The census figures for 2001 have come out for the first time with statistics on religious demography in India. That the Muslim population in India is moving ahead of the rest is undeniable. Not denied in fact.

Whether it is rising by 36 per cent in a decade or 29 per cent, is the dispute. That all others-Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists-put together rise only two-thirds as fast too is undeniable.

Result: continuous decline of those adhering to Indian religions. Just arithmetic, without more, tells that the numbers of those adhering to Indian religions are going down in India decade after decade.

From 87.24 per cent in 1951 they came down to 86.87 per cent in 1961, to 86.60 per cent in 1971, to 85.86 per cent in 1981, further down to 85.09 per cent in 1991, and now even less at 84.21 per cent.

Not Rana Pratap, Shivaji was his model, Mr Aiyar

In contrast, the share of Muslims is rising. It has risen from 10.43 per cent in 1951 to 13.43 per cent in 2001, a growth of two per cent as against a fall of 3.05 per cent among the adherents of Indian religions.

In absolute numbers Islamists have gone up from 3.76 crores to 13.82 crores. The story has another side, a contrast, across the border.

Look at Pakistan, a declared Islamic State on the West and in Bangladesh, an undeclared one on the East. The adherents of Indian religions in the population of Pakistan are down from 11 per cent before 1947 to less than one per cent now, yes less than one per cent. In Bangladesh, they are down from 29 per cent to just about 10 per cent, that is, to one-third in just four decades, after 1947.

Result, Pakistan is totally Islamic and Bangladesh, almost totally. It does not need a Seer to tell us the deep implications of these developments near our compound wall.

Just five decades back the Hindus lost a third of their territory because of changes in religious demography. Yet they are ignorant of religious demography. Religious demography is the theological manifest of Christianity and Islam. They promoted the idea of head-count in religion.

This resulted in unbelievable changes in the geography and even history of nations. The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), a Chennai-based research organisation has brought out the first-ever book on religious demography in India.

Taking undivided India as one geographic unit, the CPS found that in the first nine decades of the 20th century those who adhere to Indian religions in the sub-continent came down by a whopping 11 per cent.

The CPS had classified as adherents of Indian religions all Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists aggregated in the Indian Constitution for common civil law. Such a steep decline in less than a century is unprecedented. The latest census confirms the decline as a continuing story.

Yes, given their experience, Hindus have a reason to feel concerned at this trend. For Hindus, India is the only geography left on the earth. Muslims populate 16 countries totally and in as many more, and more, they dominate.

No non-Muslim can practise his faith in these Islamic States. No remote story. Look at something nearer home, Pakistan and Bangladesh, part of the Hindu geography till yesterday; Look at Iran, where Zend-Avesta, the fifth Veda, was born, Afghanistan the home of Kandhari, Iraq where Buddhism dominated.

Hinduism and Buddhism are now in protected monuments in these places. Clearly, that the Islamic tradition tends to eliminate other faiths is not a story of the past.

So, justifiably the Hindus feel concerned. They will be fools if they do not. But the seculars are not just unconcerned. In fact, they seem happy, because even if infiltration adds to Muslim vote bank, it adds to their political capital. This worries the Hindus even further.

For, their history has established that when the Hindu population falls in a geographic unit, that part disconnects them and also disconnects from India. Not only did they lose that geography, but also did India. This was true of Kandhari's Afghanistan, where Maharaja Ranjit Singh ruled two hundred years back and equally true of Pakistan and Bangladesh yesterday and Kashmir now.

Actually, wherever the Muslim population attains dominance, the seculars themselves recognise it as Islamic territory. The purest of seculars, the Marxists, carved out Malapuram for Islamists.

See how district after district in the border areas of Assam and Bengal adjoining Bangladesh are changing in demographic profile, to Muslim majority ones because of Bangladeshi infiltration.

Is this good for the Muslims? Not, obviously. That is why, rightly, on release of the census data, Mr Tarlochan Singh, National Minority Commission chairman promptly, advised the Muslim leaders to persuade their followers to adopt family planning.

It is time that the Muslims listened to those like Tarlochan Singh who are their real friends, not their 'secular' exploiters who treat them as ballot papers. We must congratulate, Mr Tarlochan Singh, for telling the truth bluntly.

The present Muslim leadership is a captive of the seculars. Will some enlightened Muslim leadership emerge to understand what the NCM chief says?