# India, Notes on Baha'i Population

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Charles Nolley, India, Notes on Baha'i Population, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> India, Notes on Bahá'í Population
> 
> Charles Nolley
> William Garlington
> 
> 1997-03
> 
> Edited posts by Charles Nolley
> 
> ...I agree that there are some real problems with the calculation of Bahá'í
> population. At the same time, I have had some experiences which lead me to
> think that the patterns of Bahá'í membership accounting may be more mixed.
> 
> In six trips to India, I had some opportunity to look into this issue. It was
> a matter of considerable interest to me as I had my own doubts and questions
> about the reported numbers and wondered to what extent the teachings of the
> Faith had any real impact upon people in rural areas who had reportedly become
> Bahá'ís in such large numbers.
> 
> My first experiences, which were primarily with the urban communities of Delhi
> and Bombay, did little to give me an impression of a vibrant community of such
> size. Furthermore, in questioning leading Bahá'í administrators and other
> knowledgable Bahá'ís, I got very different answers. Without going into detail,
> let me just say that I did not gain confidence that there was much real
> knowledge about the condition or even the size of the community among these
> urban believers. One of the Counsellors, who, as far as I could tell, probably
> had seen more and knew more about the community than almost anyone else at the
> top levels of administration, candidly stated that they really know very little
> about the condition of the vast majority of these communities in a systematic
> way. There was ready acknowledgement of the occurrence of what Juan called
> "fraudulent" teaching, some of which struck me as more egregious than what he
> reported in his post.
> 
> Along with that, however, there were some very interesting first person reports
> of going into villages where there had been a lot of enrollments but not a lot
> of regular contact, with lots of doubts as to whether these people would even
> remember the Faith, much less have any connection to it, to discover that the
> establishment of the Faith had resulted in major life changes for the lot of
> women and children. They reported that wife beating, and child abuse by
> fathers, had dropped dramatically as the men had cut back on drinking after
> becoming Bahá'ís. There may have been no women serving on the local Assembly
> yet, but the women were quick to assert that the Faith had dramatically
> improved their lives and those of their children in concrete and fundamental
> ways.
> 
> While these stories are interesting, it is hard to know how widespread such
> experiences are and hence they are inconclusive. There is no way to tell which
> patterns may be more common and most evaluations depend largely upon hunches.
> 
> Observations on Uttar Pradesh Because of my interest in the nature of mass
> teaching and the character of rural Bahá'í communities in India, I was invited
> to visit the heart of one of the largest mass teaching areas in India. I was
> particularly interested in trying to get a handle on the Bahá'í demographics of
> the area. Briefly stated, this is what I saw.
> 
> The area, which was completely rural and quite densely populated, is possibly
> the largest "mass teaching" area in the world, with an estimated 400,000
> Bahá'ís within a radius of about 70 km from the center. At the same time, if
> there is any place where one would expect to find extreme inflation of numbers,
> this would certainly be a prime candidate.
> 
> The village of Malhausi houses a number of the administrative offices for the
> state Bahá'í Council of U.P. including its office of statistics. At the time
> of my visit, the State Councils were fairly new and grappling with how to
> organize themselves for their work. For those, who may not be familiar with
> this early form of decentralization, the House of Justice called for the
> creation of separate state councils for each of the Indian states. These
> Councils are elected, in much the same fashion as the National Spiritual
> Assembly and function in much the same way and an NSA. Although they function
> under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly, they are elected
> independently, elect their own officers, administer and collect their own
> funds, make and carry out many of their own plans, and were authorized to
> communicate directly with the House of Justice should they feel the need to do
> so. They had few resources and were lacking in certain kinds of administrative
> experience. To a western observer, it did not look at first glance like a very
> competent organizational structure at that early stage. I was happily
> surprised however.
> 
> Exhibit one:
> There was a small office that was being used for Bahá'í record keeping and some
> other administrative purposes. In addition to Bahá'í charts, the walls were
> lined with all kinds of statistical charts, many of which were beautifully
> illustrated by hand. When I inquired about these, I learned that they were
> records of a whole host of agricultural experiments they had been carrying out
> over the past several years in order to improve crop yields and monitor the
> effects of various techniques on the yield of the chicken farms. They had done
> all kinds of controlled experiments and were meticulous in documenting the
> results. This was resulting in more profitable agricultural practices. They
> then went on to explain that they were using the same systematic techniques to
> track and study the growth of the Bahá'í communities in the area. I had
> already learned that there is no national data base in India. In many of the
> mass teaching areas, names of new declarants are recorded on long sheets of
> paper so that up to fifty or sixty persons can enroll on a single page. They
> gave considerable training to the teachers about how to enroll people. They
> said that they still had occasional problems with inappropriate "enrollments"
> and that when they detected this, they would make an adjustment in the numbers
> reported to the National Spiritual Assembly. Since they can not possibly track
> withdrawals and deaths, other adjustments are made for these factors as well.
> For example, I was told that it is the practice nationwide to automatically
> reduce the previous year's total population by a factor equalling the national
> mortality rate. The number of new believers is then added to this reduced
> figure and the net is reported as the growth for that year. All other things
> being equal, over a matter of decades, this will result in more accurate
> figures than in a country like the U.S. where everyone is tracked on computer,
> but where there is no mechanism to ever remove someone unless they are
> positively reported to have died or withdrawn.
> 
> Exhibit two: A second area of relevant observation was that there was a strong cadre of
> regional teachers and administrators who were much more knowledgeable about what
> was happening at village level than the Bahá'ís in the urban centers. One truly
> remarkable board member serving this area had no less than 600 assistants.
> When I asked how he could possibly keep track of them, he showed me his hand
> made directory which contained names, addresses, photographs and assignments
> for each of them. They were systematically trained in group sessions and were
> active in their communities. In addition, full time teachers and consolidation
> teams made up of deepened Bahá'ís who are themselves of rural background and
> know the cultural landscape, were constantly moving about, working with
> communities and filing regular reports.
> 
> Exhibit three: Some other experiences were more subjective but still telling. Women are very
> secluded in this area. While not fully veiled, they will instantly cover their
> face and look away rather than meet the glance of a man, even at a great
> distance. When teaching in these areas, men and women sit in different areas.
> In short, the seclusion of women was much as you would expect to find in a
> middle eastern Muslim country. One morning, I slipped out on my own and walked
> alone to a nearby village. I had wanted to see how it felt when not in the
> presence of the Indian Bahá'ís who were my hosts. My presence did not cause a
> lot of stir and I spent some time taking photographs. In the process, I
> attracted the attention of a few children. They spoke no English but I tried
> to explain to them that I was a Bahá'í, repeating the words, Bahá'í,
> Bahá'u'lláh and Allah'u'Abha. One of the children disappeared into the house
> and soon reappeared with a young mother. She did not approach at first but met
> my gaze openly. I spoke to her with the same words, which she and the children
> repeated as familiar. There were smiles, I showed them photos of my children,
> we exchanges bows and other gestures of courtesy and I bid them all goodbye.
> It was a simple encounter, yet it struck me deeply how different was this
> woman's behaviour from that of all the other women in that village. She was
> reserved and restrained but yet she felt the courage to socially engage this
> strange man in a way that no one else dared to do. It was obvious from our
> limited "conversation" that the connection was only one thing, the name of
> Bahá'u'lláh. Anecdotal to be sure but nonetheless, quite a striking
> experience in that cultural context.
> 
> Exhibit Four: I also visited a number of Bahá'í tutorial schools in the area.
> The visits were unannounced and while, I'm sure I was taken to schools that
> were known to be among the better functioning ones, it was still impressive to
> see. Facilities were simplicity itself but the instruction was in earnest, the
> classes disciplines and the children knew many prayers, tablets and songs.
> Furthermore, I learned that the Bahá'í schools were functioning with much
> greater regularity than the government schools which had better facilities but
> were largely empty due to rampant absenteeism by both students and teachers.
> These schools number in the hundreds. I cannot say how many of these function
> at the level that I say but all of the ones I visited were creating a stronger
> sense of Bahá'í identity and deeper knowledge than any programs I have seen in
> North America.
> 
> Exhibit five: In response to my questions, I was taken to see how mass teaching
> is done. One example was through the Shanti Rath, or "peace chariot," an oxcart
> which is fitted out with a small generator, two TV monitors, sound system and
> VCR that goes from village to village operated by two trained villagers who
> stay in the village for a day or more at a time in order to teach and deepen
> the friends. This attracts large crowds as might be expected and there was
> great interest, though I should note, that while I was there, a lot of teaching
> was done but no enrollments were gathered. I went on a second trip to visit a
> village that had never yet been opened to the Faith. It was an all day affair.
> We arrived at the village, informed the people that we wished to deliver a
> spiritual message and asked those who were interested to gather. In a short
> while there was a crowd of close to 100 people. The Faith was presented quite
> thoroughly and seriously over a period of a couple of hours. People asked
> serious questions. Some were uninterested and left. A few seemed a bit
> disdainful and some were genuinely interested. There was clearly no mass group
> psychology at work here as the responses varied a great deal. After the
> presentation was complete, people were invited to become Bahá'ís and a couple
> of dozen people expressed interest. The enrollment process was explained and
> people began to sign the sheets. Then an immediate deepening began.
> Literature was distributed to those who could read and some photos were passed
> around and explained as well. In rural, India, the people recount historical
> narratives and stories through a kind of narrative song or chant which is
> performed with a traditional style of semi-poetic verse. The Bahá'ís have put
> the teaching and history of the Faith into these traditional forms of verse and
> they are printed in books. These stories were given to one of the village
> elders who had expressed the desire to become a Bahá'í and he immediately began
> to chant these stories in the traditional style, in effect leading a deepening
> session which they went on for a couple more hours.
> 
> By the end of it, more
> than 50 people had declared and had been through about a half day of intensive
> deepening. Teachers were assigned to revisit and have further consolidation
> within two weeks. Nothing was withheld. They learned about the Central
> Figures, the laws, the Fund, the Covenant and many other things. Obviously,
> their knowledge at the time of declaration was not great. However, they had
> met together as a community, already they had literature and an experience of
> how to deepen together on their own in a way that they were comfortable with
> and competent in. All in all it was a much more sophisticated and developed
> process than any mass teaching I have observed or been involved with the North
> America. I'm sure not all of the teaching is so well done and there are
> certainly many glitches and problems. The believers regaled me with some
> hilarious stories of human foibles in their efforts to teach the Faith in that
> area. Nonetheless, I was struck by the sense that they were aware of these
> things, were working quite systematically to improve their processes and that
> they were indeed making some real progress. All of this comes from one who is
> very often skeptical of the value of much of the "mass teaching" that is going
> on.
> 
> Exhibit six: The final piece of evidence is perhaps the most telling of all in terms of its
> utility for assessing the validity of Bahá'í population reports in this area.
> It came from my meeting with the State Bahá'í Council which just happened to
> have a meeting while I was in the area. It had been suggested to me that it
> would be nice to meet them briefly to exchange courtesies and perhaps offer a
> word of encouragement. When I entered the meeting, I asked them what they
> were working one and how the work was progressing. The members replied that
> they were feeling somewhat depressed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
> work before them. I imagined that they must be wondering how they could ever
> try and mobilize all of these village communities which surely, must not have
> any capacity to function administratively. They stated that after their
> Council was elected some months earlier, they did not have a clear sense of the
> state of the communities and Assemblies under their jurisdiction (over 900
> Assemblies for this single State Council). Their response, following
> consultation, was a decision to write to all 900 assemblies and ask them to
> report on their plans and activities. It was a very innovative move because as
> far as they knew, no administrative institution had ever written directly to
> these Assemblies before. I then asked about the response, rather expecting
> that it would naturally be very low and so they must be trying to figure out
> what to do next. To my complete surprise, they stated that their problem was
> just the opposite. In just a couple of months, they had received written
> reports from 620 Assemblies in their region, detailing their plans and current
> activities. In addition, many of the letters and reports sought additional
> guidance from the State Council. In the face of this response, the Council
> felt totally overwhelmed, saying, how can we, without equipment, staff or
> funds, possibly answer all of the questions of the friends and provide all the
> guidance they are seeking. This is a written response rate of more than
> two-thirds from Assemblies formed in rural areas by mass teaching and
> consolidation over the years. This is truly a remarkable figure from an area
> where one might reasonably expect that few Assemblies would be able to function
> to a level of submitting, on their own a written report in response to a single
> request from a senior Bahá'í institution.
> 
> There was more, but suffice it to say that I left U.P. with a strong sense that
> I had witnessed something wholly unlike the growth and development processes I
> have witnessed in the American Bahá'í Community. Furthermore, I was quite
> convinced that the population reports for India, though not without problems
> and uncertainties, are probably much more accurate than those of the U.S.
> 
> India is a vast and infinitely complex country and the Bahá'í community is
> also diverse, scattered, heterogeneous and complex. I would not suggest by any
> means that all of the states function at the same level in this regard as U.P.
> but I did ask if many of the equalizing demographic procedures were used
> nationally and was told that indeed they were. Finally, I did not sense a
> strong urge to put up the largest number possible which seems to characterize
> the American community. Finally, it struck me, especially after returning to
> the cities, how much the residue of caste, which is still extremely strong in
> India, is a challenge for the Bahá'ís in much the same way that race prejudice
> is in this country. It seems to me that one attitudinal effect of this is that
> the national leadership, which is prominently urban and high caste, tends not
> to have too much knowledge or place too much importance on developments in the
> rural areas. There is little tendency to romanticize about these communities,
> and perhaps even a tendency to discount their importance. I can't help but
> wonder if the estimate of 100,000 active believers reported to Juan Cole might
> not have been influenced by these factors.
> 
> It would be good if these discussions could help generate some more
> sophisticated and accurate means of judging Bahá'í populations in various
> countries. In the meantime, I think we should be cautious about
> overgeneralizing in either direction based upon a few experiences. After all,
> a lot of what makes good science is to refrain from giving answers for which we
> do not have sufficient evidence.
> 
> In the meantime, at least a part of this whole controversy could have been
> avoided if communities would continue to follow the advice of the Guardian only
> to report the number of centers, groups and assemblies and to avoid estimates
> of individual membership.
> 
> P.S. The question of multiple identities is also an interesting one. I
> documented some clear patterns that were quite interesting during my fieldwork
> among the Sioux and Assininboine Indians in Montana. Very different types of
> religious responses with very different cultural antecedents popped up pretty
> systematically in certain contexts and this was true of the Bahá'ís there as
> well. However, I would take issue with the notion that this is specifically a
> third world issue. One might posit that it is more of an issue with people who
> belong to non-exclusivist traditions. It tends to exist where there is a mixing
> of ethnic and religious identities. For example, just a couple of weeks ago
> in Chicago, we had what might best be described as a Russian, Messianic Jewish
> funeral carried out in traditional Jewish surroundings, with content and
> organization by the Bahá'í community and active participation from a Muslim
> relative. It was all reflective of the complex multi-polar religious identity
> of the deceased (who incidentally, was not a declared Bahá'í).
> 
> Addendum by William Garlington
> 
> ...From my own experiences in the mass teaching areas of Madhya Pradesh in
> 1973-74 it was fairly apparent that declaring oneself a Bahá'í did not mean
> that an individual was being put in the position of having to *leave* his own
> religious tradition (which in this case was primarily Hindu). Indeed, in the
> villages that I visited it seemed apparent that declared Bahá'ís for the most
> part continued to practice traditional behavioral idioms. Moreover there was
> little indication that they had abandoned the Hindu *world view*. They had
> declared their belief in Bahá'u'lláh as an avatar and were *compartmentalizing*
> their Bahá'í activities so as not to directly come into conflict with
> traditional village or regional norms. As many were from the lower castes
> (unclean and untouchable) ritual purity was not as big a factor as for higher
> caste Hindus. My own conclusion was that the Bahá'í Faith better fit the
> category of a *bhakti* movement rather than a new religion in that it 1)allowed
> for *converts* to express their *deviant* attitudes within a compartmentalized
> frame of reference (Bahá'í institutions such as Feast and Assembly Meetings) 2)
> was highly devotional in nature and 3) tended to show a preference for symbolic
> and utopian expressions of change rather than direct social action. (With the
> onset of specific development programs in the 80s and 90s this aspect of the
> Faith in India may well have changed to some degree, although I would doubt
> that there has been much attempt to openly combat caste prejudice in the name
> of the Faith.) All of this is to say that IMO what allows for the large numbers
> is the fact that in India one can be a Bahá'í and still be a Hindu. If such an
> approach were taken in the United States I would imagine that the number of
> Bahá'ís here would also be dramatically increased.
> 
> METADATA
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> Views23425 views since posted 1997-03; last edit 2025-03-09 13:59 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../nolley_bahai_population_india;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> — *India, Notes on Baha'i Population (Used by permission of the curator)*