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DELHI, INDIA, September 10, 2004: High growth in the population of Christians in North-Eastern region is another alarming feature of India’s compartmentalized demographic character. The Christians form a big chunk of the population in some of these states. The growth rate in this part is also considered significant. The community forms 2.3 percent of India’s population. According to the Census figure, Nagaland has almost emerged as a Christian state with as high as 90 percent of population being from the community while 87 percent of the people in Mizoram hail from the community. Meghalaya has 70.3 percent of people from this minority segment while Manipur has 34 percent. Arunachal Pradesh has 18.7 percent of Christians. The growth rate of the Christians in the North Eastern states, as shown by The First Report on Religion Data – 2001, is significant. The community in Nagaland was 1.057 million strong in 1991 and has grown to 1.79 million. The 1991 census registered the community’s strength in Mizoram as 591,000 and the same has in 2001 grown up to 772,000. In Meghalaya, the community has grown from 1.146 million in 1991 to 1.628 million in 2001. In Manipur, the same has grown from 626,000 in 1991 to 737,000 in 2001. The growth in Arunachal Pradesh has been appreciable in last one decade. The Christian population in the state in 1991 was registered at 89,013 and the same in 2001 stands at 205,548. Another interesting feature of high Christian population in the region is the high literacy rate among the community. The literacy rate in Nagaland stands at 66.2, in Manipur at 65.9, in Mizoram at 93.1, in Tripura at 67.9 and in Meghalaya at 65.3.

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