India, Notes on Baha'i Population
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Charles Nolley, India, Notes on Baha'i Population, bahai-library.com.
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India, Notes on Bahá'í Population

Charles Nolley
William Garlington

1997-03

Edited posts by Charles Nolley

...I agree that there are some real problems with the calculation of Bahá'í
population. At the same time, I have had some experiences which lead me to
think that the patterns of Bahá'í membership accounting may be more mixed.

In six trips to India, I had some opportunity to look into this issue. It was
a matter of considerable interest to me as I had my own doubts and questions
about the reported numbers and wondered to what extent the teachings of the
Faith had any real impact upon people in rural areas who had reportedly become
Bahá'ís in such large numbers.

My first experiences, which were primarily with the urban communities of Delhi
and Bombay, did little to give me an impression of a vibrant community of such
size. Furthermore, in questioning leading Bahá'í administrators and other
knowledgable Bahá'ís, I got very different answers. Without going into detail,
let me just say that I did not gain confidence that there was much real
knowledge about the condition or even the size of the community among these
urban believers. One of the Counsellors, who, as far as I could tell, probably
had seen more and knew more about the community than almost anyone else at the
top levels of administration, candidly stated that they really know very little
about the condition of the vast majority of these communities in a systematic
way. There was ready acknowledgement of the occurrence of what Juan called
"fraudulent" teaching, some of which struck me as more egregious than what he
reported in his post.

Along with that, however, there were some very interesting first person reports
of going into villages where there had been a lot of enrollments but not a lot
of regular contact, with lots of doubts as to whether these people would even
remember the Faith, much less have any connection to it, to discover that the
establishment of the Faith had resulted in major life changes for the lot of
women and children. They reported that wife beating, and child abuse by
fathers, had dropped dramatically as the men had cut back on drinking after
becoming Bahá'ís. There may have been no women serving on the local Assembly
yet, but the women were quick to assert that the Faith had dramatically
improved their lives and those of their children in concrete and fundamental
ways.

While these stories are interesting, it is hard to know how widespread such
experiences are and hence they are inconclusive. There is no way to tell which
patterns may be more common and most evaluations depend largely upon hunches.

Observations on Uttar Pradesh Because of my interest in the nature of mass
teaching and the character of rural Bahá'í communities in India, I was invited
to visit the heart of one of the largest mass teaching areas in India. I was
particularly interested in trying to get a handle on the Bahá'í demographics of
the area. Briefly stated, this is what I saw.

The area, which was completely rural and quite densely populated, is possibly
the largest "mass teaching" area in the world, with an estimated 400,000
Bahá'ís within a radius of about 70 km from the center. At the same time, if
there is any place where one would expect to find extreme inflation of numbers,
this would certainly be a prime candidate.

The village of Malhausi houses a number of the administrative offices for the
state Bahá'í Council of U.P. including its office of statistics. At the time
of my visit, the State Councils were fairly new and grappling with how to
organize themselves for their work. For those, who may not be familiar with
this early form of decentralization, the House of Justice called for the
creation of separate state councils for each of the Indian states. These
Councils are elected, in much the same fashion as the National Spiritual
Assembly and function in much the same way and an NSA. Although they function
under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly, they are elected
independently, elect their own officers, administer and collect their own
funds, make and carry out many of their own plans, and were authorized to
communicate directly with the House of Justice should they feel the need to do
so. They had few resources and were lacking in certain kinds of administrative
experience. To a western observer, it did not look at first glance like a very
competent organizational structure at that early stage. I was happily
surprised however.

Exhibit one:
There was a small office that was being used for Bahá'í record keeping and some
other administrative purposes. In addition to Bahá'í charts, the walls were
lined with all kinds of statistical charts, many of which were beautifully
illustrated by hand. When I inquired about these, I learned that they were
records of a whole host of agricultural experiments they had been carrying out
over the past several years in order to improve crop yields and monitor the
effects of various techniques on the yield of the chicken farms. They had done
all kinds of controlled experiments and were meticulous in documenting the
results. This was resulting in more profitable agricultural practices. They
then went on to explain that they were using the same systematic techniques to
track and study the growth of the Bahá'í communities in the area. I had
already learned that there is no national data base in India. In many of the
mass teaching areas, names of new declarants are recorded on long sheets of
paper so that up to fifty or sixty persons can enroll on a single page. They
gave considerable training to the teachers about how to enroll people. They
said that they still had occasional problems with inappropriate "enrollments"
and that when they detected this, they would make an adjustment in the numbers
reported to the National Spiritual Assembly. Since they can not possibly track
withdrawals and deaths, other adjustments are made for these factors as well.
For example, I was told that it is the practice nationwide to automatically
reduce the previous year's total population by a factor equalling the national
mortality rate. The number of new believers is then added to this reduced
figure and the net is reported as the growth for that year. All other things
being equal, over a matter of decades, this will result in more accurate
figures than in a country like the U.S. where everyone is tracked on computer,
but where there is no mechanism to ever remove someone unless they are
positively reported to have died or withdrawn.

Exhibit two: A second area of relevant observation was that there was a strong cadre of
regional teachers and administrators who were much more knowledgeable about what
was happening at village level than the Bahá'ís in the urban centers. One truly
remarkable board member serving this area had no less than 600 assistants.
When I asked how he could possibly keep track of them, he showed me his hand
made directory which contained names, addresses, photographs and assignments
for each of them. They were systematically trained in group sessions and were
active in their communities. In addition, full time teachers and consolidation
teams made up of deepened Bahá'ís who are themselves of rural background and
know the cultural landscape, were constantly moving about, working with
communities and filing regular reports.

Exhibit three: Some other experiences were more subjective but still telling. Women are very
secluded in this area. While not fully veiled, they will instantly cover their
face and look away rather than meet the glance of a man, even at a great
distance. When teaching in these areas, men and women sit in different areas.
In short, the seclusion of women was much as you would expect to find in a
middle eastern Muslim country. One morning, I slipped out on my own and walked
alone to a nearby village. I had wanted to see how it felt when not in the
presence of the Indian Bahá'ís who were my hosts. My presence did not cause a
lot of stir and I spent some time taking photographs. In the process, I
attracted the attention of a few children. They spoke no English but I tried
to explain to them that I was a Bahá'í, repeating the words, Bahá'í,
Bahá'u'lláh and Allah'u'Abha. One of the children disappeared into the house
and soon reappeared with a young mother. She did not approach at first but met
my gaze openly. I spoke to her with the same words, which she and the children
repeated as familiar. There were smiles, I showed them photos of my children,
we exchanges bows and other gestures of courtesy and I bid them all goodbye.
It was a simple encounter, yet it struck me deeply how different was this
woman's behaviour from that of all the other women in that village. She was
reserved and restrained but yet she felt the courage to socially engage this
strange man in a way that no one else dared to do. It was obvious from our
limited "conversation" that the connection was only one thing, the name of
Bahá'u'lláh. Anecdotal to be sure but nonetheless, quite a striking
experience in that cultural context.

Exhibit Four: I also visited a number of Bahá'í tutorial schools in the area.
The visits were unannounced and while, I'm sure I was taken to schools that
were known to be among the better functioning ones, it was still impressive to
see. Facilities were simplicity itself but the instruction was in earnest, the
classes disciplines and the children knew many prayers, tablets and songs.
Furthermore, I learned that the Bahá'í schools were functioning with much
greater regularity than the government schools which had better facilities but
were largely empty due to rampant absenteeism by both students and teachers.
These schools number in the hundreds. I cannot say how many of these function
at the level that I say but all of the ones I visited were creating a stronger
sense of Bahá'í identity and deeper knowledge than any programs I have seen in
North America.

Exhibit five: In response to my questions, I was taken to see how mass teaching
is done. One example was through the Shanti Rath, or "peace chariot," an oxcart
which is fitted out with a small generator, two TV monitors, sound system and
VCR that goes from village to village operated by two trained villagers who
stay in the village for a day or more at a time in order to teach and deepen
the friends. This attracts large crowds as might be expected and there was
great interest, though I should note, that while I was there, a lot of teaching
was done but no enrollments were gathered. I went on a second trip to visit a
village that had never yet been opened to the Faith. It was an all day affair.
We arrived at the village, informed the people that we wished to deliver a
spiritual message and asked those who were interested to gather. In a short
while there was a crowd of close to 100 people. The Faith was presented quite
thoroughly and seriously over a period of a couple of hours. People asked
serious questions. Some were uninterested and left. A few seemed a bit
disdainful and some were genuinely interested. There was clearly no mass group
psychology at work here as the responses varied a great deal. After the
presentation was complete, people were invited to become Bahá'ís and a couple
of dozen people expressed interest. The enrollment process was explained and
people began to sign the sheets. Then an immediate deepening began.
Literature was distributed to those who could read and some photos were passed
around and explained as well. In rural, India, the people recount historical
narratives and stories through a kind of narrative song or chant which is
performed with a traditional style of semi-poetic verse. The Bahá'ís have put
the teaching and history of the Faith into these traditional forms of verse and
they are printed in books. These stories were given to one of the village
elders who had expressed the desire to become a Bahá'í and he immediately began
to chant these stories in the traditional style, in effect leading a deepening
session which they went on for a couple more hours.

By the end of it, more
than 50 people had declared and had been through about a half day of intensive
deepening. Teachers were assigned to revisit and have further consolidation
within two weeks. Nothing was withheld. They learned about the Central
Figures, the laws, the Fund, the Covenant and many other things. Obviously,
their knowledge at the time of declaration was not great. However, they had
met together as a community, already they had literature and an experience of
how to deepen together on their own in a way that they were comfortable with
and competent in. All in all it was a much more sophisticated and developed
process than any mass teaching I have observed or been involved with the North
America. I'm sure not all of the teaching is so well done and there are
certainly many glitches and problems. The believers regaled me with some
hilarious stories of human foibles in their efforts to teach the Faith in that
area. Nonetheless, I was struck by the sense that they were aware of these
things, were working quite systematically to improve their processes and that
they were indeed making some real progress. All of this comes from one who is
very often skeptical of the value of much of the "mass teaching" that is going
on.

Exhibit six: The final piece of evidence is perhaps the most telling of all in terms of its
utility for assessing the validity of Bahá'í population reports in this area.
It came from my meeting with the State Bahá'í Council which just happened to
have a meeting while I was in the area. It had been suggested to me that it
would be nice to meet them briefly to exchange courtesies and perhaps offer a
word of encouragement. When I entered the meeting, I asked them what they
were working one and how the work was progressing. The members replied that
they were feeling somewhat depressed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
work before them. I imagined that they must be wondering how they could ever
try and mobilize all of these village communities which surely, must not have
any capacity to function administratively. They stated that after their
Council was elected some months earlier, they did not have a clear sense of the
state of the communities and Assemblies under their jurisdiction (over 900
Assemblies for this single State Council). Their response, following
consultation, was a decision to write to all 900 assemblies and ask them to
report on their plans and activities. It was a very innovative move because as
far as they knew, no administrative institution had ever written directly to
these Assemblies before. I then asked about the response, rather expecting
that it would naturally be very low and so they must be trying to figure out
what to do next. To my complete surprise, they stated that their problem was
just the opposite. In just a couple of months, they had received written
reports from 620 Assemblies in their region, detailing their plans and current
activities. In addition, many of the letters and reports sought additional
guidance from the State Council. In the face of this response, the Council
felt totally overwhelmed, saying, how can we, without equipment, staff or
funds, possibly answer all of the questions of the friends and provide all the
guidance they are seeking. This is a written response rate of more than
two-thirds from Assemblies formed in rural areas by mass teaching and
consolidation over the years. This is truly a remarkable figure from an area
where one might reasonably expect that few Assemblies would be able to function
to a level of submitting, on their own a written report in response to a single
request from a senior Bahá'í institution.

There was more, but suffice it to say that I left U.P. with a strong sense that
I had witnessed something wholly unlike the growth and development processes I
have witnessed in the American Bahá'í Community. Furthermore, I was quite
convinced that the population reports for India, though not without problems
and uncertainties, are probably much more accurate than those of the U.S.

India is a vast and infinitely complex country and the Bahá'í community is
also diverse, scattered, heterogeneous and complex. I would not suggest by any
means that all of the states function at the same level in this regard as U.P.
but I did ask if many of the equalizing demographic procedures were used
nationally and was told that indeed they were. Finally, I did not sense a
strong urge to put up the largest number possible which seems to characterize
the American community. Finally, it struck me, especially after returning to
the cities, how much the residue of caste, which is still extremely strong in
India, is a challenge for the Bahá'ís in much the same way that race prejudice
is in this country. It seems to me that one attitudinal effect of this is that
the national leadership, which is prominently urban and high caste, tends not
to have too much knowledge or place too much importance on developments in the
rural areas. There is little tendency to romanticize about these communities,
and perhaps even a tendency to discount their importance. I can't help but
wonder if the estimate of 100,000 active believers reported to Juan Cole might
not have been influenced by these factors.

It would be good if these discussions could help generate some more
sophisticated and accurate means of judging Bahá'í populations in various
countries. In the meantime, I think we should be cautious about
overgeneralizing in either direction based upon a few experiences. After all,
a lot of what makes good science is to refrain from giving answers for which we
do not have sufficient evidence.

In the meantime, at least a part of this whole controversy could have been
avoided if communities would continue to follow the advice of the Guardian only
to report the number of centers, groups and assemblies and to avoid estimates
of individual membership.

P.S. The question of multiple identities is also an interesting one. I
documented some clear patterns that were quite interesting during my fieldwork
among the Sioux and Assininboine Indians in Montana. Very different types of
religious responses with very different cultural antecedents popped up pretty
systematically in certain contexts and this was true of the Bahá'ís there as
well. However, I would take issue with the notion that this is specifically a
third world issue. One might posit that it is more of an issue with people who
belong to non-exclusivist traditions. It tends to exist where there is a mixing
of ethnic and religious identities. For example, just a couple of weeks ago
in Chicago, we had what might best be described as a Russian, Messianic Jewish
funeral carried out in traditional Jewish surroundings, with content and
organization by the Bahá'í community and active participation from a Muslim
relative. It was all reflective of the complex multi-polar religious identity
of the deceased (who incidentally, was not a declared Bahá'í).

Addendum by William Garlington

...From my own experiences in the mass teaching areas of Madhya Pradesh in
1973-74 it was fairly apparent that declaring oneself a Bahá'í did not mean
that an individual was being put in the position of having to *leave* his own
religious tradition (which in this case was primarily Hindu). Indeed, in the
villages that I visited it seemed apparent that declared Bahá'ís for the most
part continued to practice traditional behavioral idioms. Moreover there was
little indication that they had abandoned the Hindu *world view*. They had
declared their belief in Bahá'u'lláh as an avatar and were *compartmentalizing*
their Bahá'í activities so as not to directly come into conflict with
traditional village or regional norms. As many were from the lower castes
(unclean and untouchable) ritual purity was not as big a factor as for higher
caste Hindus. My own conclusion was that the Bahá'í Faith better fit the
category of a *bhakti* movement rather than a new religion in that it 1)allowed
for *converts* to express their *deviant* attitudes within a compartmentalized
frame of reference (Bahá'í institutions such as Feast and Assembly Meetings) 2)
was highly devotional in nature and 3) tended to show a preference for symbolic
and utopian expressions of change rather than direct social action. (With the
onset of specific development programs in the 80s and 90s this aspect of the
Faith in India may well have changed to some degree, although I would doubt
that there has been much attempt to openly combat caste prejudice in the name
of the Faith.) All of this is to say that IMO what allows for the large numbers
is the fact that in India one can be a Bahá'í and still be a Hindu. If such an
approach were taken in the United States I would imagine that the number of
Bahá'ís here would also be dramatically increased.

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-- India, Notes on Baha'i Population (Used by permission of the curator)