India's Religious Census: Facts vs Fiction

The release of India's religious census, the population of India broken down by religion, has led to much sound and fury. The Big Picture from 2001 to 2011 - the proportion of Hindu population of India has fallen very slightly. The proportion is now just below 80%. In the same time, the Muslim growth rate has risen by 0.8 per cent. Other interesting figures that have emerged are that the percentage of population of Christians has virtually remained the same, while the proportion of Sikhs and Buddhists have fallen slightly. Why do we see so many alarmist headlines? What really are the big ideas that have emerged from the census? Aligarh Muslim University vice chancellor Lt Gen Zamiruddin Shah (Retd), Centre of Public Affairs and Critical Theory director Professor Dipankar Gupta, BJP's Chandan Mitra and Congress's Mani Shankar Aiyar join the discussion.