, in 1966, Punjab was vivisected into a Punjabi speaking state of Punjab and a Hindi speaking state of Haryana. Sikhs formed about 65% of the population of the newly created Punjab. However, under Indira Gandhi, the 1981 Census reduced Sikh population of Punjab to 52%. In contrast, twenty years later, in spite of large emigration of Sikhs out of Punjab, and large influx of Hindu labourers from outside into Punjab, the 2001 census records 14,592,387 Sikhs out of a total of 24,265,174, thus making Sikhs 60% of Punjab’s population.3

 

The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) after assuming power created a “Muslim phobia” by manipulating the 2001 Census to show 36% Muslim population growth from 1991-2001against 20.3% for Hindus. These statistics raised alarm bells of the coming danger to Hindu India. As it turned out, the examination of earlier censuses revealed that due to ongoing insurgency in Assam and Kashmir, the censuses of 1981 and 1991 failed to include the Muslim population of these two states, whereas the 2001 Census did. After making an adjustment to the Muslim population, their growth rate from 1991 to 2001 ranked slightly lower than that of Hindus.

 

There is a lesson here for Jakobsh. For her to use unreliable census figures to argue her point against Sikhs is unconscionable!

 

b. The lower ratio of girls to boys among Sikhs in comparison to Muslims and Hindus in the 1868 and 1881 Censuses pointed above by Jakobsh is not due to high female infanticide. Jakobsh has herself quoted Heuin Tsang’s observation about the egalitarian nature of Jats believing in male/female equality. The majority of Sikhs in 1881 or in 1901 were no more than one to four generations apart from their Hindu, Muslim and Sultani-Hindu ancestors. So it is difficult to imagine that the egalitarian Jats became daughter killers in such a short period after joining the Sikh faith. And, the percentage of Khatris may not have been more than two percent of the Sikh population during that period, as even today 95% of the Sikhs are descendants of Sudras and untouchables.4 There are valid reasons for the lower female to male ratio in Sikhs during that period.

 

First, according to 1881 Census of Punjab quoted by Jakobsh, Sikh community was the most illiterate.5 Second, much higher percentage of Sikhs were agriculturists than their counterparts: Sikhs 66%, Hindus 34% and Muslims 59%.6 The Sikh urban population during that period was insignificant, and an overwhelming majority of Sikhs were rural in comparison to Hindus and Muslims. In the rural area relatively there were far few education and health facilities. These factors resulted in lower female to male ratio among Sikhs vis-à-vis Hindus and Muslims. Had the census analysts compared female to male ratio of rural Muslims or Hindus as against the Sikhs, they would not have found significant differences, and in all likelihood Jakobsh might have spared the Sikhs at least of one assault. The lower female to male ratio among Sikhs was not due to female infanticide, but due to ill health of married women, especially peasant women who made up about 80-85% of the Sikh female population.

 

In a patriarchal agriculturist society there is preference for sons over daughters, thus resulting in an inherent bias against women. But that does not mean that it leads to female infanticide. Let me share my experience of growing up in a Punjab village (1939-1962). It was not uncommon to see couples with more daughters than sons; couples with five and six daughters with one or no son; couples with only daughters or sons or couples with no children. There were two factors that influenced the high mortality rate among married peasant women. The extremely hard life, the back breaking daily chores had devastating effect on the health of pregnant and nursing mothers. Added to this burden were too many pregnancies occurring rapidly without allowing the woman to recuperate from the dreadful childbirths. In the twenty-five families on our street there were six widowers with four to six grown-up children and only one young widow with two children. One of the widowers, a policeman was married three times. Women, who had four or five surviving children, probably had seven to ten pregnancies. My aunt (my father’s elder brother’s wife) had three sons and five daughters and my mother used to tell me that her five other children died as infants.

 

c. In the last several years we have seen a lot written on female feticide in India and the declining female to male ratio among children below ten years of age. In Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Punjab there is an alarming decline in the number of female children according to various social organisations. In Haryana and Delhi the population of the Sikhs is below 10% and in Chandigarh it is less than 20%. But the headlines in The Tribune from Chandigarh say “alarming decrease in female child population among Sikhs due to female feticide.” Why this newspaper chose to make it only a Sikh problem? Is it because the Hindu media looks for every opportunity to defame Sikhs?

 

Let us examine this lopsided female to male ratio in Punjab going back to the colonial period. There has always been a lower female to male ratio in Punjab than the national ratio since the colonial government started conducting census in Punjab. For example, though the 1911-2001 Censuses show consistent lower female to male ratio (Table 1) in Punjab than the national ratio, but there has been a consistent improvement in Punjab vis-à-vis the national situation.

 

 

Table 1

Sex Ratio: Number of women per 1000 men

Year

Punjab

India

1911

780

963

1921

799

956

1931

815

950

1941

836

945

1951

844

947

1961

854

941

1971

865

930

1981

879

934

1991

882

929

2001

874

933

 

 

For the last several years the Hindu media has been slandering Sikhs for female feticide whereas the district-by-district analysis of the 2001 census shows that female feticide is far more prevalent among Hindus than Sikhs in Punjab (Table 2). The reader should also take into account that in Punjab about 75% of the Sikh population is rural whereas 80% of the Hindu population is urban where far better education and health facilities are located. Besides, in Punjab, Hindus are relatively much more well off economically than the Sikhs.

 

 

Table 2

Punjab Sex Ratio: Number of women per 1000 men

District

Sikhs

Hindus

Gurdaspur

906

877

Amritsar

888

831

Kapurthala

922

840

Jalandhar

929

863

Hoshiarpur

960

922

Nawanshahr

942

898

Ropar

888

850

Fategarh Sahib

881

774

Ludhiana

896

737

Moga

893

851

Ferozepur

903

866

Mukatsar

897

873

Faridkot

896

837

Bathinda

886

825

Mansa

880

872

Sangrur

876

842

Patiala

883

850

The Spokesman, October 2004, pp. 13-16.7

 

 

d. If female infanticide would have been widespread among Sikhs, as implied by Jakobsh, then can she explain how the percentage of Sikh population in Punjab increased from 6.5% in 1868 to about 13% in 1931?8 This is the period marked by Christian missionaries, Arya Samajists, Hindu Mahasabha, Brahmo Samaj, the so-called Sanatan Sikhs (Hindus disguised as Sikhs) and Ahmadiya Muslims increasingly denigrating Sikhs and Sikhism while trying to actively convert them. The British authorities encouraged and nurtured these above-mentioned non-Sikh groups. The British had set up these anti-Sikh organizations after the Kuka Sikhs (Namdharis) launched their agitation against the British under the leadership of Baba Ram Singh. The British went berserk and they indulged in devious means to discredit the leader and the movement.

 

e. In the 2001 census, Sikhs had the highest female to male ratio in Punjab. For 1000 men the numbers of female were Sikhs 897, Hindu 846, Muslims 793 and Christians 893.3

 

f. An Indo-Canadian team of Prabhat Jha and Rajesh Kumar launched the first scientific study on female feticide in India and their findings present a shocking picture. Every year, about 500,000 unborn girls, one in 25 are aborted. The figure adds up to 1 crore (10 million) over the past two decades — almost equal to the population of Delhi. The researchers attribute this to the rampant misuse of ultrasound technology-—the pre-natal sex determination test, which the Central government banned in 1994. Interestingly, families educated to the level of Grade X reported double the number of missing girls as compared to illiterate families. To the researchers’ surprise, the data collected showed that religion is immaterial where female feticide is concerned.9 Simply for the sake of information, readers would benefit knowing the infanticide promulgated in the Bible.10

 

I think Jakobsh would benefit with the description detailing the harsh realities on daily account of life of a typical Sikh peasant wife in the 1950s. Keep in mind that life was much harder during the 19th century when there were no machines to make flour, gin cotton or water hand-pumps in homes (water was drawn from common water wells located far away from homes). A peasant wife worked as hard if not harder than her husband did. She was the last in the family to go to bed and the first to rise to churn buttermilk, prepare breakfast, feed and milk cattle. After cleaning the house and the cattle quarters, she prepared dung cakes for fuel. Then it was time for lunch preparation and supplying food to the farm workers, routinely.

 

In Punjab, the peasants lived in villages, not on their farms. Depending on the size of the village, some farmers’ fields were more than two miles away. Now imagine carrying a basket of food and pitchers of water and buttermilk on head and a jug of hot tea in hand in scorching heat under blazing sun with temperatures hovering over 1100 Fahrenheit day after day. Imagine a pregnant woman doing these gruelling tasks to the last week of pregnancy or while suffering from morning sickness! There was help in these situations from sister-in-laws in a joint family, but when the joint family was split into single units, generally, there was little or no help: she did it herself. She performed every farm task except ploughing fields. But in every village there were examples of solitary hardy souls who did that too. She helped in harvesting crops, plucking cotton, cutting fodder, bringing fuel and vegetables home, preparing special feed of grain and wheat straw for milch cattle and oxens. Quite often she made flour of corn, wheat and millet or dals (split grains of lentils) on a manual grinding mill (chuki) and ginned cotton. Then there was the routine of washing and mending of clothes, milking the cattle, preparing supper for the family, taking care of the little ones, bathing them or cleaning them, putting them to bed and finally going to bed after every one had settled for the night. This was the routine. Prof. Jakobsh can you imagine it?

 

Then there were more chores: spinning of yarn and display of her artistry¾embroidery work on pillowcases, bed sheets, scarves, shirts, trousers, blankets and shawls. The most intricate and artistic work was silk embroidery on deep red heavy cotton blankets to make a Fulkari or Baag. Not to mention of the weaving of daris (bed carpets) with all kinds of geometrical patterns or landscapes, birds and animals. Any leisure time was used in teaching this art to her daughters or young girls from the neighbourhood. Amidst this hectic schedule she found time to sing comforting, soothing and melodious lullabies and love songs of Punjabi legends--Hir Ranjha, Mirza Sahiban, Sasi Punnu and Sohni Mahipal--while making yarn on a spinning wheel. On festive occasions like marriages, her rhythmic and vigorous gidda and dance shook the floor and folk tunes filled the whole village with excitement and exhilaration. The artist in her was evident in the style of mud plastering of the exterior walls of her home with borders of coloured clay mixed with dung and fine straw and the interior mud-coated, whitewashed and decorated with murals. However, in joint families there was always the shadow of the mean mother-in-law hovering over:

 

shade the charkha farla chuki nuhen na tun hari na tun thuki.

O my daughter-in-law, leave the spinning wheel, operate the grinding mill, as you are neither helpless (lacking strength) nor tired.

 

 

References

 

1. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 70.

2. Ibid., p. 62.

3. S.S. Bajwa. “Colossal Disparity in Population.” The Sikh Review, 2006, 54 (1), pp. 52-58.

4. J. S. Grewal. The Sikhs Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 211.

5. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 92.  

6. Harjot Oberoi. The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 366.

7. Joginder Singh. “Census Report 2001: Sikh can learn a lot from it, if they wish to.” Spokesman, October 2004, pp. 13-16.

8. J. S. Grewal. The Sikhs Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 137.

9. Indian Express, January 9, 2006.

10.

According to C. Dennis McKinsey, killing babies is another method Biblical God uses to express his anger. Babies were drowned in the worldwide Flood, first-born Egyptian babies were among the killed at the Passover, and babies were killed in the wars of extermination. This divine punishment was also used after King David succeeded in having a loyal Israeli soldier, Uriah, killed in battle. David selfishly took this action in order to steal Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. Although David was the one who committed premeditated murder, the son Bathsheba bore to him received the brunt of Biblical God’s punishment. This God, in his infinite wisdom and justice, punished David by killing the baby. Isaiah says a similar punishment would be used against the Babylonians. He quotes the Lord as vowing, "Infants will be dashed to the ground before their eyes…. I will stir up against them the Medes, … who have no pity on little children and spare no mother’s son…."

The book of Psalms indicates that those inflicting this punishment can enjoy it. The book says about Babylon: "Happy is he who shall seize your children and dash them against the rock." Hosea prophesies that Samaria will receive the same treatment. He explains: "Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground, her women with child shall be ripped up." The Bible also teaches that God is willing to test people by having their offspring slaughtered. The Lord allowed Satan to kill Job's sons and daughters to see if Job would then curse God. Additionally, the New Testament contains a murderous attitude toward the young. The book of Hebrews attests to the Lord’s horrible acts at the time of the Passover, but does not disapprove of them. And the book of Revelation indicates that Christ will behave similarly. As for a certain false prophetess who will lead his servants astray, the book quotes Jesus as promising to throw her on a bed of pain and strike dead her children. Jesus explains his actions: "This will teach all the churches that I am the searcher of men’s hearts and thoughts, and that I will reward each one of you according to his deeds."


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