Facts And Fallacies Of Muslim Population In Sri Lanka

By Nimal Siripala –DECEMBER 31, 2019

Nimal Siripala

Anti-Muslim campaigns have been on the rise in the recent past across Sri Lanka – raising the spectre of Muslims being an existential threat to Buddhism and the Sinhala race due to their increase in numbers and growing economic domination.

The perceived demographic threat that Muslims will overtake the Sinhala race in size of the population is a fallacy that has gained ground and coupled with the claim that the wealth of the nation is under the control of Muslims, has contributed to producing a fear psychosis in the minds of even moderate Sinhala Buddhists. This, in turn, fuels the already vicious rhetoric of hardliners who are bent on causing disaffection among the largely cohesive, peace-loving people of this country. The public discourse is a growing hotbed of misinformation, distortion and fear-mongering.

People who hold extreme views blame those who contradict them as representatives of NGOs funded by the West or sponsored by Muslims. Therefore, it is essential that moderate people of all communities discuss some of these falsehoods openly rather than leaving space for extremists on both sides to throw unsubstantiated accusations.  

The three prevalent fallacies circulating in the media, including social media, and in places of worship and public gatherings, are that:

1. The Muslim community is growing so fast that by 2100 Sri Lanka will become a Muslim majority country.

2. In 15 years, Muslim children under 8 years of age in Sri Lanka will be 52% of the national population.

3. The Sinhalese population in Colombo, which was 51% in 1951, has already plunged to 10%.

This essay addresses all these misconceptions starting with the fallacy that the Muslim community is propagating so fast that Sri Lanka will soon be a Muslim majority country.

This is the most sweeping statement that influences the Sinhalese to feel a sense of insecurity for their children’s future and fear that the Sinhala Buddhist nation would soon come to an end.

The relatively high growth rates of the Muslim population between 1981 and 2011, compared to that of non-Muslims, have been perceived as a threat to the dominant position of the Sinhalese. As this has become an issue of concern to many, it was raised at an official gathering held at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Training and Research Institute (HARTI) recently. Answering a query raised by the audience, the Director – Population Census and Demography Division of the Department of Census and Statistics Ms Indu Bandara stated: “Sinhala and Muslim populations had increased at the rate of 1.04% and 1.87% respectively between 1981 and 2012, but it is not a threat to the Sinhala people, contrary to claims made in some quarters.” She further added, “It is also false to state that the Muslim population is higher than the Sinhala population within the Colombo Municipal Council area. (Population: Census Expert Disputes Anti-Muslim Claims. The Island. March 18th 2013) 

A full-page article published in the ‘Mawbima ’newspaper used official demographic statistics* to convince readers that the Sinhalese population is diminishing while the Muslim community is increasing.  This article was highlighted during an early morning TV programme.  Again, on 30th May 2018, it was followed by another article by the same writer concluding: ජනගහන දත්ත අනුව පෙනෙන්නේ මේ යන විදියට මුස්ලිවරුන් මෙරට මහ ජාතිය වන බවයි– (Translated as “According to the Census data, it seems that Muslims will be the majority in the country.”) This article, too, using population statistics, argued that Muslims would become the majority in this country.

Official figures indicate an increase in Muslim population as a percentage of the total population from 7.4 % (1981 census) to 9.5% (2011 census) – Meaning total Muslim population has increased by 78% during these thirty years. This is a piece of information that is used continuously to build several alarmist scenarios and amplify the fallacy that Sri Lanka will become a ‘Muslim country’ in 2100.

Parliamentarian Udaya Gammanpila has held an extraordinary press conference at which he claimed that he has obtained unpublished data of the 2012 Census from the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS). With this data, he states that he can confirm that the Sinhala population will be extinct because the Muslim child population, as a percentage of the total child population, is higher than that of the Sinhalese child population and has increased by three times compared with the increase of the Sinhala population. This is a decisive turn in this debate as he has used official data of the child population to analyses general population growth. But, analysed further, it shows that his interpretation is incorrect and data used is inappropriate to explain population growth.

Therefore, this essay presents a more comprehensive analysis to refute this dramatisation and persuade readers to address these issues based on evidence.

Source: Department of Census and Statistics

First, let us see the historical population dynamics. According to Table 1 in the 80 years 1931-2011, the total population of the country increased by over 15 million with the increase in the number of the Sinhala community being over 12 million and the Muslim community a little over 1.7 million.  

During the period 1981 to 2011, the Muslims had the highest annual average percentage growth of 2.6%. Based on this rate, the 2011 Muslim population of 1,936,700 would take nearly 200 years to come even close to the 2011 Sinhala population of 15,250,100, assuming that the Sinhala population would remain static during this time is very unlikely. Thus, during both periods when one Muslim person was added to the population, the Sinhalese added an average of seven. Therefore, the notion of the Muslim population exceeding that of Sinhala population by Muslims is a long-distance target that can succeed only if the Muslim had a continuous increase of population growth more than Sinhalese for several hundred years to come.

It is essential to open a space to analyse the multiple factors that affect the growth of communities, rather than making projections based on one period.

Source: Department of Census and Statistics

According to table 2, there is a continuous increase in the proportion of Sinhalese from 65.5% in 1931 to 74.9% in 2011. As a percentage share, the Sinhala population has risen by 9.4% units (or 11.8 million people). During this period, the Sinhala population has increased as a percentage of the total population much higher than that of all other communities. The other ethnic group which has shown a continuous increase in its proportion is the Muslims, but at a slower rate compared to that of the Sinhalese. They have increased their population share from 6.4 % to 9.5. The population of all other ethnic groups, as a percentage of totals, has either been constant or has declined.

If the two full censuses of 1981 and 2011 are compared, the Sinhalese did not achieve the same rate of increase they had made earlier. Instead, their proportion has increased only by 1% (4.2million) whereas the Muslims had a 2.1% (0.8million) increase. Without considering the historical changes, this recent increase of the population of Muslims has been used to portray a false scenario of grave danger to the Sinhala Buddhists of Sri Lanka being turned into a minority.

Source: Department of Census and Statistics

According to table 3, the average growth pattern between censuses during the last 100-year period, the population growth of Muslims was not always higher than the growth of the Sinhala population. The growth rate of Muslims also keeps diminishing but at a lower rate than that of the Sinhalese.

Considering the migration and other social development of the community such as education, late marriages and women engaging in employment current growth rate of Muslim population will start falling as time goes.  It was noted that the average age of marriage for Muslim women is increasing.

Currently, Muslim women’s average age of marriage differs from the Sinhalese by less than one year. According to the 2011 Census, the average age of marriage for Muslim women is 22.7 years, while it is 23.4 for Sinhala women (Census of Population and Housing  2012 Table 5.11 : Mean age at marriage by ethnicity, 2012). But a myth has been created in the society to depict that most Muslim marriages are underage marriages.

The highest birth rate can be found not in Muslim countries but among the poorest countries in the world. Poverty and lower education levels have an immense impact on the growth of the population. When Muslim women get educated and become employed, they will tend to have fewer children. For example, in Iran, women’s fertility has dropped dramatically. Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey and Algeria are some examples of reduced population growth. This trend is visible among the educated Muslims in Sri Lanka too.   

This essay examines the general population growth and also the trends of current births by ethnicity. This is important because current births are the sole driver of the population increase in the years to come. Rather than limiting our observation to in-between censuses, it is necessary to have a more in-depth understanding of the pattern of births in recent years.

As previously mentioned, recently, parliamentarian Udaya Gammanpila revealed his new findings during a news conference (Press conference, Udaya Gammanpila, Hiru News). He has taken extra effort to get official data from the Department of Census and Statistics and derived some tables to prove the expansion of Muslim population based on the children population.   As unbiased researchers, we have to commend his effort openly because he has tried to introduce official statistics while rejecting the popular misconceptions,  he tried to prove,  and which are not substantiated by official statistics.

Contrary to what Mr Udaya Gammanpila claims information of children population by ethnicity is published by the DCS. Please see the population tables on the website of DCS. The table A9 gives the population by ethnic group, age and sex, and Table A7 is population by religion, age and sex. Therefore there is no need to make any request to the DG Census to get the information he presents.

He argues that, due to the higher rate of increase of child population of Muslims during the five-year period which ends in 2012 Census day (12-03-2012,), the Sinhala population will start reaching the brink of extinction. This is not a scientific analysis as he claimed because the data, he uses is not suitable to prove his proposition.

A statistician will not use the data in the same Census to explain the population dynamics and call it the population growth as Udaya Gammanpila has done. Because the Census is a snapshot of the population of the country at a particular time, and it is static; therefore, it is not suitable to compare the population dynamics. This ought to be done by comparing several censuses and also by using vital statistics such as registration of births. 

However, let us look at his calculations and interpretations. He compares the children population who are under five in 2012, (born during 2008-2012) against the group of children born in the previous five-year period (born during 2003-2007) and currently identified within the 5-9 age group. Thus, he gets a 1.4% growth for Muslims and a 0.5% increase for Sinhalese. He argues that since the Muslim population increases at a higher rate of 1.4% it is officially accepted that the Sinhala population will be extinct and what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhist statue in Afghanistan would likely to happen to the Awukana Buddha statue.   

It is wrong to interpret the comparison of numbers of two chid groups living at the same time as population growth. The table below presented by him gives his calculations.

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