Demographics
| Population growth | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1951 | 3,254,000 |
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| 1961 | 3,561,000 | 9.4% | |
| 1971 | 4,617,000 | 29.7% | |
| 1981 | 5,987,000 | 29.7% | |
| 1991 | 7,837,000 | 30.9% | |
| 2001 | 10,143,700 | 29.4% | |
| Source:Census of India The 1991 Census could not be held in Jammu and Kashmir, the 1991 population is interpolated. |
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Jammu and Kashmir has a Muslim majority population. Though Islam is practiced by about 67% of the population of the state and by 97% of the population of the Kashmir valley, the state has large communities of Buddhists, Hindus (inclusive of Megh Bhagats) and Sikhs.
In Jammu, Hindus constitute 65% of the population, Muslims 31% and Sikhs, 4%; In Ladakh, Buddhists constitute about 46% of the population, the remaining being Muslims. The people of Ladakh are of Indo-Tibetan origin, while the southern area of Jammu includes many communities tracing their ancestry to the nearby Indian states of Haryana and Punjab, as well as the city of Delhi. In totality, the Muslims constitute 67% of the population, the Hindus about 30%, the Buddhists 1%, and the Sikhs 2% of the population.
According to political scientist Alexander Evans, approximately 95% of the total population of 160,000–170,000 of Kashmiri Brahmins, also called Kashmiri Pandits, (i.e. approximately 150,000 to 160,000) left the Kashmir Valley in 1990 as militancy engulfed the state. According to an estimate by the Central Intelligence Agency, about 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits from the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir have been internally displaced due to the ongoing violence.
| Division | Population | % Muslim | % Hindu | % Sikh | % Buddhist and other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kashmir (53.9%) | 5,476,970 | 97.16% | 1.84% | 0.88% | 0.11% | |
| Jammu (43.7%) | 4,430,191 | 30.69% | 65.23% | 3.57% | 0.51% | |
| Ladakh (2.3%) | 236,539 | 47.40% | 6.22% | – | 45.87% | |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 10,143,700 | 66.97% | 29.63% | 2.03% | 1.36% | |
| Statistics calculated from the 2001 Census India District Profiles There are roughly 1.5 million refugees from Indian Administered Kashmir in Pakistan Administered Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan. An estimated 50–100,000 Kashmiri Muslims and 150–300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been internally displaced due to militancy. |
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In Jammu and Kashmir, the principal spoken languages are Kashmiri, Urdu, Dogri, Pahari, Balti, Ladakhi, Gojri, Shina and Pashto. However, Urdu written in the Persian script is the official language of the state. Many speakers of these languages use Hindi or English as a second language.
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