An impartial examination of the complexities underlying simple measures of fertility and population growth will reveal that we are all - Hindu, Muslim and Christian - driven by the same basic quotidian needs and constraints, and that our reproductive behaviour is one important way of reflecting these desires and dilemmas. These conclusions are not exciting, but they need to be publicised in the same way that the raw religious differences have been. This is the joint social responsibility of academia, the press, and political and religious 'leaders'. Such personal exercise of responsibility is essential because demonising the 'other' is easy, but it is also dishonest and it is often brutally consequential for all sides.
