Maulana Sajjad Nomani, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), has triggered controversy after claiming that Hindus are not a majority in India and arguing that several communities commonly counted within the Hindu population should be treated as separate groups, as reported in India Today.
Speaking at a public event, Nomani said his conclusions were based on three decades of travel and research across the country into religious beliefs, caste identities, tribal traditions and faith practices.
“I place my hand on Hajr-e-Aswad and the cover of the Kaaba and say that Hindus are a minority in India. Under no circumstances can Hindus be considered a majority,” Nomani said.
He argued that the commonly accepted understanding of India’s religious demographics was flawed because several communities classified as Hindus should not be counted as part of the Hindu population.
According to Nomani, Sikhs, Christians and Buddhists are not Hindus. He further claimed that Scheduled Castes, tribal communities, the people of Tamil Nadu and the Lingayat community should also not be categorised as Hindus.
Referring to tribal communities, Nomani said they were the original inhabitants of the country and therefore should not be classified as Hindus.
He also claimed that sections of the Jat community were increasingly asserting a separate identity and declaring that they were “not Hindus”.
Nomani’s remarks have attracted attention because they challenge census-based and widely accepted demographic classifications that identify Hindus as the majority religious community in India.
The AIMPLB member also spoke about the political relationship between Muslims and various Hindu groups, reflecting on what he described as past political calculations made by sections of the Muslim community.
“We divided Hindus into secular and fascist categories, but both ended up hurting our cause,” he said.
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Elaborating on the statement, Nomani argued that Muslims had historically placed their trust in what he described as “secular Hindus”, only to find that those groups had ultimately handed over political power to what he termed “fascist Hindus”.
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