Hindus presently form a majority in 5 nations .
India , Nepal , Mauritius , Fiji , and Guyana .
Nepal was a traditional Hindu Kingdom , Guyana , Fiji and Mauritius have populations of Hindus who migrated in the 19th , 20th centuries .
At one time Hindu culture was dominant thruought SE Asia : Cambodia and other nations had Hindu civilisations .
Malaysia which is now muslim , uses substantial Sanskrit in the Malay language , for instance they refer to native Malays as Bhumi Putras ( sons of the soil ) .
The present King of Thailand is Bhumipol Adulyatej ( In sanskrit - Bhumi Pal Atulya Tej - Ruler of the Earth and of Incomparable Radiance ). The Ramayana is an important part of Thai folklore.
Cambodia has the worlds largest Hindu Temple measuring several sq km- Angkor Wat , dedicated to Vishnu .
The hindu island of Bali which is part of presently muslim Indonesia , has all its native population following ancient hinduism with devotion.
Hindus also live in 195 of the worlds 200 nations ,with substantial populations in the USA (nearly 2 million ), Canada , UK etc .
In India they officially form 79% of the population in 2009 , but acutally its closer to 65 %.
Officially the split is Hindus 79% , Muslims 15 %, christians 4% , others 2%. ( 2009).
Actually its Hindus about 65 % , muslims about 18%, christians about 6%, tribal beliefs about 7 % , and other religions about 4 %. ( sikh , buddhist , jain, etc)
The reason for this difference is that
1. Illegal muslim immigrants from bangaladesh are not counted in the official version .. .and they number about 2% offcially and 3 % unofficially . .
2. Tribals with their own unique beliefs are also officially counted as Hindus .
3. Poor christian converts from socially backward sections of society continue to call themselves Hindus on government records to avail of substantial sops given to socially backward Hindu groups .
The Hindus , basically being a non-violent , broad-minded and tolerant people , have lost much ground thruought history . SE Asia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan etc was lost to Buddhism - a sister religion , Indonesia and Malaysia to Islam .
Large parts of India and its hindus were invaded and occupied at various points of time by
1. the Greeks -(Alexander)
2. Huns
3. Mongols
4. Turks
5. Afghans
6. and presently the chinese having occupied Tibet , are now nibbling at India .
Hindus in their traditional homeland - India ( from the Hindukush and the Himalayan mountains in the north to the Indian ocean of the south ) have lost the fertile Indus river valley to Pakistan and the fertile Ganga Brahmaputra delta to Bangladesh , the kabul river valley ( Gandhara ) to Afghanistan , ----three islamic states .
- recently Nepal, a part of traditional hindu culture, has gone to chinese sponsored Maoists - etc ,
....all totalling nearly a third of the area of traditional India .
In the remaining part of present day India , hindus are still on the retreat . As per the official census figures ..held every 10 years ,
hindus officially constituted
in 1961 - 84%
in 1971- 83%
in 1981- 82 %
in 1991- 81 %
in 2001 - 80 %
in 2009 - 79%( est )
Muslims in the same period have official figures as follows
in 1961- 10%
in 1971 -11%
in 1981- 12%
in 1991- 13%
in 2001- 14%.
in 2009 - 15% ( est )
these are official figures .
As per statistical analysis , unoffcially , Hindus are expected to become a minority ( less than 50 % ) in India in about 15 decades ie in about 150 years .
Yet , one is confident that the Santhana Dharma which has faced many challenges in the past , and has survived 500 years of islamic rule and 200 years of british rule ... will live on in some form or the other , somewhere or the other.
The worlds most ancient path of wisdom cannot be extinguished .