Literacy rates of various religious minorities in India mentioned in this post are inaccurate - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 25, 2022
A Facebook post is being widely shared that compares the literacy rates of various religious minorities in India. This post claims that the minority community comprising 20% of population are involved in 80% of crimes, 90% of treasons but 70% of them are illiterate and only less than 1% pays taxes. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: While 70% of Muslim in India are illiterate, they are involved in 80% of crimes, 90% of treasons, and only less than 1% of them pays tax.
Fact: According to the census 2021 data, literacy rates of Muslims is 68.5% and Christians is 84.5%. Moreover, Government of India does not release crime statistics and tax-related data based on religion. Hence, the claims made in the post are MISLEADING.
The post doesn’t explicitly mention the name of any minority community in the claim, but according to National commission for Minorities (NCM), Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis have been notified as minority communities under National commission for Minorities act, 1992. Since Jain, Parsi and Sikh were already mentioned, it is evident that the post refers to Muslims and Christians which comprise of 14.2% and 2.3 % population respectively as per the Census 2011 data.
Literacy rate:
Taking cue from this, we searched with the relevant keywords and found a drop-in article titled, “Distribution of population by religions”. This article was published on the official Census India website in 2011 based on the 2001 census data. According to this article, the literacy rates among various communities in India are as follows:
We further searched for the latest data regarding the same and found a report by Ministry of Minority affairs titled, “Committee on the Establishment of Educational Institutions for Educationally Backward Minorities”. In page 15, the document shows the literacy rates of various minorities in the country. The raw data sheet from Census India can be seen here.
Crime rate & Tax contribution:
Earlier, Factly debunked a claim that ‘Muslims in India carry out 98% rapes, 95% robberies, 100% terrorism, 300% population explosion, and use 800% of government facilities; but only contribute 0.1% tax to government.’ The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released ‘Crime in India 2020’ report on its website. In this document, there is no reference to religion as a category for recording crime.
Also, The methodology adopted in Direct tax collection, Income Tax Return Statistics and data related to Goods and Service Tax (GST) are not based on any religion.
To sum it up, Literacy rates of Muslim and Christian communities are 68.5% and 84.5% respectively; Also, Government of India does not release crime statistics and tax-related data based on religion