|
You are here : Home / 2001 Census Data / Index / Census Reports 1931
|
|
|
Census Reports 1931
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER - 1.
|
|
Distribution and Movement of
Population
|
|
Section I: - Scope of the Report
|
|
1.
The area covered by the sixth general census
of India is approximately identical with that
covered by the census of 1921 and differs little
from the area of previous occasions from 1881
onwards; 2,308 sq. miles containing some 34,000
inhabitants have been added in Burma and in the
North of Assam, while on the other hand, six sq.
miles have been lost to Nepal. The statistics
therefore cover the whole empire of India with,
Burma and the
adjacent
|
|
1881
|
1,382,164
|
--
|
|
1891
|
1,560,160
|
177,536
|
|
1901
|
1,766,597
|
206,437
|
|
1911
|
1,802,657
|
36,060
|
|
1921
|
1,802,332
|
2,675
|
|
1931
|
1,808,679
|
3,347
|
|
|
islands
and islets (Exclusive of Ceylon and the
Maldives) as well as Aden and Perim Island, but
not the Kuria Muria Islands* and Sokotra, which
is part of the Aden Protectorate, administered
from Aden on behalf of the Colonial Office, and
not part of British India. The statistics the
tables do not of course cover those parts of the
peninsula, which are not parts of the British
Empire, that is to say, Afghanistan, Nepal,
Bhutan and the French and Portuguese
possessions, the area and population of which,
together with the rate of increase since 1921
where available, are shown in the marginal
table. For the rest the scope of this census
extended to the whole of the peninsula of India,
forming what is commonly described as a sub
continent between long. 61 o and 101 o E. and
lat 6 o to 37 o N. Some information has also
been included with regard to natives of India
resident permanently or temporarily outside the
Indian Empire or serving on the High Seas at the
time the census was taken.
Obliviously within an area of such
|
|
--
|
Sq. Miles.
|
Population
|
|
Assam
|
+908
|
+15,711
|
|
Burma
|
+1,400
|
+18,327
|
|
United
Provinces
|
- 6
|
-130
|
|
Total Net
Addition
|
+ 2,302
|
+ 33,908
|
size, part
of which is well within the temperate zone while
part is almost equatorial, the diversity of
condition both of the population and of its
environment must be very great indeed.
Geologically, while the peninsula is one of the
oldest of the world's formations, the Himalayas
are one of the most recent. Not unnaturally
therefore there is a great variety of physical
feature, varying not only from the loftiest
mountains of the world to flats salted by every
tide, but from sandy deserts with a rainfall of
five inches or less in a year in the north west
to thickly
wooded
|
Afghanistan
|
250,000
|
7,000,000
|
..
|
|
Bhutan
|
20,000
|
250,000
|
..
|
|
Nepal
|
54,000
|
5,600,000
|
..
|
|
French India
|
196
|
286,410
|
+6.24
|
|
Portuguese India
|
1,461
|
579,969
|
+5.79
|
evergreen hills
which have never less than 100 inches and here
and there get 500 inches of rain or even more in
the east and south. Again in northern India
there are extremes of temperature - 120 o of
heat dropping to cold below freezing point,
while in the south the temperature is almost
static in its heats and humidity. As might be
expected the physical features of the
inhabitants are no less variable than those of
their environments. Any haphazard collection of
Indians will afford types of very different
ethnic groups, though the
|
Note
: The population of these islands
remains conjectural, and the only
information that can be had about them
was obtained in 1920 from the senior
naval officers at Aden it is printed in
part III of this Report, since, although
out of date, it appears to be the latest
information available. The question of
the language of Sonora formerly perhaps
written, but now a spoken language only,
is of some interest, as are likewise
habits and customs of the populations of
these islands some of whom in Sonora are
cave dwellers; it is therefore
unfortunate from a scientific point of
view that no investigation has ever
apparently been made.
|
composition
would vary according to the locality. The number
of languages, as classifieds by sir George Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India and
exclusive of dialects, is 225 by the returns of
1931. Creeds may be less numerous, but castes,
customs and sects must be no peoples to be
covered by this report present every aspect from
that of the latest phase of western civilization
to that of the most India, still exist by
hunting and collecting forest produce without
ever apparently of so large and diversified an
area must, if it is to be contained in a volume,
be of a superficial nature, leaving the closer
examination of the figures and facts revealed by
enumeration to the reports severally undertaken
for each of the provinces and larger States.
|
Vol. I
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables (iii) Appendix vol.
|
India
|
J.H.
Hutton
|
|
Vol. II
|
One
|
Andaman
and Nicobar
|
M.C.C
Bonington
|
|
Vol. III
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Assam
|
C.S.
Mullan
|
|
Vol. IV
|
One
|
Baluchinstan
|
Gul
Mohhammad Khan
|
|
Vol. V
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Bengal
|
A.E.
Poter
|
|
Vol. VI
|
One
|
City
of Calcutta
|
A.E.
Poter
|
|
Vol. VII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Bihar
and Orissa
|
W.G.Lacey
|
|
Vol. VIII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables (iii) Aden
|
Bombay
with Aden
|
A.H.
Dracup and H.T. Sorley. D.S.Johnston
|
|
Vol. IX
|
One
|
Cities
of Bombay
|
H.T.
Sorley
|
|
Vol. X
|
One
|
Western
India States Agency
|
A.H.
Dracup and H.T. Sorley
|
|
Vol. XI
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Burma
|
J.J.
Beninson
|
|
Vol. XII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Central
Provinces and Berar
|
W.H.Shoobert
|
|
Vol. XIII
|
One
|
Coorg
|
M.S.
Mandanna
|
|
Vol. XIV
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Madras
|
M.W.M.
Yeatts
|
|
Vol. XV
|
One
|
North
West Frontier provinces
|
G.L.Malam
and A.D.F. Dundas
|
|
Vol. XVI
|
One
|
Delhi
|
Ahmad
Hasan Khan
|
|
Vol. XVII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Punjab
|
Ahmad
Hasan Khan
|
|
Vol. XVII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
United
Provinces of Agra and oudh
|
A.C.
Turner
|
|
Vol. XIX
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Baroda
State
|
S.V.
Mukerjee
|
|
Vol. XX
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Central
India agency
|
C.S.
Venkatachar
|
|
Vol. XXI
|
One
|
Cochin
State
|
T.K.
Sankar Menon
|
|
Vol. XXII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Gwalior
state
|
Rang
lal
|
|
Vol.
XXIII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Hyderabad
State
|
Ghulam
Ahmed Khan
|
|
Vol. XXIV
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Jammu
and Kashmir state
|
Anant
Ram
|
|
Vol. XXV
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Mysore
State
|
M.Venkatesa
Iyenger
|
|
Vol. XXVI
|
One
|
Ajmer
Merwara
|
B.L.
Cole
|
|
Vol. XXVII
|
One
|
Rajputana
Agency
|
B.L.
Cole
|
|
Vol. XXVIII
|
(i)
Report (ii) Tables
|
Travancore
State
|
Niranjan
Pillai
|
2. At the same time in spite
of this great variety the existence for the most
part of a uniform system of administration and
of a fairly general distribution of the
different racial types from which the population
is drawn, together with a similar, if perhaps
less even distribution of religious and social
systems, contribute to give a certain
uniformity, if not unity, to the whole, which in
spite of local differences is obviously capable
of national consciousness which increases with
the spread of education. For the difficulty
occasioned by great diversity in treating India
as a whole is experienced likewise to a more
limited extent in each in treating India as a
whole is experienced likewise to a more limited
extent in each Province and in most States,
since the political boundaries have generally
little relation to any other. The difficulty of
dealing with the population question by natural
divisions in thus greatly enhanced. Obviously
the density of the population is in immediate
relationship to the conformation of the soil, to
the rainfall and to crops, all of which are
inter dependent, but since the boundaries of
administrative units run counter to the
divisions of nature, any treatment of the
population according to natural divisions is
likely to involve the dissipation of figures
returned by administrative units into a set of
entirely different combinations. This has been
attempted for India as a whole on some previous
occasions, but the information obtained by such
a treatment, however interesting academically,
is of little or no administrative value.
Demography by natural divisions therefore has
been limited to the individual reports of
provinces, since in some of the provinces and
states the natural divisions are less diverse
from divisions political than they are when
India is treated as a whole, and within the
administrative unit may even be of some
practical application.
3.
In addition to the actual
population of India some attempt has been made
to give information as to Indian nationals in
other countries or on the High Seas. These
figures are necessarily incomplete, but perhaps
go further than they have done on previous
occasions by including returns of Indian crews
on ocean going vessels shipped during the eight
months or so that preceded the final
enumeration. Though not in India at the time of
the census, these crews form a permanent part of
the population visiting their homes from time to
time and in many cases returning agriculture as
a subsidiary occupation. Strictly speaking
therefore, although the census in intention is
one of the de facto population that is of the
numbers found in India on February 26 th , 1931
and not as in the case of the United States, for
instance, a de jure population, the terms of a
census of actual population have not been
observed with excessive punctuality. This indeed
would have been impossible, since the remoteness
of some parts of India, the difficulty of
communications and limitations imposed be water,
snow and wild animals make a completely
synchronous enumeration of the whole peninsula
an absolute impossibility
Section II: - Distribution and
Movement
4. The total area covered by
this census amounts to 18 hundred thousands sq.
Miles and the population inhabiting it to 353
millions giving a density for the whole area of
195 persons per sq. mile. This density however
is a very variable factor appearing at the
lowest as 6.5 persons per sq. mile in the mean
density of Baluchistan, Chigai district of which
has only one person to the square mile, and at
its highest at about 2,000 persons per sq. mile
in the most thickly
populated parts of the south
west coast, the general density of Cochin State,
including both the thickly populated coast lands
and the almost uninhabited highlands, being
814.2 persons per sq. mile and reaching in one
village the amazing maximum found in any purely
rural population of over 4,000 persons to the
sq. mile. There is, however, in Bengal an even
higher general level of density, since the Dacca
Division has a mean density of 935 persons for a
population of 13,864,104, and reaches a rural
density 3,228 per. Sq. mile for a Lohajang thana,
and a mean density of 2,413 for Munshiganj sub
division which has an area of 294 sq. miles. Of
the total population 256,859,787 represents the
population of British India proper, the area of
which is 862,679 sq. miles, and 81,310,845 that
of the States with an area of 712,508 sq. miles.
British India with Burma has a population of
271,526,933 and the proportion of the population
of the states to British India is 23 to 77 when
Burma is included. On the other hand if she be
excluded it is 24 to 76. It has been already
mentioned that the density of the population
varies largely according to the rainfall and it
may here be pointed out that in the densest
areas ? those of Cochin, of eastern Bengal,
the north east of the united provinces and of
Bihar, the rainfall is heavier than in any other
part of India except Assam, where large tracts
of hills and forest reduce the population in
proportion to the area, and in southern Burma
where there is considerable room for the
increase of population and where also there are
considerable room for the increase of population
and where also there are considerable areas of
forest and hills. With India's present
population and area we may compare England and
Wales with an area of over 58,000 sq. miles and
a population of nearly 40,000,000 and a density
of 685 persons per. Sq. mile, or Europe as a
whole area 3,750,000 sq. miles, population
475,000,000 mean density 127 persons per sq.
mile, with the united states of America-area
3,027,000 sq. miles, population 123,000,000
persons per sq. miles 41, or China the area of
which including Tibet, Mongolia, Chinese, Turkestan and Manchuria is estimated at 4�
million sq. miles and the population of which
according to the latest estimate, that of
professor Willcox, is 342,000,000 giving a
density of 80.5 persons per sq. mile, though in
the fertile areas of course much heavier than
this. Indeed a more useful comparison should be
with China proper, having an area of about 1.5
million sq. miles and a genera density of
probably 200 to 220 persons per. Sq. mile. It
may be added that the total population of the
world is now estimated at about 1,850,000,000
and if this be the fact, the population of India
forms almost one fifth part of that of the whole
world. It should be added, as regards area, that
the survey of India is now revising the official
figures of the area of districts and provinces
which will involves some modification of the
figures given in the census reports. Revised
figures were not ready in time to be utilized
generally at this census, but the necessary
changes in area and density are for the most
part small and unimportant.
5.
The actual increase since
1921 is 33,895,298 that is to say, 10.6
percent on the population at the last census
and 39 percent on the population of India
fifty years ago and an increase of 12 persons
per square mile in 50 years, during which time
the increase in area has been principally,
if not entirely,
confined
to comparatively
thinly
|
1881
|
253,896,330
|
1872-81
|
47,733,970
|
33,139,081
|
14,594,889
|
23.2
|
|
1891
|
287,314,671
|
1881-91
|
33,418,341
|
5,713,902
|
27,704,439
|
13.2
|
|
1901
|
294,361,05
|
1891-01
|
7,046,385
|
2,62,077
|
4,374,308
|
2.5
|
|
1911
|
315,156,396
|
1901-11
|
20,795,340
|
1,793,365
|
19,001,975
|
7.1
|
|
1921
|
318,942,480
|
1911-21
|
3,786,084
|
86,633
|
3,699,451
|
1.2
|
|
1931
|
352,837,778
|
1921-31
|
33,895,268
|
35,058
|
33,860,240
|
10.6
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
1881-31
|
98,941,448
|
10,301,035
|
88,640,413
|
39.0
|
populated areas, and
amounts to 426,055 sq. miles. These figures
may be compared with an increase in England
and Wales since last census of only 5.4
percent, but of 53.8 percent, in the last 50
years, with an increase of nearly 18 percent
in Ceylon and with an increase in Java of 20
percent, since the last census and of as much
as 26 percent in the outer islands of the
Netherlands Indies. The population of java is
of course not comparable with that of India as
a whole on account of its small size and
limited area, but having (With Madura) the
very high density of 817 persons per square
mile it is comparable with the more densely
populated parts of India already mentioned.
This illustrates the fact that the density in
India is so variable that it is impossible to
consider the question of movement of the
population without going into the question of
movement of the population without going into
the question of the distribution and variation
of density, for density of population in India
depends not on industry, as in the United
Kingdom, but on agriculture, and is greatest
of course in the most fertile areas. At this
census, however the greatest increase is in
the states, where generally speaking the
density is lowest, and therefore the increase
in the population shown by the figures of this
census appears at first sight indicative of
pressure upon the margin of cultivation, but
while the greatest increase has been in Bikaner (41.9 percent) this must be put down
largely to the increase of irrigation and to
the consequent immigration from outside, and
one of next highest increases is that of Travancore in which the density was already
among the highest in India. The increase in
Hyderabad state again is partly to be
attributed to an increase of efficiency in the
taking of the census and cannot therefore be
safely used as a basis of any comparison of
the population as it is now and was then.
Obviously the greatest increase in population
is to be expected in areas such as that Burma
where the rainfall is above the mean and the
density of the population below it. Where the
rainfall and the density are at balance, that
is where the population is dense and the
rainfall is just adequate as in the southern
Punjab, eastern Rajputana, United Provinces,
Central India generally and H.E.H. the Nizam's
dominions, irrigation has abated the liability
to complete loss of crop, and improved
communications have made it possible to
prevent heavy loss of life in times of
scarcity, thus enabling the population to
increase on the margin of subsistence. How
high a population can be supported by
agriculture when conditions are favourable, is
shown by Cochin with areas here and there
carrying over 2,000 and in one rural unit
actually 4,090 persons to the sq. mile on land
producing rice and coconuts, but principally
the latter which leaves more room for the
erection of buildings and brings in a higher
return than rice in actual cash. In such
areas, e.g., Cochin and Travancore, the
increase in the population has been higher
than in the sparsely populated areas like Baluchistan or Jaisalmer State where there is
no general extension of irrigation, although
there would appear to be more scope for an
extension of cultivation. On the other hand
when these thickly population areas are
examined in detail it appears that the actual
rate of increase in population is greatest in
the less populated, and less fertile, areas.
Thus in Travancore, there are three natural
divisions the lowland ? very fertile, the
midland ? less so, and the highlands, where
the staple crop is tapioca and where
irrigation is not practiced. Now in these
three natural divisions the density in 1921
was 1,403 persons to the sq. mile, 700 persons
and 53 respectively, which increased during
the decade to 1,743,892 and 82 that is by
24.2, 27.4 and 54.7 % respectively, showing a
vastly higher rate of increase in the area of
least density which is also the area of least
fertility, though not as great a numerical
increase. Similarly in Bengal the greatest
rate of increase has been in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts, and in Madras in the Nilgiris.
Where, therefore, there is a population
already dense, there is a clearly perceptible
spread towards the less profitable land.
The increase of population has also been
dependent in some cases on migration, while,
on the other hand, the apparent increase may
have depended on the failure to migrate. Thus
the increase of 35% in Ahmadnagar district, a
rather barren upland in the Deccan which
suffers from recurring famines, is not due so
much to a series of good years or to an
extension of cultivation on the subsistence
margin, as to trade depression, resulting in
numbers of the population staying at home
instead of migrating to the ports of Bombay
and elsewhere where in normal years they are
employed during the census months of February
and March. Bombay shows a corresponding
decrease, probably due, in the particular case
of Bombay, largely to the same cause. Other
decreases there are which are not so easy to
explain.
6. Immigration, when India is taken as a
whole, influences the population very little.
Table VI shows 730,562 persons as born outside
India as against 603,526 in 1921, without
taking count in either case of persons born in
French or Portuguese possessions. The increase
is almost entirely in persons born in Asiatic
countries. Against this there must be set off
on account of emigration about one million
persons who are estimated as having emigrated
during the decade under reviews. Migration,
however, is of more importance as affecting
internal fluctuations of populations, varying
in British India from 1,244,249 (net)
immigrants into Assam o 15,536 (net)
immigrants into the North ? West Frontier
Province. These figures however include all
those whose birth-place was outside the
province, and do not refer to the decade 1921
? 31 only. If we take the actual increase
due to immigration during the decade in Assam
it is found to be only 121,648* consequently
if a percentage be taken on the increase of
population Assam owes only 10.5 percent of its
increase to immigration, though its
immigration figure is the highest among all
provinces. Conversely Bihar and Orissa with
the greatest loss by emigration shows an
increase of 10.8 a little more than that for
all India, in spite of the fact that the total
loss by emigration is equivalent to almost a
third of the actual figure of increase.
Migration as between British India and the
states has tended in the past to be from the
latter to the former, but during the last
decade this position has been reversed and the
trend of generally lower. Bikaner, where the
immigrations total 161,303, i.e., 58%
of its increase in population, is a striking
instance ; the greater number of its
immigrants (about 54%) come from British
India, and while the natural increase of the
population of Bikaren State plus the normal
immigration as recorded in 1921 would have
resulted in a general increase of 28% and
thereby brought the population back to the
1891 level merely, the increase at this census
is much in excess may be put down entirely to
the extension of irrigation.
7.
Another factor to be considered is the
relation of the birth rate to the death rate
and this factor is far from being the same
different sections of the population. How far
the fecundity of different races and castes in
India is the result of environment and how far
it may have become an inherited racial trait
fixed at some period in the past history of
the people, and how far it depends on
prevailing social practices, is extremely
difficult to determine in the light of the
existing information, but it is to show that
there is marked variation in different parts
of India and this question will be reverted to
in the chapters on age and sex. Meanwhile it
is enough to point out that in India the birth
rate is everywhere much higher than in Europe,
largely on account of the university of
marriage, the Parsis being perhaps the only
Indian community in which late marriage and
small families are the rule instead of the
exception. The birth rate is lower among the
Hindus than in most of other communities
probably to some extent on account of the
general disapproval of widow remarriage,
resulting in larger numbers of women being unreproductive at the child bearing age, and
to some extent on that of the greater
prevalence of immature maternity. On the other
hand, the high birth rate of India is largely
discounted by a high death rate, particularly
among infants as also apparently among women
at child birth. Here again social factors have
to be reckoned with, the customs of purdah
perhaps exercising its worst effect among the
poorer class of Muslims who appear to be more
rigid in its observance than the corresponding
class of Hindus. This effect is particularly
noticeable in crowded urban areas, in which
the space available to a women in purdah and
poor circumstance is so small as seriously to
affect her health. In the matter of epidemics
and of deaths from famine or want, the decade
has been particularly favorable to an increase
in population. It is true that the influenza
epidemic at the end of the previous decade is
believed to have fallen most severally on the
most reproductive ages and should therefore
have had a much more lasting effect than the
reduction caused by famine which takes in the
decade under review, and every year sees
improved methods of fighting such epidemics as
cholera, plague or Kala azar. Indeed a
completely effective treatment for the latter
pest has been perfected since the last census,
and has made it possible to stamp out the
disease. The antimony treatment of kala azar
was discovered as early as 1931, but the
original treatment took three months to apply
and therefore did little to prevent the
epidemic. The treatment with organic antimony
compounds, introduced about 1917, reduced the
period of treatment o a month. The improved
treatment introduced during the 1921-31 decade
however cures the disease in ten days or even
less.
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
|
Assam
|
+450,854
|
+1,163,123
|
+712,269
|
6,852,242
|
+10.39
|
|
Bengal
|
+1,463,484
|
+3,411,695
|
+1,948,211
|
46,522,293
|
+4.19
|
|
Bihar
and Orissa
|
+3,254,095
|
+3,682,158
|
+428,063
|
34,004,546
|
+1.26
|
|
*Bombay
|
+1,728,161
|
+2,587,404
|
+859,243
|
19,165,614
|
+4.48
|
|
Burma
|
+715,458
|
+1,454,954
|
+739,496
|
10,822,618
|
+6.83
|
|
Central
province and Berar
|
+1,423,608
|
+1,594,963
|
+171,355
|
13,912,760
|
+1.23
|
|
Delhi
|
+53,132
|
+147,794
|
+94,662
|
500,539
|
+18.91
|
|
Madras
|
+4,398,902
|
+4,421,122
|
+22,220
|
41,002,696
|
+0.05
|
|
North
west Frontire Provinces
|
+94,759
|
+173,736
|
+78,977
|
2,135,573
|
+3.70
|
|
Punjab
|
+2,428,382
|
+2,895,374
|
+466,992
|
20,517,606
|
+2.28
|
|
United
provinces
|
+3,927,768
|
+3,033,694
|
-894,074
|
45,35,87
|
-1.97
|
|
|
|
Total
|
+19,938,603
|
+24,566,017
|
+4,627,414
|
240,812,24
|
+1.92
|
Excludes Aden
? The variation shown in this column
would of course be less in the case of
excesses or more in the case of excesses or
more in the case of deficiency had the
population under registration shown column 5
been annually adjusted by deducting reported
deaths and adding reported births.
A brief reference to vital
statistics will be found in Section 76
(Chapter IV) below. In view of the admitted
inaccuracy of these statistics in many
provinces, the discrepancy between the 1931
population as it should have been according to
those statistics and as it was found to be by
the census is no cause for surprise. The
figures are shown in the marginal table, and a
calculation of the intercensal population will
be found at the end of the chapter in
subsidiary Table III, while subsidiary Tables
VIII to XI contain additional material with
reference to vital statistics.
8.
As regards scarcity,
improvements in communications, and
consequently in case of distribution,
nowadays prevent anything like the famine
mortality of a century ago, while taking
India as a whole the decade ending in 1931
was a prosperous one in the matter of crops,
the general economic depression that has
supervened having been little apparent
outside one or two restricted areas until
1931 itself, so that for a population mainly
agricultural the conditions have been very favourable to an increase in population.
Nevertheless the decade opened, as it has
since closed, in gloom. The frontier was
disturbed ; the effects of influenza and the
bad monsoon of 1920 were still active; trade
was depressed; prices were high; finances
were embarrassed, and the non co-operation movement was rampant. From this
position there was a rapid recovery; a
series of good harvests followed almost all
over India
In Bengal
there were floods, it is true, and floods
proved to be the principle cause of local
distress and scarcity during the decade in
India generally, as no province completely
escaped the inundation of some portion in the
ten years under review. But taking India as a
whole the first five years were generally
above the average, or little below it. Famines
were local and not very serious, though one
unfortunate district in Madras had famine
declared in it officially in three seasons.
Almost to the end of the decade the prices of
cotton remained consistently remunerative. The
end of the decade showed the most
deterioration from this average of
agricultural prosperity. Scarcity in some
parts e.g., in the United Provinces,
and the heavy fall in prices of agricultural
produce recreated a position not unlike that
of the beginning of the decade, but with the
additional embarrassment of a population
greatly increased by the
intervening prosperity.
Wages however did not fall as rapidly as
prices, and up to the time of the census
agricultural prosperity on the whole was
greater than ten years before, though the
increase in population had diminished the size
of holdings. Trade and industry followed much
the same course, since the depression, though
severely felt by the tea industry as early as
1928, had only just become general by the time
of the census. On the other hand much
permanent improvement had been carried out in
communications everywhere, and a new port for
ocean going steamers had been constructed at
cochin and another begun at Vizagapatanam.
Above all a number of large
schemes of irrigation and hydroelectric power
development have been completed, particularly
in the northwest and south of India. Public.
Health has been exceptionally good during the
decade; cholera and plague took much less than
their usual toll of life, and kalazar was
suppressed by the perfection of an easy cure.
The comparative deposits in savings banks and
state of co-operative societies indicate the
general rise in prosperity throughout the
decade in 1921 and 1931, tables of which are
given in the statements below:
|
Bengal
and Assam
|
2,40
|
3,141
|
528,427
|
615,785
|
5,27,34,019
|
8,99,83,627
|
|
Bihar
and Orissa
|
895
|
1,037
|
124,361
|
158,943
|
1,26,42,858
|
2,55,71,070
|
|
Bombay*
|
1,627
|
1,823
|
375,170
|
333,793
|
4,85,15,721
|
5,66,65,593
|
|
Burma
|
362
|
511
|
70,017
|
87,246
|
72,84,237
|
1,26,25,298
|
|
Central
|
801
|
1,234
|
95,569
|
129,045
|
1,27,62,966
|
2,10,15,173
|
|
Madras
|
1,838
|
2,279
|
207,675
|
380,358
|
1,40,38,563
|
2,56,08,800
|
|
Punjab
and N.W. F.P.
?
|
997
|
1,076
|
241,494
|
358,563
|
4,48,87,062
|
6,76,83,111
|
|
United
Province
|
1,453
|
1,485
|
235,244
|
347,269
|
3,5,68,516
|
5,90,40,642
|
|
Sind
and Baluchistan
|
..
|
260
|
..
|
66,611
|
..
|
1,20,66,560
|
|
|
* Included Sind in 1920-21 only
?Includes Baluchistan in 1921-21 only.
The number of Co operative
Societies has more than doubled during the
decade, which opened with 47,503 societies and
closed with over 100,000, while the number of
members of primary societies increased from
1,752,904 to 4,308,262 of whom more than two
thirds are agricultural. Five states which did
not appear at all in the statements of 1920-21
have
been added
to the returns of 1931-31, viz, Cochin, Gwalior, Indore,
Jammu and Kashmir and Travancor. It will be
seen therefore that inspite of the decline at
the end of the decade into a condition of low
prices, trade depression non co-operation and
rebellion, this time in Burma, similar to that
with which the decade opened if not worse,
there still remained at its close many of the
economic benefits accumulated during the
interval, though they are subject to the
greatly enhanced liability of the additional
population of approximately 34 millions to the
propagation of which the prosperous years had
so greatly contributed.
India
|
47,503
|
106,166
|
1,52,904
|
4,308,262
|
|
British
provinces
|
43,366
|
90,064
|
1,600,476
|
3,681,300
|
|
Ajmer
Merwara
|
522
|
654
|
17,296
|
18,608
|
|
Assam
|
560
|
1,413
|
28,084
|
69,569
|
|
Bengal
|
6,366
|
23,614
|
232,001
|
760,812
|
|
Bihar
& Orissa
|
3,580
|
9,404
|
107,514
|
254,462
|
|
Bombay
|
2,956
|
5,896
|
265,629
|
572,669
|
|
Burma
|
4,888
|
2,972
|
125,318
|
85,741
|
|
C.P.
& Berar
|
5,011
|
4,109
|
79,638
|
76,615
|
|
Coorg
|
142
|
253
|
6,565
|
14,037
|
|
Delhi
|
103
|
275
|
2,011
|
7,795
|
|
Hyderabad
(administrative area)
|
5
|
18
|
205
|
6,173
|
|
Madras
|
6,287
|
14,88
|
395,284
|
979,745
|
|
N.W.F.P
|
-- |
25
|
-- |
7,722
|
|
Punjab
|
8,453
|
20,698
|
230,311
|
679,616
|
|
United
Province
|
4,493
|
5,623
|
110,620
|
147,736
|
|
States:
|
4,137
|
16,102
|
152,428
|
626,962
|
|
Baroda
|
509
|
1,047
|
16,932
|
37,321
|
|
Bhopal
|
691
|
1,189
|
10,446
|
20,611
|
|
Cochin
|
-- |
210
|
-- |
24,328
|
|
Gwalior
|
-- |
4,01
|
-- |
70,307
|
|
Hyderabad
|
1,437
|
2,157
|
35,293
|
53,120
|
|
Indore
|
-- |
506
|
-- |
13,366
|
|
Kashmir
|
-- |
2,899
|
--
|
54,222
|
|
Mysore
|
1,500
|
2,213
|
89,757
|
134,428
|
|
Travancore
|
-- |
1,810
|
-- |
219,259
|
India
|
4,05,25
|
12,40,83
|
20,23,02
|
69,18,27
|
2,14,66
|
10,32,12
|
26,42,93
|
91,91,22
|
|
British provinces
|
3,53,59
|
10,60,16
|
18,8,90
|
63,92,31
|
1,99,40
|
9,07,08
|
24,40,89
|
83,59,56
|
|
Ajmer Merwara
|
704
|
6,73
|
32,58
|
30,90
|
2,85
|
9,67
|
42,47
|
47,30
|
|
Assam
|
236
|
8,09
|
12,17
|
59,94
|
2,31
|
10,01
|
16,84
|
78,04
|
|
Bengal
|
4,228
|
1,98,92
|
2,64,63
|
12,04,27
|
26,37
|
1,59,32
|
3,33,28
|
15,62,51
|
|
Bihar & Orissa
|
10,57
|
56,42
|
1,02,10
|
4,77,60
|
10,27
|
54,88
|
1,22,94
|
5,88,90
|
|
Bombay
|
46,18
|
1,77,46
|
2,70,62
|
11,08,35
|
|
1,04,91
|
3,34,57
|
13,90,72
|
|
Burma
|
55,23
|
88,78
|
2,23,25
|
1,05,19
|
17,77
|
75,07
|
3,06,90
|
2,69,04
|
|
C.P. & Berar
|
26,49
|
34,57
|
2,56,87
|
4,30,99
|
28,42
|
66,17
|
2,99,50
|
5,31,73
|
|
Coorg
|
99
|
2,75
|
53
|
5,81
|
16,14
|
2,47
|
212
|
11,03
|
|
Delhi
|
13
|
2,59
|
82
|
20,37
|
60
|
2,11
|
95
|
25,07
|
|
Hyderabad (administrative area)
|
19
|
1,96
|
11
|
3,10
|
-- |
26
|
30
|
5,32
|
|
Madras
|
64,87
|
2,42,16
|
4,07,66
|
14,39,78
|
?.
|
1,27,94
|
4,90,90
|
18,09,88
|
|
N.W.F.P
|
-- |
2,08
|
-- |
10,44
|
18,37
|
43
|
--
|
12,95
|
|
Punjab
|
69,52
|
1,81,15
|
2,33,03
|
13,72,21
|
?
|
2,50,93
|
360,54
|
18,04,29
|
|
United Province
|
27,74
|
56,51
|
83,53
|
1,23,36
|
57,99
|
42,91
|
1,29,58
|
2,22,78
|
|
States:
|
51,66
|
1,80,66
|
1,35,12
|
5,25,96
|
18,31
|
1,25,04
|
2,02,04
|
8,31,66
|
|
Baroda
|
1,85
|
5,80
|
21,08
|
59,45
|
2,78
|
9,69
|
25,71
|
74,94
|
|
Bhopal
|
29
|
1,31
|
11,23
|
14,90
|
18
|
8,36
|
11,70
|
24,57
|
|
Cochin
|
-- |
3,03
|
-- |
15,15
|
-- |
3,06
|
-- |
21,24
|
|
Gwalior
|
-- |
15,03
|
-- |
56,06
|
-- |
20,53
|
--
|
91,62
|
|
Hyderabad
|
15,17
|
45,41
|
65,91
|
1,39,62
|
5,36
|
23,12
|
86,44
|
2,08,15
|
|
Indore
|
-- |
3,51
|
-- |
37,79
|
-- |
13,46
|
--
|
54,76
|
|
Kashmir
|
-- |
24,42
|
-- |
56,74
|
-- |
16,57
|
--
|
97,73
|
|
Mysore
|
34,35
|
48,89
|
36,90
|
1,16,34
|
6,94
|
24,09
|
8,19
|
1,89,32
|
|
Travancore
|
-- |
33,26
|
-- |
29,91
|
-- |
6,16
|
--
|
69,33
|
Section III: - Provincial distribution and
variation
9.
Ajmer Merwara is a small
province with an area a little less than that of
Co. cork or a little more than that of Devon
shire and a population of little more than of
all Connaught or of Midlothian. It is
administered by commissioner under the Agent to
the Governor general in India for Rajputana, by
the states of which it is entirely surrounded,
and consists of the city and sub division of Ajmer, the adjacent but detached sub-division of Kekri, and the tahsils of Merwara,
Variation of Population Percent
|
Ajmer Merwara
|
2,711
|
560,292
|
207
|
+17.7
|
-12.1
|
+5.1
|
-1.2
|
+13.1
|
+21.6
|
|
Ajmer & Kekri
|
2,070
|
423,918
|
205
|
+17.6
|
-13.0
|
+3.5
|
-0.4
|
+11.9
|
+18.0
|
|
Ajmer City
|
17
|
119,524
|
7,031
|
+41.3
|
+7.3
|
+16.8
|
+31.7
|
+5.3
|
+145.3
|
|
Merwara
|
641
|
136,374
|
213
|
+18.3
|
-8.8
|
+10.6
|
-3.9
|
+17.2
|
+34.4
|
the ancient domain of the
Mers, as well as small detached areas which are
included in one or other of these units. The
population, though the highest yet recorded,
only exceeds that of 1891 by less than 18,000
persons. The present census shows an actual
increase of 13.1 % for the decade, which
probably represents a natural increase of 16.6
percent since the 1921 population was swollen by
the Khwaja Sahib's Urs. The agricultural produce
of Ajmer and Merwara is not enough to support
its population and some 360,000 maunds of grain
are imported annually. Railway workshops in
Ajmer employ many hands.
10. Of the Andaman and
Nicobar islands, which form the charge of a
chief Commissioner directly under the
Governments of India, the islands of Great
Andaman are in the process of development from a
penal to free settlement, the aboriginal
population being far on the road to extinction.
The density of the Andamans is 7.66.
|
Andman
& Nicobar Island
|
3,148
|
29,468
|
9.3
|
--
|
-- |
+7.8
|
+2.4
|
+8.8
|
+19.5
|
|
Andamans
|
2,508
|
19,223
|
7.66
|
+6.7
|
+16.2
|
-2.7
|
+1.0
|
+7.9
|
+6.0
|
Sentinel island and little
Andaman are still inhabited by Andamanese only,
and the Nicobarese except for a few foreigner
traders, who come to the islands for pearl
shell, bechede-mer, and coconuts, by an
Assistant Commissioner and by a few police. The
density of the Nicobars is 16.1 persons numerous
element in the population of the Andamans has
been much reduced on account of the policy of
abolishing transportation to the Andamans. The
figures of the foreign population, including
convicts and ex- convicts, show a steady
increase of Burmese and Karens. The climate
suits them and they are accustomed to similar
surrounding and the indications are that the
permanent population of the islands will
ultimately be predominately Burmese.
The most striking figures for
these islands are those for the indigenous
Negrito population which has shown a decrese
respectively of 42,30,40 and 41 % at each
successive census of this century and a total
decrease of over 75% since 1901 alone. If the
present rate of decrease continue much longer
the Andamanese will be extinct by the end of
this century. The census Superintendent in his
report is content to damn with faint praise the
policy of civilizing the aborigines and the
institution of the ?Andaman Home', but that
policy, now abandoned, resulted in the space of
decades in a greater curtailment of human life
than the Andamanese themselves are likely to
have effected by their more direct methods in as
many centuries. In the Nicobars on the other
hand, whence the penal settlement was removed in
1888, there has been an increase of 10.4 percent
since 1921 in spite of the deficiency of
females, who are only 881 to every 1,000 males.
The ratio was 769 females per 1,000 males, and
by 40 per mile during the present century. If Nicobarese of tribal religion alone be examined
the increase in the sex ratio is from 866
females per 1,000 males in 1921 to 939 in 1931.
11. Assam with a present
population of a nine and quarter million shows
an increase since 1921 of 15.7 %. The decade
from the point of view of public health has been
"the best in the history of Assam", and the
tea industry, which is, of course, the main
industry of the province beyond ordinary
agriculture, was on the whole in a flourishing
condition, starting the decade with a recovery
from the depression of 1919-21, booming in 1923
and 1924 and remaining prosperous until the end
of 1927, when the present depression began to be
felt as a result of foreign competition and over
production. The increase in population, in spite
of being the highest recorded in Assam, has been
mainly due to natural increase and not to an
increase by immigration which only formed ten
percent of the total. The general economic
condition of the cultivator does not seem to
have deteriorated up to 1929 in spite of a
general tendency to decay on the part of the
cottage industries. Up to that year the price of
agriculture produce had increased and
expenditure on luxuries was found by the Assam
Banking Enquiry Committee to have expenditure on
marriage and other ceremonies. This had involved
increased indebtedness and "the average
agriculturist has not learned the importance of
saving". The increase in population has
extended to the valley, which is the most denesly populated part and but little affected
by migrants. The area of the province has been
lated part and but is lowest in the Surma
Valley, which is the most densily populated part
and but little affected by migrants. The area of
the province has been slightly extended on the
frontier towards Burma, but that extension of
area has only accounted for 1.25 % of the
increase. The area of Assam is 67,334 sq. miles
and its population is 9,247,857 having a mean
density of 137 to the square mile. This density,
however, is a very variable matter. In the Surma
Valley the density is 438 per square mile, and
naturally the increase in population has been
least in this area. In the Brahmputra valley it
is 171, and it is in this area that immigration
is most active; in the hills, which generally
speaking afford a scanty subsistence to
scattered villages, the density is only 39.
There are no industrial towns in the province of
any size or importance. The Population is of a
very mixed character. In Shan tribes mostly Hinduised, and with an aristocracy
|
Assam
|
67.834
|
9,47,857
|
137
|
+6.8
|
+11.8
|
+15.2
|
+13.2
|
+15.7
|
+80.3
|
|
Brahmputra
valley
|
27,692
|
4,23,293
|
171
|
+10.0
|
+5.8
|
+18.7
|
+24.1
|
+22.5
|
+109.8
|
|
Surma
Valley
|
7,450
|
3,262,029
|
438
|
+11.5
|
+5.3
|
+10.8
|
+3.3
|
+7.2
|
+44.1
|
|
Hills
|
32,192
|
1,262,535
|
39
|
-22.1
|
+77.7
|
+18.5
|
+8.2
|
+15.6
|
+105.3
|
aristocracy of caste Hindus
ultimately of foreign extraction but, like the
small Muslims population settled in the 17 th
century, completely identified with the country
and the people of the valley by a residence of
many generations. The recent immigrants consist
either or tea garden coolies, mostly aboriginals
from the Madras Agency tracts, the Central
provinces and Chota Nagpur, who take up land and
settle down in the country, and of Muslims cultivaors from Maimansingh Districts in Bengal
who have of recent years swarmed into the lower
districts of the valley and opened up large
areas of waste land. Profile breeders and
industrious cultivators but unruly and
uncomfortable neighbors, these immigrants
threaten to swamp entirely the indigenous
inhabitants and in the course of two or three
decades to change the whole nature, language and
religion of the Brahmputra valley and to
assimilate it to the Muslims areas of Sylhet,
where the population is not Assamese but
essentially Bengali, whether Muslims or Hindu.
In the other districts of the Surma Valley, the
plains part of Cachar, the last stronghold of
the Kachari kings and once completely Kachari in
character, has become a Bengali colony entirely
submerging the indigenous Kachari, who has
retained his tribal nationality only in the
North Cachar Hills. There as in the intrusion of
the plainsmen whether Bengali or Assamese and
maintaining their own languages and distinctive
cultures and racially belonging for the most
part to Burma rather than to India.
12.
Baluchistan, the most sparsely population
of any province of India, occupies an
important strategical position between
Afghanistan, India and Persia, while the
peninsula and immediate hinterland of Gwadar
on its south west coast is in the possession
of the Sultan of Muscat and excluded from the
scope of the Census of India. The province
consists of British Baluchistan, of agency
territories, of tribal areas and of the States
of Kalat and Las Bela; the agency territories
are grouped with British Territory for
administrative purposes and include four tahsils held on lease
|
Baluchistan
|
134,638
|
868,617
|
6
|
+3.0
|
-4.2
|
+8.6
|
+7.1
|
|
British
Territory
|
9,084
|
136,793
|
9
|
+9.3
|
+1.1
|
+6.7
|
+17.7
|
|
Agency
Territory
|
37,864
|
21,491
|
9
|
+9.3
|
+1.1
|
+6.7
|
+17.7
|
|
Tribal
areas
|
7,280
|
55,224
|
8
|
+1.3
|
+6.3
|
+45.5
|
+56.7
|
|
States
|
80,410
|
405,109
|
5
|
-1.9
|
-9.8
|
+6.9
|
-5.5
|
|
Kalat
|
3,278
|
342,101
|
5
|
-3.6
|
-8.6
|
+4.2
|
-8.2
|
|
Las
Bela
|
7,132
|
63,008
|
9
|
+9.1
|
-17.2
|
+24.3
|
+12.3
|
from the khan of Kalat. British Baluchistan
covers 7% only of the total area of the province
and contains 16% of the total population, but
these figures become 40 and 53 respectively if
all the areas under British administration area
added to what is strictly British territory. In
an area so scattered that the charge of a single
enumerator involved the traveling of distance of
from 50 to 150 miles, a generally synchronous
census was obviously an impossibility, and the
regular synchronized census on the standard
schedule covered only 200 square miles and a
population mostly alien. The difficulties of
obtaining an accurate census are further
enhanced by the nomadic character of the
population, which is constantly moving from one
part of the country to another in search of
pasturage or work, and by the periodic movements
not only of the local population, which is
constantly moving from one part of the country
to another in search of pasturage or work, and
by the periodic movements not only of the local
population towards Sind, Afghanistan or Persia
in the autumn, but also of foreign nomads from
Afghanistan into and through Baluchistan is 6
persons per sq. mile, a little more than Tibet
with 4 and about the same as Newfoundland
exclusive of Labrador; but this density falls in
the Chagai districts to 1 square mile. The
decade started with a period of famine resulting
from the drought of 1920-21 and although the
years 1923-25 were good the later years were
afflicted by locusts and the decade as whole was
below the usual level of prosperity. As a result
of famine and scarcity and of the damage done by
the invading sands of the Chagai deserts, which
bury and lay waste the cultivated areas to the
south and east of them and choke both sources
and channels of irrigation, the province lost
some thousands of its scanty indigenous
population by migration. Prices ruled high until
1931 when they fell to a level phenomenally low.
Health was poor and to the disease, which
naturally follows famine, conditions were added
serious epidemics of cholera, small pox and
measles. A general increase of motor traffic has
almost caused the disappearance of animal drawn
vehicles during the decade, and 132 miles have
been added to railways. The population increased
by 69,000 of which 39,500 represents a natural
increase, but the phenomenal increase of 45.5
percent in the tribal areas is not entirely
beyond suspicion, and if the natural population
of Baluchistan be alone considered, the 1911
figure has not yet been recovered. The
population is far from uniform in character
comprising as it does Brahui, Baloch, Lasi and
Makrani with their satellite tribes of Loris, Dehwars, Langahs and Naqibs to say nothing of
Pathans and Jatts and Persians. The country is
of great historical importance and the
researches in recent years of sir Aurel Stein
indicate that Baluchistan was once a fertile
country supporting a large population, where it
now offers a scanty subsistence steadily
dwindling under the encourage sand.
13. Bengal, ninth of the provinces of India
is area, is first respect of population. The
British districts cover 77,521 521 sq. miles,
exclusive of large surfaces river and estuary,
and the Bengal states 5,434. To these for census
purposes was added Sikkim another 2,818 sq.miles.
Thirty sq. miles have been added since 1921 from
Bihar and Orissa but changes in calculation of
areas have increased the size shown in the
tables by an additional 678 sq. miles. The total
population returned is 51,087,338 for Bengal (of
which 50,114,002 were in British and 93,336 in
state territory) and 109,808 for Sikkim , the
population of Bengal being more than one sixth
of the total for British India. The density in
British Bengal is now 646 persons per sq. mile
per sq. mile, while that Sikkim is only 39.
excluding Calcutta the density of Bengal varies
from 2,105 in Howrah district to 43 in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts, but by far the greater
part of the province has a density is found in
many places, Dacca Divisions having a mean
density of 935, Munshiganj Sub-divisions of
2,413 and Lohajang thana of 3,228 per sq. mile.
The rate of increase of population has been 7.3
% since 1921 and that of Sikkim 34.4%. Cooch
Bihar State is one of the few in India that
shows a decrease since 1921. This decrease, 0.27
% is entirely Hindu (--4.76%) and is attributed
to the expansion of settled cultivation by
Muslims which has the effect of driving the Hinduised tribes,
Koch, Mech, Poliya, etc., into
the foothills or eastwards into Assam a process
observed likewise in the adjoining Bengal
Districts. It is also suggested that this
decrease is partly due to changes in social
custom, such as the abandonment of widow
remarriage as part of a campaign of social
elevation and to changes in the environment
unfavorable to pre existing adaptations. Tripura state on the other hand, with only 93
persons to the sq. mile has experienced an
increase of 25.6% and the thinly populated Chittagong Hill tracts one of 22.9%. Conditions
during the decade from the economic standpoint
are described as having been "not entirely
unsatisfactory" Harvests have been generally
good and prices high until 1929, though there
have been severe floods in three years, some
cyclones and an earth quake. Wages were high
till 1930, but their high level was of little
benefit to middle class families with fixed
incomes,
|
Bengal
|
82,955
|
51,087,388
|
616
|
+7.5
|
+7.7
|
+8.0
|
+2.8
|
+7.8
|
+38.0
|
|
British
districts
|
77,521
|
50,114,002
|
646
|
+7.6
|
+7.8
|
+7.9
|
+2.7
|
+7.3
|
+38.0
|
|
Cooch
behar
|
1,138
|
590,886
|
448
|
-3.9
|
-2.1
|
+4.6
|
-0.1
|
-0.3
|
-1.9
|
|
Tripura
|
4,116
|
382,450
|
93
|
+43.7
|
+26.1
|
+32.5
|
+32.6
|
+25.6
|
+299.9
|
|
Sikkim
|
2,818
|
109,808
|
39
|
?
|
+93.8
|
+49.0
|
-7.1
|
+34.4*
|
+260.5
|
and it was the skilled workman who reaped the
most benefit. In industry cotton mills have been
prosperous throughout, and jute until 1929; tea
was prosperous till 1927; coal has not been
prosperous. Throughout Bengal there seems to
have been a general rise in the standard of
living, not shown in an improved or more
expensive diet, though it is reported that the
need for a better-balanced dietary is indicated
by the fact that an ordinary cultivator is found
to improve and gain weight on prison fare, but
in minor amenities such as umbrellas and shoes,
shirts and coats "now worn by thousands who
would never have dreamt of wearing then ten
years ago", while the hurricane lantern, is
almost universally displacing the indigenous oil
lamp. In some areas union boards are taking
advantage of their powers to tax the union for
schemes of village improvement such as the
clearing of jungle, maintenance of roads and the
excavation of tanks or wells. On the other hand
increased earnings have not led to any reduction
of the indebtedness of the riot or laborer. The
average debt of an agricultural family seems to
be about Rs. 180 and that of a non-agricultural
one perhaps a little more, while the average
debt of the total population is about Rs. 166
per households. The debts of members of
co-operative societies have increased by 3.5% to
which borrowing to forestall the Sarda Act has
largely contributed. In an interesting
examination of the population question printed
as an appendix to this chapter the Census
Superintendent reaches the conclusion that
Bengal might have a population of some 53
millions in 1941, and that the maximum
population will be from 68 to 74 millions; that
the Hindu population has passed the point at
which the rate of increase accelerates in
successive decades and is approaching a
stationary population, whereas the Muslim
population has not yet progressed so far along
its present cycle of growth but will ultimately
be to the Hindu as 4 to 3; and that Bengal could
support at the present standards of living
nearly double its present population.
14. Bihar and Orissa has a heterogeneous
population of 42,329,583 in an area of 111,702
sq. miles giving a mean density of 379 per sq.
mile, of which 28,648,sq. miles consist of
feudatory States which contain more than 4�
millions of the population. The increase of the
province has been 11.5% since 1921. The
population falls naturally into three areas
which do not correspond to its administrative
divisions, that is into Bihar (exclusive of the Santal Parganas), the Chota Nagpur plateau
together with the Santal Parganas and the
Feudatory States, and Orissa proper. The mean
density gives little indication of its great
variation, which is as high as 969 persons per
sq. miles in the Muzzaffarpur district of Bihar,
with a density of 1,073 if calculated on
cultivatable area, and as low as 43 in the
Feudatory State of Rairakhol. In previous
decades the number of emigrants has very greatly
exceeded the number of immigrants. This excess
has been considerably reduced during the past
ten years.
|
Bihar
& Orissa
|
111,02
|
42,329,583
|
379
|
+7.5
|
+1.8
|
+5.1
|
-1.2
|
+11.5
|
+26.8
|
|
Bihar
(excluding santil paraganas)
|
36,877
|
23,676,028
|
642
|
+4.7
|
-1.3
|
+1.5
|
-1.3
|
+9.7
|
+13.6
|
|
Orissa
(ex. Angul and sambalpur)
|
8,210
|
4,202,461
|
512
|
+6.8
|
+7.1
|
+0.9
|
-4.6
|
+5.2
|
+15.8
|
|
Chota
Nagpur with santal paragansa, Angul and
Sambalpur
|
37,96
|
9,799
|
258
|
+10.2
|
+5.2
|
+11.8
|
-0.1
|
+16.4
|
+50.6
|
|
Feudatory
states
|
28,648
|
4,652,007
|
162
|
+25.6
|
+9.5
|
+19.0
|
+0.4
|
+17.5
|
+93.0
|
But these conditions have been confined to
British territory, for in the states there has
been in the past an excess of immigrants over
emigrants which has been similarly reduced
during the past decade. The public health has
been exceptionally good throughout he decade,
mortality from plague having decreased by about
73% and from cholera by about 30%. At the same
time, though the birth rate has fallen from 41
per mile to 36.5, the survival rate has more
than doubled. Earners profited by a general
decline in the cost of living, while cultivators
also benefited during the greater part of the
decade not only by a succession of good harvests
but by the fact that the prices of food grains
retained a high level after other prices had
fallen. There have been heavy investment in post
office 5 year cash certificates; in the Pos
office savings bank the number of depositors has
rises since 1921 by 27.8% and the value of the
deposits by 102%. The standard of comfort has
everywhere risen among the labouring classes,
while an outstanding change in diet is the
development of tea drinking. It has already been
pointed out that the population of this province
is heterogeneous. That of Bihar is not markedly
dissimilar to the population of the east of the
United Provinces on the one hand or the west of
Bengal on the other, between the populations of
which it forms a natural link, and may be
regarded as normal Hindustani speaking
population of the Ganges Valley. In Orissa
proper the population is more nearly allied to
that of lower Bengal, but has a distinctive
culture of its own. The chota Nagpur Plateau and
the Santal Paraganas are primarily the habitat
of comparatively Munda speaking tribes and of
others speaking Dravidian languages but closely
allied to them in race. Sambalpur and Angul are
not dissimilar and the inhabitants of the
Feudatory States are also of the same kind,
though Oriya replaces Hindi on the southern
slopes of the plateau as the medium of
communication with the more civilized world.
15. Bombay in 1921 included the area, which
in 1931 was enumerated as the western India
states agency, and on this occasion therefore
its area was reduced to 151,593 square miles
(excluding Aden), having a population of
26,347,519 and a mean density of 14. Even with
this reduction Bombay remains larger than any
province except Burma and Madras. It comprises
not only the British districts of the Bombay
presidency proper, but the Bombay states and
agencies and clued the whole of the Aden
settlement and Perim, but not the Aden
Protectorate. An entirely separate volume (IX)
deals with the cities of the Bombay Presidency,
which is far ahead of any other province in
India in the proportion of its urban to rural
population, if we exclude Delhi and Ajmer
Merwara, where the principal until of the
province is itself a town.
|
Bombay
province
|
151,673
|
26,398,997
|
174
|
+15.02
|
-3.6
|
+6.2
|
-1.2
|
+13.7
|
+32.0
|
|
Sind
|
46,378
|
3,887,070
|
84
|
+19.0
|
+11.7
|
+9.4
|
-6.7
|
+18.5
|
+60.8
|
|
Presidency
|
77,221
|
17,992,053
|
233
|
+13.7
|
-4.2
|
+5.3
|
-0.8
|
+12.4
|
+27.9
|
|
Bombay
city
|
24
|
1,161,383
|
48,391
|
+6.3
|
-5.6
|
+26.2
|
+20.1
|
-1.2
|
+50.2
|
|
Bombay
state
|
27,994
|
4,468,396
|
160
|
+17.6
|
-12.0
|
+7.0
|
+0.1
|
+15.5
|
+28.2
|
|
Aden
|
80
|
51,478
|
643
|
+26.4
|
-0.2
|
+5.0
|
+22.4
|
-8.9
|
+47.7
|
In Bombay city itself the population has
actually fallen since 1921, partly probably
because the economic depression which had set in
by the census of 1931had driven back to their
homes the countrymen who normally come down to
Bombay to work during the cold whether and
partly no doubt owing to suburban expansion, but
every other unit in the confines of the
Presidency proper has increased in population
during the decade and the general rate of
increase, 13.7%, is well above that of India as
a whole. In the case of the cities the increase
was probably greater than that actually shown,
since the municipal authorities did not in all
cases co ? operate whole-heartedly, while some
were definitely obstructive. In Surat, Kaira, Villeparle and Broach at any rate the
enumeration was probably defective, and at Ahmedabad it was made impossible to carry it out
at all in many parts of the city. For that town
therefore an estimate has been made of the
numbers not enumerated and added to the actual
returns for the purposes of all tables in which
details by religion, age, etc, are not required.
Aden alone has fallen while the Bombay state and
even more, Sind have increased at a higher rate
than the province as a whole, though Sind has
been visited by disastrous floods and in 1929-30
revenue to the extent of Rs.57, 71,940 had to be
remitted on account of damage by locusts. In
marked contrast to all the decades since 1891 no
district has suffered from a single very bad
season during the whole period under review.
Five seasons of the ten were good and five were
moderate, and the fact that the prices of food
grains fell more slowly than most others while
cotton remained exceptionally high was of great
benefit to the cultivator. At the same time
wages and the demand for labour showed a
tendency to rise rather than to fall until 1930,
and then did not fall proportionately to the
drop in prices. In the towns the decade was also
one of prosperity until 1927-28, and in the
earlier half of the decade urban labour seems to
have reached an unprecedented standard of
comfort, but at the end of the period the trade
depression, aggravated by the civil disobedience
movement, caused much unemployment and
discomfort.
16.
The census of Burma was taken on February
24 th two days earlier than that of India proper
on account of local festivals which made the 26
th an inconvenient date. Though only eighth in
order of population figures, Burma is by far the
largest of the provinces of the Indian Empire,
having an area of 261,610 sq. miles, of which
233,492 were covered by the census operations of
1931.The population censused is 14,667,146
having increased by 11% since 1921, part of
which increase as near as can be estimated
320,000* persons, is due to immigration from
India. The figures in the marginal table give
the variation by "natural" divisions, but
these divisions are administrative and racial
|
Burma
|
233,492
|
14,667,146
|
63
|
+35.9
|
+15.5
|
+9.1
|
+11.0
|
+89.9
|
|
Burman
|
156,297
|
12,856,207
|
82
|
+19.5
|
+14.6
|
+9.
|
+11.
|
+67.8
|
|
Chin
|
12,278
|
192,665
|
16
|
?
|
+38.9
|
-4.9
|
+20.6
|
+59.2*
|
|
Salween
|
7,101
|
111,947
|
16
|
?
|
+31.9
|
+3.5
|
-0.8
|
+35.5*
|
|
Shan
|
57,816
|
1,506,337
|
26
|
?
|
+18.7
|
+6.3
|
+5.1
|
+32.6*
|
*1901-1931
rather than geographical. Thus
the Burman division represents the plains
districts of administratered Burma in which the
population is primarily (94%) Burmese, though it
includes the remnants of the Mons of Pegu, the
main bulk of the Karens, who appear also in the Salween and Shan divisions in smaller numbers,
and a considerable share of the total number of
Chins, Kachins and other indigenous races. It
contains nearly all the Chinese other than
Yunnanse, that is to say almost two thirds of
the total, and practically all the other
foreigner Indo-Burmese population. The Chin
division contains for practical purpose Chins
and no one else. The Salween division,
consisting as it does primarily of the Karenni,
the only area in Burma with the status of an
Indian State, has a population purely Karen and
Tai. The shan division, constituted by good many Karens and Barmans, almost all the Yunnanese
(who make up more than a third of the total
Chinese in Burma), almost the whole of the Palaung War branch of the Mon Khmel race, many Kachins, about half the other indigenous decade
has been considerable and has added about 10,000
to the population of the Northern Shan States,
while Indians, largely Gurkhas from Nepal, have
added another 11,000 to the Northern and 5,000
to the southern Shan States. In the salween
division the population of the Karenni states
dereased, and the increase in the rest of that
division was largely due to the mines in Salween
District. The chin division has increased not
only by the natural growth during a prosperous
decade but by the inclusion of previously
unadministered country on the Assam border. As
far as climate conditions went the decade was
normal and floods and droughts were confined to
small areas and involved no widespread
calamities comparable with those which befell
some parts of India, though the towns of Pegu
was destroyed by a disastrous earthquake which
did damage elsewhere as well. Burma grows more
rice than her population consumes, and although
cultivable land is not readily capable of
extension the area under irrigation was extended
by some 317,000 acres during the decade.
Industrial expansion, particularly in the
production of oil, has been important in some
districts and railways have extended by 434
miles. There has been some increase in mining
activity in spite of the slump in silver and
baser metals. The fall in the price of paddy was
perhaps the most serious features of the decade
economically. The marginal table shows the wholesaleThe out break coincided, of course, with the
census, but luckily the preliminary enumeration
could everywhere be completed in undisturbed
conditions except in Tharrawaddy District and a
small part of Pegu, where there was inevitably
some under enumeration. The rebellion spread to Henzada before the final enumeration, but the
preliminary enumeration had already been
completed
|
1922
|
185
|
|
1923
|
178
|
|
1924
|
193
|
|
1925
|
178
|
|
1926
|
185
|
|
1927
|
181
|
|
1928
|
169
|
|
1929
|
159
|
|
1930
|
138
|
|
1931
|
77
|
*Vide chapter I of Burma Census
Report, 1931, paragraph 14
17.
The central provinces and Berar, an area
totaling 131,095 square miles, include not only
the British districts, 82,153 sq. miles, and the
fifteen states of the central provinces, 31,175
sq. miles, but the four districts of Berar
17,767 which are leased in perpetuity from H.E.H.
the Nizam. The total area of the province
according to the latest revision is 133,050 sq.
miles, but this figure was obtained too late for
use in the tables. The total population is
17,990,937 with a mean density of 137 per sq.
miles still covered by forest. The highest
density is that of the Katghora Tahsil which has
492 persons to the sq. mile, and the lowest that
of the Azhiri Zamindari with only 16. Famines
and epidemics have been responsible for
exceptional fluctuations in the past, and the
central province more than any other are marked
by recurring alternations between good and bad
years.
|
Central
province and berar
|
131,095
|
17,990,93
|
137
|
+10.7
|
-7.0
|
+17.9
|
-0.3
|
+12.6
|
+35.0
|
|
British
districts
|
82,153
|
12,065,885
|
147
|
+9.5
|
-9.2
|
+17.8
|
-0.2
|
+11.3
|
+30.2
|
|
Berar
|
17,767
|
3,441,838
|
194
|
+8.4
|
-5.0
|
+11.0
|
+0.6
|
+11.9
|
+28.8
|
|
C.P.
states
|
31,15
|
2,483,214
|
80
|
+23.4
|
-4.8
|
+29.8
|
-2.4
|
+20.1
|
+79.0
|
The decade under review opened in conditions
of scarcity and high prices, while the effect of
the influenza epidemic upon women of the child
bearing ages can be traced in certain age groups
at the present census. Up to the end of 1921
public health was bad. Cholera, plague and
malaria caused exceptional mortality. In 1922
however the satisfactory monsoons of that and
the previous year reduced the death rate from 44
to 29, though the birth rate also fell from 38
to 36 per 1,000. Good monsoons and healthy years
continued until 1926-2, which was marked by
serious floods, and 1927-28 saw the beginning of
the decline in prosperity. Wheat was attacked by
rust and more than half of the crop was lost in
the northern districts of the province in that
year and health deteriorated. The following year
brought the recurrence of non co operation,
agrarian agitation and general depression,
another unsatisfactory agricultural year in the
north of the province, and much unhealthiness
from cholera, plague, small pox, influenza and
Malaria. On the whole, however, the intervening
prosperity more than balanced the depression at
either end of the decade. The net area cropped
increased from 23,585,215 acres to 25,364,36 ;
the addition of a thousand miles of irrigation
channels added nearly a hundred thousand acres
of irrigated land; a thousand miles of metalled
road were added to the existing metalled roads,
and many new bridges and 300 miles of railway.
It is significant of the connection between
prosperity and population that the growth of the
latter was very small in the north of the
province which suffered three very bad years at
the end of the decade. Elsewhere, as in other
provinces, the highest rate of increase was in
the most thinly populated areas. The infant
mortality rate appears to be higher in the
central provinces than in India as a whole or in
most other parts of India, but the rate of
increase at this census has been 12.6% for the
province. Both the natural features and the
population are very varied. The Narbada valley
in the north is a wheat growing tract; the
Maratha plain in the west and the Chhatishgarh
plain in the east are rice growing areas; the
central plateau and the Chota Nagpur plateau in
the north east like the states of Bastar and
Kanker and the district of Chanda in the south
are largely forest. In the open country Marathi
is the language of the west and Hindi of the
east, but the forest tribes speak Dravidian or Munda languages. In Bastar State, the remotest
part of the province, there has been much
increase in communication, but the Administrator
reports that the increase in traffic is leading
to an increases in the consumption of opium and
the case of one tahsil to the substitution for
opium of the much more pernicious mercury.
18. Coorg, smallest after Delhi of the
province of India, is the only one which showed
a decrease of population at the census of 1931.
It is administered by a chief commissioner , who
combine this office with that of Resident in Mysore, and has a council of 15 elected and 5
nominated members. Its area is 1,593 sq. miles
with a population of 163,327,511 less that is
than in 1921, and a density of 103 persons per
sq. mile. The decrease in population is probably
greater than the figures indicate, since there
has been a decrease of about 5,000 persons in
the natural population most of which is balanced
by an increase in immigrants more apparent than
real, since it consists mostly of laborers who
leave the province for their homes in March. In
1921 the census fell earlier before the exodus
had started. The vital statistics showed an
excess in deaths over births of 14,000, thought
|
Coorg
|
1,593
|
163,327
|
103
|
-2.9
|
+4.4
|
-3.1
|
-6.4
|
-0.3
|
-8.4
|
it is stated of the average individual in
coorg that his desire "appears to be to have
as many children as possible, irrespective of
his economic position". Coffee plantations on
an important scale as well as cardmom
plantations on the of rubber and agave are being
abandoned, but the staple crop is rice of which
the province produces more than it consumes.
Both for rice and coffee the decade was
favorable except for the heavy floods in 1924.
The fall in rice prices, stedly till 1929, at
the end of the decade caused paddy to be sold at
exceedingly low rates and the area under rice
cultivation to decrease from 84,587 to 82,822
acres. Urban population has increased and a
general increase in the number of occupied
houses points to the gradual dissolution of the
joint family system prevalent in Coorg.
19. Delhi is the smallest and most recently
constituted of the province of India. It came
into being as a province on the laying of the
foundation stone of New Delhi by His Majesty the
king Emperor in December 1911, and as a result
of the establishment there of the imperial
capital its growth has been phenomenal. It is of
course primarily an urban unit and the total
area of the
|
Delhi
province
|
673.0
|
636,246
|
1,110
|
+6
|
+9
|
+2
|
+18
|
+30
|
+81
|
|
Urban
|
65.5
|
447,442
|
6,835
|
+11
|
+1
|
+12
|
+31
|
+47
|
+158
|
|
Old
Delhi municipality
|
5.96
|
347,539
|
58,273
|
+11
|
+9
|
+11
|
+8
|
+40
|
+104
|
|
New
Delhi
|
48.3
|
73,653
|
1,524
|
..
|
?
|
..
|
..
|
+95
|
?
|
|
Rural
|
507.5
|
188,804
|
372
|
+2
|
+9
|
-8
|
+2
|
+3
|
+6
|
province is only 573 sq. miles, but the
population is 636,246 persons with a mean
density of 1,110 persons per sq. mile. This
density varies from 58,23 persons per sq. mile
in old Delhi municipality to 372 in the rural
area, where the increase during the decade has
been only 3% as compared with 30.3% for the
province as a whole. This rapid increase is due
to the abnormal growth of a newly established
capital, and is very largely due to immigration,
since the gross balance of migration in Delhi's
favour is 189,594 persons, of which the census
Superintendent regards 111,775 as the actual net
increase by migration during the decade since
1921. This growth in population has outstripped
the rapid building of houses and in the urban
area the density per 100 houses has increased
from 410 in 1921 to 454 in 1931. The censused
population of the urban areas however (447,442)
probably falls to about 330,000 in the hot
weather, which is likely to be no more and
possibly even less than its permanent population
at the height of its importance in the reign of Shahjahan.
20. Madras Covering 142,277 sq. miles
populated by 46,740,107 persons, is second among
the major provinces in area, third in population
and fifth in density (329), but in rate of
increase seventh exceeding only Bengal and the
United Provinces the higher population figure of
which it is fast overhauling. Its rate of
increase for whole Indian Empire. The total
irrigated area has increased by some 66,000
acres, that is by 0.90 % only, but important new
works are projected. The decrease in the value
of the crops raised has been nearly 46% which
indicates not a fall in the quantity of the crop
but in the level of prices. At the same time
possibilities of agriculture on present methods
have more or less reached a maximum and the
Presidency can no longer feed itself. The decade
was healthy and not only has it been free from
epidemics but the skilled research of colonel Russel, the director of public health, has made
it possible to cope with epidemics when they
arise, and in the case of cholera to predict
their occurrence and so to forestall their
virulence. Cholera, which is endemic in the
south of the presidency, has proved to have a
six year cycle. The vital statistics of Madras
are worthy of reference since this province is
the only one whose registration of birth and
death approaches anything like a satisfactory
standard. Even so in 1930 some 62,000
unregistered births and 20,000 unregistered
deaths were detected by inspecting officers in
the presidency. In some parts of Madras
emigration takes place on a larger scale to
Assam, Burma, Ceylon and Malaya, the annual loss
being some 13,000 and though the decline in the
planting industry has resulted in large numbers
of from Burma. As in the accuracy of her vital
statistics, Madras is ahead of other provinces
in the matter of birth control. A tendency is
observed by the census superintendent for men at
any rate to marry later, and contraceptive
methods are advocated by influential persons and
widely advertised in the press. The census
Superintendent writes " ten years should show
a marked growth in their popularity. Books on
the subject are to be found in any bookstall or
publisher's list and that they can fail to exert
some influence". He adds, as a portent, that
contraception of a crude kind has been observed
among the Goundans of Salem to prevent large
families, the fragmentation of holding and the
weakening of the joint family system.
The external boundaries have not altered.
Internally there have been some changes between
districts the most important of which has been
the re absorption in the three neighboring
plains districts of the agency division, a hilly
tract inhabited by Khonds, Sawaras, and similar
hill tribes and quite alien to the plains
districts which have absorbed it.
|
Madras
|
142,27
|
46,740,107
|
329
|
+7.2
|
+8.3
|
+2.2
|
+10.4
|
+81.1
|
|
Agency
|
19,869
|
1,763,65
|
89
|
+2.4
|
+16.7
|
-4.0
|
+16.5
|
+33.6
|
|
East
coast North
|
31,532
|
12,175,530
|
386
|
+8.8
|
+9.8
|
+3.2
|
+12.2
|
+38.5
|
|
East
coast Central
|
32,020
|
13,349,980
|
417
|
+8.9
|
+7.9
|
+3.0
|
+11.3
|
+34.7
|
|
East
coast South
|
22,102
|
10,380,774
|
470
|
+5.6
|
+8.4
|
+3.0
|
+5.2
|
+24.0
|
|
West
Coast
|
10,798
|
5,082,281
|
471
|
+6.3
|
+7.1
|
+3.3
|
+13.5
|
+33.5
|
|
Deccan*
|
25,954
|
3,994,543
|
154
|
+5.5
|
+3.5
|
-3.7
|
+10.3
|
+16.0
|
*Excluding
states
The mean density is 329 but density varies
greatly in different areas being only 329 but
density varies greatly in different areas being
only 89 persons to the square mile in the agency
tracts and 471 on the west coast, though one
districts the plains of Godavari East, on the coromandel coast reaches a higher density (660)
than Malabar itself with 610. There is a greater
tendency to city life in Madras than in any
major province but Bombay, but the towns are far
less industrial in character than that of the
latter province. Nevertheless signs of
industrial development are appearing and cotton
mills are springing up at small country centers
supplied by the cotton growing areas they
adjoin. Thus Pollachi, a small town in Coimbatore district, had six mills in 1921 but
thirty in 1931. Cheap power from water is a
possibility and the use of electricity is
steadily advancing in popularity, as the decade
has seen many towns with oil lamps or no lamps
adopt electric lighting and fans. The standard
of living is rising and in ten years the
villager has "become accustomed to and takes as
necessities what formerly were rather unlooked
for luxuries. The great advance in
communications which the motor but and car has
brought has contributed enormously to widening
horizons"
21.
The northwest Frontier Province has an
area of 36,356 sq. miles with a population of
4,684,364 and a mean density of 129 per sq.
mile, but of this area 22,838 sq. miles
constitute the Trans frontier agencies, of the
population of which 2,259,288 (density99) and
leaving 2,425,076 persons in the five regularly
administered districts with an area of 13,518
sq. square miles and a mean density of 179, an
area a little greater than that of Holland with
a population a little less than that of Denmark.
Since 1921 the Malandri tract, 20 sq. miles, has
been added to the administered from the unadministered area and 4 sq. miles have been
transferred from Kohat District to the former.
Otherwise there has been no territorial change.
The density of population in the administered
areas exclusive of urban population varies
according to the combined factor of rainfall
|
N.W.F.P
|
36,356
|
4,684,364
|
129
|
?
|
?.
|
+79.9
|
+32.9
|
-7.7
|
+120.4
|
|
Administered
area
|
13,518
|
2,425,076
|
| | |