Pratap Bhanu Mehta's point about 'demographic thinking': A response
Source: https://youtu.be/jkIosz8cOeg?t=2236
"...and the thing about this demographic thinking is completely self-fulfilling, this is not about an empirical argument, right, you can see how self-fulfilling its logic is, right?" [Emphasis mine]Since he does not specify either what his definition of self-fulfilling is or in what sense he is using it, let us consider a couple of dictionary meanings:
"(of an opinion or prediction) bound to be proved correct or to come true as a result of behaviour caused by its being expressed" https://cutt.ly/Itx5HqI
"becoming real or true by virtue of having been predicted or expected" https://cutt.ly/xtx5KtfIf the empiricism of 'demographic thinking' has been missed by him, for his convenience, let us first look at the data:
Empirical data:
Source: 26 August 2015 LiveMint article titled:
Forecast (projections based on empirical data):
So much for the supposed lack of empiricism of 'demographic thinking' and of an argument thereof. From the empirical data, how can this 'demographic thinking' be called 'self-fulfilling' for it is not true merely because it is being expressed but the change in demography is an empirical FACT! One subset of the above demographic change should be most troubling for not just any Hindu but for anyone who claims to believe in liberty and human rights: that demographic change effected by the genocide of Indian Hindu Kashmiri Pandits.
A related question naturally presents itself: Does Dr. Mehta believe that any anxiety of demographic change in Kashmir (due to de-operationalisation of Article 370) is also self-fulfilling? Unlike the above specified demographic change in India, any Muslim anxiety of a future demographic change in Kashmir is actually only hypothetical: if any, that is the argument which is not empirically sound, as of today.
More broadly speaking, Dr. Mehta's 'intellectualisation' in this talk reminded me of the following:
"In response to criticisms of the so-called text-historical method in Indology, the old guard of academia raises the spectre of Hindutva to scare off critics. ... If we are to reclaim the university as a place for open dialogue and debate, we must continue the critique of professorial privilege. Facile self-righteousness must not become a cover for intellectual vacuity." [Adluri and Bagchee. 2019. Cry Hindutva: How Rhetoric Trumps Intellect in South Asian Studies]
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