Living Realities. The Results of the Census buttress identity politcs and the extremist’s religious chauvinism
Résumé
Decennial censuses provide information of considerable value to social science research. In this respect, the religious landscape portrayed by the 2011 Central Bureau of Statistics, first of all, shows a remarkable stability in the number of Hindu followers, or to be more exact, of persons claiming to be Hindu. The figure rose from 80.6 percent to 81.3 percent (after a drop of nearly 10 percent over the previous decade 1991-2001) during the period 2001-11. By and large, the bulk of Nepal population remains faithful to Hinduism. Such stability is indeed meaningful if we consider the sustained fight against Hindu hierarchical values by different sections of society over the same period, as well as the abolishment of the Hindu monarchy in 2008. Second, the number of people who regard themselves as Christians has more than tripled over the last 10 years, reaching the still-low figure of 1.4 percent. The other results do not reveal any major changes. The surprising slight decrease in the Buddhist category (9 percent in 2011 instead of 10.7 in 2001) and the slow increase in Islam (4.4 percent in 2011 instead of 4.2 in 2001) are noteworthy.
Loading...