There are 2.2 Million Baha'is in India ????????????????????

[Baha'i Faith]

http://www.bahaindia.org/

We are the Bahá'ís of India - members of the largest Bahá'í Community
of the world, numbering some 2.2 Million. Associated with the central
figures of the Bahá'í Faith from its very inception in 1844, the
Bahá'ís in India today live in over 10,000 localities spread all over
the country. There are 29 State & Union Territories and about 900
Local governing bodies that are actively working for communal harmony,
unity of religion and unity of mankind. The Bahá'í literature exists
in all the major languages of the country.

Now this Annual report (2006-2007) shows the total number of Baha'is
is inida to 10,000

http://bahaicensus.weblog.com/2009/1/Annual-Report-Of-NSA-of-India-2007-BahaiPopulation.html

[Viv]

Post by Baha'i Faith
Now this Annual report (2006-2007) shows the total number of Baha'is
is inida to 10,000
http://bahaicensus.weblog.com/2009/1/Annual-Report-Of-NSA-of-India-20...

Nice try, but that's not what it says.

[John MacLeod]

Post by Baha'i Faith
http://www.bahaindia.org/
We are the Bahá'ís of India - members of the largest Bahá'í Community
of the world, numbering some 2.2 Million. ......
Now this Annual report (2006-2007) shows the total number of Baha'is
is inida to 10,000
http://bahaicensus.weblog.com/2009/1/Annual-Report-Of-NSA-of-India-2007-BahaiPopulation.html

It's a fairly confusing report and Appendix 2 (Baha'i Population) does
seem to have its two rightmost columns wrong. Nevertheless it seems to
claim an Indian Baha'i population of 86,612 which is of course still a
huge discrepancy from 2.2 million. Which page did you get the figure of
10,000 from?

Does anyone know the reason for this discrepancy? Is 2.2 million the
number of 'declarations' that have occurred and 86,612 the number of
known addresses? Or perhaps 86612 just represents the number who have
been processed by the statistical report program which is not seriously
implemented?

Some indication of the genuine size of the active community can perhaps
be gleaned from other sections of the report. For example it lists 10
marriages and a similar number of deaths. Total Feast attendance is
over 7000 (that figure actually impressed me but it certainly makes the
2.2 million seem unbelievable).
Total number to have attended Ruhi book 1 is given in the mid thirty
thousands.

Given the known difficulties in defining, let alone counting, the
adherents of any particular religion it seems to me that the 86612 may
be a believable figure. The 2.2 million no doubt represents something
but I don't think it is anything very important and I think the phrase
used in the web site " the largest Bahá'í Community of the world,
numbering some 2.2 Million." is pretty misleading.

[diamondsouled]

Hello John and all,

In India 'converts' are not required to sign the standard declaration
card that is used in the US but are only required to sign a
declaration that they believe Baha'u'llah to be one of the many
Avatars that are believed in by Hindus. They are not even required to
quit their former religious affiliation. It should be noted that
Hindus also acknowledge Buddha as an Avatar but this does not make
them Buddhists.

William Garlington has written fairly extensively on the subject and
has on the ground experience of Baha'ism in India:

"In making use of these tactics the Baha'i teachers did not demand
that new contacts completely reject their own heritage either in word
or
deed. Rather they allowed them to maintain both psychological and
behavioral links with the past while at the same time opening up new
arenas of belief and action. This compartmentalization fit in well
with
established mechanisms for change within the traditional village
social
structure and was perhaps the most significant reason for the large
numbers
of village conversions that took place during this stage of community
development.(35*)

The above analysis raises the question of the meaning of these
declarations
of faith. Were they true conversions, or were they something else? In
attempting to answer this question it might be helpful to compare the
Baha'i experience with another contemporary conversion movement in
India, the Neo-Buddhist movement.

In 1956 close to a half million members of the scheduled Mahar caste
converted to Buddhism. In so doing they took part in a conversion
ceremony
at Nagpur where they were asked to repeat, among other things, twenty-
two
oaths, eight of which were specifically anti-Hindu. These eight
included
denunciations of Hindu deities (among which were Rama and Krishna) and
prohibitions against taking part in certain Hindu rituals. The oath
concluded with the following statement: "I embrace today the Buddha
Dharma,
discarding the Hindu religion, which is detrimental to the
emancipation of
human beings other than the brahmins as low born." (36*)

http://www.h-net.org/~bahai/bhpapers/india1.htm

--------

It is well worthwhile to do some research on the Neo-Buddhist movement
in India to give a proper perspective to the claims of Baha'i to have
over two million adherents in India.

Cheers

Larry Rowe