Most migrants living in India are Hindus, finds Pew study

The majority of migrants living in India are Hindus, according to a report by the United States-based think tank Pew Research Centre published on Monday.

The study, The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants, estimates that 61% of all migrants living in India are Hindus. The community makes up around 79% of the country’s population.

In contrast, 19% of migrants living in India are Muslims. The community accounts for about 15% of India’s population.

Most foreign-born residents living in India are from Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to Pew Research.

The study also said that Muslims and Christians were more likely than others to have left India.

In 2020, about 41% of Indians who migrated to other countries were Hindus, according to Pew Research. This figure was significantly lower than the overall share of Hindus in the country.

In contrast, 33% of Indians who left the country in 2020 were Muslims and 16% were Christians. The figures for both communities were significantly higher than their share in the country’s overall population.

According to the 2011 Census, 14.2% of India’s population were Muslims and 2.3% were Christians.

The Pew Research study noted that in recent decades, violent attacks on religious minorities, including Muslims and Christians, have been associated with a “rising tide of Hindu nationalism in India”.

‘Migration to US most popular pathway for Hindus’

The report said that the most “popular pathway” for Hindu migrants from around the world was to move from India to the United States. “About 1.8 million Hindus have taken this route, making up 61% of all Indian immigrants in the US as of 2020,” it said.

The think thank said that if the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council – which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – were considered a single destination, a move from India to these countries would be the most common for Hindus.

“Roughly 3 million Hindus from India live in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, where foreign workers comprise half or more of the area’s workforce,” it said.

Most Muslim migrants from India lived in Muslim-majority countries with job opportunities, including the United Arab Emirates with 1.8 million persons from India, Saudi Arabia with 1.3 million and Oman with 7,20,000, the report said.

India was the second-most common country of origin for Muslim migrants, Pew Research said.

The think tank said that migrants from India most commonly lived in the United Arab Emirates with 3.6 million residing there from the country, followed by the United States with 3 million, Saudi Arabia with 2.6 million, Pakistan with 1.6 million and Oman with 1.4 million.

Christians are largest migrant group globally

The study by Pew Research said that globally, Christians were the largest migrant group, with the religious group accounting for 47% of all those living outside their country of birth in 2020.

In all, about 280 million persons, or 3.6% of the world’s population, were living as international migrants, the think tank said.

The report relied on estimates from the United Nations on stocks of international migrants around the world “for 1990, 2020, and every five-year interval between”.