Poonam Sharma
Every few years, the United Nations publishes a report called World Population Prospects. Most people never read it, but quietly, this document decides how the future will look. It collects birth and death data from almost every country and uses it to predict how humanity will grow, age, and eventually decline.
The 2024 edition contains a surprising revelation:
The world’s population boom is ending sooner than we thought.Instead of rising forever, global population will peak at around 10.3 billion in the 2080s and then begin to shrink. At first glance, that sounds like simple arithmetic. But when you look closer, something much more dramatic is happening. The question is no longer how many people there will be. It is where they will be. And that shift is rewriting the future of entire civilizations.
A World Moving South and East
In 1950, almost one-third of the world lived in Europe and North America. By 2100, that will fall to just 10%. Think about that: regions that shaped world politics for centuries will become demographic minorities. Meanwhile, Asia and Africa rise sharply. Together they will have more than four out of every five humans by the end of the century.
No story of change and transformation perhaps compares to that of Africa:
1950: < 250 million people
2020: 1.36 billion
2100: ~3.8 billion
A seventeen-fold increase in one century. And with this rise comes a profound religious shift—Africa, once predominately tribal and polytheistic, is now almost evenly split between Christianity and Islam.Asia’s story is more subtle but equally important. East Asia is aging and shrinking fast. Central and West Asia remain young and Muslim-majority. Southeast Asia grows slowly.
The global implication couldn’t be clearer:
Islam and Christianity will dominate the future. Buddhism and Hinduism, despite their ancient heritage, will not keep pace. The Indian Subcontinent’s Silent Revolution To really imagine South Asia’s future, engage in a thought experiment:
For the moment, if we remove the year 1947 and think of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as one large demographic region—undivided India.
The numbers-Asia’s Population Share
1950: China 40%, Indian region 31%
2020: China 30.5%, Indian region 38%
2100: China < 14%, Indian region ~50%
Within Asia, the demographic center of gravity is shifting from China toward the Indian subcontinent.
The scale, however, tilts within the Indian region itself:
India’s share of this region falls from 82% in 1950 to 68% in 2100.
This increases Pakistan’s share from 8.5% to almost 23%.
Bangladesh remains at about 9–10%
This is not only geography, but religion too.Pakistan and Bangladesh are already overwhelmingly Muslim. India remains religiously mixed, but its Muslim minority is growing faster. Scholars at the India Center for Policy Studies (CPS) point out that if you recombine the three nations in 2100, Indic religions fall below 50%.This is not a political argument; it’s mathematics.
Pakistan: A Collapsing State With a Skyrocketing Population
Here lies the deepest paradox. Pakistan today is described by many analysts as a state in slow disintegration:
Balochistan in armed insurgency ,Pakistani Taliban resurgent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Anti-Pakistani movements in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
$130+ billion in foreign debt Interest eats up nearly half of the government’s revenues with Undemocratic-frequent rigged elections and military interference and Catastrophic floods hitting tens of millions.
More than 100 nuclear warheads under dubious security And yet—Pakistan’s population keeps growing.
From about 33 million in 1950 to over 500 million by 2100, still rising even as the state weakens. China is shrinking. Japan is shrinking. Europe is shrinking. Pakistan is not.
The Indo-Pak Paradox
When India was partitioned in 1947, it was based on the idea that Hindus and Muslims needed separate homelands. The Muslim-majority homeland—Pakistan—was expected to become stable, strong, and united.
Yet the opposite happened.The side created in the name of Muslim identity is breaking down.The side created as a secular, mixed state—India—remains stronger. It is the part which left India that now grows far faster than the part that stayed. Fast-forward that a few generations, and it creates an uncomfortable possibility.
If the subcontinent ever reunifies—by choice or by crisis—the demographic ratios will be nothing like they were in 1947.
It will be:
Younger
More Muslim
Tilted heavily towards Pakistan and Bangladesh
The collapsed state may disappear from the map-but not its people.
The Akhand Bharat Dilemma
Many Indians imagine a future where Pakistan collapses and unification becomes possible. Emotionally, it feels like justice after decades of terrorism and hostility.
But demographics reveal a bitter truth.
If today’s India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were combined:
Hindus remain a majority only for some time. By later in the century, they do not remain the majority. An Islamic-influenced constitution becomes politically possible In other words, the Pakistan you thought died outside might be reborn inside. Not by force, but by numbers. What appears to be a geopolitical victory may turn into a civilizational trap.
That One Question India Must Ask Demography is not loud. It does not make headlines. It simply moves, slowly and silently, until it becomes unstoppable. The question for India is really not about Pakistan, or China, or America. The question is this: Does Hindu society understand the scale of the demographic change coming? And if it does, can it organize—politically, socially, culturally—to preserve its civilizational identity? Call it cultural revival, call it karvapsi, call it civilizational confidence. Whatever the name, the challenge is real. Because the population maps of 2100 will shape political maps of 2200. And those maps will shape civilization itself.
