Reno, Nev. (March 5, 2017) — Hindus will rise to 2.7 percent of Australia’s population, thus more than doubling their numbers as compared to 2011 Census at 1.3 percent, according to census experts in Collingwood, Victoria in Australia.
Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism based in Reno, said the prediction of the Hindu increase comes from the demographics consultancy “.id the population experts,” with Ivan Motley and Janet Coombs as founder and general manager of what they say is the largest team of demographic specialists in Australia and New Zealand. The firm’s report comes ahead of the 2016 Australia Census results expected to be released on June 27.
The number of people who claim to have no affiliation with an organized religion will increase to 29 percent, overtaking Catholicism as Australia’s largest single religious group, the study said. Other predictions are that the number of people who reported they were of the Islamic faith will increase from 2.2 percent to 2.6 percent of Australia’s population, and that Christianity overall will fall from 61.1 percent to 54.8 percent of the total population.
Despite calls not to do so, around 52,000 people will still put their religion as some variant of “Jedi,” the term given to masters of “the force,” which is a fictitious form of spiritualism depicted in the Star Wars genre of books and films.
In a statement, Zed, congratulated the Hindu community in Australia for continuing with the traditional values of hard work, higher morals, stress on education, sanctity of marriage and other tenets of the faith amidst the many distractions of 21st century life. He encourage Hindus to focus on inner search, to stay pure, explore the vast wisdom of scriptures, make spirituality more attractive to youth and children, stay away from the greed and always keep God central to one’s life and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal.
Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion of the world. Hinduism has about one billion adherents, Zed said.
