VICTOR PETROV
__TITLE__ INDIA: SPOTLIGHT ON POPULATION __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-06-12T04:51:55-0700 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov" __SUBTITLE__ A DEMOGRAPHIC OUTLINE PROGRESS
PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
[1]Translated from the Russian by Glenys Ann Kozlov
Designed by Yevgeny Samoilov
This book by the Soviet scholar, Professor V. Petrov, is devoted to the movement of population in India from 1872 to 1981. The author deals with the numbers, density and composition of the population, its natural growth, migration, and so forth, and focusses attention on an analysis of the censuses taken in the independent Republic of India.
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[2] Contents Introduction 5 Chapter 1 The Population of South Asia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 13 Chapter 2 Regular Censuses of the Population in India 32 Chapter 3 India's Population in the Twentieth Century: Size, Density, Distribution 51 Chapter 4 The National and Religious Composition of the Population of India 69 Chapter 5 The Sex and Age Composition of the Population Chapter 6 The Total Growth of the Population of India 109 Chapter 7 Natural Population Growth 136 Chapter 8 Migration and Population Growth 170 Chapter 9 Urbanisation. The Growth of the Urban Population 195 [3] 53 85 Chapter 10 Literacy and Education 224 Chapter 11 Population and the Economy 244 Supplement 271 [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ INTRODUCTION``Demography is the social science that studies the regularities governing the phenomena and processes occurring in the structure, distribution, movement, and dynamics of population, proceeding from social, economic, and also biological and geographical factors, reasons, and conditions. Demography develops population theories, the policy of population, and envisages future changes in respect of a country's population, towns and cities, regions, areas and the globe as a whole.'' This in how the well-known Soviet scientist B. Ts. Urlanis defines demography.^^1^^
When tackling phenomena connected with the life of many people, demography relies on statistical data; the successes attained in demography are directly proportional to the achievements of statistics. However, a statistical study of the world does not embrace all the social phenomena and particularly an in-depth analysis of each of them; this is all the more vital since demography holds within its field of vision not only the life of people today but also the past and predictable future social phenomena as well.
Since the subject of all social phenomena is population, demography touches on all the social and other sciences. It does not study the very phenomena of economics, history, and so forth, but the participating population and its reproduction (in the broad sense of the word) as a totality, i.e., the movement of these totalities. Naturally, an understanding of the nature of the phenomena themselves and of their interaction with demographic processes is of considerable significance. ``In demography we do in fact have a system of knowledge on the condition of the population, on changes _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. Ts. Urlanis, Population: Studies, Surveys, Moscow, 1976. p. 17 (in Russian).
5 in it, on the processes of population reproduction and the effect of different factors on these processes, the regularities manifest in them, and general and specific methods of study in this field. We discover in it huge amounts of material accumulated by mankind which serve as the basis for research on it, as a result of which laws, ties, and regularities are revealed."^^1^^ In demography statistics, which studies the quantitative aspect of social phenomena inseparably linked with their quality, is one of the methods, ``an instrument of knowledge'', needed because it does not study an individual personality but a definite number of people, a population.The movement of populations which is the subject: of demography is a multifarious process; obviously, the study of this process, which reflects the unity of nature and society should be equally varied. The rhythmic and periodical nature of phenomena is as inherent in society as a mode of reproduction of actual life, which always determines society's historical advance. Since demographic phenomena and processes depend on social and historical conditions and are unable to exist outside them, they cannot therefore be studied in isolation from the historical phase of society's development, from the social and economic formation.
``Knowledge of the population, which is simultaneously the productive force of society and the consumer of the material and spiritual values created by this society, requires the elucidation and analysis of the extremely complicated and varied ties and dependences existing between the population and the economy, the population and nature, and the population and society itself. This complexity is further intensified by the numerous aspects of a population study owing to socio-economic, geographical and ethnic distinctions... The multitude of facts cannot be summarised by a single science, and many socio-economic and natural sciences are engaged in studying them."^^2^^ In this sense, demography today has become a comprehensive science drawing on the results of research in other fields of knowledge.
In studying population, the main task is measurement of the parameters of population movements with the aim of cognizing the regularities governing population movement _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. Ya. Boyarsky, The Population and Methods of Studying It, A Collection of Scientific Papers, Moscow, 1975, p. 14 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ The Fundamentals of Population Study, Ed. by D. I. Valentei, Moscow, 1973, p. 68 (in Russian).
6 in the past, present, and future. ``According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life."^^1^^ The producer of all this is the population which forms the basis and subject of social production.The concept of population movement can neither be identified with population growth nor with its migration, nor with any of the other changes in the state of the population. Population movement embraces the historically continuous population changes in their entirety in the course of the reproduction of actual life and the perception of the impact of reproduced activity. Soviet scientists have traditionally had such an extensive concept in mind in their demographic research.
So, demography is the science that studies the composition and movement of population. This book is devoted to the study of the population of the Republic of India as a subject of demographic study.
__*_*_*__Today's India occupies most of the vast territory of South Asia framed by the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean. At present, this territory and the adjacent islands of the Indian Ocean comprise the seven sovereign states of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Republic of Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In the past the term India was a collective name for all the above-mentioned countries. The natural boundaries of this territory are, however, so clearly marked that even today geographers regard it as a single subcontinent stretching from the Himalayan mountains to Cape Comorin and from Baluchistan to Assam inclusive.
Many of India's demographic problems, in particular that of initial and subsequent settlement, may be fruitfully studied, solely by taking into account the peculiarities of the historical and social development of the whole of the South Asian subcontinent lying between 8° and 37° latitude north and 61° and 98° longitude east.
It is customary to compare the size of India's territory as well as that of its population with Western Europe. _-_-_
~^^1^^ ``Engels to J. Bloch in Konigsberg, London, September 21--22, 1890'', Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, p. 417.
7In actual fact, the two vast peninsulas of the Eurasian continent can quite well be compared (India occupies an area of 3,288,000 sq. km. and Western Europe that 'of 4,064,000 sq. km.). The size of India's territory compares as follows with the other countries on the subcontinent (1,000 sq. km.):
India................ 3,288 Pakistan.............. 807 Bangladesh............. 143 Nepal................ 141 Sri Lanka ............. 66 Bhutan............... 47 Maldives.............. 0.3 All the countries of the South Asian subcontinent ............ 4,492.3According to the UN classification, the region of Middle South Asia also includes Afghanistan (655,000 sq. km.) and Iran (1,648,000 sq. km.).
An extremely significant geographical peculiarity of the South Asian subcontinent is the difficulty of access of its outer boundaries, a feature that has left its mark on settlement in India. In these conditions, peoples either did not penetrate into India at all, or, once they had done so, they remained there, intermingling with the nations that had settled there earlier, a process, which lasted for thousands of years. Even in ancient times India's territory was not subject to such movements of population as the huge belt of Eurasian steppes. Those who invaded India usually settled there.
Incomparably more people came to India and stayed there than left the country. This was true of generation after generation. The newcomers settled, assimilated and over the centuries they came to be regarded as natives of the country. Over the last few decades people whose mother tongues are not Indian languages comprise less than 0.5 per cent of the country's population.
Although the South Asian subcontinent is on the whole cut off from a geographical point of view, its north-- western frontiers are comparatively more accessible. The northwest has long since been the ``Inland gates" linking India with the outside world. In the mountains of the northwest ledge-like narrow passes or caravan routes made migration possible, connecting India with the Mediterranean, the 8 countries of the Middle East, with the Caucasus and Central Asia via Afghanistan and Iran. Mountain paths lead from Northern India to the heights of the Himalayas and to Tibet. In the north-east the river valleys dissecting the mountains, especially the valley of the river Brahmaputra, offer the traveller access, though difficult, to Indochina.
Although there can be no doubt that India and the neighbouring countries have influenced each other's culture, this influence would probably have been even more marked if communications had been easier. At times, however, the country's geographical isolation was fortunate for the historical fate of India's peoples, hindering enemy invasions. However, the outcome of military actions does not depend so much on geographical as on social factors and cannot therefore form an insurmountable obstacle for foreign invaders.
India's seaboard is more easy of access. In the west its shores are washed by the Arabian Sea, in the south by the Indian Ocean, and in the east by the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Over the last few centuries India's seaboard has offered excellent conditions for communications with the outside world. In ancient times, however, when the impact of geographical factors on the development of society was particularly marked, India's shores were not such a source of benefit to it as were those of many countries of the Mediterranean, for example. Even in ancient times the Mediterranean, sealed off from the ocean, was a trade route, bustling with exchanges of culture, a veritable hive of development in general. For a long time the open expanses of the Indian Ocean did not afford such advantages. The nearest countries were a tremendous distance away, and such a journey could only be made once in a while. By the early Middle Ages, however, many ships were sailing, the seas between India and the lands of Indochina and Indonesia and to a lesser extent the countries of the Arab world. At times, their economic and cultural ties with India became vital for the countries of South-East Asia.
India's seaboard, which afforded it reliable protection in ancient times, turned out to be a weak spot in more recent centuries, for that was how the colonizers, first the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, the English, and the French reached that country. Before Great Britain established itsdominion in India, the geographical borders of the subcontinent only partially coincided with its political map. Once 9 the British held sway, the entire country was ruled by the colonizers.
When the colonial system was shattered in India, the colonizers, true to their policy of ``divide and rule'', left the country split into two states, namely India and Pakistan. (In 1971, the eastern part of Pakistan which was East Bengal in the past, became the independent People's Republic of Bangladesh.) Therefore the present borders of the Republic of India in the north-west and the northeast do not coincide with the natural geographical boundaries, but run along frontiers that have been formed neither by nature nor history, nor the development of the economy, nor the settlement of peoples, nor by features of their culture. The frontiers between India and Pakistan, and India and Bangladesh cut across territories with a similar relief in which peoples speaking the same tongue and living the same way of life dwelt until recently. The reason officially offered for this situation was the need to separate the Moslem from the non-Moslem population, since the religious and political differences between the former and the latter supposedly made it impossible for them to share their way of life within a single state. At the same time, the frontiers were drawn in such a way as to make the new states as vulnerable as possible and maximally dependent 0:1 imperialism.
The climatic conditions differ greatly throughout the vast expanses of the subcontinent.
The Tropic of Cancer runs approximately across the middle of the territory; the monsoons, which are a typical feature of tropical Asia with their regular periods of rain and sunny weather are the most vital factor in the formation of India's climate. Today, just as in the past, changes in the normal pattern of the monsoons bring disaster in the form of poor harvests and famine. The difference in altitude in the Indus and the Ganges valley is more than 8,000 metres between their sources in ``the home of the snows'', the Himalayas, and their estuaries, with the climate varying with the altitude. Throughout India the height of the land generally varies within one kilometre or just over.
In spite of the abundant sunshine, India's natural conditions only foster vegetation and farming where there is sufficient moisture. When this advantageous combination is lacking, the luxuriance of the plant world is replaced by poorer landscapes, and a number of areas in the country 10 are covered by vast deserts. Transitional climatic zones are formed, depending on the altitude, which have been an important element in the settlement of India, especially for Indo-Europeans, who have gradually been able to become acclimatised to these new conditions. Here the decisive factor in the spread of population is not so much the natural conditions surrounding man, as he himself and his ability to create and reproduce the actual conditions of life.
More than one-sixth of mankind lives in India today. This is two and a half times more than in the USSR and almost three times more than in the USA. India has the second largest population in the world after China. The rates of its population growth which greatly increased after it gained independence, are higher than the average rates for mankind as a whole. In the future the share of India's inhabitants in the population of our planet will become even greater. In these circumstances, the demographic processes in India involving hundreds of millions of people are of considerable interest. The study of these processes is facilitated by the wealth of census materials.
Over the past century the various types of registration of the world's population, recording its growth, composition, location, urbanisation, and education have improved. This applies to the world's most highly populated countries, namely China, India, the USSR, and the USA. Population censuses have been taken regularly in the USA since 1790. The first universal census was conducted in Russia in 1897, and now there have been live all-Union censuses of the population of the USSR. In 1912, the first overall census of the population was attempted in China which did not, unfortunately, cover the entire country, and the first census of the population of the whole of China was carried out in 1953.
Between 1872 and 1981 twelve periodic universal censuses of the population were taken in India. The reports obtained from these regular censuses contain information on India of encyclopaedic value; especially detailed was the record of the 1931 census and the records made during the period of the Republic. No other country in Asia has at its disposal such a wealth of detailed, direct demographic data obtained in recent times. But no matter how highly we evaluate the results of the censuses, they still require additional work, sometimes even corrections and always comparisons with direct and indirect data on the population, gleaned 11 from other areas of knowledge; without such comparisons it is difficult to assess and gain a true understanding of all the information contained in the censuses. The difficulties involved in utilising the Indian, as well as many other, censuses stem from the changes in the classification of population categories rather than from the incompleteness of information. This methodological shortcoming is most marked in those sections of the census connected with the economy, and it also leaves a definite imprint on the demographic materials proper. Our present knowledge of India's demography is considerably more reliable regarding the twentieth century than the many years preceding it, precisely thanks to the extensive, in-depth studies of this century in such a wide variety of fields.
India is a country with a many-century-long history and a great and ancient culture. The achievements of India's peoples in philosophy, the humanities and the precise sciences, engineering, architecture, music, painting and poetry dating to ancient times and the Middle Ages have been inherited by the Indians of recent times. This did not save them from colonial enslavement, but it helped them to remain original, get back their independence and to seek newways of living.
The hugeness of India in all its parameters and its close and many-sided historical ties with other peoples render the study of its demography difficult and only possible within certain limits owing to modern scientific means. But India should not, however, be studied in isolation from other countries. India is one of the largest demographic components in the world and in Asia where more than half of mankind lives. Therefore, in research on present-day social phenomena in India, the historical aspect is a must if a complete picture is to be gained.
It should, nevertheless, be mentioned that neither in the Soviet literature, nor in that of other countries is there information summarising the demographic data on India since it has been a republic. This book obviously cannot provide answers to the many questions arising during the study of demographic phenomena and processes occurring in the life of the peoples on the South Asian subcontinent. The author will, however, consider that he has fulfilled his purpose if the reader manages to gain an idea of the demographic problems facing India and if this book is of some help in making a study of developing countries today.
[12] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 1 __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE POPULATION OF SOUTH ASIASouth Asia is an extensive region where human societies took root way back in ancient times with their ensuing interaction and influence upon one another. At that time, natural conditions differed from those we know today, and population migration from area to area also took paths different from those known to present-day science. For a long time the increase in the population was very slow, since the birth-rate only exceeded that of mortality very slightly and the struggle against the mighty forces of nature brought little success.
Initially the settlement of the South Asian subcontinent was a complicated process, and the study of it is far from complete. As regards our subject, it is important to note that representatives of all the human races were involved in populating the huge expanses of South Asia. This has had an impact on the anthropological composition of the subcontinent's present population. Historically, the population of the subcontinent must not be regarded in isolation but as part of the Old World, as part of mankind.
India was inhabited by man back in paleolithic times. A considerable part of the subcontinent's very first inhabitants evidently belonged to the Negro-Australoid ( equatorial) race. It cannot be stated with any conviction whether they were autochthonous. This anthropological type has been preserved in purest form in the Andaman Islands and also among some of the comparatively small peoples of India and Sri Lanka, among them the Vedas who inhabit the latter, and also a number of tribes from the central part of the Hindustan peninsula.
Later, peoples came to India who were the ancestors of the present-day peoples, the Mundas, and who now live to the west of the lower reaches of the Ganges.
13The next to play an important part in settling South Asia were, in all probability, the ancestors of the present Dravidian peoples of South India. Even now, it is not clear whether the ancient Dravidians are descendants of the Stone Age peoples who inhabited South Asia or whether they came to this region later. There can be no doubt, however, that in the third and second millennia B.C. they inhabited all but a small part of the South Asian subcontinent. It has been suggested that they came from the west and settled throughout almost the whole of India over several centuries.
The peoples who created the famous ``Indus civilisation" also played an important part in that period. True, the knowledge we have at present does not allow us to draw any definite conclusion with regard to relationship between the founders of the Indus civilisation and the ancient Dravidian population of the subcontinent or to their genetic connection with any of the peoples living in the country today. However, the tremendous importance of ancient Indus culture for the development of human society in South Asia is selfevident.
The penetration of the Indo-European (Aryan) tribes belonging to the Europeoid race was a vital factor in the settlement of India. These tribes invaded the valley of the Ganges via the passes in the north-west and, in the course of wars, they spread, over many centuries, throughout almost the entire subcontinent. The settlement of the Indo-Europeans possibly took a whole millennium from 1500 to 500 B.C. as the surviving epic literature tells us. They almost completely ousted the Dravidian population from the Indus and Ganges plains and from the central areas of India, forming a huge grouping of Indo-European peoples there. The Dravidians continued to predominate in the south, and in the east the Indo-Europeans assimilated with the Mongoloid tribes.
The arrival of the Aryans did in the main complete the process of accumulation of those racial and ethnic elements from which the present population of India took shape over the following centuries. True, the Mongoloid tribes continued to penetrate into India even later, but these peoples only left their mark on the population of the outlying mountainous areas of northern and north-eastern India. As far as the main territory of the subcontinent is concerned, the anthropological and ethnic composition of the population here was determined by the intermingling of the Aryan, 14 Dravidian and proto-Indian tribes and peoples belonging to the Europeoid and Negro-Australoid races. The Mongoloid element was only slightly apparent in these areas. Naturally, the physical type of today's Indians is in most cases of a mixed nature, combining certain features characteristic of different races. In general, however, European features predominate.
Not only the anthropological composition of India's population was determined in the course of its historical development, but also the main regions where it settled on the subcontinent.
Settlement of the South Asian subcontinent was initially completed in the first millennium B.C. At that time, India was apparently the most densely populated part of the worldr but the exact size of the population cannot, of course, be determined. For some periods it is as difficult to make estimates for the past as it is to make long-term forecasts for the distant future.
Estimates of the size of the population of the ancient world in general and of its most highly populated country, India, are rough ones based on indirect sources, comparisons, and inferences, since actual information is very scanty. It can be gleaned from the early monument of Indian literature, the Rig-Veda, that the population of India, at any rate its Aryan part in northern India, circa 1000 B.C. was negligible compared with that vast territory over which it held sway. It was scattered in small settlements, villages surrounded by expanses of pastures and ploughed fields wrested from the jungle. As handicrafts, trade, and scientific pursuits developed, some settlements came to look like towns and acquired features of urbanisation. As many as a thousand families may have resided in a town of that time, but frequently there were considerably less. This can be ascertained from sources dating back to the middle of the first millennium B.C. When Alexander the Great's army invaded India in 327 B.C., they found a densely populated, well developed country with an army of 500,000 men. A century later, at the time of the emperor Ashoka ancient India was a flourishing land with a multimillion population.
By the first century A.D., ``Arthashastra'', the science on state structure, had been developed. Our knowledge of it convinces us that the population count was recognised as a necessary state measure in that country and was 15 repeated several times over the centuries. However, the counting of the population was never a complete record of all the population and its movement and does not therefore give us an idea of population in the modern sense.
In Europe the tuw approach to the study of demographic phenomena and processes took shape as capitalism developed, beginning from the Renaissance period. The outcome of this new approach was a striving to trace population movement by means of regular censuses. By the second half of the nineteenth century, ths demographic study of population had reached India, which had become a colony of Great Britain.
The Indian scholar P. Nath compared indirect references from Indian literary sources and information from Greek historians about Alexander the Great's campaign to India and came to the conclusion that the population of the Mauryan Empire in the middle of the third century B.C., when its borders ran through a large part of the subcontinent, numbered 105 to 140 million people. It is thought that the number of India's inhabitants fluctuated within these limits for the last few centuries B.C., and consequently, exceeded that of the subjects of the Roman Empire. The latter definitely numbered less than 100 million by the early centuries A.D.
In his study of the population of Europe^^1^^ B. Ts. Urlanis takes 33 million as a rough estimate of the inhabitants in that part of the world in the first century A.D. F. D. Markuzon suggests that 35--40 million people inhabited Europe in the early centuries A.D., while he believes the population of the whole of the American continent was 40 million, and that of Africa 30 million.^^2^^ Consequently, the population of India was three or four times greater than that of Europe, America or Africa two millennia ago. According to Markuzon, 220 million people lived in Asia at that time. This means that about half of the population of Asia lived within the bounds of India. By the early centuries A.D., Markuzon believes, the world's population had reached 326.5 million people, and so India accounted for a third and even more of that figure. It is not without reason therefore that many _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. Ts. Urlanis, Population Growth in Europe, Moscow, 1941 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ F. D. Markuzon, ``The Population of the World from the First Century A. D. to the Mid-Twentieth Century." Questions of Economics, Planning and Statistics, Moscow, 1957 (in Russian).
16 ancient authors, Herodotus for one, stressed that India was the most densely populated country in the world.Most of the scientists studying Indian demography, in particular, P. Nath, W. Moralend, K. Davis, and S. Chandrasekhar are inclined to think that the size of the population in ancient and medieval India had, on the whole, changed comparatively little. For two thousand years,- from the second half of the first millennium B.C. to the seventeenth century, it evidently numbered approximately 100 million. This idea is to a certain extent supported by the relatively slow population growth throughout the first seventeen centuries A.D. and is in even better agreement with the periodic nature of population movement when increases alternated with decreases in growth. M. K. Bennett gives the population of India in 1000 A.D. as only 48 million and believes that it had only reached 100 million by 1700; in the light of the arguments put forward by most researchers on this question, Bennett's figures are considered to be underestimated. It is admissible that India's population decreased in some periods of the first millennium A.D. to some 48 million, but there are no convincing facts to consider that number an average for the entire period.
The population of India changed noticeably in its ethnic composition over that period, becoming part of various state formations, and its inhabitants mingling with the newcomers. The overall size of the population also changed owing to such crucial factors as famine, epidemics and wars which increased mortality in ancient and medieval India and acted as a brake on the growth of the population of slave-owning and feudal India.
Let us examine the consequences of these phenomena more closely. There are no exact data available on the demographic outcome of epidemics in India. It is, however, known, for example, that, after the plague swept Europe in the midfourteenth century, wiping out approximately one-fifth of its inhabitants, i.e., about 15 million people, the population was only able to reach its former size some 110 to 120 years later.^^1^^ This adequately defines the overall scale of epidemics in a feudal society. It may, moreover, be thought that in medieval India, where the nidi of the most deadly diseases were to be found, the consequences of an epidemic would be even more fatal.
_-_-_~^^1^^ B. Ts. Urlanis, The Growth of Population in Europe, p. 98.
__PRINTERS_P_18_COMMENT__ 2---01392 17The relative isolation of the South Asian subcontinent created by its natural boundaries meant that the epidemics, which were a temporary phenomenon in Europe, raged constantly in India, disease creeping from region to region but never leaving the subcontinent. A permanent nidus of infectious diseases was the immense Indian ``cauldron'', where they never died away completely. Finally, the numerousness of India's population, its comparatively high density (in the early centuries A.D. Europe was inhabited by less than four people per square kilometre on average, China by six or seven people, and India by more than 20), and the relatively low level of economic development could not help but intensify the consequences of the epidemics, which were terrible enough without that.
Famine, coupled with epidemics, was one of the decisive factors restricting population growth in ancient times and in the Middle Ages. Although the information on starvation in mediaeval Indian chronicles is scanty and fragmentary by virtue of the very nature of the sources, even these excerpts draw a frightful picture of masses of people starving to death. North Indian chroniclers mention an exceptionally ravaging famine in the Delhi area in 1345. It was evidently caused more by the chaos that prevailed in the country in the reign of Mohammed bin Tughlak than by the drought. The year 1471 is referred to in the chronicles as one of terrible famine. In 1631, the whole of India was suffering from starvation. The invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739 caused famine in Delhi and its environs.
In western India the chronicles record famines in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. In 1629--1630 the sources mention a scarcity of food more acute than any in living memory, which affected almost the entire peninsula. In 1661, hunger struck Rajputana, and in 1685 a severe drought caused famine. In 1747, there was a devastating famine particularly in Gujarat. According to tales and legends, unprecedented^ acute starvation swept the land in 1791--1792.
The famine of 1770--1771 in Bengal wiped out one-third of the province's population, reducing it to 20 million, the number of inhabitants who probably lived there two centuries earlier c. 1580. Karl Marx believed that the scarcity of food was a consequence of the new colonial order in the east of India. It took the population of Bengal more than 50 years to reach 30 million again. In southern India the
18 famine at the end of the fourteenth century lasted for 12 years and gripped the whole of the country south of the river Narbada. As time went by, the food shortages frequently recurred.Famine was largely caused by the dependence of Indian farming on the regular pattern of the monsoons, which supplied the precipitation. If the monsoons were late, many people might die not only due to starvation itself, but also due to the concomitant diseases and disasters. Any disruption of the normal flow of the Indus and the Ganges was also fraught with serious negative consequences.
Changes in climate are not too noticeable throughout the lifetime of one generation, but they become systematic over one or two millennia. The downtrodden and cruelly exploited population took no steps to combat this factor, which made itself felt for a long time. In these circumstances, for the peoples of India famine became an almost natural regular occurrence.
Deviations in the normal pattern of the monsoons are more frequent than in the ordinary flood tide regimes of the Indus and the Ganges. When studying the causes of food shortages in India, Academician V. I. Lamansky pointed out in particular that the amount of precipitation brought by the monsoons changes by as much as 50 per cent from year to year. An abundance of precipitation gives rise to the floods that can be more disastrous on the subcontinent in some years than anywhere else. When the glacial feeding of the rivers is upset large amounts of water from melted glaciers fill the channel at the river's source to overflowing and rush down into the valleys, sweeping away and destroying everything in their path. On the whole, however, the baneful floods take place less frequently than the scorching droughts that occur when the monsoons bring less moisture than usual. Climatic changes affect areas where artificial irrigation is practised. Deviations in the monsoon pattern cause droughts or floods, and, consequently, famine and increased mortality. The situation greatly depended on the condition of the irrigation systems, which were, in turn, the first to suffer from wars and political feuds.
The specific historical development of Indian society, and also some features of the natural geographical conditions have intensified the effect of food shortages on population growth in India. With its huge size and population, the country was in a state of division throughout the Middle __PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19 Ages owing to its natural boundaries, varying climatic conditions and levels of social development of the peoples speaking different tongues, owing to the caste system, which made people stay permanently with their community unable to break the caste bonds, even in the face of starvation, or due to political strife, wars, and insufficiently developed internal communications. This disunity made the destructive consequences of the famines even worse, not only in ancient and mediaeval times, but also later on, throughout the period of colonial domination.
Wars also affected the size of India's population, for they not only led to direct losses of human life, but also to indirect losses connected with the destruction of irrigation systems. We cannot even possibly imagine with the necessary clarity what were the consequences of wars for the population of the subcontinent even in the recent past. Wars were primarily waged on the territory of India whose people were rebuffing the attacks of invaders. Therefore, wars brought destruction and death to the broad masses, no matter whether the outcome was victory or defeat. Such wars have been waged throughout practically the whole of India's history. Wars to conquer other lands were far less common in India, but were waged in the first millennium and in the first third of the second millennium A.D. in Indochina and Indonesia and evidently had comparatively little effect on the growth of India's population.
The variations in the overall size of the population in mediaeval India were responsible for a certain decline in India's share in the whole of mankind. Although the slow growth of the population was characteristic of all peoples in feudal times, nevertheless, in those countries where the social system was not as stagnant as in India in the late Middle Ages, the population increased fairly rapidly. None the less, throughout the whole of the Middle Ages India remained one of the most densely populated areas of the world (Table 1).
Before regular censuses were taken, estimates of population were based on odd scraps of information, mainly indirect ones. It was really just a matter of conjectures, estimates that could be dovetailed to a certain extent with what was already known about the population. It was exclusively a question of the size of the population, and, when other demographic indices were needed, they were deduced from the conjectured population figures.
20 Table 1 Estimated Size of the World's Population from 1000--1700 (in millions) 1000 lino 1200 13 00 1400 1500 1COO 1700 Whole world 275 306 348 384 373 446 486 623 Asia 170 196 203 216 224 254 292 402 Including: India Total population fluctuated around the 100 million mark 115 China Total population fluctuated around 80 million 125 140 205 Japan 46 8 11 14 16 20 27 Asian part of Russia 567 8 9 11 13 15 Europe 56 62 68 79 78 91 106 119 Including: European part of Russia 8.5 10.0 11.0 11.0 13.0 15.1 18.3 21.0 England and Wales 1.6 1.8 2.3 3.0 3.0 3.6 4.3 5.8 France 9.0 11.0 13.0 17.0 14.0 15.5 17.2 20.4 ^ ,} 9.0 8.0 7.0 Portugal * 6.5 8.0 7.3 6.0 6.0 2.0 1.4 1.9 -Africa 50 55 61 67 74 82 90 90 [21]As time passed, the number of estimates increased, being particularly numerous in the nineteenth century when they became intermingled with census records, to which they finally gave way. It is characteristic that the evaluations made by different scientists vary greatly, and in some cases one and the same author subjects the indices put forward by him to considerable alteration, allowing for a decrease in the size of the population.
All this does, of course, reflect the process that, is continuing to this day, of the consistent change-over of society from an incomplete, vague knowledge to complete and more precise information. But the differences between our evaluations and those made in the past indicate not only more knowledge: just as before, we are still ignorant about many things, and what is more, we continue to err when we imagine population growth in the past as a steady upward line. It was particularly difficult for contemporaries to assess population movement between 1600 and 1900 because in those centuries many things changed comparatively rapidly; great geographical discoveries and improved communications stimulated peopling (primarily by Europeans) of the planet's new lands; the development of capitalism and population growth were also interdependent. Population could not grow at the same even rate in countries differing in their levels and phases of development, and the admission of steady growth is primitive and incorrect like any simplification.
The theoretical line indicating changes in the size of Asia's entire population (and, moreover, of that of the whole world) should not reflect steady growth, but ups and downs in this growth, and sometimes even a decrease. However, our knowledge of this process is inadequate compared with the enormity of the subject examined and the large variety of changes actually occurring in it; the line of steady growth is therefore taken as a conditional one.
The further study of population movement can also proceed from estimates of it made in the past which are a refection of actual happenings and which may in fact be closer to the truth than it appears at first glance.
Unfortunately, few evaluations of India's population made by contemporaries have come down to us, especially dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The well-known estimate regarding the year 1600, published by W. Moralend in 1920, is based on the estimated acreage 22 of the cultivated land in the country's north at the time and the approximate number of troops in its southern part. The historian found that there lived 100 million people in India at that time. At present, proceeding from other premises, J. M. Datta has obtained almost the same figure, thereby confirming the correctness of the estimates made by W. Moralend.
In the mid-seventeenth century when new scientific ideas regarding demography were taking shape in Western Europe, the English, who had sailed to India, made estimates of the population in those few ports in the country in which they held out at the time. Indirect information was used in making these evaluations, for example, the amount of taxes, the mortality rate, the comparison of data referring to different areas. The 1716 census of the population of Bombay was effected by a qualitatively new method; although limited regional observations of this kind and the conclusions drawn from them did not reveal much about the country as a whole, they did indicate a more fruitful approach.
As mentioned above, the different types of calculations on the population became more numerous since they were needed for purposes of state government. Before the nineteenth century even Europe did not have complete records of population. By the mid-nineteenth century, as capitalism developed and data were needed on the capacities of expanding markets, and the growing self-awareness of a nation made it wonder how large it was and how its numbers changed, universal, scientifically founded, detailed censuses became a must. First taken in the Western colonial powers, these censuses were then transferred to India and other colonies. The censuses were to aid the colonizers in exploiting the occupied country, but eventually they became a disadvantage to the oppressors since they stimulated the development of a national self-consciousness in the enslaved.
Colonialism left its mark on all aspects of India's way of life, including the regularities of population growth. The slow, agonising development of capitalism there could not provide for population growth rates typical of Europe and America in modem times. Although India's population did increase throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this process occurred much more slowly there than in the independent capitalist countries.
It should also be taken into account that right up to the 23 last quarter of the nineteenth century, when regular censuses were introduced, data on the population of the whole of India were almost as rough and hypothetical as the estimates relating to ancient times or the Middle Ages. What is more, the figures are often not really in agreement with one another. For example, in the works of such well-known experts on the demography of India as K. Davis and S. Chandrasekhar the following highly contradictory evaluations of the size of the population in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries are cited (in millions):
The estimates of K. Davis Ytar 1600 100 1800 120 1855 175 1871 255 The estimates of S. Chandrasekhar Yiar 1600 100 1750 130 1850 150 1861 164It is easy to see that these figures, besides being incomplete, differ both in their absolute value and in their dependence.
K. Davis asserts that the population of the country hardly increased at all between 1600 and 1750, but that subsequently, when India became a colony, the number of inhabitants grew steadily and doubled by the first census in 1872 to make up 255 million. In contradiction to this view, J. M. Datta mentions a marked increase in population, especially in northern India, between 1600 and 1750 and a decline in growth in the second half of the eighteenth century mainly as a result of the famine in Bengal in 1770-- 1771 which wiped out approximately ten million people, and also owing to the political and military riots in the Punjab. J. M. Datta verifies the above-mentioned conclusion by W. Moralend that there were 100 million people living in India at the beginning of the seventeenth century in two ways: first, by taking the demographic data of the universal Indian censuses of 1881--1931 as a starting-point for his journey into the past, and secondly, by studying the amount of land tax collected in Bengal which reflectedpthe size of the population in that province covering the whole of the east of India. In the former case, he obtained the figure of 101.1 million, and in the latter, 103.7 million people for the whole of India.
Speaking at the World Population Congress held in Belgrade in September 1965, J. D. Durand summed up the 24 present information on the size of India's population 1750--1850 in the following manner (millions):
1750 1800 1850 max. average min. max. average mln. max. average mln. 210 170 125 210 190 150 240 235 215 inIf these materials are supplemented with the evaluations of other researchers, then the picture of the overall population of the subcontinent in the two centuries preceding the censuses, does not become clear at all. Moreover, we may become utterly confused by these contradictory indices, since the greater their number, the less likely they are to tally. At best, the estimates are based on sporadic or periodical records of the population in different parts of the country and on comparisons.
The British East India Company tried to find out the size of the population as it extended its operations, so that population evaluations became more detailed.
A rough estimate of the population in the company's possessions was made in the 1780s by T. H. Colebrooke by the sample survey method. He was interested in the province of Bengal, which took up the eastern part of India. If a sample survey is to be of any value, the subjects it studies must be sufficiently representative. In practice, subjects can only be measured indirectly, for there were no direct records of the condition and movement of the population in Bengal at that time. Taking the province's districts as his subject, T. H. Colebrooke drew attention to the comparative density of the population, the large numbers of people employed on the farms, the scale of the taxes, the acreage of cultivated land, and the crop yields; then, on the basis of a few indices obtained indirectly, an idea of the whole was built up, i.e., of the population of the province, first and foremost, of its size.
Other scientists have conducted research, using T. H. Colebrooke's method and improving on it. These studies were an achievement for their time and left their mark on demography. From the standpoint of modern demography, however, it is not difficult to see that the colonizers' idea of the population in India was limited and underestimated.
You can get an idea of this by taking the example of Bengal where the population was believed to number approximately ten million in 1765; twenty years later, in 25 1785, some 24 million people were thought to live there; in 1792, when the land reforms were introduced, Bengal was considered to have 30 million inhabitants; in 1835, mention was made of 35 million, proceeding from the questionable 1801 population records; in 1858, after a national mutiny was put down, it was asserted that Bengal had about 40 million inhabitants, and in 1872, it was estimated to have 42.5 million. The results of the first more or less complete census of the population in 1872 were surprising, for they showed that 62 million people lived in Bengal and the principalities forming part of it. Thus, the error in population count in Bengal prior to the censuses was as much as 20 million or one-third of the actual figure.
Demographic studies in the presidency of Madras, which was considerably larger than the present state of Tamil Nadu and occupied the south of India, began in the seventeenth century (within the bounds of the administrative centre). They produced little information in the eighteenth century, but were extended and put on a new basis in the nineteenth century. It was proposed that the administration should organise periodic registrations of the population out of its own revenues. The first registration of this type was conducted in 1836--1837, and subsequent ones in 1851--1852, 1856--1857, 1861--1862, and 1866--1867, i.e., every five years. This was followed by the 1871--1872 registration, which already formed part of the first universal Indian census.
In the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, which occupy an area approximately equal to that of the present state of Uttar Pradesh, the first registration of the population was carried out in 1826 and only applied to the province of Agra. It was conducted by registering the inhabitants village by village and the figure obtained was 32 million people. The experiment was repeated in 1848, then in 1853 and 1865. The results of the 1853 registration are believed to be the most accurate. The first universal Indian census within the bounds of Oudh was conducted in 1869 and in Agra in 1872. The results of the 1869 and 1872 censuses for the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh were incorporated into the material of the universal Indian census of 1872.
Registration of the population was carried out in the Punjab in 1855 after it was occupied by British troops, but only in the border areas of the British territory, excluding the Punjab principalities. The data for the first census of 26 1872 were gleaned from the 1868 records. Drawing attention to the fact that the lands and the incomes from them had been registered fairly precisely in the Punjab for centuries, it may be assumed that the population figures were plausible ones.
A productive experiment was the census carried out in the North-Westorn Provinces on a door-to-door principle a province a day. This principle formed the basis of the socalled first census of India in 1872, which was a series of population censuses taken at different dates and covering one administrative unit of the country at a time. The census administrators' main aim was to register as many people as possible.
Britain initially proposed that the first universal census of the population of India be conducted in 1861, i.e., in the same year as the regularly repeated British census of the population. However, many administrative measures, including the census, had to be postponed owing to the sepoy mutiny in 1857--1859. In the 1860s several regional censuses covering individual towns and whole provinces were carried out. On a European scale, these were equivalent to several national censuses and served as a useful preparatory stage in conducting further demographic activity in India. The series of regional censuses helped in drawing up a schedule for an all-India census and compiling a questionnaire form intended for each individual. Although the measure was obviously an administrative one, it contained an element of a democratic approach, for everyone was registered as an equivalent unit.
So, population censuses in India became country-wide and regular. It is appropriate here to mention that, under the impact of the sepoy mutiny, the possessions of the East India Company were transferred to the British crown. From a political and administrative point of view, India was divided into two parts, the so-called British India and the Indian principalities, which, though fully dependent, nominally retained self-government, this did, in a way, restrict demographic registrations. The population of India en masse disliked this procedure, sometimes meeting it with open hostility, as had been the case in Europe at one time.
Now lot us try and determine the size of the population of the South Asian subcontinent in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Naturally, a task of this type can only be dealt with very approximately. The 1901 census figure, 27 roughly 284 million (excluding Burma and Aden), should be taken as the point of departure. This figure shows the population size as of March 1, 1901. The probable error forces us to move back by a year or more the date of the de facto presence of this number of people in the area covered by the census, and it would be correct to consider that the population at the beginning of the twentieth century was approximately 290 million people, i.e., slightly larger than indicated in the census.
The size of the subcontinent's population in the midnineteenth century can be determined with a certain degree of authenticity by comparing the data of the 1901 census and those of the previous censuses of 1872, 1881, and 1891 and the estimated errors in them; this is the best method since the census figures are the initial and the control ones, and the period without censuses is only 20 years. Comparisons allow the conclusion to be drawn that there were evidently some 200--220 million people living within the bounds of the South Asian subcontinent in the mid-- nineteenth century, of which approximately 170--188 million inhabited the territory now forming the Republic of India. When going back into the more distant past, India's population at the beginning of the seventeenth century can be roughly taken as 100 million people, a figure on which most researchers agree, although it is not as authentic as the data relating to the end and the middle of the nineteenth century. Having assumed 110 million to be the figure for 1650 and 220 million for 1850, it remains to be found out how the population grew over the two centuries between the years cited. Since direct sources do not provide a clear answer, many indirect data have to be used, for example, scraps of historical information on the population of individual towns, on the numbers who died from epidemics, on the strength of the armies of the principalities and of the empire of the Great Moguls, the system of land tenure, the sums paid in taxes to the treasury, the population density in places of pilgrimage, and also the population figures mentioned in various memoirs. A method of comparison with China and the countries of the Middle East is employed as well. Taken together, these figures give us a certain understanding of the subject.
As a result, we come to the conclusion that the population constantly increased in the centuries examined. Historical events disrupted this consistent increment in some years 28 and for more or less protracted periods of time, but the principles governing the growth process continued to be valid on the whole. Further, we come to the conclusion that between 1(350 and 1850 the population grew at the end of each fifty years but growth was not always to be discerned throughout the fifty-year period (Table 2).
Table 2 Estimated Size of the Population of India between 1650 and 1'JOO (millions) 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 Overall size of population of India 1st version 100 115 135 160 200 290 2nd version 110 125 145 175 220 290 Including territory within the bounds of modern India 1st version 87 100 117 138 170 244 2nd version 95 108 126 150 188 244Obviously, the figures cited in Table 2 are questionable. They only form an outline within which a further search is needed to discover the population figures for definite dates. The old scraps of information available cannot serve as a basis upon which to build a model of population movement. In making the calculations, besides all the above-mentioned factors, attention was paid to the fact that the population expanded most rapidly in East Bengal. The point is that the size of the population of East Bengal largely depended on the flow of migrants from the west, from the regions that now form part of India, to the territory of what is at present Bangladesh. This process was particularly marked between 1850 and 1950, although it often escaped demographers' notice. It is also known that, all conditions being equal, the Moslem population grew slightly more rapidly than the Hindu one.
An idea of India's population in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries compared to that in other regions of the world can be gleaned from Table 3.
In the last few centuries B.C. there were possibly 105--140 million people living in India, comprising nearly half the inhabitants of Asia and approximately one-third of the 29 Size of the World Population in 1650--1900 (millions) Table 3 1650 1700 1750 180(1 1850 1900 Whole world 545 623 791 978 1,262 1,65(1 Asia 330 402 479 602 749 937 Including: India 1st version 100 115 135 160 200 290 2nd version 110 125 145 175 220 290 China 150 205 270 345 430 430 Japan 23 27 32 28 33 44 Asian part of Russia 14 15 16 17 19 20 Europe 106 119 140 187 267 399 Including: European part of Russia 18.3 21.0 24.0 39.0 61.6 111.2 England and Wales 4.8 5.8 6.3 9.2 18.1 32.4 France 18.8 20.4 22.0 27.3 34.9 38.9 Spain 7.3 7.3 8.4 10.5 14.4 18.6 Portugal 1.5 1.9 2.6 3.4 3.9 5.4 Africa Total popult ition fluctuated around 90 million 95 120 world's population; this was more than the population of the Roman Empire and other states of that time, including China. The average population density was six times higher than in Europe and thrice that of China.
During the first millennium A.D. the size of India's population fluctuated around 100 million, and by the year 1000 A.D. it comprised less than half of the population of Asia and less than a third of the world's population. There were less people living in Europe than in India, and China apparently had almost as many inhabitants as India. The population of the whole of the American continent was some five times less than that of India, and the population of Australia comparatively negligible. The average population density on the South Asian subcontinent continued to stay several times higher than that of Europe, China, the Middle East and Africa, not to mention other parts of the world.
Between the years 1000 and 1600, in the period of developed feudalism, the population of India increased very
30 little and was no more than 100 million by the beginning of the seventeenth century; in Europe by that time the population numbered at least as many, and in China it was probably bigger. The inhabitants of India formed onefifth of mankind at that time and approximately one-third of the population of Asia. At the same time, South Asia continued to have the highest average population density in the world.The period from 1600 to 1900 is marked by the more rapid growth of mankind, which tripled over these three centuries, reaching more than 1,500 million by 1900. India's population had also grown, but colonial oppression was slowing down this process. The population of the independent countries of Europe had grown fourfold in that period and exceeded that of India. By that time the population of China was one and a half times larger than that of India and was now the biggest in the world, leaving India in second place. In the mid-nineteenth century the population of India comprised less than a fifth part of mankind and less than one-third of that of Asia. If we take the territory of present-day India, then at the turn of the century its population formed less than a sixth part of mankind and a quarter of the population of Asia. The average density of the population on the South Asian subcontinent was double that of Europe and China. However, the population of India was scattered unevenly throughout the subcontinent, restricted by its geography and bearing the mark of internal division created in the course of historical development and intensified over these three centuries by the European colonizers.
[31] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 2 __ALPHA_LVL1__ REGULAR CENSUSES OF THE POPULATIONThe study of the population of Asia by taking regular censuses was first started with the universal Indian census of 1867--1876 which related theoretically to the year 1872. After this census was completed, the picture of demographic phenomena and processes in South Asia became somewhat clearer. Ideas about mankind became more complete and opinions about the possible ways in which it would develop in the future were better founded.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a time when our knowledge of society was improving, when statistical and demographic studies were being extended for which science had already worked out theoretical principles and practical recommendations. Universal regular censuses have been conducted in the USA since 1790, in England and France since 1801 and in the German states since the 1830s; in Italy the first census was carried out in the period after its unification, in Canada in 1871, in Brazil in 1890; in Russia the first universal census was taken in January 1897, a universal but incomplete census was carried out in China in 1912, and in Japan in 1920.
When speaking primarily of universal population censuses here, it should be stressed, that all peoples had some kind of population registration. There are already many useful censuses from a practical point of view, censuses which are comparable, although by no means in all their aspects, and meeting some of the requirements of modern science. A systematic study of the development of the society through censuses is a necessary condition if their results are to be correctly interpreted and understood. An analysis of the censuses is an extremely laborious undertaking, which will be fruitless unless its many aspects have been sufficiently prepared.
32Over the past 185 years possibly some two thousand censuses of the population have been carried out, by means of which almost the whole of mankind has been registered, although with varying degree of accuracy.
A. I. Gozulov^^1^^ collected and systematised information as far as possible on all the censuses taken in the world from 1790 to 1969, i.e., over 180 years; a comparison of the number of censuses with the sizes of the population covered by the census shows how census studies have developed.
Table 4 The Number of Censuses Taken Throughout the World i'rom 1790 to 1969 (A. I. Gozulov's Results) 1790-- 1819 1820-- 1839 1840-- 1859 1860-- 1879 1880-- 1899 1900-- 1919 1920-- 1929 1930-- 1939 1940-- 1949 1950-- 1959 1960-- 1969 Total 20 58 125 165 196 314 227 222 172 157 202 1,756Having made a special study of the extent to which the population o[ the globe was embraced by the censuses in 1800--1955, A. I. Gozulov showed that in 1800 only one per cent of the Earth's population had been registered in censuses and that all other calculations were based on more or less probable and founded conjectures. By 1870 the share of the population registered by the censuses had risen to 20 per cent mainly on account of jthe large countries in Western Europe. The first universal Indian census of 1867-- 1876 dates back to that time, bringing the part of mankind recorded in census statistics up to 40 per cent; by 1910 censuses embraced two-thirds of the world's population, including Russia, by 1940 three quarters of it, and in 1955, after direct registration of the population of China, the censuses were^only missing out 2.1 per cent of mankind.
Consequently, it is only now that we are close to registering the whole population of the globe in censuses. Back in 1920, however, censuses provided information on less than three quarters of the world's population, and in Asia on only half of the inhabitants; in 1870, ideas on the world's _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. I. Gozulov, Censuses of the Population of Ike Globe, Moscow, 1970 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---01392 33 population were formed mainly on conjectures, and in respect of the most highly populated continent, Asia, they were founded exclusively on conjectures.Modern demographic statistics based primarily on immediate censuses of the population present the researcher with certain difficulties. Although the censuses are carried out at different times in different countries (dates of the censuses and the periods between them also differ), this can be overcome to a certain extent by calculations, but the varying methods of taking the censuses in different countries and sometimes in one and the same country make comparisons impossible at times. The differences in the methods in one and the same country make the indices of the census returns isolated, individual data, which have no connection with the data of other censuses. It is precisely owing to inadequacies and diversities in national practices that the Earth's census-based population figures today are still far from accurate.
Countries take censuses in different years, and therefore the size of the population of our planet or of a continent on a given date is formed from the returns of censuses carried out close to that date; allowance for births and deaths in the period between the last census and a specific date, although providing a more precise figure, does at the same time introduce a new element of approximation. Consequently, the share of India's inhabitants in the population of the world and that of Asia can only be calculated approximately, even if the record of India's inhabitants is a precise one.
But even the very task of numbering the entire population of India precisely is an extremely complicated one, although twelve universal censuses have already been taken. This is quite understandable since India is one of the most highly populated and vast countries in the world. Whereas, for example, Canada and Brazil are threefold larger than India, the population there is 28 and six times less than that of India respectively. Canada's south is the most populated part of the country, which makes it easier to carry out censuses, while the population of Brazil gravitates towards the south-eastern regions, whose territory is considerably smaller than that of India. Australia is twice the size of India, but its 15-million population is concentrated in the country's south. As regards the USA, here a population three times smaller than India's is found on a territory 34 triple that of India. It should not be forgotten, however, that the carrying out of censuses in the USA is facilitated by the far greater availability of Hie latest technology. Moreover, the practice of taking nation-wide decennial censuses has existed in the USA for 190 years now, while it has only been traditional in India for 110 years. We would also remind you that India is a country populated by many nationalities speaking different tongues and therefore the census inquiries are made in many languages at the same time, a difficulty which the European slates do not know. The illiteracy of most of India's population also makes census-taking extremely difficult.
It is not surprising that many of the Indian censuses, especially the early ones, suffer from a number of defects. The first five censuses left out considerable areas of the country. In particular, the 1872 census was not taken in regions inhabited by as many as 20 per cent of the country's population. The 1881 census was the first to give information on the principalities of Hyderabad and Manipur, Punjab and Kajputana (Uajasthan), the Central Indian Agency and part of the Andaman islands. However, during the 1881 census in the Central Indian Agency they failed to take into account the population of the numerous principalities dotted about in its vast territory; only the census of 1891 was a relatively complete one. The numbering of the Bhils and Gonds was in fact carried out in 1891 as well, although the first attempt was made back in 1881. The census of the population of the very large principality of Hyderabad (which now forms a large part of the state of Andhra Pradesh) and of liajpulana was also far from complete in 1881.
The mountain principalities of the Himalayas were not covered by the censuses until 1901. In Kashmir a rough estimate of the population was made in 1873, but the returns were incomplete and inaccurate. More reliable record began here in 1891, as in Sikkim, but they were, nevertheless, still partial and incomplete until 1911.
In the principality of Travancore and Cochin the first population census dates back to 1875, and the results of it were later incorporated into the reports of the 1872 census.
The following data (in million) on the approximate size of the population in the territories where enumeration was carried out for the first time will show you what this __PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35 incomplete coverage of the country by the first censuses meant:^^1^^
Year 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 33.1 5.7 2.7 1.8 0.09 0.04Besides the incomplete coverage of the country's territory, the imperi'ect methods of registration also left their mark on the results of the first censuses. Consequently, even where the census was conducted, large numbers of people, possibly 12 million in 1872, were left out of the survey. Thus, the first census evidently provided figures tens of millions lower than the actual size of the population, perhaps amounting to a sixth part of the entire population. Owing to the inadequacy of the census system in 1881, some 3.5 million people were left out who, together with the inhabitants of the territories not registered, made up some ten million; owing to the two circumstances mentioned, the error was close to six million people in 1891 and to four million in 1901. A certain incompleteness is also typical of subsequent censuses, although the percentage of inhabitants not registered gradually decreased. The fact that the 1872 census was conducted at different times and its results were highly inaccurate compels us to begin our series of statistical values from the 1881 census, when the data become more comparable, or even from the 1891 one, when the data were relatively complete.
The returns of the latest Indian censuses are distinguished considerably for their great authenticity. In the opinion of Indian demographers, the overall registration of the population in these censuses has been carried out with an accuracy of up to one per cent or approximately so. This applies to the 1951, 1961 and 1971 censuses and can probably be said of the 1981 census as well. The degree of accuracy of the 1931 registration is unclear since it was conducted in the context of economic crisis and the civil disobedience campaign headed by Mahatma Gandhi. Shortly before the census the working committee of the National _-_-_
~^^1^^ The figures apply to four present-day republics: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burma, which, at the time of census-taking, were one colony belonging to Great Britain.
36 Congress proclaimed Sunday January 11, 1931, a day of boycott of the census. There are grounds for believing that the error in the 1931 census is in'any case Imore than one per cent.The main administrator of the 1951 census, R. A. Gopalasvami, believes that the margin of error in this census ranges from one to 1.2 per cent and that in India on March 1, 1951, there were some 360 million, i.e., almost four million more than indicated in the census. Taking into account the population growth rate, it may be considered that in March and April 1950 there were as many people living in India as were registered in the census on March 1, 1951. Moreover, in the light of the results of the 1961 registration, the margin of error in the 1951 census may be considered larger, since part of the women and the children under five years have been missed out. At the same time, the Indian press is of the opinion that the 1961 census was more accurate than the 1951 census, and that in 1961 the number of people who were actually missed out comprised less than one per cent of the census-established figure. These conclusions are founded on the results of control sample surveys showing that in actual fact throughout the country there was on average 1,007 people where the 1961 census registered only 1,000 people, and that the probable error in the numbering of the entire population was eight persons per thousand, while in the 1951 census it was 10--12 persons per thousand. It is believed that during the registration of the rural population in 1961 five to seven persons per thousand were omitted, and during the registration of town dwellers seven to thirteen persons, i.e., one per cent of the urban population was omitted and 0.7 per cent of the country people. All in all, this means in rounded figures that 3,075,000 people were omitted from the 1961 census compared with 3,972,000 omitted in the 1951 census. It'is assumed that those omitted by the 1971 census comprised approximately 1.1 per cent, i.e., close to six million people. The preliminary data of the 1981 census indicated that the omission was 215,000 people, but the number of all those omitted was, of course, dozens of times larger.
Such a degree of census accuracy during the period of independent development should be recognised as a high one. It is even higher than in the USA, for example, where the number of people omitted from the 1960 census formed approximately three per cent. In 1980, more than five million 37 people wore omitted in the south of the country alone.
The classification accepted in the schedules of the repuhlican censuses, could not, of course, he an automatic reiteration of that used in the colonial censuses. Moreover, in the repnhlican censuses themselves there were justified differences in type and class of information. This is the case, for instance, with the classification of the population according to administrative and territorial divisions. The 1961, 1971, and 1981 censuses reflect the present administrative divisions, which correspond to the areas inhahited by India's biggest peoples. But in 1951, when the first census after independence was taken the states were still in many ways artificial formations, just as the administrative units of the British colonial empire had been earlier. Naturally, the census materials at that time could be applied not to each people in India within the bounds of its distribution, hut to the conglomerates of peoples within the boundaries that had inherited from the past and changed but partially. The above-said applies to an even greater extent to the census of 1941 when more than 600 principalities still existed which were finally abolished by 1956. The 1931 census, which also covered present-day Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Yemen, as well as India, was conducted within administrative divisions, which differed even more from the present ones. If the results of the censuses are to be compared, the figures need to be completely recalculated, taking into account the present boundaries of the states and the national composition of their population. This is an extremely laborious undertaking, which has already been tackled to a certain extent by the Republic's demographic service, and therefore a comparison of the results of the censuses has become possible according to regions, states, and territories.
It should, however, be noted that in the Indian censuses of the colonial period the classifications had peculiarities which had nothing whatsoever to do with the real changes occurring in the country and were a consequence of the policy of the colonial authorities who were pursuing their own ends. Thus, in 1941, when the colonizers were doing their utmost to stir up trouble among the Hindus and the Moslems, the religious and social classification formed the basis of the census. This method, which is riot typical of other Indian censuses, makes it extremely difficult to compare the results of the 1941 census with the data of other years.
38On the whole the censuses taken in independent India are far superior to those of colonial times in the breadth of their coverage and the precision of registration, in their unity and the scientific nature of their methodology. The British potentates of India were only interested in collecting that demographic and economic information, which was needed to exploit the country and uphold the colonial order. It is not surprising that colonial India did not have a permanent demographic service, although censuses were taken regularly every decade; after the reports on the census were published, the activity of the personnel involved ceased until preparations were made for the next census. One of the heads of the colonial census agency, S. Chandrasekhar, said that the Indian census was like a sort of comet, which would appear on the statistical horizon once every ten years, attracting to itself great attention at the moment of culmination, and then disappear. In his opinion, the Indian censuses of the colonial period threw a pale ray of uncertain light on a subject that should permanently be kept in view. Unlike this service, the demographic service of the sovereign Republic operates on a permanent basis.
Attributing great importance to the uninterrupted study of the country's demographic problems, in 1948 the legislature of independent India passed the act on regular'census-- taking. In accordance with this act, in May 1949 at the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Office of Registrar General was instituted, who simultaneously acted as census-commissar. Permanent staff were placed at his disposal and a Consultative Committee to study the demographic practice and the experience gained by it. Since that time the tasks tackled by the Republic's demographic service have been the following: further improvement of population censuses, including basic and auxiliary measures for regularly carrying out reiterant registration; registration of current population movement; sample surveys with special schedules; the interpretation of the demographic material obtained and provision of various branches of the state service, primarily planning with exhaustive demographic information and conclusions. The detailed results of the permanent demographic service's activities have been widely published. In 1950, the National Sample Survey Office was set up. It carries out regular surveys of representative contingents of the population, co-- ordinating its efforts with the government bodies of the states. The Office compares the results of surveys and censuses and 39 provides overall evaluations both for the country as a whole and for individual states and territories.
In his work on Indian censuses S. C. Srivastava says that these censuses are the primary source of basic information on the country's population for various economic and social studies and for planning.
Each census should give a photographic picture of the state of society at a given moment, from a certain angle. Photographs should be as clear and precise as possible. This is the static aspect of the census, one of the moments in population movement. The indices then calculated for changes in the period between censuses reflect the dynamic aspect of the census, which shows population movement over a definite period of time in a given country. Thus, the population and its movement are a promising area for the application of statistical methods of studying mass phenomena. Man as an individual should thereby be disregarded and only examined as part of the human race. Census-taking today (even sample surveys aimed at studying'specific demographic phenomena) has to be organised on a limited schedule. We have before us simplified models of man and society as a subject of statistical study.
__FIX__ Lots of smudges.By the mid-nineteenth century, as science developed, the importance of comparing the answers given by people in different countries to census inquiries became obvious. The Brussels International Statistical Congress in 1853 and especially the St. Petersburg Congress of 1872 recommended a specified list of items to be inquired about in population census schedules. Experience has shown us that a unified approach to the study of large numbers of people who differ greatly in their levels of development, was practically impossible and was at variance with the interests and aims of the administrators of national censuses. Over the past hundred years census-taking methods have to a certain extent become increasingly similar, but some differences inevitably persist. The UN demographic service is carrying on extremely responsible and fruitful work in creating a unified set of census methods, at the same time taking into account and recommending well-founded diversity in the census schedules while ensuring that the results remain comparable. So, the subject content of the inquiries recommended by the UN for the World Population Census of 1970--1971 varies for' different continents and groups of countries; it is not the same for India or France, the USA or Canada, and so forth.
40The relevant resolutions of the international statistical congresses contain recommendations that censuses should be decennial and conducted in periods when population migration is at a minimum. In the conditions obtaining in India, where four-fifths of the population live in rural localities and are involved in agriculture/thisperiod'is February and March. All the censuses in the country except the first one, which was carried out at different times over a number of years, have been conducted in these months at ten-year intervals.
The times when all the censuses were taken are the following:
1872---between 1867 and 1876, theoretically February 21, 1872 1881---February 17 1891-February 26 1901---March 1 1911---March 11 1921---March 18 1931---February 26 1941---February 10--28 1051---February 10--28 1961---February 10--28 1971---March 10--31 1981---February 9-28The populations of Burma and Aden (now the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen) were registered together with that of India from 1881 until the seventh census in 1931. According to the so-called 1935 act on the administration of India, which came into force in April 1937, Burma and Aden were treated as independent administrative units. Their populations were not included in India's census report of 1941. The area covered by subsequent censuses was still more limited since Pakistan and Bangladesh were naturally excludeu.
^The congresses recommended that the censuses should be conducted in the shortest possible space of time, preferably within 24 hours, and this was done in India from the second census (1881) to the seventh (1931). They were all carried out in a single day, largely on one moonlit night in February or March. This recommendation was later waived since the extended schedules required more time: each of the censuses needed three weeks with an additional four days for sample control surveys. In India other scientific recommendations were also utilised, in particular regarding the information to be obtained by census inquiries, uniformity in processing 41 the results, and their publication. Naturally, the actual living conditions in tho country meant that quite a few amendments had to be made to the recommendations of competent international organisations and individual researchers.
The change-over to regular censuses and to the use of statistics has been of tremendous importance for the study of India's population. The voluminous reports on the censuses contain in-depth studies of the demographic processes occurring in South Asia.^^1^^ Naturally, the data on the total population of India today are of exceptional interest. According to the summarised report of the 1961 census, at sunrise on March 1,1961, the population of the Republic of India numbered 439,235,000 people. The enumeration covered almost the whole of the country. Data on the former Portuguese possessions in India, which were liberated in December 1961 and incorporated into India, were obtained from various sources: (1) according to the results of the regular Portuguese census in Goa, Damao and Diu, carried out on December 15, 1960 (approximately two months before the universal Indian census); (2) according to the results of an additional census); in Dadra and Nagar Haveli taken by the government of India on March 1, 1962 (i.e., a year after the universal Indian census). In some of the mountainous regions, which are difficult of access, in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and in Tlimachal Pradesh the registration of the population was carried out earlier, in the autumn of 1960, since it would have been impossible in the winter conditions of February 1961. The numbering of the population in the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh), Nagaland, and Manipur dragged out for a year and a half.
All the results of the registration taken at different times were incorporated into the summarised returns of the 1961 census. If we add to them 3,075,000 people assumed to be omitted, we find that the entire population of the country actually living within the frontiers of the Republic of India at tho beginning of 1961 numbered a rounded figure of 442.3 million people.
Tho universal Indian census of 1971 was initially planned on the traditional days in February which were the mos-.t convenient (from the loth to the 28th) with March 1st as tho control date for the end of the census procedure. But, as _-_-_
~^^1^^ The information on Indian censuses cited here has been Cleaned from direct studies of their returns and also based on compclent expert opinions.
42 that period coincided with the general elections, the census was postponed for a month; it began on March 10 and ended on March 31, following which a sample control count was carried out for three days (April 1--3). The census procedure as to end at sunrise on April 1, 1971. This means that the ten-year interval between the 1961 and 1971 censuses was one month longer, during which time the country's population increased by approximately one million people who came under the 1971 census. Just as before, part of the country's population was registered at a different time for various reasons.The conclusive population figure for the Republic of India on April 1, 1971, was 547 million 950 thousand and the more accurate figure, calculated later, was 548 million 155 thousand. Assuming that some six million people were omitted and the recorded population growth was one million for March 1971, an approximately correct figure of 553 million can be obtained on March 1, 1971.
All the regular national censuses provide information on the population on a specific given date as a result of inquiries made individually in accordance with the census schedule. On average, it included sixteen questions; this was the case with the first three censuses of this century taken when India was a colony. The smallest number of questions was put in the 1881 census (12) and the largest number (22) in the 1941 census. In 1951,14 questions were put, in 1961,13 questions, in 1971, 17 questions, and in 1981, 16 questions.
All the censuses taken in India from 1881 to 1981 provide us with the following information about each individual: name, sex, age, marital status, religion, mother tongue, place of birth, literacy and education, occupation. Besides these questions, there were some that were not included in all or in some of the censuses. Of the nine questions mentioned, the 1872 census did not include those regarding marital status, mother tongue, and the place of birth of those questioned.
After the name and sex of the interviewee had been ascertained, the age was then established. In addition, in the 1872 census the date of the next birthday was registered, and in the 1881--1921 arid 1951 censuses that of the last birthday, and in the 1931 census that of the coming birthday. In the 1941 census the age was registered in years and months, in the 1961 census the ago on tho last birthday. The 1971 census put down a person's age in full years and also the date of the last birthday; this formulation of the question was 43 recognised as being the best in India and applied to the 1981 census.
In all the censuses of the colonial period the question on marital status merely denned whether a person was married or widowed, and in the republican censuses the question of relationship to the head of the family was also added. In the last century divorcees were not registered separately; in the 1901, 1911, 1921, and 1931, divorcees were counted as widowed, and only beginning with the 1941 census were they registered as divorcees. The 1981 census, like the previous censuses taken in the Republic, registered single men and women, married people, widows (widowers), and divorcees separately; this is essential in denning natural population movement.
The religion of each individual is precisely ascertained by all censuses. At the same time, the affiliation of the individual to a certain caste is also established (1872), to a caste or a sect (1881); the 1891 census inquired about sect, caste or race; the 1901 census took an interest in the cast of the Hindus and Jains, the tribe or race of the remaining individuals; in the 1911 census there was a further question about Christians, some of the additional questions mentioned were included in the 1921 census; in the 1931 and 1941 censuses there were questions on the sects, races, tribes, or castes, using all these terms irrespective of their scientific content. The data obtained provided little information for subsequent scientific processing but proved to be invaluable to the colonizers in pursuing their policy of ``divide and rule''.
The republican censuses set quite different tasks. The censuses contained questions on affiliation to registered castes and tribes, but this was a particularly Indian feature of the census. The content of the information has acquired a different meaning and significance; in 1951, a question regarding affiliation to the Anglo-Indians was also included. In those rare cases when the interviewee denied confessing any religion, the answer was also recorded.
The question about nationality was extremely destorted by the 1872 census and was not found anywhere else in the censuses of the colonial period. This question was put in 1951 and 1961 when the ethnic differences within the bounds of a single Indian nation were taken as the criteria of national affiliation. This question was omitted in 1971.
In 1881, 1931 and in all later censuses, mother tongue, the main indication of national affiliation, was considered 44 to be the language spoken by the interviewee's mother. In 1891, the language of the parents was inquired after, in 1901 and 1921 the language habitually spoken, and in 1911, the language habitually used at home.
The five censuses taken in the colonial period of the twentieth century also asked about knowledge of English. The 1931 census, the most detailed of the colonial censuses, and the 1941 one, the least fruitful of them, also included a question on a knowledge of a second language habitually used, the purpose thereof being to use the information on the language affiliation of the Indians in the same way as that on their religious affiliation, i.e., divide them and oppose to one another. The point is that at that time a popular campaign was building up for a change in the internal administrative boundaries of the provinces, taking into account the mother tongue; this was a progressive struggle for `` linguistic provinces'', the administrative boundaries of which would correspond to the area inhabited by those speaking a given language. The colonizers' boundaries divided up communities with a common language and stirred up unrest among the people. The republican censuses no longer asked this question.
The place oj birth was questioned about in 1881 and 1901 and in all the republican censuses. Other colonial censuses put the question in a more vague form, namely the district or country of birth, which made it more difficult to define population movement. The republican censuses lay emphasis on the study of migration. In 1961, 1971, and 1981 in addition to this information it was also registered whether the individual was born in the village or the town. In general, registration of the rural population was easier than that of the town dwellers for the number of the latter was constantly increasing owing to people moving from the countryside to the towns and cities where they might be overlooked by census-takers owing to no fixed abode. The 1971 and 1981 censuses inquired in addition about an individual's last abode, which made it possible to trace population migration within the country.
All the censuses, right from the very first one, included questions on literacy and education. If a person only knew how to read, but did not know how to write, he was considered illiterate. All children under five were put under the illiterates heading, even if a child was attending school and could write his or her own name. This precise and complete 45 formulation of the question favourably distinguishes the Indian censuses from many others and is in agreement with UN recommendations. Then the question of education was elucidated, a question on which special stress was laid in the republican censuses, in particular in the 1971 and 1981 censuses. Only complete education was recorded and not the education that, the person questioned was receiving at tlie census date. If an individual had both general and technical education, although of the same standard, technical education was considered to be higher; a special record was made of people with degrees and technical college diplomas.
Occupation was a rather nebulous question for this could apply either to an employee or to an employer, i.e., a member of the exploiter classes; it could he a skilled or unskilled job; it could provide an income or it could not, and so forth. Naturally, the information] obtained is vital in assessing the state of a country.
The 1872 census put the question of people's occupation. In 1881, questions were asked about the employment of ablebodied men, boys and women. The 1891 census inquired about occupation or means of subsistence, and the 1901 one about the occupation or means of subsistence of the actual worker and also the means of subsistence of the actual workers' dependants. In 1911, there were questions about the occupation or means of subsistence of the dependants. The 1911 formulation was used in 1921. In the detailed census of 1931 the population was classified into wage-earners, hired labourers, self-employed and those not included in these categories. In 1941, the number of questions regarding occupations was increased to seven. Among these questions, which essentially differed little from the previous ones, there were also questions about a person's employment on the census date, and if employed, what the employer's trade was. The questions in the 1941 census give the impression of being forced. The replies to them were not published in full, and even if they had been, they would probably have been of no benefit to the Indian people. It could hardly be expected that when the British colonizers, aided by the census, learned more about unemployment in India, they could have reduced it.
The republican censuses provided a new approach to the matter. The 1951 census attempted to elucidate the question of the economic situation and the sources of livelihood. For this purpose those questioned were divided into three groups: (1) those providing for themselves, i.e., those who obtain an 46 income in cash or kind, sul'hcient for their own subsistence; (2) those who cannot provide for themselves, who do not get an income and are completely dependent on another person for their subsistence; (3) the gainfully employed who cannot provide for themselves, i.e., receive a regular income insuflicient for their own subsistence. Unfortunately, participation in labour was not fully recorded, for instance, females working in agriculture, the traditional handicrafts, and the service sphere were not registered. The census information only gave additional backing to the idea that jobs were lagging far behind population growth.
The 1961 census treated occupation in more detail: work as a peasant farmer, a farm hand or in the cottage industry (in the latter case the type of work was specified, the type of cottage industry, hired labour or not); in respect of work other than that mentioned, questions were put regarding the kind of job, the type of industry, profession, trade or services sphere, the category of the worker, and the specific enterprise; if an individual was not employed, then what was his occupation. If a person had worked lor the 15 days prior to the census date, he was classed as employed; as regards seasonal work, it was sufficient to have a job for one hour per day throughout most of the season to be regarded as employed. Thus, the census recorded partial employment as full employment. Political and public functionaries and students (with and without grants) were counted as employed. At the same time, adult women occupied as housewives, but not contributing to the family's income were qualified as not being employed. The category of not employed also included pensioners and beggars, as well as the jobless; this classification pushed the problem of unemployment into the background.
In the main, the 1971 census retained the classification of the 1901 census for the employed and not employed, but introduced the following gradation: (1) those taking part in basic activity; (2) those creating values or taking part in some kind of secondary work; (3) those not creating values. The purpose of this approach is to distinguish between people according to the manner in which they spend their time, whether they spend it in productive labour or for other purposes. This artilicial construction of the questionnaire does not help in gaining a true understanding of the degree to which people were employed. Yet again, the unemployed as such were not classed in a special category, although it is 47 the problem of employment that is the focal one in the unsolved problems facing Indian society today, and the reports of the censuses should be especially helpful precisely in this respect.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ SAMPLE SURVEYS IN INDIAAs regards the extent of the social work involved in carrying out universal censuses today, they are expensive measures. As the population grows, the census schedules are made more extensive, and the means of conducting them become more sophisticated, the expenditure on them increases even more.
Universal censuses not only cost a great deal, for in an attempt to be exhaustive, in no way do they fulfil the task of attaining every possible result at a given time with the least outlays. Therefore the thoughts of administrators and researchers have long since turned in two directions: (1) not to process the whole mass of the census information, but only that part of it that would provide grounds for shaping a sufficiently accurate idea of the whole subject; (2) in addition to the infrequent universal censuses, which are compulsory, to make less frequent sample surveys, covering a representative part of the population and ultimately providing sufficient grounds for making judgements with regard to the whole of the population. The second approach may improve the knowledge of population movement at a given time and be more effective practically, while the amount of work the universal censuses need may be cut down correspondingly.
Work in both directions was first started in the USA. In the Soviet Union during the 1970 population census, the sample method was employed to extend the census schedule and make it more in-depth; sample surveys were made in the years between the censuses, providing society with the necessary information on the demographic phenomena and processes occurring in the country.
In the Indian censuses the method of sample calculation was first used in processing the data of the 1941 census. At that time, to construct tables of ages and tables of means of subsistence, two per cent of the individual questionnaire forms were taken; the processing of these forms resulted in indices, which were taken as specific for the entire population of the country. This brought a saving in labour and 48 outlays in the processing and publication of the data. The extent to which the tables are a true reflection of the actual situation depends on the representative nature of the selection: it is quite possible that in the conditions of a colonial regime the tables distorted the actual picture.
The method of sample calculation has also become common in republican censuses. In 1951, for example, in tabulating the information on ages, ten per cent of the individual questionnaire forms were used; the economic tables on home ownership in the reports of the 1951 and 1961 censuses were built up on sample data. Control calculations of the population after the completion of the census were also selective in all the republican censuses. The committee for sample surveys during the 1971 census came to the conclusion that to ascertain specific features on a district level it was sufficient to take 10--20 per cent of the individual questionnaires (e.g., in compiling tables of age groups for both sexes). The committee further recommended the processing of a selection of one per cent of the forms on a state (country) level and comparing the data obtained with the results of the previous selection, thereby checking on the results and confirming that deviations occur within permissible limits. A selection of 10 per cent of the questionnaires of rural inhabitants and 20 per cent of those of town dwellers was recommended. Only one per cent of the citizens in the Republic were questioned about their place of birth, and the answers allow an idea to be formed about migratiorial mobility of the population. The lower the level of generalisation of the census results, the more widely are its materials recommended for use, the opposite being true where the level of generalisation is higher; on a country-wide scale it was sufficient to use one per cent of the questionnaires. This approach is convenient from a practical point of view but does not always guarantee the representativeness of the sample data.
In India since 1930, besides the census service, the National Sample Survey service has existed which has systematically been conducting various national sample surveys, usually demographic in their content. But only in the last few decades has the sample survey really got underway in India. Whereas India's universal population censuses are unprecedented in the tremendous volume of work carried out, sample surveys have also become an enormous effort, complicated in their content, financed by the Republic's central government and the governments of the states, the results __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---01392 49 thereof being regularly published. It may be said that sample surveys have become a system in India.
The sample surveys conducted of late have assisted studies on India's demography. An extensive and varied undertaking on the sample registration of the population by a large team of experts, was not only helpful with its publications of the results, but also in bringing closer the demographers of India, in unifying their methods and in attracting the attention of the broad masses of the people to demographic problems.
The results already accumulated by the system of sample surveys are as valuable as those obtained from the periodical universal censuses of the population. In making use of both the former and the latter, attention must be paid to their respective aims and methods, the conditions and peculiarities of the environment. The results of the secondary, auxiliary sample measurements of social phenomena may appear in a different light in the course of time and to be of different significance depending on the angle from which they are being studied.
[50] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 3 __ALPHA_LVL1__ INDIA'S POPULATIONIn spite of their shortcomings, the universal Indian censuses allow the total figure for the country's population in the twentieth century to be determined fairly reliably. Moreover, the initial data of the censuses make it possible to calculate the size of the population in those states and territories, which form part of India today and thereby obtain a series of comparable figures covering a sufficiently long period. The Indian demographic service has made a similar calculation (Table 5).
Table 5 India's Population According to Census Data (million) Year of census Registered de facto in census area Population of territories forming part of modern India 1872 203.4 1881 250.1 1891 279.5 1901 288.8 238 .'4 1911 303.0 252.1 1921 306.7 251.4 1931 338.1 279.0 1941 389.0 318.7 1951 361.1 1961 439.2 1971 548,2 1981 684.0The availability of fairly reliable data on the size of India's population and simultaneously the improvement in demographic statistics throughout the world is creating the prerequisites for the more precise determination of the share of the Indians in the whole of mankind. However, __PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 calculations of this type have only become truly accurate in the midtwentieth century, for during the early decades of this century almost one-third of the world's population and more than half of the population of Asia had not been included in the censuses. Therefore, estimates of the numbers of the human race at the beginning of the twentieth century are largely rough ones and vary greatly.
Our purpose (i.e., comparison with the relatively precisely determined population of India) would be most suitably served by estimates satisfying two requirements: the closest approximation to reality and comparability with a series of preceding and subsequent values of this type. At the same time, it is preferable to use a less precise but comparable index, since this makes it possible to study, if only approximately for the given time and place, a definite regularity, the course taken by the process, while an index taken separately and impossible to compare remains just an isolated feature of an individual phenomenon.
During censuses there is a tendency to err on the small side since not all people are registered. While in 1900 almost twothirds of mankind, including India, were registered in censuses, these figures must surely be underestimated. As far as that third of mankind is concerned which was taken into account on the basis of the estimates, in principle there may be error on both sides. However, more than four-fifths of this part of mankind is accounted for by the population of China whose numbers, as we now know from reliable figures, were calculated with an error reaching tens of millions of people less. Evidently such an error on the small side covers all the possible errors on the large side taken together. Therefore the largest scientifically founded figures for the population of the world and Asia at the beginning of the twentieth century will be the closest to the correct ones. Since censustaking had become widespread by the mid-twentieth century, this form of registration became common almost everywhere. The population of China, however, was still being tremendously underestimated even in 1950, so the conclusion that the biggest scientifically founded population figures are preferable remains valid for the whole of the first half of the twentieth century.
As far as the share of India's population in mankind is concerned, the corresponding figures for the near future are to be based on the observed and probable regularities in the country's population growth.
52 Table 6 Numbers and Share of the Population of the World, Asia and the Republic of India in the Twentieth Century According to estimates and censuses Forecast 19(10 1910 1920 1 9 3 0 1940 1950 1960 1971) 1980 1990 2000 2010 Whole world, millions 1,650 1,741 1,860 2,070 2,295 2,525 3,037 3,696 4,432 5,242 6,119 Asia, millions .(excluding USSR) 917 969 1,1)05 1,120 1,244 1,390 1,692 2,111 2,579 3,058 3,549 3,993 % of world population 55.6 55.6 54.0 54.1 54.2 55.0 55.7 57.1 58.2 58.3 58.0 57.1 India, millions 238 252 251 279 319 361 439 548 684 821 961 1,083 % of world population 14.4 14.5 13.5 13.5 13.9 14.3 14.5 14.8 15.4 15.7 15.8 15.5 % of population of Asia 26.0 26.0 25.0 24.9 25.6 26.0 25.9 26.0 26.5 26.8 27.1 27.1 [53]By taking all this into account, we can get a more or less grounded idea of the comparative size of India's population (within its present frontiers) throughout the twentieth century. The negligible chronological disparity in our comparison (estimates of world population for 1900, 1910, 1920, and so forth are compared with the results of the Indian censuses taken accordingly at the beginning of the following year) does not alter the conclusion that India accounts for a high share of the population of Asia and of mankind, continues to do so, and will possibly even increase its share by the beginning of the twenty-first century (Table 6).
The huge overall size of India's population is combined with high density of settlement. Over the last three centuries population density in India has exceeded the corresponding world indices sixfold and is more than double those of Asia. By the end of this century the Republic's population density will possibly exceed the average density of mankind sevenfold (Table'7).
Table 7 Average Population Density in the World, Asia and the Republic of India Between 1650 and 2010 Year Whole world Asia India people per sq. km people per so;, km comparative index (world index taken as 1) people per sq. km comparative index (world index taken as 1) 1650 4.0 11.9 3.0 27.7 6.9 1700 4.6 14.5 3.2 31.6 6.9 1750 5.8 17.3 3.0 37.0 6.4 180n 7.2 21.7 3.0 43.8 6.1 1850 9.3 27.0 2.9 54.4 5.6 1900 11.8 33.8 2.9 72.5 6.1 1910 12.8 35.0 2.7 76.6 6.0 1920 13.7 36.3 2.6 76.3 5.6 1930 15.2 40.4 2.7 84.9 5.6 1940 16.9 44.9 2.7 97.0 5.7 1950 18.6 50.2 2.7 111.9 6.0 1960 22.3 61.1 2.7 133.5 6.0 1970 27.2 76.2 2.8 166.7 6.1 1975 29.9 84.9 2.8 188.3 6.3 1980 32.6 93.1 2.9 208.0 6.4 1985 35.5 101.6 2.9 229.0 6.5 1990 38.6 110.4 2.9 249.7 6.5 1995 41.8 119.3 2.9 271.3 6.5 2000 45.0 128.1 2.8 292.3 6.5 2010 51.4 144.2 2.8 329.4 6.4 54The share of the Republic's population is now six and a half times more than its share of the world's area. No other country of this size or equal to India in territory has such a ratio (Table 8).
Table 8 The Share of the Big Countries in the Area and Population of the World in 1980 and Their Average Population Density Countries Area Population Area and population (ratio) People per sq. km sq. km (million) o/ A) million % Whole World India USSR Canada China USA Brazil Australia Argentina Algeria Zaire Mexico Indonesia Iran Mongolia Ethiopia France 135.85 3.3 22.4 10.0 9.6 9.4 8.5 7.7 2.8 2.4 2.3 2.0 1.9 1.6 1.6 1.2 0.55 100.0 2.4 16.5 7.4 7.1 6.9 6.3 5.7 2.1 1.8 1.7 1.5 1.4 1.2 1.2 0.9 0.4 4,432 684 265.5 24.5 995 223 122 14.5 27 19 28 70 148 38 1.7 31.5 54 100.0 1 : 1 15.5 1:6.5 6.0 2.8: 1 0.6 12:1 22.4 1 : 3 5.0 1.4:1 2.8 2.2: 1 0.3 19:1 0.6 3.5:1 0.4 4.5: 1 0.6 2.8:1 1.6 1:1-1 3.3 1:2.4 0.9 1.3:1 0.04 30:1 0.7 1.3:1 1.2 1:3 33 208 12 2.5 104 24 14 2 10 8 12 35 78 24 1 26 98In comparing the areas of individual countries and their populations, the varying quality of the territory is significant', the natural wealth varies greatly, part of the land remains completely unsuitable for cultivation and its future use depends on the extent of development of society's productive forces. Therefore, the data on the total numbers of the population must be correlated with the natural resources, whose value for people alters as the country develops.
The soil and climatic conditions in India favour the cultivation of various crops such as wheat in the north, sugar cane in the north and south, rice in the east and all along the peninsula's coastal strip, jute and tea in the north-east, cotton in the west, spices and coffee in the south, and fruit in many regions. But the fertility of the farmed land needs to be restored, to be improved by applying 55 artificial fertilizers, considering the growing requirements in agricultural produce and the low yields of the different crops. Whereas ploughed fields occupy approximately 11 per cent of the dry land in the world today, in India this figure is four and a half times higher. The Indian index is higher than the corresponding indices for other developing countries (except Bangladesh) and many developed countries. The area covered by permanent meadows and pastures in India is twelvefold less than that of the ploughed fields, an unfavourable ratio for the future utilisation of the soil and also for feeding the world's largest numbers of cattle. Almost half of the land in the country is in need of urgent anti-erosion measures, especially the farmland. Irrigated land accounts for a third of the sown area; in the years of independence the area under crops has been extended approximately two times, while the utilisation of the irrigation potential has tripled; irrigation reserves could still be expanded another two and a half times.
Forests occupy approximately one-third of the inhabitable dry land, and this figure is approximately the same for Asia. In India forest covers one-fourth of the land. The Republic's economy requires more timber than can be provided by its forests; therefore the five-year plans for the development of the country's economy envisage expansion of the area under forest and reduced consumption of timber, especially for fuel. It should be noted that India's forests boast a wide variety of flora and represent one of the country's most considerable riches but only potentially at the moment.
The 9th 1974 World Energy Conference in Detroit came to the following conclusion with regard to the reserves of the main types of fuel on our planet (in 1,000 million tons of conventional fuel):
Forecasted reser- Extractable Extractable reserves ves or cliemlcal reserves of fuel as percentage of `ue' forecasted reserves Total Including: coal oil gas 12,800 11,200 740 630 3,800 2,900 370 500 less than 30 more than 25 50 appro x. 80As you can see coal is the most widespread and significant among the world's energy resources today. In India coal is the main industrial fuel. By the beginning of the seventies
56 the energy resources in India potentially accessible for utilisation were estimated at some 107,000 million tons of conventional fuel; this mainly applies to coal. Proven prospected reserves of coal in seams four feet thick and more (120 cm) are estimated at approximately 100,000 million tons, of which coking coal comprises some four per cent. All the industrial reserves of coal are estimated at 116,000 million tons, including more than 2,000 million tons of brown coal. Coal is primarily being extracted in the country's east, in the states of Bihar and West Bengal where approximately 70 per cent of the country's coal is mined. Thus, while India's share of the world's population is 15.5 per cent, its share in the planet's prospected coal reserves is only about 0.6 per cent. The known reserves of coal in Asia (USSR excepted) are double those of India and are a tenth of those in the USA.Until recently Indian oil reserves were estimated as quite negligible; oil extraction, which was started in Assam at the end of the last century, did not play any substantial part in the economy, and in practical terms India had no petroleum industry of its own. The huge prospecting effort made during the last three five-year periods with the help of specialists from a number of countries (in particular, the Soviet Union) has considerably extended ideas on industrial reserves of oil in the east (in the state of Assam), in the west (in the state of Gujarat), and in other regions as well. It is thought that approximately one-third of India's territory, if not more, promises potential oil reserves. Reserves of combustible gas of industrial value have also been found in India. There arc quite realistic hopes for increasing the reserves of oil and gas in the world today, since their discovery in the continental shelf, especially in Eurasia. Oil is already being extracted from the shelf forming a continuation of India's continental platform in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Optimistic forecasts are being made that the further growth of the oil output on dry land and in the sea will put India among the oil-exporting countries by the mid-eighties.
The hydropower potential in India is equal to 41.2 million kilowatts and is distributed throughout the country in the following manner:^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ G. V. Sdasyuk, India. The Geography of Economy, Moscow 1975, p. 59 (in Russian).
57 Rivers of southern India flowing westwards........ 4.3 Rivers of southern India flowing eastwards......... 8.6 Rivers of central India .................. 4.4 Rivers of the Ganges Basin................ 4.8 Rivers of the Indus Basin................. 6.6 Brahmaputra and other rivers of north-eastern India .... 12.5This forms approximately one per rent of the hydropower resources of the globe. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that in South Asia the river waters are needed for irrigation without which farming is almost impossible there. Although India's hydropower resources have long since been put to use, in the colonial period it was only to a negligible extent. Over the last quarter of a century Indian hydropower production has been leaping ahead and now about one-sixth of this energy is being utilised.
Power production forms the very basis of the entire economy. In India this base is not equally reliable in all its different parts, but, relatively speaking, it can be evaluated as being sufficiently firm to support a modern economy. At the same time, in the future as the state's economy develops, India will need to co-ordinate the use of its energy resources with other countries that are better endowed in this respect.
Nuclear fuel is quite a different matter. The monazite sands along the coast of Kerala and Tamil Nadu contain what are among the world's largest reserves of thorium: no less than 200,000 tons with a thorium concentration of 9 per cent; rnonazite sands have also been found in the state of Bihar, no less than 300,000 tons with a thorium concentration of more than 10 per cent. Uranium has also been discovered in different regions of India and is successfully being mined in Bihar, for example, i.e., in one of the country's most industrially developed regions. It should also be added that the biggest of the deposits of beryllium known in the world are in India. The map of nuclear raw materials on our planet is not yet a clearly drawn one, and India's share in them cannot be determined. However, the very fact that large reserves of easily accessible nuclear raw materials do occur in a country less well endowed in other power resources than other countries, is of tremendous importance for its future.
The long ocean coastline where a large proportion of the population and towns are distributed compared with the 58 hinterland, is a reminder of the possible advantages of using tidal power. Some developed countries are only just beginning to utilise the energy of this huge reservoir with its eternal rhythmic movement; it is vital that the use of this source of energy does not result in environmental pollution. In India's case, this is a thing of the future requiring large capital investments.
In prospected iron ore reserves India is third in the world after the USSR and Brazil. India, inhabited by one-sixth of mankind, is in possession of one-sixth of the world's iron ore reserves. Half of the ore has an iron content of not less than 60 per cent. The potential iron ore resources are huge, four times the prospected ones> 85,000 million tons. Today's researchers speak of India as a treasure house of ferrous metal ores, the deposits of which occur in different parts of the country and are easy to mine. Huge iron ore ridges stretch between the states of Bihar and Orissa. The quality of Indian ores is superior to that of American ones, for example. In 1965--66 23 million tons of ore were mined, in 1970--71, 33 million tons, and in 1975--76, approximately 36 million tons. The same amount is mined by Sweden where the population is 80 times less. India is fully provided with reserves of manganese ores which comprise about one-tenth of the world's reserves. There are considerable reserves of chromites, although they are much smaller than those of manganese. Consequently, the country is well provided with the main raw materials for the iron and steel industry.
Deposits of copper and tin have long been known in South Asia. Nevertheless, the country's reserves of non-ferrous metals have been little studied. Some negligible deposits of copper, zinc, lead, and tin are known to occur. In the given case, India is faced with the necessity of carrying out extensive prospecting work. It should, however, be mentioned that India possesses considerable deposits of bauxites in the east and in the centre of the country. Finally, the world's largest deposits of mica-bearing pegmatites are located in the state of Bihar. Thus, India suffers from a shortage of nonferrous metals and also chemical raw materials.
As a whole, there can be no doubt that India belongs to those countries, which are rich in the natural resources needed for the development of its economy today, although it is not a universally provided country in this respect.
59 __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE REGION-WISE DISTRIBUTIONGeneral informations on the size of the population, the average density of its distribution and the ratio to the natural resources remains incomplete unless we examine the population's region-wise distribution.
The Republic of India is a federative state consisting of 22 self-governing states, which form nationally uniform provinces and are subjects of the federation. In these states there live 98.fi per cent of the country's population. Each state is divided into districts, which are, in their turn, subdivided into smaller administrative units (taluks, tahsils). Besides the self-governing states, there are nine territories in India which arc under the administration of the central government. The largest territory is the city of Delhi and its environs. The remaining territories are largely the country's sparsely populated fringe areas. All in all, these territories are inhabited by 1.4 per cent of the Indians.
Most of the population is concentrated around the central part of the Hindustan peninsula. The most densely populated strip runs along the Ganges valley, widening out in the east, in Bengal, in the vast delta of this great river; further on, the strip runs along the coast of the peninsula, between the Ghats and the ocean, becoming broader in the south and reaching its widest point on the west coast in the state of Kerala and in the Bombay region; further north it breaks for a length in the steppes and deserts of Rajasthan, and finally closes the circle in Pakistan where the valley of the Indus which joins up with that of the Ganges in the northern part, in the Punjab region, is fairly densely settled. The regions to the north of the Ganges valley and the peninsula's hinterland are less and sometimes sparsely populated. Somewhat higher population density is being observed only in the north-eastern part of the peninsula.
The uneven distribution of India's population is the outcome of the country's historical and economic development. When the distant ancestors of most of today's Indian peoples settled in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, they made their homes on fertile lands, concentrating in regions suitable for farming, and also in the coastal areas. The concentration of large masses of the population in coastal regions, however, was no longer just connected with farming, 60 but with the development of commodity-money relations.
Colonialism led to the main hubs of the capitalist economy being focussed not in the country's centres that had taken shape historically, but on its coastal fringes. Here over the last two hundred years the cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras have sprung up. Naturally, they drew huge numbers of the population to the coastal area. Calcutta was the capital of the colony for almost 150 years; now it is a large industrial city, attracting hundreds of thousands of working people. Bombay is another centre of attraction for labour. It is still the largest commercial and industrial city in India, its western sea gates.
A general picture of the distribution and density of India's population throughout the country's main regions can be built up from the data cited in Table 9.
As can be seen from the table, the greatest average population density is observed in the states of Kerala (654 people per sq. km. in 1981), West Bengal (614), Bihar (402), Uttar Pradesh (377), Tamil Nadu (371). High population density is typical of the Ganges valley. The fertility of the alluvial soils and also the tremendous political and cultural role played by these areas have long since attracted people in large numbers. In colonial times the economic development of the valley was slowed down in relative and absolute terms. However, the light and food industries began to develop here after liberation and also mining and the production of iron and steel and other metals. Today the average population density in the state of Uttar Pradesh is almost double the country's average density. The Ganges delta and some regions of the island of Java and the coast of South-East China are among the most densely populated regions in the world, where the actual density does in fact exceed one thousand people per square kilometre in places.
To the west of the Ganges valley lies the Punjab, traversed by most of the peoples who migrated to India or invaded that country and who frequently settled in the Punjab, this is a region of very ancient culture, its irrigated farming, the main sector of the state's economy, having existed for thousands of years. The division of the Punjab in 1947 was extremely detrimental to the whole of life there. In particular, the partition disrupted the normal course of demographic processes. Flows of migrants from opposite directions had a markedly noticeable effect on the population in this region. In 1951--1961, this migration slackened off, but did not cease 61 Table 9 Numbers, Share and Average Density of the Population of the Republic of India, Its States and Territories According to the Twentieth Century Censuses 1901 1911 1921 1931 19--11 1951 1961 1971 1981 India, thousand people 236,281 252,122 251,352 279,015 318,701 361,130 439,235 548.160 684,025 o/o 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 people per one sq. km. 72 77 76 85 97 110 133 167 208*221 States 1. Uttar 48,625 48,152 46,670 49,777 56,532 63,216 73,746 88,341 110,886-- Pradesh 20.6 19.1 18.6 17.8 17.7 17.5 16.8 16.1 16.2 165 164 159 169 192 215 251 300 377 2. Bihar 27,312 28,315 28,127 31,348 35,172 38,784 46,456 56,353 69,823 11.6 11.2 11.2 11.2 11.0 10.7 10.6 10.3 10.2 157 163 162 130 202 223 267 324 402 3. Maharashtra 19,392 21,475 20,850 23,959 26,833 32,003 39,554 50,412 62,715 8.2 8.5 8.3 8.6 8.4 8.9 9.0 9.2 9.2 63 70 68 78 87 102 128 164 204 4. West Bengal 16,942 18,001 17,476 18,899 23,232 26,302 34,926 44,312 54,486-- 7.2 7.1 7.0 6.8 7.3 7.3 8.0 8.1 8.0 193 205 199 215 264 299 397 507 614 5. Andhra Pradesh 19,066 21,447 21,420 24,204 27,289 31.115 35,983 43,503 53,59* 8.1 8.5 8.5 8.7 8.6 8.6 8.2 7.9 7.8 09 78 78 88 99 113 131 157 194 [62] 6. Miidhya Pradesh 16,861 19,441 19,172 21,356 23,991 26,072 32,372 41,654 52,138-- 7.1 7.7 7.6 7.6 7.5 7.2 7.4 7.6 7.6 38 44 43 48 54 59 73 94 118 7. Tamil Nadu 19,253 20,903 21,629 23,472 26,268 30,119 33,687 41,199 48.297 8.2 8.3 8.6 8.4 8.2 8.3 7.7 7.5 7.1 148 161 166 181 202 232 259 316 371 8. Karnataka 13,055 13,525 13,378 14,633 16,255 19,402 23,587 29,299 37.043 5.5 5.4 5.3 5.2 5.1 5.4 5.4 5.3 5.4 68 70 70 75 85 101 123 153 193 9. Rajasthan 10,294 10,984 10,293 11,748 13,864 15,971 20,156 25,766 34.108-- 4.4 4.4 4.1 4.2 4.4 4.4 4.6 4.7 5.0 30 32 30 34 41 47 59 75 100 10. Gujarat 9,095 9,804 10,175 11,490 13,702 16,263 20,633 26.697 33.961 3.8 3.9 4.0 4.1 4.3 4.5 4.7 4.9 5.0 49 52 54 61 73 87 110 136 173 11. Orissa 10,303 11,379 11,159 12,491 13,768 14,646 17,549 21,945 26.272 4.4 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.3 4.1 4.0 4.0 3.8 66 73 72 80 88 94 112 141 169 12. Kerala 6,396 7,148 7,802 9,507 11,032 13,549 16,904 21,347 25 40* 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.4 3.5 3.8 3.8 3.9 3.7 164 183 200 244 283 347 433 548 654 13. Assam** 3,377 3,945 4,741 5,695 6.861 8,240 11,128 14,958 20.391 1.4 1.6 1.9 2.0 2.2 2.3 2.5 2.7 3.0 34 39 47 57 69 82 111 150 204 14. Punjab 7,553 6,751 7,170 8,031 9,625 9,187 11,159 13.551 16.670-- 3.2 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.0 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.4 151 135 143 161 192 184 223 270 331 15. Haryana 4,636 4,173 4,256 4,560 5,271 5,672 7,588 10.037 12.851 2.0 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 105 95 97 104 120 129 172 227 291 [63] Continued 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 16. Jammu and Kashmir 2,293 2,424 2,670 0.9 1.0 1.0 10 10 11 2,947 3,254 3,561 4,617 5,982 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.9 12 14 15 21 27 17. Himachal Pradesh 1,921 1,898 1,929 2,030 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 34 34 34 36 2,263 2,385 2,812 3,460 4,238 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 40 43 50 61 76 18.;.Tripura 173 230 304 382 0.07 0.09 0.12 0.14 17 22 29 37 513 639 1,142 1,556 2,047 0.16 0.18 0.26 0.28 0.30 49 61 109 149 196 19. Manipur 284 346 384 446 0.12 0.14 0.15 0.16 13 15 17 20 512 578 780 1,073 1,411 0.16 0.16 0.18 0.20 0.21 23 36 35 48 64 20. Meghalaya 336 389 417 471 0.14 0.15 0.16 0.17 15 17 18 21 542 591 745 1,012 1,328 0.17 0.16 0.17 0.19 0.19 24 26 33 44 59 21. Nagaland 102 149 159 179 0.04 0.06 0.06 0.06 6 9 9 11 190 213 369 516 773 0.06 0.06 0.08 0.09 0.11 11 13 22 31 47 22. Sikkim 59 88 82 110 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04 8 12 11 15 122 138 162 215 315 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.05 17 19 23 31 44 Territories 1. Delhi 406 414 488 636 0.17 0.16 0.19 0.23 918 1,744 2,659 4,066 6,196 0.29 0.48 0.60 0.74 0.91 [64] 2. Goa, Damao and :Diu 532 548 532 580 624 638 627 858 1,082 0.22 0.22 0.21 0.21 0.20 0.20 0.14 0.16 0.16 3. Arunachal*** Pradesh 337 468 628 0.08 0.08 0.09 4. Puduchcheri 246 257 244 259 285 317 369 472 604 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.09 0.09 0.08 0.08 0.09 0.09 5. Chandigarh 22 18 18 20 23 24 120 257 450 0.02 0.05 0.06 6. Andaman and Nicobar 25 26 27 29 34 31 64 115 188 Islands 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.«2 0.03 7. Dadra and Nagar Haveli 24 29 31 38 40 42 58 74 104 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 8. Lakshadweep (Laccadive 14 15 14 16 18 21 24 32 40 Islands) 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 0.006 bv c.h > if ** Including the territory of Mizoram, the population of which was registered bv the censuses as cart of the state of Assam; SSffi ZftSS^X* 3S a S6Parate terrU°ry in 1972; in 1981 there were 488°°° People 0 r7perPaent or the population « India to 21,100 sq. km. *** Comparable data frsm the last censuses are cited. [65] completely, mainly heading for India later on. The average population density of the Punjab in 1981 was 391 people per sq.km., and that of the neighbouring state of Haryaiia was 291; the latter seceded from the Punjab in late 1966. The remaining states have a population density lower than the average for the country. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka which lie along the coast of the Hindustan peninsula and occupy the hinterland regions connected with the coast have a population density only slightly less than the average for India. The coastal states in the east and west, Orissa and Gujarat, are inhabited slightly less densely, a fact ensuing from the rather slow historical development of some of the regions in these states. Until recently a particularly large number of feudal principalities were located on the territory of these two states which acted as a brake on the development of the productive forces and on the population growth. The density decreases sharply in India's hinterland, in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where it is twice as low as the country's average. Vast, desert-ridden, agrarian Rajasthan is especially unevenly populated. Until recently, the state with the largest territory, Madhya Pradesh, was, like Rajasthan, characterised by considerable vestiges of feudalism and by extreme economic backwardness; the latter continues to persist even now as a heritage of the colonial past which led to uneven development in different parts of the country.
The population of the mountainous frontier state of Assam is mainly concentrated in the fertile valleys of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. The mountain regions of the state are sparsely populated, the average density here being a seventh of that in the valleys where there are more than 200 people per square kilometre. The smallest average density is found in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is located in the mountains where natural conditions do not favour settlement; in all respects, the most important part of the state is the Kashmir valley where the density is 100 people per sq.km, while the average density for the state as a whole is 27 people per sq.km. The river Jhelum serves as the line on both sides of which the population density rapidly diminishes.
Thus, of the 22 states in the Republic, seven states covering an area of 819,000 sq.km. (24.9 per cent of the entire territory of India) have an average population density greater than that of India as a whole, and 15 states covering 66 an area of 2,351,000 sq.km (71.5 per cent of India's entire territory) have a population density that is less. The density is greater than that of the whole of Asia in the 15 states with an area of 2,481,000 sq.km. (75.4 per cent of the whole of India's territory) and less in the seven states with an area of 689,000 sq.kin. (21 per cent of the territory of India). Finally, ail ttie states in India, except J ammu and Kashmir, have a density higher than that of the world as a whole.
Within the states the population density varies over a wide range. The smallest density in the districts of the Gauges valley and of the south diners little from the average density for the country, but the districts with the greatest density here have a population six- or sevenfold higher than the average for India; at the same time, the mountain and desert regions have only a few inhabitants per sq.km.
Although the distribution of population in India and the density of its settlement in the dillerent areas of the country are far Ironi uniform, it should be stressed that this uneveuness is far less pronounced than in most of the other very big countries in the world. The uneven distribution of India's inhabitants means, as a rule, that densely populated areas border on sparsely populated ones. Unlike such countries as Canada, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, and China, in India there are comparatively few uninhabited or relatively sparsely populated lands. Eleven per cent of the country's territory is comprised of deserts and mountains, the settlement of which is practically impossible with the present level of development of the productive forces.
Land lending itself to settlement and farming, but uncultivated, unused or used little and irrationally still comprises some 15 per cent of the territory; these are permanent pastures, meadows, fallow land, and waste ground. The utilisation of these lands in the usual climatic conditions requires less ellort and capital inputs than the exploitation of the undeveloped part of the country. Ail in all, less than one-fourth of the Republic's overall area forms surplus land for possible settlement by the Indians in the future. From 1951 to 1961 the population grew by more than one-fifth and from 1961 to 1971, by almost another quarter, and by the same number from 1971 to 1981. Thus, the reserve of uninhabited territory may be swallowed up by its population growth in a decade.
The nature of the distribution of the Indian population is such that, even given favourable social conditions, the __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67 settlement of the new lands is hardly likely to make any substantial impact on the country's future development. It is not surprising that India's huge population and its high density are among the burning economic and political problems. The poorly developed economy, the high population density and the impossibility of extensively developing new lands are increasingly intensifying the adverse effect of relative overpopulation.
[68] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 4 __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS COMPOSITIONNo description of the population of India is complete without an analysis of its national composition. True, certain difficulties are involved in making such an analysis, for the census does not contain direct information on this subject. Inadequate registration of the national composition is particularly marked in the censuses of the colonial period.
The British imperialists regarded India not as a totality of peoples, but as a huge human anthill divided up by numerous social, religious, and traditional partitions. In the instructions to the administrators of the 1921 census it was recommended that they should register the caste or tribe of the Indians, Moslems, .Tains, Sikhs, Aryans, Brahmans and the local tribes and the race of Christians, Buddhists, Parsces, and so forth. Here ideas on the different epochs in the historical development of peoples are intermingled, and there is at the same time no concept describing the condition of most of them today; the instructions divide the population into castes, tribes, and races, but not into nationalities.
Nor do the census schedules of independent India pose the question of the national affiliation of the population with the necessary precision. According to the clauses of the Constitution all the citizens of India form a single nation; only citizens of other countries are considered to be people of other nationalities. At the same time, the Constitution recognises the lingual and cultural differonces of the individual peoples in the country, and the censuses record these differences; but linguistic differences, for example, are not qualified as national ones, but as cultural ones. The national differences between the peoples of India are thereby registered as regional and cultural peculiarities within the Indian nation, although India is still one of the most multinational countries in the world.
69Material allowing us to judge of the national composition of the population is provided first and foremost by the information contained in one form or another in the reports of the Indian censuses on the distribution of the languages spoken. Although it does not replace the information on the national aspect of India, the linguistic data do, nevertheless, bring us closer to registering the nationalities than any others.
The first censuses (1872 and 1881) did not provide a scientifically founded linguistic picture of India and served rather as amassed factual material for subsequent scientific generalisations and conclusions. But in dealing with this material, certain methods are required which were inadequate at the time. Thus, in 1881, there was no information on the tongue spoken by 22.fi million people. The information of 1901 is more precise, but swamped in secondary material; the most widespread living languages spoken by the majority of the population, were named among the hundreds of small languages of individual tribes.
A more realistic picture of the lingual affiliation of India's population is provided by the 1911 census in the course of which the language usually used by each person at home was considered the mother tongue. In the census materials reference is made to ``castes, tribes, races or nationalities'', but no mention whatsoever is made, for example, of the Bengalis, information about whom is lost among the data on 145 castes and tribes, although almost on the eve of the census a mighty upsurge in the national movement was caused by the colonizers' attempt to partition Bengal, ignoring the existence of the Bengalis.
The 1921 census was carried out amidst growing antiimperialist sentiment, when the Indian National Congress Party was reorganising thp territorial structure of its organisations on the basis of the so-called linguistic provinces. But the colonial administration continued to ignore the growing national awareness. Just as before, even the linguistic data represent a list of all the languages and dialects in India as being equivalent. The census revealed 188 languages and 49 dialects.
In the course of the 1931 census each inhabitant of India was asked two questions: on his or her mother tongue and on the language (or languages) usually used in everyday life in addition to the mother tongue. However, those interviewed usually gave the same answer to both questions, 70 indicating only their mother tongue. In the last colonial census of 1941 the information on the ethnic composition is particularly scanty, providing only the most general data on the languages of India. The report on the census asserts that the question has been sufficiently elucidated even without any new census data.
As a whole, India's living languages spoken by the majority of the population and characterising its national aspect are reflected in the reports of the censuses of the colonial period as in a distorting mirror. They are difficult to distinguish in the web of castes, modes of speech, and dialects; the actual boundaries of linguistic areas were distorted. This is quite understandable for throughout the rule of the colonizers no census set itself the task of registering the national distinctions of the population.
For the first time the question of national affiliation was posed in one form or another during the 1951 census, the first census taken in independent India. The instructions for carrying out the 1951 census put the question of nationality after those of name and relationship to the head of the family, imparting to that question the sense of citizenship. The census administrators were given instructions to place the number ``1'' in the nationality section for all Indian nationalities. Other nationalities were to be written out in full. This section also envisaged elucidation of religious affiliation, affiliation to special caste groups or to the AngloIndians.
The linguistic affiliation of the population was registered as a cultural and not national distinction: mother tongue, the language spoken from early childhood; the language of the mother in the case of infants and deaf mutes. If a person usually speaks any Indian language different from his mother tongue, it should be registered, but only as one additional language. Here English could not be registered, for example, because it is not one of the Indian languages. The second language could only be one spoken fluently which a person is accustomed to use at home or for business purposes. For those whose mother tongue is Hindi, Urdu, or Hindustani, none of these could be counted as a second language. Before the census India was divided up in such a way that Hindi and Urdu were proclaimed the official state languages of India and Pakistan respectively. The colonizers artificially opposed those speaking Hindi to those speaking Urdu. Naturally, during the 1951 census everything was done to 71 preclude political speculation on opposition of this type. In the colonial censuses the Tables of mother tongues were full of information on all the registered languages, taken on a common basis. Among the many figures the languages spoken by the large, linguistically uniform masses of the population were taken as equivalent to those languages spoken by very small peoples and tribes; nation-wide languages and the languages of tribes figured in a single table. Qualitatively different languages were thereby mixed, and the picture of the whole became obscured. The 1951 census did not reiterate such errors, although all in all it registered more languages than were recorded earlier. Unfortunately, those taking the census were so keen to register the innumerable dialects of the languages that they also clouded the picture; the researchers' attention was scattered too greatly even though the classification of the results of the registration had been well thought out.
India's Constitution recognises as the main languages a number of the most widespread languages now spoken by approximately 95 per cent of India's inhabitants. Two other languages are specially distinguished: Sanskrit, which has played a tremendous part in the development of Indian culture, and Urdu, a language to which Indian Moslems attribute special importance even now, and which half of them consider to be their mother tongue. The Constitution proclaims Hindi the official language; besides, English is also recognised as the official language temporarily to facilitate communication between the different peoples of India, since English is fairly widely known by educated people in all parts of the country. All the numerous other languages spoken all in all by a negligible part of the population are regarded as local languages.
The 1951 census, carried out in accordance with the given classification, did not record the languages of Jammu and Kashmir, the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) and Nagaland, where the census was not taken. As a whole, the 1951 census indicated the following distribution of India's population according to mother tongue:
Main languages noted in the Constitution......... Languages of the Indian tribes spoken by 100,000 and more people ............ Thousand people % 323,973 90.8 11,532 3.2 72 thousand people % Other Indian languages spoken hy 100,000 and more people . . . Less widely spol<cn Indian languages ............ Non-Indian languages...... Languages not registered .... 17,098 2,861 226 590 5.0 0.8 0.06 0.17Although the methods used in the 1951 census allowed the mother tongue of the main groups of India's population to be registered, the geographical distribution of these groups remained unclear. The political and administrative division existing at that time only partially corresponded to the national or lingual boundaries of the settlement of peoples. Only the administrative reform of 1956, which was continued in 1960, and further measures in this direction led to the setting up of states, whose territories coincided more or less with the habitation of India's main peoples. However, all these measures to fix national boundaries have not exhausted the question.
The formation of states that are more or less uniform from a national point of view makes it possible to get an idea of the numbers and distribution of the country's main peoples, for which the 1961 census provides definite data, and the 1971 census only estimates which do not alter the impression formed.
In the main, the states of India today are monolingual, but each of them has national minorities many thousand strong, and in some cases numbering millions. In most of the states the share of the population for which the official state language is their mother tongue fluctuates around 70 per cent, falling to 54 per cent and rising to 95 per cent. The situation is quite different in the states of Bihar and Rajasthan, where Hindi is the official language. In Bihar the number of people whose mother tongue really is Hindi is only slightly greater than those whose mother tongue is Bibari; in Rajasthan Hindi is the mother tongue of only one out of every three inhabitants, and Rajasthani is spoken by more than half of the population. In these two states, the situation is made less complicated by the fact that all the three languages---Hindi, Bihari, and Rajasthani---are fairly similar to one another.
The group of former mountain districts of Assam---Miso, Garo, Mikir and North Cachar, Khasi, and Jaintia---are populated by a variety of peoples, most of whom do not 73 understand Assamese, and 80--90 per cent of whom speak their mother tongues and dialects. Here, in 1970 the state of Meghalaya was formed, the main languages of the population being Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo, and in 1972, the union territory of Mizoram where the main language spoken by the population is Miso.
In the west of the country, in the state of Punjab, the main mass of the Punjabis (primarily Sikhs) and considerable groups of the population speaking Hindi were united within a common administrative unit before the autumn of 1966. A striving for secession was observed among both groups, and by November 1966 the Punjab had been reorganised on a language basis into two new states, Punjab and Haryana, the main languages being Punjabi and Hindi respectively. We still do not have statistical data on the linguistic composition of the population of each of the two new states.
The tribes occupy a special place in India. Until quite recently a subsistence economy and patriarchal social relations prevailed in many of them. The development of capitalism over the last few decades has undermined clan-tribal relations. The tribes are increasingly being drawn into the general everyday life of the country. According to the 1951 census, the so-called registered tribes numbered 19.1 million people, or 5.4 per cent of the country's population, most of whom lived and still do live in rural localities. The proportion of this part of the population had evidently changed little by 1961, although it had decreased slightly; in the seventies the registered tribes numbered close on 30 million people.
The times when one people or another lived an isolated existence in India are a thing of the past, and now the ``pioneer settlers'', as those descended from the Indian tribes are sometimes called, work on landed estates, on plantations, at plants and factories, in the mines, and building roads. In these circumstances, a national awareness rapidly develops in many formerly backward nationalities. This process is particularly intensive among the Mundas who live in the state of Bihar on the Chota Nagpur plateau. The accessible mineral deposits and the cheap labour of the ``pioneer settlers'', the proximity of the industrial region of Calcutta with its gigantic port attracted capital (largely Indian) to this area at the beginning of the century. Since then a railway has been built and the valley of the river 74 Damodar has become one of the most important industrial regions in the country. Among the Mundas living here the Santals, who are famous for their struggle against colonialism, can be distinguished for their numbers and level of development.
Besides the Bihari Mundas there are three other groups of peoples in India who are lagging behind the majority of the population in their development. These are the nationalities living in the mountains and jungles of south-western India side by side with the Dravidian peoples. The tribes living along India's northern frontier, in the Himalayas are less involved from an economic standpoint with the neighbouring peoples in the valley of the Ganges, and the level of their development is lower than that of the tribes and nationalities of Bihar and south-western India. Finally, the group of tribes inhabiting the mountains of north-eastern India on the frontier with China and Burma are extremely isolated from the rest of the population. The government of India conceded to the demands of the mountain tribes for relative national autonomy, dividing their regions into special administrative units: the territories of Arunachal Pradesh and Mi/oram, the states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Sikkim.
A peculiar aspect of the national question in India is the problem of the mutual relations between the official language and the local ones. The most widely spoken official state language in India is Hindi, which goes back historically to ancient Sanskrit. All the Indo-European languages, which are spoken all in all by three quarters of the country's population, are related to Hindi; therefore, while Hindi is the mother tongue of approximately one-third of the Republic's inhabitants, it is, moreover, understood by many more of them. Only the peoples of southern India and the tribes do not know Hindi, and here the government is taking measures to extend the teaching of Hindi to the population.
Hindi and Urdu are the two literary forms of Hindustani which developed from the common root of the spoken language in the second half of the nineteenth century. The colonizers are known to have attempted to set the Hindu majority against the country's Moslem minority; the artificial opposition of the Urdu language spoken by part of India's Moslems to the Hindi language spoken by the broad masses in Hindustan itself, was part of the colonizers' policy. In Urdu there are many Persian and Arabic words, while 75 Hindi has many words with the Sanskrit roots. Urdu became widely spoken in the towns of northern India and also in some regions of the Punjab; Hindi remains the language spoken by the country people and a large part of the townsfolk in northern India, and includes a number of dialects, for example, in Bihar and Rajasthan. Punjabi and its dialects and the language of the neighbouring Kashmiris are similar to Hindi. Some of the country's other main languages are related to Hindi: Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese. The Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam languages, which originate from another, Dravidian, root, are kindred but are alien to the Indo-European languages related to Hindi.
Urdu, the mother tongue of a considerable part of the population of India was hardly registered at all in the colonial censuses. The report on the 1941 census, as mentioned above, contained very little information on mother tongues. In 1931, Urdu was included in the section ``other languages" spoken by 3.7 per cent of the population. Such was the case in 1921 when the share of ``other languages'', including Urdu, was 3.5 per cent, and also in 1911 and 1901. In the nineteenth century Urdu was only registered as a separate language in 1891, when it was indicated as the mother tongue of 3.7 million people (1.4 per cent of the population of India), of whom one-third lived in the principality of Hyderabad, one-fourth in the province of Bombay, and approximately one-fifth in the province of Madras. The republican census of 1961 mentions 23.3 million people who regard Urdu as their mother tongue, of whom 60 per cent live in the towns and cities.
The campaign to win recognition for the local languages spoken by the country's principal peoples was part of a national liberation struggle in the years of colonial oppression, when the imperialists governed India arid built up a whole system of education there on the basis of a foreign language. At present, teaching in primary school is in the mother tongue everywhere, and at secondary school Hindi and English are taught as well.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESThe religious community problem is one of tremendous import in India's social life. Of special significance are the religious questions connected both with the country's 76 recent past, when the whole of the colonizers* state machine was spearheaded at fanning] dissent between the communities, and also with the vestiges of the Middle Ages in the social make-up of present-day India. Indians have ideas rooted in their consciousness which were established many centuries ago and have not been ousted by new, modern concepts.
The principal religions in India are Hinduism and Islam. The followers of these religions comprise 94 per cent of the population. But fairly numerous representatives of other religions also live here, for instance, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Parsees, and so forth.
In the course of the century preceding the partitioning of India into India and Pakistan the colonizers staked greatly on fanning up religious differences. It is therefore important to show the share of the communities in undivided India and then in the present Republic.
Researchers on the question have come to different conclusions regarding the number of religious communities in India. But all studies show the same picture in general outlines: the predominance of llinduists, the proportion of whom slowly but steadily decreased throughout the colonial period and rose sharply after Moslem Pakistan seceded. The Moslem community was a fairly large one whose share slowly and steadily grew to reach one-fourth of the population by the time of the partition, and fell to one-tenth after it; the other communities account for a negligible proportion.
As far as the discrepancies are concerned that come to light when more precise estimates are made, they are caused by shortcomings in the very bases of such calculations, i.e., the population censuses. Moreover, the classification of the population according to communities has always involved some kind of political concepts and therefore needs certain amendments to be made to it. In this connection, the 1941 census suffers most from such shortcomings, for the method used in taking this census is permeated with a desire to show India to be a country of religious communities. The 390 million members of different communities is the main idea the census report tries to convey, and the remaining information is of secondary importance. As a result, the census data were incomplete, and 'its indices are barely comparable with the data of the reports on other censuses. During the questioning the census-takers had an interest in religion, race, caste and tribal affiliation and, summing up the 77 answers, registered the respondent as a member of one religious community or another. In the final count, the Hinduist community was shown to be smaller than it was in actual fact and the Moslems and followers of the so-called tribal religions were shown to number more.
The religious composition of the population of India today is outlined by the figures of the 1961 and 1971 censuses, which do not reveal any substantial changes in the ratio of the religious communities compared with 1951 (Tables 10 and 11).
Table 10 Distribution of India's Population by Religious Communities According to Census Reports* uni-- 2.2 0.41 19.59 Religious Community 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 Hindus 75.09 74.24 72.87 71.68 70.73 70.67 69.46 84.98 Moslems 19.97 20.41 21.88 22.39 23.23 23.49 24.28 9.91 Adherents of tribal be-- liefs 2.57 3.26 2.88 3.17 2.97 2.26 2.26 0.47 Christians 0.71 0.77 0.98 1.21 1.47 1.77 1.91 2.35 Sikhs 0.74 0.68 0.77 1.00 1.06 1.28 1.46 1.74 Jains 0.49 0.51 0.47 0.41 0.39 0.37 0.37 0.45 Buddhists 0.07 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.12 0.05 Parsees 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 Judaists --- 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 --- Others 0.32 --- --- --- --- --- 0.11 0.03 Total 547.9 100.00 24.80 * Indices for 1881--1941 apply to unparlittcmed India, and for 1951 to the Republic of India.As mentioned above, the largest religious community in the country is that of the Hindus. Almost all the Hindus in the world live on the subcontinent and more than 95 per cent of them are concentrated in India. Hinduism was founded in the early Middle Ages on the basis of Brahmanism, the ancient Vedic religion of the Aryans. In the last few centuries B.C. this religion was ousted to a considerable extent by Buddhism. Only from the middle of the first millennium A.D., in the course of the formation of a feudal society, Brahmanism, which had undergone substantial changes and become Hinduism, once again predominated in India.
The division of Indian society into castes is linked with 78 fable U Numbers and Proportion of Religious Communities in India in 1971 and Their Growth from 1961 to 1971 Communities Million people % Growth in 1961-- 1971, % Hindus Moslems Christians Sikhs Buddhists Jains Others (including dcntified ones'') i53.3 82.72 23.6'J 61.4 11.21 30.85 14.2 2.60 32.60 10.4 1.89 32.28 3.8 0.70 17.20 2.6 0.47 28.48 Hinduism. All the democratic and moderately liberal forces in India today sharply condemn the vestiges of the caste system. The Constitution of the Republic of India rejects division into castes. In the consciousness of most Hindus, however, this division still persists and greatly influences them. The affiliation to caste does to a certain extent determine choice of profession, attachment to the place and environment where the person was born and started life, to type of food, sympathies and antipathies, and also the aim in life and the way of attaining it. The people are familiar with the sacred writings of Hinduism, and not only the Brahman priests but also the numerous wandering monks, bards, and folk-tale narrators popularise the caste system. In spite of the illiteracy of most of the population, they have a good knowledge of Hinduism. Consequently, a person lives and acts more or less in accordance with the tenets of his creed.
The number of Hindus in India in 1881 was nearly 190 million, which was 75 per cent of the population; by the time India was partitioned, they numbered some 300 million or 70 per cent of the population. In 1961, there were approximately 367 million Hindus in the Republic, i.e., 85 per cent of the population, and in 1971, 453 million or about 83 per cent of the population. Geographically, the Hindus predominate numerically in all the states in modern India except Jammu and Kashmir where they comprise only slightly 79 more than one-fourth of the population. After the partitioning and forced resettlement of every seventh inhabitant in the Republic, every sixth person was a Hindu; before the partitioning live out of every seven inhabitants were Hindus.
The total number of Moslems in the world has been registered roughly; it is calculated that in 1960, there were slightly less than 400 million of them,^^1^^ and in 1975, some 500 million, i.e., one-eighth of mankind. In India there were some 50 million Moslems in 1881, i.e., one-fifth of the country's population; by the time of the partitioning the followers of Islam numbered some 100 million, approximately onefourth of the population. After the partitioning there remained some 40 million Moslems in India, or a tenth of the population; according to the 1961 census, they numbered 47 million, i.e., 11 per cent of the population, and in 1971 more than 61 million or 11.2 per cent; thus the proportion of Moslems in the country's total population is continuing to increase slightly. In neighbouring Islamic Pakistan and Bangladesh the number of Moslems is almost double that in India.
Islam first came to India in the eighth century, when the Arabs invaded Sind. But it was not until three centuries later that it began to spread to other parts of the country. This was linked with the gradual Moslem conquest of the whole of India, except for the far south. In a number of regions in the country, especially in the east and west, the formation of Moslem states led to a considerable part of the population being converted to Islam, for this religion does not preach caste restrictions and inequality. Most of those confessing Islam in South Asia are mainly descended from Hindus, primarily from members of the lower castes who had earlier become followers of this new belief. In India Moslems of non-Indian descent number very few indeed.
Islam brought to the country new customs, norms of behaviour, and hygiene requirements. The significance of this is evident, in the sphere of demography, too. In the beginning the great increase in the number of Moslems was only the result of proselytism; over the last hundred years the natural growth in the number of Moslems was slightly larger than the increase in the number of Hindus, all other conditions being equal.
_-_-_~^^1^^ C.f. the ostimatus of L. I. Kliiuovich in his book Islam. Outlines, Moscow, 1962, p. 31 (in Russian).
80The special features of the historical development led to the emergence of certain social distinctions between the Hindus and the Moslems in India. The Hindu bourgeoisie was considerably more powerful than the Moslem one, although there were quite a few Moslems among the feudal lords. At the same time, the proportion of the poorest strata of the population was particularly large among the Moslem peasantry. In general, in many Moslem-dominated regions of India, the ruling strata consisted mainly of Hindus, and in a number of Hindu areas the peasants were oppressed by Moslem landowners.
Naturally, all these distinctions were not of decisive significance. They were, however, used by the colonizers to kindle discord among the Hindus and the Moslems. In this sense, the uneven development of the largest religious communities was a prerequisite for the partitioning of the country in 1947.
The highest percentage of Moslems, close on 70 per cent, has been retained in India today in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the only state with a Moslem majority. In the east, in Assam and West Bengal, one out of every five is a Moslem, and in the north, in Uttar Pradesh, one out of every seven people. There is a fairly large Moslem community in Kerala, only slightly smaller than the Christian community, and every sixth person is a Moslem there.
The religious doctrines of the Sikhs appeared in the sixteenth century as a reformation movement in Hinduism. Throughout the first few centuries of its existence Sikhism was essentially an ideology of popular anti-feudal struggle in the north-west of India, primarily in the Punjab. It was quite natural that the religious dogma of Sikhism rejected many aspects of both Hinduism and Islam which embodied the ideology of the ruling classes at that time. These differences are still apparent even today. The Sikhs have no castes. True, influenced by their neighbours, the Sikhs have acquired several distinctions of a caste type, but by no means to the same extent as the Hindus. Between 1881 and 1941 the share of the Sikh communities doubled, which partly reflects the unsatisfactory registration of this community by the first censuses and is partly the result of the community swelling due to converts from the Hindus.
The percentage of Sikhs living in the towns and cities is smaller than that of the Hindus and Moslems. The Sikhs are recognised as skilled in irrigated farming and as excellent __PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---01392 81 soldiers. In the Sikh community widows were not prohibited from marrying a second time, as they were until recently among the .Hindus, and the percentage of married women is higher than in any oilier religious community. Not only is a high birth-rate observed among the Sikhs, but relatively low mortality and fairly great longevity. Therefore the natural growth of the community is one of the factors explaining its greater increase than that of the Hindu community.
During the partitioning in 1947 the frontier between India and Pakistan cut across the Sikhs' territory, in complete disregard of the national unity of the Punjabis, who speak Punjabi. The smaller part of the Sikhs who found themselves in Pakistan were forced to leave that country, and now all the Sikh community is in India, mainly in the state of Punjab. The proportion of the community in the whole of India was a small one and continued to be so in 1971, less than two per cent after the partitioning. Today the Sikh community numbers more than ten million people (in 1961 less than eight million) and forms the nucleus of the population in the state of Punjab, comprising two-thirds of its inhabitants. In 1961, the Sikhs accounted for eight per cent of the inhabitants of the Delhi territory and in 1971, for some seven per cent.
Christianity appeared in India long ago. Individual Christian communities migrated to India from the Middle East back in the fifth and sixth centuries, settled firmly on the south-west coast of the Hindustan peninsula and intermixed with the local population, but to this day they have maintained a certain degree of isolation. Gradually, they accepted the idea of castes, although this is in contradiction to their religious views.
A. I. Voyeikov, who visited the so-called Syrian Christians in Kerala in 1876, says that ``in their way of life, the design of their dwellings, and their clothes the Syrian Christians are exactly like the Brahman Hindus; they differ far less from the latter than the Moslems... The Syrian Christians observe caste customs, but it is difficult for an outsider to distinguish the really ancient customs and rites from those borrowed."^^1^^ In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Christianity owes its spread to the activity of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. I. Voyeikov, Amnng the Syrian Christians and in Trauanrore, Moscow, 1800, pp. 9, 13, 15 (in Russian).
82 missionaries. Today, Christianity is gaining allegiance mainly among the poorest strata of the Hindus from the lowest castes who were until recently regarded as unloiichahles and, to a certain extent, among the population of the socalled registered tribes.In 1881, there were less than two million Christians in India and almost eight million by the time the colonizers withdrew. While the total population grew by 1.G6 times from 1881 to 1941, the Christians increased fourfold, i.e., the Christian community swelled 2.5 times more rapidly than the country's population as a whole. This cannot be explained by the natural growth of the Christian population. So, here we have an example of the greatest proselytism in colonial India, especially marked between 1891 and 1931. The Christian community is continuing to grow at a faster rate than that of the country's population as a whole: by 1961 there were 10.7 million Christians in India, and by 1971 more than 14 million, or 2.6 per cent of the country's entire population. Consequently, this community has become the third largest after the Hindus and the Moslems. Indians who are new converts to Christianity do not usually forget most of the demands and teachings of Hinduism and continue to obey them. The Christians' way of life continues to be very similar to that of their Hindu neighbours with their customs, such as early marriages, for example. The conversion of Hindus to Christianity is not leading to pronounced changes in the demographic indices, as has been the case with numerous converts to Islam. At the same time, literacy is greater among Christians than among Moslems and Hindus.
India's Christians mainly live in the south where more than half of them are concentrated. Christians are particularly numerous in the state of Kerala, comprising about onefifth of the population; in some taluks of the state there are more Christians than Hindus. A large number of Christians live in the region around the city of Madras. Christians are also found in the east, in the states of Bihar and Assam, particularly among the tribal population of these areas. In Nagaland more than half of the population are Christians. Approximately two-fifths of the Indian Christians are Protestants, and almost the same number are Catholics; less than one-fifth confess Christianity in its other forms.
Buddhism, which appeared in the northern part of South Asia in the sixth century B.C. and enjoyed greatest influence __PRINTERS_P_82_COMMENT__ 6* 83 and was most widespread in India in the mid-third century B.C. during the reign of the emperor Ashoka, and was later widely adopted in South-East Asia, China and Japan, is found lillle in India today. Buddhisl communities account for only 0.7 per cent of the entire population, and the total number of Buddhists in India in 1971 was 3.8 million. In the colonial period the Buddhist community as a whole was swelled by Buddhist immigrants from Tibet, the countries of Indochina, and Sri Lanka, but this immigration has slackened off now. The main grouping of Buddhists lives in western India, in the state of Maharashtra, where they comprise approximately seven per cent of the population.
Jainism, a religious creed founded at the same time as Buddhism, but which never gained wide allegiance, has comparatively few followers in India today. Now, approximately 0.5 per cent of the population in India (2.8 million in 1971) confesses to Jainism, mainly in the west of the country. Among the Jains widows are not permitted to remarry, the number of married women between the ages of 15 and 39 is small, and there is little natural growth in the population owing to the low birth-rate. In the years that the censuses were taken the share of the community has probably decreased rather than increased. The negligible increase in the Jain community is also connected with its class affiliation, for most Jains belong to the exploiter classes of India's population, comprising in particular, a pronounced stratum among the big bourgeoisie. A small flow of the Jains into the Hindu community of the upper castes is being observed. Literacy among the Jains and their schooling are higher than the average in India.
The Parsees, the followers of the teachings of Zoroaster, fled from Persia to India in the epoch of the spread of Islam and the religious persecutions in the Middle East (seventh to twelfth centuries). Initially, they settled in Gujarat where they adopted the Gujarati language, which became their mother tongue, and were called Parsees there. Their numbers were never large, but they have long since played an extremely important part in India's business circles, a part far exceeding the proportion of their numbers as a community, which has remained unchanged since 1881, comprising 0.03 per cent of the whole population. Class-wise, the Parsee community is most certainly part of the trading and industrial bourgeoisie. The biggest monopolistic groups of 84 the Indian bourgeoisie have a number of Parsees among their representatives. No peasants and hardly any workers are to be found among their numbers. Bombay, where more than half of all the Parsees live, became the focal point of the Parsee community in the nineteenth and twentieth century. In general, the Parsees are town dwellers, more than fourfifths of them living in the towns and cities of western India, but they are also to be found in all other towns and cities throughout the country. Almost all the Parsees are literate and their schooling is higher than that in the other communities. Compared with the other communities, among the Parsees there is the largest percentage of unmarried women and the lowest birth-rate and mortality. From a national point of view, the Parsees have been completely assimilated by the Gujaratis, and their mother tongue is Gujarati. At the same time, this community boasts the largest percentage of people speaking English, approximately two-thirds of all the adults (for the Judaists this figure is about one-third, and for the Hindus and Moslems, less than one per cent).
The Judaistic religious community has existed in India as long as the Christian community and since that time it has mainly been found in south-western India (in Maharashtra and Kerala) and much later and to a lesser extent, it became connected with West Bengal. The community is divided into two unequal parts, the so-called white Jews and the black Jews, of whom only the former consider themselves orthodox followers of Judaism, ``looking down" on the latter and not allowing them into their synagogues. The ``black Jews" do not uphold all the tenets of Judaism, in particular, they do not recognise the authority of the Talmud. The ``white Jews'', the descendants of people who at one time resettled here from the Middle East, and later from the Pyrenean peninsula, probably form the more ancient community. The ``black Jews" are the result of intermarriage between the ``white Jews" and the local population, they speak the language resembling the local one. This process of assimilation began long ago, but did not become widespread owing to the adherence of the peoples of India to the religious views established among them. In the colonial period a flow of Jews from abroad was observed, but both sections of the community did, in the main, increase on account of natural growth. The available demographic information does not, however, tell us how large either of 85 the parts of the Judaistic religious community in Fndia is.
The censuses indicate that the proportion of the community as a whole throughout the period of the censuses has heen approximately 0.01 per cent. The absolute numher of the Judaists approximately doubled between 1881 and 1947. At present, the community in India numbers some 45,000 and includes people from a variety of classes. The majority of the Judaists live in the towns and cities and are primarily related to the financial-usurer and trade and industrial bourgeoisie. In this sense, the Judaistic community in India is similar to that of the Parsees. Three quarters of the Indian followers of Judaism live in Bombay, which is also the home of a large part of the Parsee community; onetenth of the Judaists live in the other towns and cities of south-western India, especially in the state of Kerala; and yet as many again in the east, mainly in Calcutta and the towns of West Bengal. The rural settlements of ``black Jews" in Kerala and Maharashtra are reminiscent of ordinary Indian villages. Among the demographic indices attention is attracted firstly to the high birth-rate and low mortality (compared with the indices for India as a whole), and secondy, literacy in the community is three times higher than in the country as a whole.
The followers of tribal religions occupy a unique place among the religious communities. Unlike all the other communities, in the given case we are not dealing merely with a single religion, but with numerous ancient, primarily animistic beliefs. Essentially, it is precisely this abundance of the vestiges of clan and tribal customs that allows us to group together these extremely varied religious concepts. Over the last century, however, the development of society has led to the disappearance of many of the specifically tribal features in beliefs of this type. The deification of the forces of nature is increasingly becoming an anachronism, and the beliefs of the tribes are gradually changing to become closer to orthodox Hinduism. The unique nature of the tirbal religions is becoming a thing of the past, and in this sense, it can be said that there is a tendency for the tribes to disappear as a religious community. However, as mentioned above, they continue to form a readily discernible ethnic community. Since the censuses do not, always distinguish the tribes as a special ethnic formation from the tribal religious community, one must acquaint oneself with the census data on the followers of tribal religions.
86The idea of a tribal religion does not fit the concept of a modern religious community, therefore, some of the ``pioneer settlers'', are registered as Hindus. This is one of the reasons for the decrease in the numbers of the tribal community. From 1891 to 1941 the share of the tribes in the entire population of India fell from 3.29 to 2.25 per cent; by the time of emancipation and the partitioning of India this community numbered approximately nine million. The 1951 census shows that the community has diminished to 0.5 per cent of the population. According to the periodicals, this figure became even smaller in 1961. Although the subject of the registration, members of the religious tribal community, is a rather nebulous one, and the registration is effected in a biassed and definitely inexact fashion, one conclusion may be drawn all the same, namely, that the registration reflects a merging of the ``pioneer settlers" with the Hindus, the country's biggest religious community. The decrease in the proportion of the tribes must also be attributed to the lower natural growth as a result of high mortality compared with the figures for the whole of India, the death rate differing from tribe to tribe. As a rule, the ``pioneering settlers" give birth to more children than the average for the country, but the high rate of infant mortality means that the number of ``adivasi'' in the subsequent age groups rapidly decreases, resulting in the smallest natural growth of all the communities in India. The impact of infectious diseases is particularly fatal for these tribes. The lowest natural growth among the different ``pioneer settlers" is observed among the tribes of the far north of India, then in the centre of the country, the south and the east, and the highest is found among the tribes of the far north-east, where, however, the census registration is the least accurate in general.
[87] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 5 __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SEX AND AGE COMPOSITIONThe sex composition of India's population is the same as that of the rest of Asia, namely, more men than women. The reverse is true of the developed countries, not only the states of Europe and North America, but also in a developed Asian country like Japan there are more women than men.
Certain biological reasons are responsible for the uneven proportions of men and women, as a result of which more boys are born than girls everywhere. Biological factors affect a person throughout his or her lifetime. But ever since society began to take shape and develop, the part played by social factors has drastically increased. Today, social factors are a decisive force, having a greater impact than biological ones.
At the moment, there are slightly more men on Earth than women owing to the extremely numerous populations of the developing countries. The development process is gradually changing this ratio, slowly reversing it. Remarkably, the persisting ratio in favour of men does not obviously mean their better living conditions, but the extremely poor living conditions of women which are quite evident. The life of women in the developing countries is so hard that it results in their higher mortality, especially during their youth, and in the smaller total number compared with men. The same is true of India, too. Here, medicine is relatively less successful in diminishing the mortality of women than that of men, and it is powerless in the face of the persisting backwardness of the social conditions in the country which do in the final count determine the result. It is pointless to seek for the reasons for this lack of correspondence in migration of the population, the consequences of wars, the partitioning of the country or the biological nature of women in the developing countries. The population of India 88 moves about very little in general, but, nevertheless, migration to the nearest towns, and to the more distant cities does intensify this disparity, bringing it to a ratio of 2:6 in favour of men in the cities of north-eastern India. The continuing decrease in the number of females in the population is having the very serious consequences, for all the censuses say that the numbers of women are becoming relatively smaller, and consequently the actual conditions of their everyday life are not getting any better at all. In this respect, the decades of independent development have not brought the desired radical changes.
On April 1, 1971, the number of men in India exceeded that of women by 20 million: the former numbered 284 million or 51.8 per cent of the population, and the latter 264 million or 48.2 per cent. The censuses throughout the twentieth century have shown that the excess of men has been growing. In 1901, on average there were 972 women for every thousand men, and in 1971, 930 women per thousand men. However, the 1981 census showed 935 women, which may possibly be connected with the decrease in the birth-rate.
On the whole, the share of women in the total population is least in the Ganges valley, in the country's hinterland, and highest on the peninsula south of the 22nd parallel; the continuing diminution in the share of women is typical of most states, including the coastal ones. In the state of Tamil Nadu today, the number of men exceeds that of women; the same is observed in the state of Orissa where the relative number of females is decreasing apace. The reverse process of the relative increase in the number of women can be seen in West Bengal, in Punjab and in the neighbouring states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. It is, however, in these states that men are still considerably more numerous. In the state of Kerala alone a small, fluctuating preponderance of women is observed.
It may be expected that as the countries of Asia develop, the preponderance of men would fade away, and women there would even slightly outnumber men. Everywhere in the world, including India, more boys are being born than girls, approximately 105--106 to 100. But the mortality among boys is higher everywhere, therefore the disbalance is evened out in the beginning, and then the number of girls exceeds that of boys. As a whole, in India in 1961 there were more twelve-year-old girls than boys of the same age. However, after the age of twelve the mortality of young Indian 89 Table 12 The Average Number of Women Per 1,000 Men According to Twentieth Century Censuses 1901 1911 1921 19:)! 1911 1951 19(il 1971 19M India State- 972 964 955 950 945 946 941 930 935 1. koi-ala 1,004 1.008 1.011 1,022 1.027 1.028 1.022 1.016 1,084 2. Himachal Pradesh 884 889 890 897 890 912 938 958 988 3. Orissa 1,037 1,056 1.1.86 1.067 1.053 1.022 1.001 988 982 4. Tamil Nadu 1,044 1.042 1,029 1.027 1.012 1.007 992 978 978 5. Andhra Pradesh 985 992 993 987 980 980 981 977 975 6. Manipur 1,037 1.029 1.041 1.065 1.055 1.036 1.015 98li 972 7. Kaniataka 983 981 969 965 960 966 959 957 963 8. Meghalaya 1,036 1.013 1.000 971 966 949 937 942 956 9. Jammu and Kashmir 882 876 870 865 869 873 878 878 953 10. Tripura 874 885 885 885 886 91)4 932 943 948 11. Bihar 1,054 1.044 1,016 994 996 990 994 954 947 12. Gujarat 954 946 944 945 941 952 940 934 942 13. Madhya Pradesh 990 986 974 973 970 907 953 941 941 14. Maharashtra 978 966 950 947 949 941 936 930 939 [90] 15. Kajssthan 905 908 896 907 906 921 908 911 921 16. West Bengal 945 925 905 890 852 865 878 891 911 17. Assam 919 915 896 874 875 868 809 896 900 18. Uttar Pradesh 937 915 909 904 9'17 910 909 879 886 19. Punjab 832 780 799 815 830 844 854 805 886 20. Haryana 867 835 844 844 869 871 868 867 877 21. Nasaland 973 993 992 997 1.021 999 933 871 867 22. Sikkim Territories 916 951 970 967 920 907 904 863 836 1. Puduchcheri---1.058 1,053 1,030 1,013 989 985 2. Goa, Daman. Diu 1.085 1.103 1.122 1.088 1.083 1.128 1.071 989 981 3. Lakshadweep 1,063 987 1,027 994 1.018 1.043 1.020 978 976 4. Dadra and Naeai Haveli " 960 967 940 911 925 946 903 1.007 974 5. Mizoram 1.113 1.120 1.109 1.102 1.069 1,041 1.009 946 936 6. Arunachal Pradesh ----------- - - 894 861 870 7. Delhi 862 793 733 722 715 768 785 801 810 8. Chandigarh 771 720 743 751 763 781 652 749 770 9. Andaman and Nico- 318 352 303 495 574 025 017 644 761 bar Islands [91] women rises steeply, and the ratio changes in favour of men. The smallest proportion of women is among those aged twelve to twenty-four years, the marriage and child-bearing ages.
There may be a diametrically opposite sense in the lack of correspondence. Thus, in China in the 1953 census men comprised 51.8 per cent of the population, and women 48.2 per cent; but there was a preponderance of men in almost all age groups; boys under one year of age comprised 51.2 per cent and girls 48.8 per cent. The difference was particularly great between seven and seventeen years of age, when there was 115 men for every 100 women, and only in the age group over 56 years of age was there a preponderance of women with 100 women to every 87 men. A less pronounced, but quite distinct preponderance of men was typical of Japan, Canada, and Australia, but now there are more women in these economically developed countries. In the USA, there have been more men than women throughout the country's history, and only after the Second World War did the ratio change; the 1960 census indicated that there were 971 men for every one thousand women. A preponderance of women is typical of the European countries; it is especially considerable in the USSR where the 1959 census revealed that there were 20 per cent more women than men. A similar disparity is also observed in Great Britain, the countries of the Pyrenean peninsula, Italy, and France, and to a lesser extent in the Balkan countries.
The uneven number of men and women in different countries reflects the influence of basically different factors. Besides the biological ones, there are social factors that increase or lessen the biological disparity, causing higher or lower mortality of one sex or another among the population. Frequently, the disproportion called forth by social factors far overshadows that caused by biological ones, and is, so to speak, a ``natural'' disparity. Unfortunately, it is difficult to establish the exact influence of biological and social factors on the male/female composition of the population.
Among the social factors affecting the sex composition of the population attention is usually paid to wars. Precisely the war losses have been the main reason for more women than men in the Soviet Union; the same is true of the European countries and Japan. The consequences of (lie two world wars were also felt by the population of India, though 92 not so much owing to loss of life in the wars, as to the resultant terrible famines and epidemics, which frequently reduce the numbers of women to a far greater extent Ihan those of men. This is why the wars of the last decades have not resulted in an increased share of women in India's population.
Let us recall, however, that in India the difficulty is that of discovering the reason for the preponderance of men in the population. In many countries, a similar ratio is connected with the migration of the population which usually involves more men than women. This is precisely the reason for the preponderance of men in the population of the largest countries of the Western Hemisphere, such as Canada and, until recently, the USA and Brazil, since the world's biggest flow of emigrants has been heading that way for three centuries now. Emigrants and their descendants are also settling in Australia. This stream, continuing uninterrupted for a long time, brought more adult men than women to the countries of America and to Australia and created a stable preponderance of men. It is natural that the loss of tens of millions of people, mostly men, who left Europe and set out for the New World and Australia had a marked effect on the sex composition of the European populations as well.
However, in most cases, the colonial dominion of the European powers in the countries of Asia and Africa was not accompanied by any considerable migration to those countries. Migration had a relatively small impact on the population of India. Throughout its entire history there was no substantial migratory tendencies operating over long periods in India; a certain flow of the population to Sri Lanka, Indochina, the islands of Fiji, and also to South and East Africa, and the countries of the Caribbean basin did not last long from a historical point of view and accounted for comparatively insignificant proportion of India's total population. By the mid-twentieth century all the Indians living outside India numbered only some four million. Thus, migration was not responsible, as it was in Europe, for depleting the male population of India to any extent. A similar situation is also characteristic of China and Japan; although millions of people have left these countries, as a whole the flow of migrants formed a comparatively small part of the entire population, dozens of times less than the emigration from Europe to America.
93Migration within the country is of far greater importance in India for it leaves its mark on the sex composition of the urban and rural population. The particularly small share of women in the large towns and industrial centres can he explained hy the fact that large numbers of the population in India's cities and towns are people newly arrived among whom men predominate. In the countryside the disproportion is lessened by the departure of the men to work in the towns and on plantations where they form the overwhelming majority. In this connection, the data of the 19(il census on the number of men per 100 women are highly illustrative:
Among the entire population 106 Among the urban population 118 In towns with a population of more than 10,OCX) people 125 In cities with a population of more than one million 134The predominance of men in the urban population is especially pronounced in West Bengal and Assam, whereas there is a fairly high proportion of women in the towns in all the southern coastal states. The 1971 census brought the news that the share of women among towndwellers, especially in the cities, had begun to rise. It is appropriate here to surmise that this change in the many-year-long tendency indicates that the newly arrived migrants are settling down more in the towns and cities and that there is a certain drop in the birth-rate in the urbanised parts of the country.
Internal migration also explains the differences in the sex composition of the population in some parts of the country. Thus, the relatively high percentage of women in the states of Orissa and Bihar is definitely connected with the exodus of men from these regions to work at industrial enterprises in neighbouring West Bengal, especially in Calcutta and its environs, and also on the plantations and industrial construction sites in Assam. On the contrary, in these latter regions the preponderance of men continues to be particularly marked.
Some changes in the male/female composition in the population of West Bengal and the Punjab are possibly connected with the losses of men during the period of mass resettlement and massacres that accompanied the partitioning of India in 1947. The subsequent influx of men into West Bengal in 1951--1961 did not make up for the relative losses in the years of the partitioning and resettlement.
94The constant exodus, primarily of the male population, especially into the neighbouring industrial state of Maharashtra and many other stales, mainly along the coast, has helped to preserve the stable preponderance of women in Kerala; this predominance grew incessantly in the first half of the twentieth century, reaching an index of 1,028 by 1951, and then began to fall to 1,022 by 1901, and to 1,015 by 1971, when a smaller efflux of men into other areas was observed. The male/female composition of Kerala's population which is riot typical of the rest of India, is connected to an even greater extent with a number of other social and ethnographic factors like the vestiges of the matriarchy, the influence of various religious communities on the everyday life and mores of the population.
When explaining the differences in the sex composition of the population in individual areas of India, migration does not, however, provide us with the reason for the predominance of men in the country as a whole.
All the same, it is clear that the abnormal ratio of men to women in India is closely tied up with the status of women in society and in the economy and with their everyday life. In particular, mortality is especially high among young women in India, which may be explained partially by early marriages, although they are prohibited by law, but which are, nevertheless, very common. Such marriages, sometimes even at the age of twelve, mean that these very young women, really just girls, have to carry the burden of childbirth and motherhood far too early, thereby rapidly traversing the path from the bridal couch to the grave. In 1980, 45 per cent of the females in the Indian population were of child-bearing age; Indian demographers believe that this index will rise to 50 per cent by the end of the century owing to the envisaged drop in the birth-rate. Nervous diseases, women's ailments and tuberculosis due to the frequent births and the consequences thereof claim the lives of tens and even hundreds of thousands of women. The constant malnutrition, to which the overwhelming majority of working women are condemned aggravates their position still further. Drudgery accompanies women from adolescence to the grave; even in the last weeks of pregnancy and the early postnatal period many Indian women are not able to give up working as hired labour or have a rest from the house work. Nor are they provided with the medical aid that women require more than men.
95In this respect, it is quite natural to consider the abnormal sex composition of India as just as much a consequence of colonialism as the country's economic backwardness, the poverty of the masses, and the preservation of many vestiges of the Middle Ages. Extensive social and economic measures are, therefore, indispensable if the composition of the population is to be evened out, the cultural level raised, and the medical services improved.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ THE AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATIONWhereas colonial oppression had a marked effect on the male/female composition of India's population, its impact on the distribution of the population according to age groups was even more pronounced. In the final count, colonialism is the main reason for the unusually high mortality in countries like India. Between 1872 and 1931 India's population grew twice as slowly as the populations of the capitalist countries of Western Europe. In 1921, the average longevity in India was only 20 years. Poverty and excessively hard labour, exploitation by their own and foreign ruling classes caused people to die young, only a small precentage of them reaching old age, and the average age was lowered owing to the predominance of people in early age groups who had only just appeared in this world. The higher birthrate in these circumstances was largely a biological reaction to the increased mortality, a means of national survival.
It is a well-known fact that not all peoples could survive the living conditions imposed upon them by colonial exploitation; for example, some peoples in Africa died out. If the great people of India endured the yoke enforced by foreign capital and held out in the face of the epidemics, famines, and poverty, and even increased numerically, this can, to a certain extent, be explained by the high birth-rate. It should thereby be recalled that the relatively slow increase in India's population in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was expressed in enormous absolute figures; between 1872 and 1931 the country's population within its present frontiers grew by approximately ninety million people. Since the twenties the population growth rate has begun to increase, a considerable upswing having occurred in the period of independence. The demographic indices regarding the ratios of ages change fairly slowly, the average longevity in India today has doubled compared with the 1920s.
96 __MISSING__ Graph. [97]In the present epoch when the forces of national liberation have emerged victorious and former colonies and semicolonies have proclaimed themselves independent, the birthrate and death-rate continue to vacillate very greatly, in the countries that have recently been liberated or partially liberated. Rises in the birth- and death-rates reflect a tremendous expenditure of the vital forces and potential possibilities of a nation. The ratio of the intensity of natality and mortality mirrors the rates of change in age and generations.
In present-day India the length of the period for one generation to be replaced by the next is 23 years, and in the countries of Western Europe approximately 30 years. The intensity of the birth- and death-rates determines the ratio of the age groups of the population which it is customary to express graphically in the form of sex and age ``pyramids''. The wide base and sharp decrease in the proportion of more mature age groups typical of India indicate not so much a natural change in the numbers of the population as extraordinarily high mortality and relatively short longevity in India, this terrible heritage of colonialism. However, when Table 13 Distribution of the Population of India hy Sex and Age in 1971 Age Total Forecast Do facto Difference Forecast mln 1 % mln % mln | % mln % 0-4 89.9 16.2 79.1 14.4 -10.8 -1.8 45.9 8.3 5-9 75.5 13.6 82.9 15.1 7.4 1.5 38.7 7.0 10--14 65.0 11.7 68.3 12.5 3.3 0.8 33.5 6.0 0-14 230.4 41.5 230.3 42.0 -0.3 -0.5 118.1 21.3 15--19 55.8 10.0 47.4 8.6 -8.4 -1.4 28.8 5.2 20---24 44.1 7.9 43.1 7.9 -1.0 0.0 22.4 4.0 25---29 38.2 6.9 40.8 7.4 2.6 0.5 19.5 3.5 30---34 34.6 6.2 36.2 6.6 1.6 0.4 18.0 3.2 35--39 31.4 5.7 32.9 6.0 1.5 0.3 16.0 2.9 40--44 27.7 5.0 28.4 5.2 0.7 0.2 14.2 2.6 45--49 24.0 4.3 22.8 4.2 -1.2 -0.1 12.4 2.2 50--54 20.2 3.6 20.7 3.8 0.5 0.2 10.7 1.9 55--59 16.4 3.0 12.7 2.3 -3.7 -0.7 8.7 1.6 60--64 12.5 2.3 14.3 2.6 1.8 0.3 6.5 1.2 15--64 304.9 55.0 299.3 54.6 -5.6 -0.4 157.2 28.3 65---69 9.0 1.6 6.8 1.2 -2.2 -0.4 4.6 0.8 70---|-- 10.4 1.9 11.5 2.1 1.1 0.2 4.9 0.9 All ages 554.7 100.0 547.9 100.0 -6.8 0.0 284.8 51.3 98 the lifespan in India becomes longer, the wide lower layers of the pyramid may form the base of a healthy population growth. On the other hand, the diminution of the base of the age ``pyramid'' may lead to aging and an absolute decrease in the numbers of the population.
In the materials of India's third five-year plan, a forecast was given for the age and sex composition of the country's population from 1961 to 1971. According to the estimates of the Planning Commission, the age ``pyramid'' as a whole should have had approximately the same appearance in 1971 as it did in 19(51; it was thought that it would become somewhat more proportional thanks to the relative increase in the numbers in the age group between ten and twenty years and the evening out of the numbers of young men and women. However, the results of the 1971 census differed considerably from the values forecast, as can be seen from Table 13 and the diagram (``pyramid'') of the country's age structure according to the results of the three republican censuses compared with the age structure of the population of the USA (p. 105).
Men Women De facto Difference Forecast De facto Difference mln % mln % mln % mln % mln % 40.1 7.3 -5.8 -1.0 44. .0 7.9 39.0 7.1 0 ' .0 -0.8 42.7 7.8 4.0 0.8 36. .8 6.6 40.2 7.3 3. .4 0.7 36.1 6.6 2.6 0.6 31. .5 5.7 32.2 5.9 0. ,7 0.2 118.9 21.7 0.8 0.4 112. .3 20.2 111.4 20.3 -0. ,9 -0.1 25.2 4.6 -3.6 -0.6 27. .0 4.9 22.2 4.1 -4. .8 -0.8 21.6 3.9 -0.8 -0.1 21. .7 3.9 21.5 3.9 -0. .2 0.0 20.3 3.7 0.8 0.2 18. .7 3.4 20.5 3.7 1, .8 0.3 18.3 3.3 0.3 0.1 16, .6 3.0 17.9 3.3 1, .3 0.3 17.3 3.2 1.3 0.3 15. .4 2.8 15.6 2.8 0, ,2 0.0 15.1 2.3 0.9 0.2 13. .5 2.4 13.3 2.4 -0. .2 0.0 12.4 2.8 0.0 J.I 11, ,6 2.1 D.4 1.9 _l .2 -0.2 11.2 2.0 0.5 0.1 9. ,5 1.7 9.5 1.7 0, ,0 0.0 6.8 1.2 -1.9 -0.4 7. ,7 1.4 5.9 1.1 _ 1 .8 -0.3 7.4 1.3 0.9 0.1 6. .0 1.1 6.9 1.3 o! .9 0.2 155.6 28.3 -1.6 0.0 147. ,7 26.7 143.7 26.2 ---4, .0 -0.5 3.6 0.7 -1.0 -0.1 4. ,4 0.8 3.3 0.6 ' J. i .1 -0.2 5.9 1.1 1.0 0.2 5. .5 1.0 5.7 1.0 0. .2 0.0 283.9 51.8 0.5 269.9 48.7 264.0 48.6 -5.9 -0.1 __PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1985/ISOP276/20070612/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.12) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+The 1971 census established the fact that there was a considerable decrease in infants under five in India: they numbered almost eleven million less than forecast. Precisely the birth-rale is known to be especially important in forming the age structure of the population, for it has a direct impact on the slowly changing, inert structure of the ratio of ages. The age composition of India's population has traditionally had a progressive structure (at any rate throughout the century that censuses have been taken): the layers of the pyramid were especially large and reliable at the base which includes newborn babies and children of other ages; this promised a definite growth in population in the future. And yet here, for the first time in the history of censuses in India, there is a layer at the very base of the ``pyramid'' that is less than the succeeding one. This means that the number of children in the older age groups decreases and that there are fewer ablebodied contingents among people of all ages in general for several decades to follow.
In this, India today is similar to the developed capitalist countries, although it is not one of them. The age structures of the population in the developed countries give grounds for envisaging a decline in the size of the population, a fact that was discussed in detail at the World Population Congress in 1974. During the 1960s India set foot on the same path, and the 1971 census took note of this. Naturally, India's population, as the country's sex and age structure indicates, will continue to grow for many years to come, but steps are already being taken to decrease it.
When studying the age structure of Indian society, drawing on the results of the 1951, 1961, and 1971 republican censuses, A.Ya. Kvasha calculated the coefficients of the gross potential of the country's female population which were 1.73, 1.76 and 1.78 respectively. This means that, owing to the age structure, it can grow by a further 78 per cent from the 1971 level, i.e., to 470 million. These coefficients have hardly changed at all in twenty years. This indicates the stability of the growth potential of the population as a whole, at any rate, for the coming two generations, including the first 25 years of the next century. This is contrary to the government's family planning policy, which is aimed at decreasing the country's population growth to one per cent by 1995.
Besides the smaller numbers of infants surviving, the Indian census indicates a diminution of 8.6 million in the 100 increment forecast for 1961 to 1971 among those who were aged 15 to 19 in 1971. This forecast was based on the number of children who were aged five to nine years in 1961; greater mortality, especially among young women, may be responsible for the deviation from the indices forecast in this age group. The above said applies to other age groups to a lesser extent. As a whole, the increase in the mortality indices according to age and the decline in the birth-rate indicate shorter life expectancy right from birth. This leads to a diminution of society's manpower resources and promises future cuts in unemployment in the Republic of India.
The figures published for the sex and age structure of India's population in 1971 are probably not quite correct. The indices are calculated on the basis of sample values, but the extent to which these values are representative is questionable, for they may be erroneous for one region of the country or anotber.
The age composition of mankind is not at all uniform; the proportion of children under 15 years in the developed countries is almost half that in the developing countries, while the share of people over 60 years of age is correspondingly double; the share of people between 15 and 60 years of age is approximately the same and usually amounts to about half of the entire population.
According to the data of the UN Population Commission, the proportions of people in different age groups at the beginning of the sixties were as follows (in per cent):
0-4 5-14 15--24 25--44 45--64 65---h Whole world 14.0 22.2 17.4 26.0 15.5 4.9 Subcontinent of South Asia 16.4 23.9 18.5 25.5 12.7 3.0 Africa 17.1 26.0 19.4 23.9 10.9 2.7 USSR 10.3 20.6 13.8 30.7 17.7 6.9 Europe (excl. USSR) 8.5 16.6 14.9 27.6 21.8 10.6The differences in the age composition of the population have taken shape in the course of the historical development of peoples and are mainly the outcome of socio-economic causes. Demographers have been able to trace these differences, measured with the help of statistical data for about 100 years now, in the course of which they have become more evident and more marked.
In India, according to the data of the censuses from 1911 to 1971, the share of the age groups per thousand inhabitants 101 has been the following:
Year 1911 1921 1931 1951 1961 1971 0-14 388 392 383 374 402 420 15--49 503 495 505 505 479 460 50---| 109 113 112 121 119 120 110By 1901, there were 176 million children under 15 years in India, and 52.1 million over-fifties; the ratio of the number of inhabitants in the younger age groups to those in the older age groups was 3.3:1. In the USA, according to the 1960 census, there were 69 million people under 15 years and 41.7 million people over 50 years, i.e., a ratio of 1.7:1. In India there were two and a half times more children than in the USA, but only slightly fewer elderly people. By 1971, the ratio had changed: in India there were 3.5 times more children than elderly people (230.1 million and 66 million, respectively) and in the USA only 1.2 times more 102 (57.9 million and 48.2 million); India had four times more children than the USA, where the total number of children continues to decrease.
Examination of the figures cited and the ratios of the age groups of India's population makes it possible to see that the 1951 census recorded a very slight shift towards the aging of the population. This must be linked with the serious happenings that befell the people during the partitioning of the country and the military action preceding 1951. At that time, the birth-rate fell and infant mortality increased to an insignificant extent for the country as a whole. The events were less disastrous for the older age groups and the ratio of the young to the elderly changed somewhat in favour of the latter. In subsequent decades, the birth-rate again attained what was a normal level for India and infant mortality continued to decrease, so that temporary aging was compensated for and there were even more young people than before the partitioning of the country. In the case of India, it should be said that there was an increase in the proportion of young people rather than an aging of the Table 14 Distribution of India's Population by Sex and Age Age 1951 1961 Total Men Women Total mln % mln % mln % mln % 0-4 47.6 13.3 23.9 6.7 23.7 6.6 71.3 16.3 5-9 45.6 12.8 23.2 6.5 22.4 6.3 58.6 13.4 10--14 40.5 11.3 20.9 5.9 19.6 5.5 46.1 10.5 0-14 133.7 37.4 68.0 19.1 65.7 18.4 176.0 40.2 15--19 35.9 10.1 18.5 5.2 17.4 4.9 40.1 9.1 20--24 32.1 9.0 16.3 4.6 15.8 4.4 37.0 8.4 25--29 29.0 8.1 14.8 4.1 14.2 4.0 33.8 7.7 30--34 25.8 7.2 13.4 3.8 12.4 3.5 30.1 6.9 35--39 22.4 6.3 11.8 3.3 10.6 3.0 26.5 6.1 40---44 19.0 5.3 10.1 2.8 8.9 2.5 23.0 5.3 45--49 15.9 4.4 8.4 2.3 7.5 2.1 19.4 4.4 50--54 12.9 3.6 6.8 1.9 6.1 1.7 15.9 3.6 55--59 10.0 2.8 5.2 1.5 4.8 1.3 12.7 2.9 60--64 7.4 2.1 3.7 1.0 3.7 1.0 9.5 2.2 15--64 210.4 59.0 109.0 30.5 101.4 28.4 248.9 56.6 65--69 4.9 1.4 2.4 0.7 2.5 0.7 6.3 1.4 70-+ 7.9 2.2 3.9 1.1 4.0 1.1 7.7 1.8 All ages 356.9 100.0 183.3 51.4 173.6 48.6 438.0 100.0 102 1971 Men Women Total Men Women mln % in In % mln % mln % mln * 36.6 8.4 34.7 7.9 79.1 14.4 40.1 7.3 39.0 7.1 30.3 6.9 28.3 6.5 82.9 15.1 42.7 7.8 40.2 7.3 23.6 5.4 22.5 5.1 68.3 12.5 36.1 6.6 32.2 5.9 90.5 20.7 85.5 19.5 230.3 42.0 118.9 21.7 111.4 20.3 20.6 4.7 19.5 4.4 47.4 8.6 25.2 4.6 22.2 4.1 19.1 4.4 17.9 4.0 43.1 7.9 21.6 3.9 21.5 3.9 17.2 3.9 16.6 3.8 40.8 7.4 20.3 3.7 20.5 3.7 15.3 3.5 14.8 3.4 36. 2 6.6 18.3 3.3 17.9 3.3 13.7 3.1 12.8 2.9 32.9 6.0 17.3 3.2 15.6 2.8 12.2 2.8 10.8 2.5 28.4 5.2 15.1 2.8 13.3 2.4 10.4 2.4 9.0 2.0 22.8 4.2 12.4 2.3 10.4 1.9 8.5 !.!) 7.4 1.7 20.7 3.8 11.2 2.0 9.5 1.7 6.7 1.5 6.0 1.4 12.7 2.3 6.8 1.2 5.9 1.1 4.9 1.1 4.6 1.1 14.3 2.6 7.4 1.3 6.9 1.3 128.0 20.4 119.4 27.2 299.3 54.6 155.6 28.3 143.7 26.2 3.2 0.7 3.1 0.7 6.8 1.2 3.6 0.7 3.3 0.6 3.5 0.8 4.2 1.0 11.5 2.1 5.9 1.1 5.7 1.0 t! 225.8 51.6 212.2 48.4 547.9 100.0 283.9 51.8 264.0 48.2 103 population. In 1'Jlil, the ratios of the young to the elderly varied from slate to state between a maximum of 5.16 in Assam and a minimum of 3.23 in .Madras, which does in the main reflect the natality in eacli state. The growing predominance of young people has been observed in most of the countries gripped by the national liberation movement, the population there becoming ever younger.
When examining the age ``pyramids'' constructed from the three republican censuses in India compared with the USA's ``pyramid'', it should be noted that the division of the `` pyramid" into the right and left side corresponds to the ratio of the age composition of the sexes. Life expectancy is graphically expressed by the internal angle between the slope of the pyramid's side and the base: the more swiftly people of different age groups die, the shorter is their life expectancy, the smaller this angle is; the longer j)eople live and the more stable the age structure of society, the larger the angle. Whereas the base of the ``pyramid'' and its peak primarily show that part of the population who are unable to work, the middle reflects the country's manpower resources which depend directly on life expectancy.
In India today the average life expectancy is 50--52 years. The high mortality of infants and children in India can be seen from the deflection in the side of the ``pyramid'' between the base and the middle. The deflections in the sides are not the same on the right and the left sides of the ``pyramid'', for they reflect the differences in the age structure of men and women.
Generally speaking, the age structure of the population changes as a result of the influxes or exoduses of migrants. Neither the former nor the latter are typical of India as a whole, but have a substantial impact on the ago structure of the towns, especially the cities, construction areas, and plantations, of eastern and western India as a whole where the population mov;-.'- to for various reasons. An influx, mainly of men of tin- middle, able-bodied age groups is observed to the tovviis and cities and areas where capitalist economies are tlc\ duping This one sided flow changes the ratio of the age gniups, iln- middle layers of the left (male) part of the ``pyramid'' increase, and the entire structure of this part loses its graphically proportional shape.
All the peculiarities of the age structure of India's
population can clearlv bo seen when the ``pyramids'' of India and
the USA are compared. It must thereby be borne in mind
104
__CAPTION__The sex and age ``pyramids'' of India (1951, 1961, 1971) and the USA (1970)
[105]
that the widening of the layers of the US ``pyramid " reflecting
the young age groups is connected with immigration to the
United States, while the birth-rate is low.
Great means and attention are being paid to limiting the birth-rate in the developing countries today. Consequently, the changes wrought by state demographic policy are leaving their mark on the sex and age structure whose formation has been determined by the course of history in each country. As this is the case in India, too, it makes it all the more difficult to determine the future structure. The developing countries are either undergoing profound social changes at present, or desire or expect them in the future. At the same time, all the demographic changes and processes have social roots. Therefore, the coming changes in the sex and age structure of Indian society can only be forecast with a small degree of probability.
In the report of the International Population Conference held in Liege in 1973, India's representative D.N. Singh presented the forecast of the committee of experts of the government of India. The committee suggested that by 1981 the country would have 694 million inhabitants of whom 202 million or 38 per cent would be children under 15 years of age. In this case, there would be 2.2 times more consumers than producers. The American scientists Kaul and Hoover expressed their forecasts in two ways: according to the first version, the population of India would number 683 million people by 1981, of whom 286 million or 42 per cent would be children under 15 years of age; the second version gave 603 million, and 207 million or 34 per cent respectively; the latter version has already been proved incorrect by actual figures, and the former was confirmed by the 1981 census.
The World Population Conference in Bucharest in 1974, which was primarily devoted to the problem of the Earth's future population growth, proceeded from the assumption that further changes in the sex and age structure of mankind, especially in the developing countries, are inevitable. The conclusions drawn by the conference can be seen in Table 15 where the more developed regions of the world include the whole of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, the USSR and the countries of the temperate zone of South America; all other countries form the less developed regions of the world.
The problems of old age have long attracted the attention 106 Table IS The Age Structure of the Population by the Year 2000 1965 1985 2000 Ago mil-- mil-- mil-- lion lion lion /o Whole world 0-4 5-14 15--64 65- t 0-4 5-14 15--64 65--; 0-4 5-14 15--64 65- + 0-4 5-14 15--64 65-4 457 771 ,895 166 99 193 654 93 358 578 ,242 73 165 256 530 29 13.9 661 13.4 23.4 1,129 22.9 57.6 2,873 58.2 5.1 270 5.5 742 1,391 3,964 396 122 239 926 166 11.4 21.4 61.1 6.1 8.4 16.5 63.7 11.4 12.3 22.8 60.3 4.6 12.0 23.3 60.5 4.2 More developed regions 9.5 18.6 63.0 8.9 15.9 25.7 55.1 3.3 16.9 26.1 54.0 3.0 119 9.3 216 16.9 808 63.4 132 10.4 Less developed regions 543 913 ,065 138 263 448 925 57 14.8 25.0 56.4 3.8 15.5 26.5 54.6 3.4 620 1,152 3,038 231 283 548 1,424 99 South Asia of philosophers, doctors, and public figures. The aging of society in the developed countries which has only essentially been studied in the last hundred years is quite a different matter. Now it must be recognised that another part of mankind, the developing countries where there are four times more people than in the developed countries, also face the problem of the aging of society. According to UN data, the figures for people aged 60 years and older throughout the world were the following:
in 1950---163 million people or 6.6 per cent,
in 1960---208 million people or 7.2 per cent,
in 1970--268 million people or 7.5 per cent.
Today there are about 350 million over-sixties which is close to eight per cent of mankind, their proportion varying greatly from country to country, depending on the level of development. According to the forecasts of the World Health Organisation, by the beginning of the twenty-first century they will number 580 million and will account for 9.5 per cent of mankind.
107The sixth five-year plan for the development of India in 1980--1985 notes that in 1980 there were 38 million people of sixty years of age and over, or 5.5 per cent of the Republic's entire population. By the year 2000 there will be approximately 70 million over-sixties, which is more than seven per cent of the population. The plan indicates the following structure for the ages of Indians (in per cent): Age (years) 1980 1985 1990 1996 0-14 15---59 39.7 54.8 37.2 56.9 34.7 58.9 32.5 60.6 60---(-- 5.5 5.8 6.3 6.9 A decrease in the share of children is envisaged and an increase in the proportion of able-bodied people.
It was mentioned earlier that the forecasts are unlikely to fulfil themselves. In spite of this, there can be no doubt that studies of population prospects are helpful; they indicate the courses of possible changes in the indices of society's development, depending on the different conditions and give one an idea what might happen in the future.
[108] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 6 __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE TOTAL GROWTHThe data on India's total population, its distribution and composition, cited above, provide the country's static demography. In reality, social phenomena are dynamic rather than immobile. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the growth of India's population, the rate of this process and its prospects. In the final count, population growth is determined by the development of the mode of production. However, the dependence between socio-economic development and population growth is extremely complex. Economic and demographic changes do, moreover, occur over long periods of time. Naturally, economic and demographic phenomena, which are connected with one another do not always coincide chronologically.
Improved labour productivity, while boosting population growth, does not do so immediately, but only after some time; over this period the rates of socio-economic development may be slowed down for some reason or another, so that the maximum curve for production opportunities does not coincide with the maximum for the population growth of a country or a group of countries. The fact that the development of these initial and functional processes occurs over different periods and at different times, leads in historical events to a lack of coincidence among the different interconnected phases of^the processes. The periods of most rapid expansion of production frequently come to an end before their consequences lead to a corresponding growth in population; if production goes on expanding for a sufficiently long time, then a certain correspondence is gradually established between the development of the economy and population growth, which leads to the all-round development of a people. At the same time, if the expansion of society's production and material base starts to slow down, some time 109 later this has a harmful effect on the entire way of life of the population, including its natural growth.
The population of the whole world, Asia and India, is known to be growing numerically. The growth rate for the world population is usually drawn as a very slowly rising curve, right from ancient times to the seventeenth century. This reflects two aspects of the phenomenon; first, the extremely slow growth of the population for almost two thousand years, and second, the scarcity of the information on population growth at the disposal of science for this period. In actual fact, it is easier to state the size of the population of a given country at a certain period than to answer questions about its growth, the rates at which it increased or decreased, resulting in the figure mentioned; this is a particularly difficult task regarding the huge continent of Asia or the whole world.
An outstanding historical event or facts recorded in the ancient chronicles may illuminate the period in which they occurred to such an extent that we can quite justifiably state how many people lived within certain areas at that time. Then, a long time later another source allows us to judge of the same facts with a greater or lesser degree of confidence. As regards the time between the two relatively reliable pieces of demographic information, which may be a matter of decades or centuries, only a guess can be made at the population growth over that period, by resorting to various suggestions and always acknowledging the approximate nature of the figures found in this manner.
The natural growth of the population is expressed in the excess of births over deaths; it is precisely natural growth that determines the increment in the world's population. In some countries, however, population growth not only depends on natality and mortality, but on migration across their frontiers. For India, its natural growth and migration are creating a positive balance, but, whereas the rate of natural growth determines the size of the country's population, in the given case migration has exerted a negligible effect. It is easier to trace the total growth of the population than that of each of its component parts individually. Even this process can only be outlined in a very general form in ancient and medieval India.
As already stated, throughout almost two millennia, from the lime of the empire of Ashoka in the third century B.C. to that of Akbar's empire, which was flourishing at the 110 beginning of the seventeenth century, the total size of the population fluctuated within the same limits. Naturally, this does not mean that it did not grow throughout this long period. But population growth alternated with decreases in its numbers. The result was that there were slightly more than 100 million people living in the whole of South Asia where India (within its present frontiers) probably accounted for approximately five-sixths of this population.
In the first half of the seventeenth century the growth curve of mankind which had climbed very slowly until that time, steadily began to rise, exceeding the growth that had occurred over many centuries before that several-fold. Europe now began to make a significant contribution to the world population as a whole, and the main condition was the development of capitalist production, which created the material basis for population growth: besides their own continent, the Europeans fairly densely settled the American and then the Australian continents. In Asia the population also grew, primarily in the two biggest countries, India and China. From the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century the population of these countries almost tripled, not lagging behind the mean growth of the world's population at the time and largely contributing to it. But, constrained by two centuries of colonial dominion, the population of India was probably not able to grow at the same rates as it would have done as an independent country. From 1650 to 1750 the constant wars, largely caused by the occupation of the colonizers, acted as a brake on population growth. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when India was being subjected to predatory colonial exploitation, the share of India's population in that of Asia and the world fell. From the second half of the nineteenth century when India's feudal production was of itself sapped of strength and the more or less stable bases of the capitalist system were taking shape, an increase in the country's population growth and its share in mankind were observed. Later on, from the second quarter of the twentieth century India's population began to grow more swiftly than before and reached the mean growth rates of the world population (Table 16).
From 1750 to 1900 the population of Asia and India grew more slowly than that of the world as a whole: the population of the world more than doubled in that period, the popu-- 111 Table 16 Indices of the Population Movement of the According to Estimates and World, Asia, and India from 1650 to 1950, Censuses (1900--100.0) Years 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1650 million people 100.0 105.5 112.7 125.5 139.1 153.0 917 million people 100.0 105.7 109.6 122.1 135.7 151.6 238 million people 100. 0 105.9 105.5 117.2 134.0 151.7 Whole world 33.0 Asia* 36.0 India in present frontiers 38.2 37.8 43.8 43.7 47.9 52.2 51.3 59.3 76.5 65.6 81.7 60.5 75.2 Excluding USSR. lation of Europe almost tripled, but the population of Asia and India grew twofold at most.
A.M. Carr-Saunders puts forward the following figures for the growth of world population by continents.
in
1750 million people 1900 million people Growtli from 17.r)0 to 1900 % Europe (all) North America Latin America Australia Asia (all) Africa Whole world 140 1.3 11 2 479 95 728 401 81 63 6 937 120 1,608 186 6,131 473 200 66 20 121 * Excluding USSR.Over this period the population of India increased from 117 million to 238 million people, i.e. by 103 per cent. It is not difficult to discern Europe's pre-eminent significance in those years, for its emigrants and their descendants not only settle in Europe itself, but in both the Americas and begin to make their home in Australia, too.
The First World War, the crisis of capitalism, and the Second World War determined the changes in the demographic indices; Europe's share in the world's population began to decrease and fell to 17.5 per cent in 1920 and 14.3 per cent in 1960. Yet the share of the population of Asia increased over that period.
112During the first half of the twentieth century the change population was approximately the following:
1900 million people 1950 million people Growtli from 1900--1950 % Whole world 1,650 2,585 53 Asia* 917 1,390 52 India 238 361 52 Europe 401 392 ---2.2In the rate of population growth India was close to the average index for the world, and, although it had not attained this mark, it had already reached the corresponding index for the whole of Asia. From 1900 to 1950, on average India's population increased annually by 0.8 per cent, i.e. an index almost threefold lower than that for its unprecedented growth rates in the mid-sixties which have become typical of the Republic of India.
Proceeding from the data available on the size of the population of the whole world, Asia, and India, the annual mean growth of the population in per cent can be calculated for long periods, abstracting oneself from deviations in growth which have certainly occurred in the course of the __PRINTERS_P_100_COMMENT__ 8---01392 113 period, but were not registered with acceptable precision:
Years I.ont'lli of period Wliole world Asia India 1050--1750 1750--1850 1850--1900 1900--1950 100 100 50 50 0.29 0.48 0.64 0.90 0.37 0.45 0.45 0.73 0.30 0.37 0.68 0.81Subsequent rates of annual population growth exceeded the forecasts made by demographers. By 1962 mankind was growing by almost two per cent, which is double the figure envisaged by the World Population Conference in 1954. In 1956, British demographers thought that by 1980 the population of the planet would not be more than four thousand million people and the population of Asia 2,230 million. J. Crawford came to the conclusion that by the beginning of the third millennium the Earth's population would more than double in number and by 1980 it would reach 4,200 million, and the population of Asia would be 2,470 million. According to the calculations of Alfred Sauvy, in the early fifties Asia accounted for an increment of 58 per cent in the world population.
By the beginning of the twentieth century there were 1,600 million people living on our planet. Just six decades later, in 1962, this figure had doubled, reaching 3,200 million people. UN data suggests that it will take approximately 35 years for the world population to double its size again, i.e. by the year 2000. At the same time, the population of Asia (excluding the USSR) will reach 3,500 million by the end of the twentieth century, and the population of India, almost 1,000 million.
From 1950 to 1975 the population of the world increased annually by approximately 1.9 per cent on average. Growth rates were at a maximum in the mid-sixties when they were close on two per cent for the world as a whole; a consistent drop in these rates to 1.5 per cent is expected by the year 2000. In 1800, there were less than 1,000 million people on the whole planet, by 1930 there were approximately 2,000 million, by 1960 more than 3,000 million, and by 1975, 4,000 million. According to the 1981 UN forecasts, approximately 5,000 million people will be living on the Earth by 1988, 6,120 million people by the year 2000, and almost 7,000 million by 2010.
Natural population movement and its quantitative and qualitative changes have been continuing for millions of 114 years now, but never were its indices as considerable as they are in our time. The significance of these figures is a dual one.
On the one hand, the number of inhabitants of our planet is increasing at a rate that it can be expected to double in 30--35 years; this growth is not occurring evenly, but is most pronounced in the developing countries, which already boast almost one-fourth of the world's population and continue to significantly increase their share in the composition of the world population.
On the other hand, an improved standard of living is observed which also varies from people to people very greatly, depending on the extent of their economic and national development; current statistical data ever increasingly point to an accumulation of the benefits in the developed countries, which enables them to qualitatively improve the living conditions of many of their inhabitants; the scale of these differences is great and is increasing all the time thanks to the achievements of the developed countries, a fact that is more important than the growing difference in the size of their population.
Measurement of the class differences in the growth of the population shows that in India, for example, they are less than the differences determined by the levels of economic development of countries like India and Japan. At the same time, in the developing countries the class differences in the standard of living are expressed by a scale ranging from the hunger and poverty of many or even the majority to the comfortable existence of the few, and in the developed countries by the various levels of wealth. In Japan the peasants do not suffer from anything like the hunger and poverty of the Indian peasants, and the working class in India is less well off than that in Japan.
The report of the first republican census in 1951 states the views of a special commission which, in 1947, when India gained independence, envisaged three variants for the further increase in the country's population, depending on the structure of the family and any possible change in it (million people):
Year 1962 1977 2007 499 486 415 II 502 507 489 III 508 518 523 __PRINTERS_P_115_COMMENT__ 8* 115Once in possession of the results of the 1951 census ( rounded figure 360 million people), the Registrar General's Department suggested the following population figures for the next censuses: by 1961---410 million, by 1971---460 million and by 1981, 520 million people. In actual fact, there were 439 million people in 1961, 548 million in 1971, and 684 million in 1981.
During the second republican census of 1961, proceeding from the assumption that mortality would drop by 40 per cent in the next 25 years, while the birth-rate would remain on the same level, India's government Planning Commission calculated that by 1986 India would have a population of 775 million people. From the data of the 1961 census it may be suggested that India's population is growing at a rate of more than two per cent per year and that even the record population growth in the Latin American countries is not far ahead of that of India. In India and Pakistan from 1950 to 1960 the population increased as a result of natural growth more rapidly than anywhere else in Asia or in the world except for Latin America.
The advances made by society are known to depend on the development of the productive forces, the main component of which is population. The Neo-Malthusians say that today's population growth exceeds that of material benefits and that the situation will get worse as time goes on. They eagerly concentrate on an uncertain future, attempting to show by their calculations the fatal consequences of the unlimited growth of the numbers of people for mankind. Naturally, on a planet that is limited in size the number of its inhabitants cannot be infinite; nor will it be infinite either. It may be affirmed a priori, proceeding from the principle of the dependence of all social phenomena, that the society of the future will find a way of correlating population growth and the improvement of its well-being. We should not turn our backs on the social problems of the present which need to be solved at this very moment by imagining what the future will be like.
At the Asian Population Conference in December 1963 Jawaharlal Nehru expressed his despair when pointing to the population growth in the developing countries and stressing the impossibility of improving the standard of living of the masses where such growth rates were observed. He called upon the countries of the world to unite their efforts in restricting the birth-rates to those proposed by 116 scientists today, measures that require outlays beyond the means of individual countries.
However, if we take a glance at the past, then we shall see, that there were almost threefold less people in India at the beginning of the century than there are at present, but at the same time the standard of living of the Indians was no better than it is today. On the contrary, they were even more poverty-stricken at that time, which means that the number of people on the subcontinent in itself by no means determines their standard of living. As always and everywhere, the well-being enjoyed by the masses is determined by the development of the productive forces and the share of the benefits that the people can retain for themselves. In India today this share is still negligible and the standard of living is low. The output of benefits has markedly increased in the years of independence, but the consumption of these benefits by the masses of the people has increased little, and for most of them poverty is a reality.
At the World Population Conference in Belgrade in 1965 India's representatives referred to the poverty in their country as the consequence of the numerousness of its population; they stressed the advantages of restricting the birth-rate for improving the standard of living. It should be mentioned that there are no examples in history where countries and peoples have made a rapid transition from poverty, and destitution moreover, to a well-provided way of living, all the more so to the wealth of the majority. Naturally, the concepts of poverty and wealth are relative ones, but for each given people they are definite ones. Even with the most progressive social system in one epoch or another the change-over from poverty to a well-being for the majority took decades and did not even occur within one generation. Examination of the growth rates at which people in general have been enjoying a better standard of living in the Republic's first thirty years shows that by the end of the twentieth century there will be comparatively few people who will live well in India, no matter how large Indian families will be.
Population growth cannot be regarded as a self-sufficient phenomenon and the restriction of that growth as an aim in itself. Progress, the striving for well-being is self-- sufficient; whore population growth favours this, it is good, but it is bad when it prevents society from making progress.
117 Changes in the Share of Different Countries (according to the censuses) and in in the World Population in 1950--1980 1985--2010 (according to forecasts) Table 17 Years Million 2,525 3,037 3,354 3,696 4,066 people fl» 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 832 945 1,003 1,047 1,092 ''33.0 31.1 29.9 28.3 26.9 1,693 2,092 2,351 2,648 2.974 67.0 68.9 70.1 71.7 73.1 1,390 1,692 1,887 2,111 2,353 55.0 55.7 56.3 57.1 57.9 361 439 492 548 619 14.3 14.5 14.7 14.8 15.2 1980 1985 1990 1995 200(1 2010 4,432 4,826 5,242 5,677 6,119 6,988 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 1,131 25.5 1,170 24.2 1,206 24.0 1,242 21.9 1,272 20.8 1,321 18.9 3,301 74,5 3,656 75.8 4,036 77.0 4,435 78.1 4,847 79.2 5,667 81.1 2,579 58.2 684 15.4 2,815 58.3 753 15.6 3,058 58.3 821 15.7 3,305 58.2 892 15.7 3,549 58.0 961 15.7 3,993 57.1 1 ,083 15.5 Whole world Developed countries Developing countries Including the countries of Asia Including IndiaA study of the differences in population growth rates in different countries clearly indicates a shift in the centre of demographic gravity further and further towards the developing countries. The data published by the UN provide the demographic picture of the world (Table 17).
The principles governing the growth of India's population can be traced in greater detail during the period when regular censuses were taken. The information on population growth provided by the censuses taken in the last quarter of the nineteenth century has called forth a storm of objections and criticism pointing to the imperfection of the techniques and methods of registration. The report of the 1901 census contains the following figures, which supposedly reflect the population growth of the United Provinces better than the censuses of the last, century:
The growth of the population of the Punjab (the British part alone, without the principalities) is presented as 10.1 per cent in the 13 years between the local census of 1855 and the first all-Indian census taken there in 1868. For the last decade of the nineteenth century the population growth of 118 the entire Punjab was seven per cent, that in the principalities of the Punjab being twofold less and that of the NorthWest Frontier Province twice as large, which undoubtedly reflects the incomplete registration of the inhabitants of both the principalities and the provinces.
The changes in the size of the population of the Bombay Presidency as a whole and the individual parts of it in the last quarter of the nineteenth century are recorded by the data of the 1872, 1881, and 189) censuses (in per cent):
1872--1881 1881--1891 1891--1901 City of Bombay Gujarat Konkan Deccan Karnataka Bombay Presidency as a whole (excl. Sind) j 20.0 h6.3 -5.5 -1-1.5 +8.4 -13.0 -i 3.6 +9.5 -1-2.4 -1.3 +17.0 ---4.3 1-13.3 + 19.9 ---0.6 Years 1872--1881 1881--1891 1891--1901 0-1.5 Approx. 9.8 Approx. 1.5 1-13.7 ---4.1The 17.1 per cent increase in the population of the principality of Hyderabad between 1881 and 1891 can evidently be partly explained by incomplete 1881 registration.
Considerably more reliable and comparable figures are available for the twentieth century. The growth of the 119 population of India (within its present frontiers) was the following in the decades between the censuses:
Years 1901--1910 1911--1920 1921--1930 1931--1940 1941--1950 1951--1960 1961--1970 1972--1980 Million people 14.0 -0.8 27.6 39.7 42.4 78.1 109.0 135.8 5.7 -0.3 11.0 14.2 13.3 21.7 24.8 24.7Between 1891 and 1921 the number of inhabitants of the vast expanses of the country's north and west did not increase; population growth was only observed in the east, in Bengal and Assam, and in the south, in the Dravidian states, which amounted all in all to an insignificant increase of 12.2 million people over thirty years. In the next thirty years, from 1921 to 1951 growth occurred everywhere in India, leading to an increase in the number of inhabitants of 109.7 million people, i.e. ninefold more than in the previous thirty years.
The phenomenal growth in the size of the Republic's population in the years of independence cannot fail to attract attention. From 1951 to 1961 the population of India increased by 78.1 million, which is more than the population of any European country and only slightly less than that of Indonesia or Japan at that time. Such tremendous population growth has not occurred in any other country in the world except perhaps China where the corresponding registration was not made for the ten-year period. As a percentage the population growth from 1951 to 1961 is 21.7, including a 22 per cent increase in the 120 numbers of men and a 21 per cent increase in women, which is unprecedented in the history of India. In subsequent years the population of India continued to increase. Whereas percentage-wise the increase in the population of colonial India was smaller than that of the planet in the first half of the twentieth century, in two decades (1951--1960 and 1961-- 1970) it grew more than the population of the world as a whole, and therefore the share of Indians in the Earth's population has increased. Now the rate at which India's population is growing exceeds that of the population growth in many countries (see Table 18).
Table 18 Indices of Population Movement in the World, Asia to the Censuses and Then Forecasts up and India Between 1950 and 1980 According to the Year 2010 (1900=100.0) Years 1950 1960 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2010 Whole world 153.0 184.1 224.0 246.4 Asia (excl. USSR) 151.6 184.5 230.2 256.6 India within present frontiers 151.7 184.5 230.3 260.1 268.6 281.2 287.4 292.5 307.0 316.4 317.7 333.5 345.0 344.1 360.4 374.8 370.8 387.0 403.8 423.5 435.4 455.0The index for the annual increment in the world's population in the mid-twentieth century fluctuated around 1.7 per cent and came close to two per cent in the sixties. India had reached a corresponding index and had even exceeded two per cent by this time. A similar population growth was observed in Pakistan. It was precisely during the sixties that the population growth in South Asia overtook that of the world's population. The results of the 1971 census confirm this for the increase in the Republic's population of 109 million people amounted to a growth of 24.8 per cent in a decade and 2.2 per cent of average per year from 1961 onwards. This is a higher growth rate than in the previous decade. The share of Indians in the population of the whole world and that of Asia is continuing to expand today.
The data cited above on the population of India within its present frontiers, as assumed for the past and measured by the ten-year censuses during the last century provide a base for calculating the following indices of the rates of average annual growth of the population according to the following periods:
121 Years 1650--1700 1700--1750 1750--1800 1800--1850 1850--1900 1901--1910 0.28 0.31 0.33 0.42 0.72 0.65 Years 1911--1920 1921--1930 1931--1940 1941--1950 1951--1960 1961--1970 1971--1980 0.03 1.04 1.33 1.25 1.94 2.20 2.19India's population grew unevenly within the country itself, varying with different states and territories (Tables 19, 20), and there are various reasons for this unevenness. The relatively swift development of capitalism, primarily in the north-eastern regions, gravitating towards the Bay of Bengal, offered opportunities for their populations to swell in the past; the same applies to some western coastal regions. In the colonial period Northern and Central India lagged behind in their development and the population grew more slowly there. At present, the Ganges valley is of growing importance and a large population growth is being observed in the states located there. Thus, in two decades (1961--1971, 1971--1981) the number of inhabitants in Uttar Pradesh has grown by 14.6 and 22.5 million, i.e. by 19.8 and 25.5 per cent respectively, while in the colonial past it grew on average by 2.9 million in a decade. Bihar has become densely populated in these decades, its population increasing by 9.9 and 13.5 million; in the past its population grew on average by 2.3 million over a decade. Rapid economic development is also continuing in the north-eastern and the western states, accompanied by intense population growth. In Assam, for example, the population almost doubled in 1951--1971 and had increased by a further third in 1981; in Maharashtra and Gujarat it grew one and a half times and then by a further quarter from 1971 to 1981. The record growth, compared with that of the colonial period, in the population of West Bengal and Punjab in 1951--1961 is mainly connected with the influx of refugees from the frontier regions of Pakistan. Although considerable population growth has been typical of all regions of India in the years of independence, the rates and results of this process vary greatly in individual states (Table 19).
Over the last two decades the highest population growth rates have been found in the state of Assam, whose inhabitants increase in number by one-third every decade. The population of West Bengal grew by almost one-third from 122 1951 to 1961, but then its increase fell in 1961--1971 to 27 per cent, and then to 23 per cent in 1971--1981. The main reason for the considerable growth is the continual influx of people from Bihar and the states on the east coast of the Dcccan and also from East Bengal and Nepal. People are migrating to the said states because industry and transport are developing in West Bengal, and a plantation economy in both states, and also because of the opportunities for farming in Assam which is relatively less densely settled. What seems at first glance to be considerable population growth in the new states, territories until recently, Tripura, Manipur, and Nagaland must be substantially cut down, to allow for the incompleteness of previous registrations. Another important factor contributing to growth here was the migration of the population owing to the impact of these states' new political and administrative significance.
In 1951--1961, a group of western and south-western states--- Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala---boasted a population growth of almost one-fourth, the second largest after the north-east of India, exceeding the rates of population growth in the country as a whole. The population again increased at this rate in 1961--1971 and 1971-- 1981, emphasising the stability of this phenomenon, but in Kerala over the last decade the increment has fallen to one-fifth. The difference between the population growth in the north-east and the south-west is the result of the smaller scale of migration to the south-west. Nevertheless, the link between the growth in population in the western areas of the country and the economic progress of these regions is quite evident.
Two other farming states, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, whose population increased by more than one-fourth over the decade in the period of independence deserve to be added to the above-mentioned list. These two states stretch from the north-western frontier with Pakistan across the steppes and deserts to Central India. Rajasthan is a semi-desert state populated thrice less densely than neighbouring Punjab. Madhya Pradesh is only half as densely populated as the country as a whole and only slightly more densely populated than Rajasthan. In area Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are the biggest states in India, occupying approximately one-fourth of the country's territory. Under the colonizers these two states were the most backward. All the same, between 1901 and 1951 their population increased 123 Table 19 The Population Growth of India Within Its Present Frontiers, in 1901--1981, thousand Country, states, territories 1901--1951 1951--1961 1961--1971 1971--1981 1901--1981 Total Average for decade India States 1. Uttar Pradesh 2. Bihar 3. Maharashtra 4. West Bengal 5. Andhra Pradesh 6. Madhya Pradesh 7. Tamil Nadu 8. Karnataka 9. Rajasthan 10. Gujarat 11. Orissa 12. Kerala 13. Assam* 14. Punjab 124,849 14,591 11,472 12,611 9,360 12,049 9,211 10,866 6,347 5,677 7,168 4,343 7,153 4,863 1,634 24,970 2,918 2,294 2,522 1,872 2,410 1,842 2,173 1,269 1,135 1,434 869 1,431 973 327 78,105 10,530 7,672 7,551 8,624 4,868 6,300 3,568 4,185 4,185 4,370 2,903 3,355 2,888 1,972 108,925 14,595 9,897 10,858 9,514 7,520 9,282 7,512 5,712 5,610 6,064 4,396 4,443 3,830 2,392 135,865 22,545 13,470 12,303 10,174 10,090 10,484 7,098 7,744 8,342 7,264 4,327 4,056 5,433 3,119 447,744 62,261 42,511 43,323 37,544 34,527 35,277 29,044 23,988 23,814 24,866 15.969 19,007 17,014 9,117 [124] 15. Haryana 1,036 207 1,916 2,449 2,814 8,215 16. Jammu and Kashmir** 961 240 307 1,056 1,365 3,629*** 17. Himachal Pradesh 464 93 427 648 778 2,317 18. Tripura 466 93 503 414 491 1,874 19. Manipur 294 59 202 293 338 1,127 20. Meghalaya 255 51 154 267 316 992 21. Nagaland 111 22 156 147 257 671 22. Sikkim 79 16 24 53 100 256 1. Territories Delhi 1,338 268 915 1,407 2,130 5,790 2. Goa, Daman, Diu 106 21 -11 231 224 550 3. Arunachal Pradesh**** 131 160 291 4. Pondicherry 71 14 52 103 132 358 5. Chandigarh 2 0.4 96 137 193 428 6. Andaman and Nicobar Islands 6 1.2 33 51 73 163 7. Dadra and Nagar Havel i 17 3.4 16 16 30 79 8. Lakshadweep 7 1.4 3 8 8 26 * Including the territory of Mizoram. ** For 1911--1951. *** For 1911--1981. **** According to comparable data of the last censuses. [125] Table 29 The Dynamics of India's Population in 1901--1981 (as percentage of indices of previous census) 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1981~ India 5.75 -0.31 11.00 14.22 13.31 21.51 24.80 24.78 186.8-- States 1. Uttar Pradesh -0.97 -3.08 6.66 13.57 11.81 16.66 19.78 25.52 128.0 2. Bihar 3.67---0.66 11.45 12.20 10.27 19.76 21.33 23.90 155.7 3. Maharashtra 10.74---2.91 14.91 11.99 19.23 23.60 27.45 24.40 223.3 4. West Bengal 6.25 -2.91 8.14 22.93 13.22 32.80 26.87 22.96 221.6 5. Andhra Pradesh 12.49---0.13 12.99 12.75 14.02 15.65 20.90 23.19 180.1 6. Madhya Pradesh 15.30 -1.38 11.39 12.34 8.67 24.17 28.67 25.17 209.2 7. Tamil Nadu 8.57 3.47 8.52 11.91 14.66 11.85 22.30 17.23 150.9 8. Karnataka 3.60---1.09 9.38 11.09 19.36 21.57 24.22 26.43 183.8 9. Gujarat 7.79 3.79 12.92 19.25 18.69 26.88 29.39 27.21 273.4 10. Rajasthan 6.70 -6.29 14.14 18.01 15.20 26.20 27.83 32.38 231.3 11. Orissa 10.44---1.94 11.94 10.22 6.38 19.82 25.05 19.72 loo.O 12. Kerala 11.75 9.16 21.85 16.04 22.82 24.76 26.29 19.00 297.2 13. Assam* 16.85 20.17 20.13 20.49 20.10 34.98 34.95 36.32 5«5.0 14. Meghalaya 15.58 7.29 12.89 15.06 8.9-4 27.03 31.50 31.30 290.0 15. Punjab -10.78 6.26 12.02 19.82 -4.58 21.56 21.70 23.01 120.9 [126] 16. Himachal Pradesh---1.23 1.65 5.23 11.54 5.42 17.87 23.04 22.46 120.7 17. Haryana -9.70 1.95 7.14 15.63 18. Jammu and Kashmir 7.16 5.75 10.14 10.36 7.60 33.79 32.23 28.04 178.0 15.42 9.44 29.65 29.57 179.6 19. Tripura 32.48 32.59 25.63 34.14 24.56 78.71 36.28 31.55 1,088.6 20. Manipur 21.71 10.92 16.04 14.92 12.80 35.04 37.53 31.57 404.0 21. Nagaland 46.76 6.55 12.62 6.04 8.60 14.07 39.88 49.73 661.5 22. Sikkim 48.98 -7.05 34.37 10.67 13.34 17.76 29.38 50.11 434.9 Territories 1. Delhi 1.98 18.03 30.26 44.27 90.00 52.44 52.93 52.41 1,426.9 2. Goa, Daman, Diu 2.31 -3.53 8.15 7.76 2.11 5.14 36.88 26.15 113.2 3. Arunachal Pradesh 38.91 34.34 4. Pondicherry 4.39 -5.06 5.93 10.20 11.31 16.34 27.81 28.08 145.2 5. Chandigarh 114.59 74.95 1,948.8 6. Andaman and Nico- 7.34 2.37 8.78 14.61 bar Islands ---8.28 105.19 81.17 63.51 663.'' 7. Dadra, Nagar Haveli 19.52 6.99 23.33 5.70 2.70 39. 5C 27.96 39.78 327.0 8. Lakshadweep 4.85---6.31 17.62 14.43 14.60 14.61 31.95 26.49 189.9 * Including the territory of Mizoram where tie population growth was 46.75 p<r cent in 1971--1981. [127] one and a half times. In the conditions obtaining today, the fact that Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh possess fairly large spaces of uncultivated laud is acquiring considerable importance. As irrigation is developed and other melioration measures are carried out, farming may begin on these lands.
Investing in agriculture according to the five-year plans, the government of the Republic has set up experimental farms to help raise the standard of living of the population. At the same time, the local manufacturing industry has been expaned, and, in a number of cases, heavy industry enterprises of nation-wide importance have been built such as the iron and steel works at Bhilai, and others. All this has boosted population growth in the central and north-western areas and has attracted immigrants, mainly from the north. All in all, this is responsible for the large increase in these states' inhabitants.
With regard to the Punjab it should be mentioned that the population grew little in the first thirty years of the twentieth century, nor was there any growth between 1941 and 1951, in the period of the partitioning of India and resettlement. The much improved system of irrigation in Punjab has been of great importance, in particular the hydroengineering installation at Bhakra-Nangal with its network of canals and regulated water supply which was built by agreement with other states in India and neighbouring Pakistan. From 1951 to 1981 a steady growth of 22--23 per cent was observed.
From 1951 to 1961 the number of inhabitants in Orissa and Bihar increased by almost one-fifth, i.e. less than the entire population of the country. This can be explained by the fact that part of the population of these states left them to work at the industrial enterprises of neighbouring West Bengal and on the plantations of Assam. Heavy industry and mining are also being developed on the border between Orissa and Bihar, the centre of which lies in the south of Bihar, in the low Chota Nagpur foothills, in the valley of the river Damodar. By 1971, industrial development had already begun to leave its mark on population growth, for the number of inhabitants of Orissa grew by one-fourth in a decade, i.e. slightly more than the index for the whole of India, and the population of Bihar swelled by more than one-fifth. At the moment, it is mainly the population from the closest districts of southern Bihar and 128 the northern part of Orissa who arc being drawn into industry. Among this population approximately one-fourth are local peoples such as the Muncla. The inhabitants of the northern part of Bihar, which lies beyond the Ganges, of the southern, and especially the western, hinterland of Orissa do not gravitate towards the industrial regions on the states' boundaries. At the beginning of the seventies 66 per cent of the inhabitants of Orissa and 57 per cent of those of Bihar were poverty striken, Orissa having the highest percentage of the poor people in the country. The lack of cultivatable land and the predomination of small industrial enterprises are leading to the exodus of part of the population; migration swallows up part of the population natural growth and, as a result, the increase in the number of inhabitants of Bihar and Orissa is less than the average figure for India.
Uttar Pradesh, the most densely populated of the states, with one-sixth of the country's population concentrated within its boundaries, had one of the lowest population growth rates between 1951 and 1961 when its population increased by slightly less than 17 per cent and in the next decade it had the lowest growth rate of all, 19.8 per cent; then the index rose to 25.5 per cent, according to the 1981 census. There can be no doubt that the total population growth here has been diminished by considerable groups of people leaving for the neighbouring states. But, evidently, unlike the situation in Bihar and Orissa, not only is a low total population growth rate typical of Uttar Pradesh, but slower rates of natural growth as well. As far as migration is concerned, the small flow of the population to the north of India can be explained by two reasons. First, the state is densely populated, almost twice as densely as the country as a whole, while the main occupation of its inhabitants is farming. The land is worked by out-of-date methods, and yields remain low, although some progress has been made over the last few years. The plots of land of the huge majority of the peasants are terribly small and the class stratification of the peasantry has become more marked over the last few years, particularly because of the so-called ``green revolution''. The pressure of agrarian overpopulation makes itself felt especially acutely in the Ganges valley, and this cannot fail to restrict population growth. Secondly, industrial construction in Uttar Pradesh is developing more slowly than in other regions of the country. The food, __PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---01392 129 textiles, building materials and paper industries are getting under way in the state, but not sufficiently to provide full employment. The relative backwardness of the economy and the general poverty restrict population growth.
From 1951 to 1961 the population of the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu grew by 16 and 12 per cent respectively, i.e. by one-sixth and one-eighth, lagging behind the other states. Under the colonizers the Andhra people were divided up and lived in several administrative units, mainly in the principality of Hyderabad and the Madras presidency. The principality and the presidency were conglomerates of the peoples divided up by the colonizers and registered within the boundaries set by them. At the time, the Andhra found themselves in different conditions: in the principality the vestiges of feudalism had survived to a greater extent than in the presidency where they were giving way to budding capitalist relations. Therefore the level of economic development of these administrative units varied. In the multilingual principalities and in the presidency the Andhra were a national minority. National consolidation of the Andhra within the single state of Andhra Pradesh was completed in 1956. Such a state of affairs was bound to act as a brake on population growth. The particularly harsh forms that the Andhras' national liberation movement took could not but adversely affect their growth rates. Finally, the economic consequences of the long partitioning of Andhra Pradesh is still making itself felt in its economic development. In 1961, the state was the fourth largest with a population of 36 million and in 1971 its inhabitants numbered just under 44 million and it had fallen back into fifth place among the states.
In 1951--1961 even slower growth was typical of another southern state, Tamil Nadu (Madras at that time), where the number of inhabitants increased by 12 per cent in a decade. Tamil Nadu is one of the regions enveloped by capitalist development. Evidently, the lack of correlation between the high absolute size of the population and the limited economic resources played an important part in slowing down population growth. According to the 1981 data, the average population density in the state is 1.7 times greater than that for the whole of India and exceeds the expected level of average density for the whole of India in 2010. The state's economy is not yet sufficiently viable to support such a population density. However, from 1961 to 1971 130 a population growth of 22 per cent was observed which moved this state forward by four states from its penultimate place in 1961.
In the slate of Jannmi and Kashmir the population hardly increased by a tenth part, i.e. less than in all the other states in 1951--1961. This may be explained not only by the incomplete registration, but also by the impact of different factors. The natural and geographical conditions hamper rapid population growth; folk customs, the peculiarities of family relations, the lack of women, the cultural backwardness and the illiteracy of the population have much the same effect. Industry is poorly developed in the state. Moreover, life is not quiet in that poverty-stricken mountainous state with a total population of six million in 1981, and an average density of less than 30 people per square kilometre. True, the growth indices for 1961--1971 were slightly higher than those for 1951--1961, but they cannot be compared owing to changes in the area covered by the registration because of the occupation of part of the state by China and Pakistan.
From 1901 to 1961 the population of the states grew by 84.6 per cent and that of the territories by 180.8. From 1951 to 1961 India's territories had a population growth double that in the states; in 1961--1981 it was also considerable. The territories where only 1.4 per cent of the population live only claim a small share of the country; all the territories except for that of Delhi are outlying regions whose population wns inaccurately registered by the censuses. Therefore the increase in the number of their inhabitants not only reflects the actual movement of population, but also belter registration. What is more, the total data for all the territories largely depend on the data for the territory of Delhi where the population is growing extremely rapidly.
The change in the number of inhabitants of the territory of Delhi, throughout the twentieth century is indicated by the following figures (in thousands):
1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 406 414 488 636 918 1,744 2,659 4,044 6,196Thus, the population of Delhi has increased 15 times since the beginning of the century and one and a half times over the last decade. The highest growth figure of 1.9 times __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 131 between 1941 and 1951 can be explained by the influx of refugees from Punjab owing to the partitioning in 1947.
Of special interest is the growth of the average population density in India which is higher than the average world population density and differs from state to state within the country. The different territories are populated to a varying degree of density, depending on where the factors of growth had begun to have an impact earlier, with what degree of intensity, and over what area. The differences in the combination of these conditions lead to varying degrees of settlement of the land. When appraising the changes in the average population density, the relativeness of this concept and of the corresponding indices is taken into account. The actual average population density in the country's different microregions can be calculated very precisely, but this figure becomes far less accurate when the average index is calculated for a vast state and especially for the whole country, usually with uneven settlement. This index still retains its significance for making comparisons; the wider the range of comparisons, the greater the value of the index. This is an essential quality in examining the changes in the indices for average population density. At the same time, ``a relatively thinly populated country, with well-developed means of communication, has a denser population than a more numerously populated country, with badly-developed means of communication; and in this sense the Northern States of the American Union, for instance, are more thickly populated than India."^^1^^
For the world as a whole, the average population density (people per sq. km.) grew from 18.5 in 1950 to 32.5 in 1980, i.e. 1.76 times, which indicates the population growth for these thirty years. For the whole of India the index rose from 110 to 134 between 1951 and 1961, to 167 between 1961 and 1971, and in 1981 it was close on 220. Naturally, none of these figures reflect the actual state of affairs accurately. But there can be no doubt that the Indian index for 1981, which exceeds the world index by 6.8 times, is very high for a country where almost 80 per cent of the population live in rural localities and the majority are engaged in extensive farming.
_-_-_~^^1^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 333.
132From 1951 to 1961 the rates of total population growth in the states of Assam and West Bengal were approximately the same. Whereas the population density in the former increased by one-third and reached 97 people per sq. km., in the latter the same growth rate occurred on a considerably higher level and led to an average population density of 397 people per sq. km. Over the next decade the average population density in West Bengal increased by more than one-fourth to exceed 500 people per sq. km; in 1981, the index became 619, with three quarters of the state's population living in rural localities. Throughout the Assam region by 1971 the index as a whole had risen by another third and had become 130, and in the plains it rose to 223; at the same time, in the neighbouring mountainous areas, including the new state of Meghalaya and the Mizoram territory the population density was seven or eightfold less. The average density throughout the state is now close to that of India as a whole. It can he seen that the farmland on Assam's plains is already sufficiently densely populated, although not as densely as West Bengal.
Of the four states along the west coast whose population increased by more than one-fourth every decade from 1951 to 1981, the greatest population density was reached in Kerala. There it comprised 433 people per sq. km. in 1961, 548 in 1971 and 654 in 1981, which was the highest index among the Indian states with small territories. In 1961, the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Gujarat had an average population density of between 128 and 110 people per sq. km., i.e. lower than the index for India as a whole. In 1961--1971, the growth rates of the population in Gujarat and Maharashtra were somewhat higher than the average for India, and in Karnataka almost on the average level for the country; over the last decade it has become higher than the index for India as a whole; as a result, the indices of average population density have come close to those for India as a whole, especially in Maharashtra (204 people per sq. km.) where the share of the urban population has reached one-third (in India it is less than one-fourth).
In the north-western and central Indian states of Punjab (including the stales of llaryana and llimachal Pradesh which have been separated from it), Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which exhibited the same population growth from 1951 to 1961 as the western coastal states, the population 133 density was not the same. In Punjab, it had reached 331 people per sq. km. in 1981, i.e. more than one and a half times more than the average for the country, in the other two states there were 100 and 112 people per sq. km. respectively, i.e. half the figure for India as a whole.
The average population density of the neighbouring eastern states of Orissa and Bihar, where the growth rates from 1951 to 1961 were approximately the same, differs greatly. In 1961, densely populated Bihar had 267 inhabitants per sq. km., i.e. twice the average index for the country, while Orissa had 112 inhabitants, i.e. almost two and a half times less than in Bihar. The ratios changed little from 1961 to 1981, but the growth rate in Orissa has fallen.
In the densely populated state of Uttar Pradesh the average population density in 1961 was 251 people per sq. km. In the following decade this index increased by one-fifth and had reached 300 by 1971 with urban population amouting to 14 per cent, and 377 in 1981 with urban population amounting to 18 per cent.
In the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu the population growth from 1951 to 1961 was less than in other states; in the former there was 131 people per sq. km. in 1961, and in the latter almost twice this number---'259. By 1971, the average population density in Tamil Nadu was almost twice that of India as a whole and was 316 people per sq. km., in the sixties its population growth rates doubled compared with those in the fifties and urbanisation came close to one-third; in 1981, the density had reached 371, the growth being the smallest among the states over the last decade, with an urbanisation level of one-third. The average population density and urbanisation level in Andhra Pradesh are now coming close to the corresponding figure for India as a whole.
It is difficult to say what changes have taken place in the population density in the mountainous state of Jammu and Kashmir where conditions prevent a true answer from being obtained. The population of the state, which is the least densely populated compared with all the others, is approximately eight times more sparse than in the country as a whole; at the same time, the average population density in the fertile valleys is continuing to grow, nor is it lagging behind the average growth rates of population density and urbanisation of the population for India as a whole.
134The small mountainous state of Sikkim is populated five times less densely than the rest of India, but exhibits a galloping population growth rate while its level and rate of urbanisation remains low. The drastic changes in the demographic indices between 1971 and 1981 point to the imperfection of the registration, which is probably continuing and makes extrapolation of the indices to the past and future difficult.
[135] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 7 __ALPHA_LVL1__ NATURAL POPULATION GROWTH __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE BIRTH-RATEAs mentioned above, the information on the natural movement of population in India, including the birth-rate is even more scanty than the data on the total population growth; the same, however, may be said about other developing countries, and even about some developed countries. Errors in the regular registration of births in the colonial period are particularly pronounced. But today, too, birthrate statistics in India suffer from serious shortcomings. The very fact of a child's birth is sometimes only known by the family, and by relatives and neighbours. These people do not always call upon medical workers and officials who are obliged to register the birth: firstly, owing to the fact that the ordinary people in India are poorly provided with a medical service and have difficulty in obtaining medical treatment; secondly, owing to the traditional view that it is sufficient for the child to be recognised by the family and the community.
In the colonial period the elders, who were usually illiterate, were responsible for gathering information on births and deaths in the villages, and police employees in the towns and cities. Both the former and the latter were extremely negligent in making this registration, to an even greater extent in the towns than in the countryside. Midwives are responsible for collecting information in the Republic, and by law the birth of a child must be registered within a week in the towns and cities and within a fortnight in rural localities. A fine is exacted for failure to make the registration. But both in the towns and villages not all women call the midwife, and registration remains incomplete in spite of the 1969 law on the registration of births and deaths. Data on natural population growth is still in fact being registered within the states according to varying 136 classifications, by insufficiently qualified people and as a whole with errors of from 10 to 30 per cent.^^1^^
It is known that a birth-rate^^2^^ close to 50 is the limit, indicating the physiological maximum of birth-rate for a given people. This index point to a birth-rate that is not restricted in any way whatsoever, such as was noted by Afanasy Nikitin, and four centuries later the 1881 census confirmed his findings. Approximately until 1920 the birth-rate was reflected in an index close to 50, i.e. it was the maximum possible, something which is now found in few developing countries.
Judging from the data on population statistics in the first half of the twentieth century, the direct regular registration of births in India only covers approximately twothirds of the newborn babies or perhaps even less. The current birth-rate figures are being amended by the results of periodical censuses, and provide a basis for calculating the following birth-rates according to decades:
1881--1890 48.9 1921--1930 46.4 1891--1900 45.8 1931--1940 45.2 1901--1910 48.1 1941--1950 39.9 1911--1920 49.2 1951--1960 41.7The indices cited point to the fact that the high birthrate in India was maintained for 70 years after the first census was taken. The decrease in the birth-rate over the decade from 1941 to 1951 is connected with the partitioning of India which was followed by large-scale resettlement affecting millions of people. True, the regions with the lowest birth-rate were not situated in the frontier areas, which were affected by the partitioning more markedly than others, but in South India (36--37 births per 1,000 inhabitants, while in the regions with the highest birth-rate, in Central India, there were 44 births per 1,000 inhabitants). As regards the change in the birth-rate coefficient for the country as a whole, it depended on changes in the demographic indices in the west and the east of India. The higher index for the birth-rate from 1951 to 1960 in India---41.7--- _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Lukin. V. S. Oslrouinov, The Organisation oj Statistics in Oilier Countries, Moscow, 1961 (ill Kussian).
~^^2^^ Birth-rate is the relative average value indicating the number of births per thousand of ihe country's inhabitants throughout the year (excluding still births).
137 points to the fact that it had returned to its norm rather than its growth over that decade. For 1971 the UN Demographic Service put forward an index close to 40.0, and S. Chandrasekhar, 38.0, which means that the country's birth-rate did not increase. Here it is appropriate to recall that great natural inertia is characteristic of the birth-rate, and that changes in it do not occur abruptly except in special conditions such as wartime. The average birth-rate throughout the globe during the seventies was on the level of 30; the average version of the UN forecast (1981) stated an index of 24 by the end of the century.In India today the birth-rate in the towns and cities lags behind that in the countryside; the larger the town or city, moreover, the smaller is the birth-rate. This can be explained by the living conditions which are common to all capitalist towns and cities and also by the peculiarities of Indian towns and cities. In India's towns and cities part of the population does not break off its ties with their native villages to which the women return just before the birth of their child.
The birth-rate by states on average for the decade from 1951 to 1960 is the following:
Assam (including Meg-- halaya and Mizoram) 49.3 Gujarat 45.7 Punjab (including Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) 44.7 Bihar 43.4 Madhya Pradesh 43.2 West Bengal 42.9 Rajasthan 42.7 Karnataka 41.6 Uttar Pradesh 41.5 Maharashtra 41.2 Orissa 40.4 Andhra Pradesh 39.0 Kerala 38.9 Tamil Nadu 34.9The indices cited reflect the intricate complex of reasons and ties, among which the following are noteworthy: the level of economic development of the peoples inhabiting the states; the stability of relations within families which have taken shape in India over thousands of years; the preservation of elements of a world outlook rooted in the past, the understanding of family obligations; the extent to which women are engaged in socially useful labour; the spread of urbanisation; the level of literacy and standard of education of the population; the extent of the upsurge in national awareness which is observed in all developing countries; the effect of heredity; the influence of the climate.
138The particularly high birth-rate in Assam (with Meghalaya and Mizoram) must be connected with the greater proportion of young people in the population, with the fact that considerable numbers of young migrants are heading for this state. Here the inhabitants of the countryside still account for an especially large share of the population, who continue to hold traditional views on family obligations. Yet rapid economic development has led to a record growth in the urban population: more than 100 per cent from 1951 to 1961 and more than 50 per cent from 1961 to 1971, following which town dwellers comprised approximately eight per cent of the population. The influx of young people has not only boosted the birth-rate, but also the standard of literacy, which is higher here than in the rest of India.
In Bihar, where there are a highly developed (by Indian standards) mining and manufacturing industries in the south, members of the Munda peoples are also employed in industry. These peoples still have a very high birth-rate and raise the general index for the state in spite of the migration of young people from its northern districts. The state of Orissa is one of the poorest and most backward regions in India where the consequences of the poverty of people in general have accumulated from year to year for many centuries now and where the share of the urban population is two times less than in India as a whole; throughout the twentieth century and, to a lesser extent earlier, the able-bodied part of the population migrated mainly to neighbouring Bengal, Bihar, and Assam; the ratio of young and elderly people in Orissa is lower than in most other states, and so the birth-rate is relatively low.
The high birth-rate is observed in West Bengal in the traditional farming areas along the banks and in the delta of the Ganges; even now large families are common here owing to economic considerations and the world outlook of Hinduism; al the same time, migration (mainly from the local villages and the neighbouring states to the plantations of the north, to the industrial districts of the west and to the giant conurbation of Calcutta) and capitalist urbanisation, the involvement of women in industrial production (especially their increased literacy in the years of independence) and the marked share of the intelligentsia, are acting as a brake on the growth of the birth-rate. The same can be said of Maharashtra, but with reservations about 139 less migration to this state, a smaller proportion of the intelligentsia and the influence of Bombay on the state's demographic situation.
The high birth-rate indices in Gujarat, Punjab, and Rajasthan are conditional on the ratio of young to elderly people in favour of the former whose number is comparatively higher than in other states. In these age-old farming states the traditional requirements of a large family, a large number of children still apply; there is some urbanisation, but primarily in the form of small towns whose influence on the decrease in the birth-rate is hardly noticeable. The considerable development of Gujarat's productive forces as well as capitalist urbanisation and the relatively greater literacy of the population have not yet created a principally new demographic situation in the state; capitalism has long been developing here, in the colonial and precolonial period Gujarat was well ahead of the northern regions of India and the regions of the Deccan; at the moment, the slow but steady development entails the high birth-rate in the state. And if the present degree of development of capitalism in India can really facilitate a decrease in the birth-rate, then the upsurge of national awareness, especially in Gujarat and Punjab, may cause an upswing in the birth-rate.
Madhya Pradesh, a state in Central India which was still backward, quite recently has preserved the traditional high birth-rate, which is evidently slightly higher than indicated by the past censuses. But the situation is already changing in principle owing to the invasion of large industrial enterprises here.
In the north, in the vast state of Uttar Pradesh the birthrate is almost the same as that for the whole of India, the index of which is largely determined by the state's multimillion strong population. Here, in the age-old farming land of Hindustan, the holy writings of the Veda appealed to women to see their happiness in a large number of children, especially sons; in this part of the country, which lagged behind other regions in its development, at any rate it did so during the two centuries of colonial dominion, even now there are no necessary conditions for the development of industry, as, for example, in the east or in the west of India. The proportion of the urban population here is a fourth less Ihan in India as a whole; the same is true of the share of literate people, and only 14 per cent of the women can read and write. Life is lived against a backcloth 140 of rural overpopulation, and half of the citizens are permanently on starvation level, as a result of which there is an insignificant, but constant, exodus of the population; there are nine women here for every ten men, and 15.(5 young people to every elderly person (in Assam 5.2:1). A. M. Dyakov, a Soviet scientist, finds that of all the states in India, in Uttar Pradesh the upsurge of national awareness of the Indians is least pronounced in the phenomena of life of society today. All this is undoubtedly having an effect on the birth-rate in India's biggest state, but il is difficult to say to what extent the different causes and forces of social development are affecting it.
The birth-rate in the southern, Dravidian states is lower than in the west or the north-east, and in general it is the lowest in India. The difference is considerable: in the midseventies the birth-rate index in Assam was more than 45, for the whole of India approximately 40, and in the southern state of Tamil Nadu 35. In 1980, in the largest state, Uttar Pradesh, which is inhabited by a population twice that of France, the index was more than 40 (in France approximately 12), but in the southern state of Kerala, it was approximately 25. In 1981, the State Planning Commission forecast a drop in the birth-rate throughout the country to 25 per cent by 1995 and to 21 per cent by the year 2000. The birth-rate in the Republic's towns and cities is thought to be one-third less than throughout the country, a difference that was less marked even in the more recent past. The southern states are related ethnically, but they are at the same time nationally different. The sex ratio in these states is the most favourable, even in the towns and cities, large sections of the population are literate and the proportion of the urban population is higher and the ratio of young to elderly people is lower than in the rest of India. All these factors, except for the favourable sex ratio, do, apparently, effect a drop in the birth-rate and predetermine the relatively low birth-rate in Tamil Nadu. But in the state of Karnataka, for example, where industry is comparatively well developed, and there is a large percentage of town dwellers and literates, the birth-rate is almost the same as that for the whole of India. In Kerala (the only one of India's states) there are far more women than men and larger numbers of the population are literate than on the subcontinent; the proportion of town dwellers is lower than in India as a whole, and the birth-rate is less than in all 141 the states except Tamil Nadu, which must be linked with the ethnic composition of the population of Kerala. A. M. Dyakov comes to the conclusion that the national movement in modern India has gathered greatest momentum precisely in the southern, Dravidian states, and is least developed in the states where the population speaks Hindi, i.e. mainly in the north. This means that the assumption that increased national awareness is concomitant with a growth in the hirth-rate in the developing countries is not confirmed by examination of India's southern states. Special demographic research to elucidate the causes of the actual and probable decrease in the birth-rate could throw some light on this rather vague question. As far as can be judged, the birth-rate for India as a whole will decline by the end of the century, although to different extents in one state or another.
Judging from the demographic studies published, the birth-rate for Asia as a whole in 1935--1939 was 40 to 45; in 1950--1955, in South Asia it became approximately 47, and in East Asia, 37; then, during the sixties it was 44 to 45 in South Asia and 31 to 34 in East Asia. In the seventies there was a further decrease in the birth-rate to 41 in South Asia and 26 in East Asia. A continuing drop in the index to 28 and 18 respectively is forecast for subsequent years of the twentieth century, which is by no means obvious, but is feasible if the principles incorporated in the model for the average variant of the 1975 forecast remain the same. In Japan for the last 90 to 100 years the birth-rate has been lower than in India; initially it began to grow in parallel with the economic development from 27.2 in the 1880s to 34.2 in the 1920s; by the sixties it had fallen to 17, and in the seventies it became 18--19, and a further decrease to 14 is foreseen by the year 2000.
In the countries of Africa the index for 1935--1939 may have been the same as in the countries of Asia (40--45); then, having risen to 47 in 1950--1955, just as in the countries of Asia, it probably did not decrease during the sixties; the figure for the seventies is 46 and a further drop in the index to 39 is forecast by the end of the century; these values are most likely overexaggerated where there is a tendency for the index to decline.
In the countries of Latin America, the birth-rate for 1935--1939 is assumed to be the same (40--45), and this applies to developing countries throughout the world; in 1950-- 142 1955, the index was possibly 41, in the, sixties 38--39, in the seventies it was to fall to 36, and by the end of the century to 30. From this review it may be concluded that in our time the developing countries do, in general, have a high birth-rate, and a tendency for its index to fall by the end of the century is observed, perhaps by one-fourth, when referring to India.
In the developed countries of Western Europe over the last 100 years the birth-rate everywhere has decreased by half and even more, for example, in England and Wales from 35.4 in 1871--1880 to 24.3 in 1913 and 14.6 in 1940 with a tendency for it to decline to 13.9 in 1973. The birthrate has also fallen considerably in Australia. In the USA it is thought to have been on the 50.0 level by 1830. Comparable regular data on the birth-rate in that country is available from 1915, when the birth-rate was 25.0; then it decreased to 16.9 in 1935, rose to 23.6 in 1960, fell to 19.4 in 1965 and to 15.0 in 1974. In European Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century the birth-rate was close to 50.0, and in 1913 it was 45.5; in the Soviet Union in 1940 the birth-rate was 31.2, in 1960---24.9, in 1965--- 18.4, in 1970---17.4, and in 1975 approximately 18.0.
All the indices cited cannot claim accuracy which becomes less and less the further you go back into the past. Unfortunately, the modern indices are far from being precise in the direct sense of the word as well; they are made even more approximate and non-representative by the sample survey method by which they have been obtained. Nevertheless, all these indices, when taken together, do orientate us in studying the natural movement of population. As we do not have the opportunity to produce exact measurements, we use approximate indices, primarily in making comparisons. At the same time, when building a model for the future with the help of such indices, a certain amount of inaccuracy is introduced into our ideas, which increases as the forecast covers the more distant future. Thus, in India a considerable drop in the birth-rate typical of the majority of the developed countries over the period from the 1870s to the present day, did not occur, and therefore the present birth-rate in the country considerably exceeds that in the developed countries. This regularity is evidently typical of other developing countries, too.
The reasons for the high birth-rate in India as well as in other newly-free countries of Asia, are rooted in the material 143 and socio-economic conditions that existed in the precolonial, and, subsequently, the colonial period. Ideologically, this is reflected in a number of the tenets of Hindu ism to the effect that it is the moral and religious obligation of believers to have as many children as possible. The development of capitalism is gradually changing the entire way of life of Indian society. Whereas these changes have not yet brought about any considerable decrease in the birth-rate, they are already having a marked effect in the sphere of ideology and practical politics. But the birth-rate is in fact decreasing and the aging of the population is gradually beginning.
For many years now the government of India has pursued a policy of so-called family planning which really boils down to decreasing the birth-rate. Even during the first five-year plan it was said that the improvement and stabilisation of the economic life required limiting the number of children in a family, that this was important for the health of the existing children and for their prosperity, and that such measures were part and parcel of the social welfare plan. Activity in this direction began to get under way in 1951--1961, and in the third five year plan for the country's development family planning was not only to become a programme affecting the majority, but a nationwide movement, proceeding from a need to improve the lives of individuals, the family, and society.
One can judge of the growing scale of the family planning programme in 1951--1971 from the government subsidies for these purposes (million rupees):
Planned Actual expenditure 1st five-year plan (1951--1956) 6.5 1.45 2nd five-year plan (1956--1961) 50 22 3rd five-year plan (1961--1960) 500 279 4th five-year plan (1966--1971) 950 2,290 1,506.5 2,592.45The expansion of Ihe entire programme, to which so much importance was attributed, was restricted by the extent of the subsidies and by the number of people competent and capable of carrying out the programme; therefore, in the five-year development plans attention was concentrated 144 on extensively training the personnel necessary, especially women. It was precisely in the training of personnel that the government saw the decisive factor in executing the plan and it also considered that the organising bodies in charge of the programme should be further built up, both in the capital and in the states (the Family Planning Departments, the central one in Delhi and the local ones in each of the states, were responsible for putting the programme into action). The project for the fourth five-year plan not only envisages the further extension of the network of family planning clinics in the towns and cities and in the countryside, but also the founding of 41 thousand family planning ``subcentres'', mainly in rural localities, so that 90 per cent of the country's families could plan their families according to the recommendations and with the help of the state. The total outlays on family planning measures in 19()()-1971 were to be only fivefold less than the country's total expenditure on the health service. The main purpose of the family planning programme was formulated in the following manner: to lower the birth-rate to 25 as quickly as possible. The sixth five-year plan aims at putting into operation 50 thousand medical posts, where it is planned for 22 million Indians to undergo sterilisation and where (>0 per cent of the population of reproductive ago are covered by the family planning measures.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ MORTALITYIn the course of natural population movement deaths countervail births. Both processes depend on social development. The means available to mankind today to artificially cut down or increase the birth-rate are, as a rule, imperfect and affect people's health. On the other hand, all the means aimed against illness as the cause of mortality, arc called upon to improve health and lengthen life. People have always felt a need to fight the causes of death, and for a long time they could not make any progress in satisfying this need. But social and scientific progress has brought unprecedented attainments in the struggle with death and increasing longevity. This has also predominantly determined the huge figures for population growth today, such as were unknown in the past and the general shift towards the aging of the population. Mortality has decreased considerably everywhere and since the birth-rate in the __PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---01302 145 developing countries has fallen little, the natural population growth of the globe has hecome extraordinarily large.
The system of regularly recording deaths in church registers which had taken shape in Europe by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been helpful to demographic studies. Later on, the registraton of deaths became the obligation of the civic authorities. In the developing countries, this registration remains far from complete, approximately one-third of all deaths being omitted.
The routine registration of deaths in India is just as incomplete as that of births; therefore, the death-rate^^1^^ is calculated from the corrected figures, with the help of data from the censuses, which indicate that on average one out of every four deaths was omitted earlier, and today they fail to register one out of every five. During the colonial period the village elders were in charge of the registration, and they also recorded the births. Usually, these elders were people who were completely unqualified to register demographic data, frequently illiterate or hardly able to read and write. Naturally, routine mortality statistics contained very little information on the causes of death, not to mention the numerous deaths omitted. The results of the censuses introduce amendments into the total indices, but they are almost useless for correcting arid making more precise the indices of the current registration. In India today nurses and other representatives of medical institutions are responsible for helping the local authorities in the villages and towns and cities to register deaths, therefore the information on the cause of death has become more detailed and precise. Unfortunately, there is still no unified record classification for all states. Instances of death must be registered within 36 hours in urban localities and within four days in rural ones, and a fine is exacted for failure to do so. As a whole, the present registration of deaths and in general of natural population movement is distinguished by the same features that are common to the whole of India's demographic statistics, namely, the incompleteness and inaccuracy of the registration, the different classification of the causes of death from slate to slate and in different censuses, feasible corrections to the results according to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mortality or the death-rate is the relative average value indicative of the number of deaths per year per thousand inhabitants of the country.
146 census data, and the relative acceptability of the results. With the above reservations, the following figures can be taken as more or less authentic mortality indices in the ten-year-long intervals between the censuses: 1881--1890 41.3 1921--1930 36.3 1891--1900 44.4 1931--1940 31.2 1901--1910 42.6 1941--1950 27.4 1911--1920 47.2 191)1-1960 25.6The figures given indicate that mortality remained on a high level during the colonial period in India and no tendency for it to decrease was discerned before the 1920s, and it even increased. It is quite possible, in fact, that the apparent increase was the outcome of improved registration. But since the twenties the death-rate has been falling markedly, which is particularly evident from the results of the republican censuses: 25.0 for 1951--1960, 20.2 for 1961-- 1970, and 15.8 for 1971--1980.
The average variant of the UN forecast for 1975 indicated that the mortality indices for India during the seventies would be approximately 15; by the end of the century a decrease to nine was envisaged. The forecast for 1981 defined the indices more precisely; in 1970--1975 mortality in India was 16.5, in 1975--1980---15.1; in 1995--2000 it is expected to be 10.2 and in 2005--2010, 8.9.
Throughout the last fifty years the death-rate has halved. In 1941--1951, the most considerable mortality, as well as the highest birth-rate, was found in Central India (34) and the lowest death and birth-rates in South India (21--22). In the west and east of the country, the death-rate has risen as a consequence of the partitioning of India, but even so it was still less than the ordinary mortality in Central India in that difficult decade.
On average, mortality in 1951--1960 for the states of India was as follows:
Assam (including Meg-- halaya and Mizoram 26.9 Bihar......... 26.1 Andhra 1'radcsh .... 25.2 Uttar Pradesh..... 24.9 Gujarat........ 23.5 Madhya Pradesh .... 23.2 Orissa......... 22.9 Tamil Nadu...... 22.5 Karnataka....... 22.2 West Bengal...... 20.5 Maharashtra...... 19.8 Rajasthan....... 19.4 Punjab (including Haryan and Himachal Pradesh)....... 18.9 Kerala......... 16.1 __PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 147During the sixties mortality in the country constantly declined. According to the figures of the 1971 census, it fell by 10 per cent over the decade: this is an excellent result, but may be exaggerated owing to shortcomings in the registration.
Proceeding from the data of the 1971 and 1981 censuses, we should recall that at the beginning of the seventies one out of every fifty people was dying every year, while the figure for the whole world was one out of every eighty people, and the figures for the beginning of the eighties were one out of every sixty and one out of every ninety respectively.
As indices of natural population movement, the birth and death-rates are inaccurate means of measuring and comparing especially since they are largely determined by differences in the age structure of the populations compared. The death-rate is a less definite index than the birth-rate and is less suitable for making comparisons of mortality in different countries. The fact is that the mortality differs greatly, depending mainly on the three factors: child mortality, adult mortality, and mortality of old age.
Child mortality has always contributed greatly to the total number of deaths in any country and still continues to do so. But in the developed countries today child mortality is four or live times less than in the developing countries; this ratio applies to India, but it is even less favourable for the countries of Africa. In the 1961--1970 decade the system of family planning did perhaps prevent the birth of 20 million babies, every tenth one of whom would have died before reaching his first birthday and just as many would have died in subsequent years at the rate of child mortality in India. These children, who were not born and could not therefore die, caused a drop in the total index for mortality throughout the country. This index also decreased as a consequence of the social progress made in society.
In the developing countries the death-rate among adults remains two or three times higher than in the developed countries; this difference is largely determined by the extensive occurrence of infectious and other fatal diseases in the developing countries, illnesses that the ^developed countries are successfully combatting. Mortality among old people in the developing countries is relatively low, since few people live to a ripe old age and there are three times fewer old people there than in the age structure of the population of the developed countries. Life expectation at 148 birth in India in 1975--1980 was 50 years, while in the developed countries it was more than 70 years; from this it can be seen that sickness and mortality among old people affect the death-rate to an even lesser extent in India than they do, for example, in Japan and the USA.
Naturally, mortality is determined not only by the factors indicated but also by the total impact of all the living conditions of people in a given society, and the conditions affecting the health which give rise to fatal illnesses. A high death-rate reflects the absence of one condition or another, which is needed for good health and indicates that there is something wrong in that society. In the developing countries the campaign to reduce mortality is being fought with means primarily introduced from without, such as medicine; children are thereby kept healthy, and adults are protected from fatal infectious diseases. People who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to live as a result of this are in need of a socially prosperous environment, if they are not to lose their lives prematurely in the struggle with indigence. A state of social well-being cannot be obtained from other countries and can only be acquired in the course of social progress. Here, once again we go over from the demographic phenomenon of mortality to the general requirement of progress in the interests of people's happiness.
Among the factors determmining high crude death-rate in India the main one is high infant mortality. In demography this term does, of course, refer to the deaths of children under one year of age.
In comparing infant mortality in different countries, it is customary to employ the international scale, according to which infant mortality rate is considered to be low, if there are not more than 35 infant deaths registered in one calendar year per one thousand live births registered in the same year on average. According to this determination infant mortality is, for example, low in Australia, Britain, the USA, and the USSR. Rates between 36 and 75 point to moderate mortality, as was the case in France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan in the fifties. Infant mortality is considered to be high if it ranges from 76 to 125 as observed in such countries as India, and Brazil. A very high infant mortality with indices of more than 125 is typical of Egypt, Chile, and a number of other countries.
149Registration of infant mortality is not being carried out everywhere and, on the whole, in the middle of the twentieth century did not cover more than one-third of mankind. The average index for the whole world and for the whole of Asia cannot therefore be calculated. In colonial India this registration was only conducted in the British provinces and did not extend to the principalities. The corresponding indices from the censuses up to 1951 have been estimated for India before it was partitioned, i.e. including the territories of present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, and up to 1937, Burma; the indices of the republican censuses apply to India within its present frontiers. The current registration of infant deaths is distinguished for being even less accurate than the registration of deaths in general. It is even more difficult to correct it according to the census results than to introduce amendments into birth and death registration as a whole. The inclusion in the census areas of new territories up to 1921 affected the value of the indices. Owing to this, the infant mortality indices for India in the first half of the twentieth century were not complete and comparable; these indices only allow the tendencies in infant mortality to be defined in the most general outlines. S. Ghandrasekar suggests the following series of infant death-rates for the five-year periods:
1900--1905 1906--1910 1911--1915 1916--1920 1921--1925 1926--1930 215 228 204 219 174 178 1931--1935 1936--1940 1941--1945 1946--1950 1951--1955 174 161 161 134 more than 120The number of deaths among infants under one year old is considerably higher than the number of deaths in other age groups. Moreover, the death-rate is far higher in the first few months after birth than in the last few months of the first year of life. Thus, the extent of infant mortality largely determines the index for the death-rate as a whole.
In India between 1881 and 1921 on average 44 people died out of every thousand per year, i.e. approximately every twenty-third person; at the same time, among infants, every fourth or fifth child died. Between 1921 and 1947, every fifth child died before he was one year old. In Great Britain, the USA, Australia, and the countries of Western 150 Europe in the first half of the twentieth century infant mortality had decreased three or fourfold, while in India it did not even halve in'that time and continued to comprise approximately one-fourth of the overall mortality. In Russia and then the USSR from 1913 to 1975 infant mortality decreased tenfold and now it is four or fivefold lower than that of India. Colonialism, poverty, and high infant mortality are inseparable. According to UN data, in Africa where the colonizers were carrying out their ``civilising mission" for a sufficiently long time, in some regions every second child dies under the age of one.
After India gained its independence there was a sharp decrease in infant mortality, and what is more important, conditions are being created for further progress in this field. According to official data, in India in 1950/51, the total number of doctors and paramedical personnel engaged in mother and baby care reached approximately 80 thousand, in 1960/61---120 thousand, in 1965/1966---166 thousand. In 1960/1961 the planned requirements in medical personnel were 190 thousand and in 1970/71, 315 thousand people.
Thus, the high crude death-rate in India is connected first and foremost with the terribly high infant mortality in the past which continues to remain so to this day. Every year, decade after decade, death swept away every fourth, fifth or sixth infant, and only in the last few years has the care for the newborn in free India reduced the index for the crude doalh-ralo.
Naturally, the death-rate is nol the same for the different classes of society, for the indigents it is the highest. The censuses of India do not provide direct data on this, but one gains a certain idea of it from indirect information. Thus, among the Bombay Parsces, who, as already mentioned, mainly belong to the propertied strata, in 1947 infant mortality was five times less than among the ordinary people; in European families, mostly those of colonial officials and entrepreneurs, infant mortality was even lower than among the Parsees. From 1901 to 1951 infant mortality among the Parsees fell from 219 to 51, by a much larger proportion than in India as a whole.
It is typical that infant mortality is higher in the towns and cities than in the villages as is evidenced by the following data on deaths per thousand infants.
151 1931 1941 195! Nagpur.......... 3213 Calcutta........ Ahmadabad....... Madras......... Puna.......... Lakhnauti ....... Allahabad ....... Bombay ........ Delhi .'......... 323 227 239 244 208 205 301 248 170 251 209 167 367 321 154 266 191 133 256 195 100 274 211 95 202 186 92This situation arises because the growth of Indian towns and cities is inseparably linked with the expansion of the slum areas in them. Even now the slums of Calcutta are potentially the most dangerous nidus of cholera in the whole of India. According to the results of sample surveys made in 1968 and 1969, mfant mortality in the towns and cities is responsible for approximately one-fourth of the crude death-rate. In rural localities the infant mortality does not differ much from that in the towns; by the beginning of the seventies it was highest in the north, in the highly populous state of Uttar Pradesh (approximately 140) and lowest in the south, in the densely populated state of Kerala (approximately 80).
While the birth-rate remains high, the further growth in India's population depends on progressively decreasing the death-rate, especially among children and women.
The next reason for the high death-rate in India is the widespread nature of diseases among adults, especially epidemic diseases.
India is an inexhaustible source of many diseases, which then spread to other countries. The difference between infant mortality and the number of deaths caused by epidemic diseases is that the former is ever present on a constant and relatively high level, while the latter periodically reaches very large proportions. In the past, epidemics took away millions of lives in a short period of time, and then they died down and continued to rage for a while in other regions of the vast country. The last catastrophic epidemic was the influenza epidemic that struck in 1918--1919, from which some 13 million people died, or almost the entire natural population growth from 1911 to 1921. India today does not experience such catastrophic epidemics. The figures indicating deaths from plague and cholera may serve as an illustration although they are certainly not complete: 152 Year Deaths from plague Deaths from cholera 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1949 434,000 140,000 118,000 25,000 29,000 20,000 44,000 11,000 430,000 130,000 116,000 337,000 223,000 103,000 317,000 51,000
In the report of the 1941 census the indices are given for the annual number of deaths from cholera on average per thousand inhabitants of the provinces of colonial India (excluding the principalities) from 1890 to 1940. The number of deaths caused by cholera varied greatly in different years and in general there was a tendency for it to decrease from approximately 2.25 in 1890 to 0.5 in 1940. This means that not long before the proclamation of independence on average one person out of every two thousand was dying every year from cholera.
Even the colonial administration was forced to mount an assault on the nidi of infection to localise them. By the twenties some benefit had been felt from it, for the overall decline in India's death rate from that time on can largely be explained by it.
The government of independent India is taking and planning to take special measures to combat diseases.
The research conducted by a special commission revealed live regions particularly dangerously affected by cholera which lie in the deltas of the great rivers in West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The most pernicious nidi are found in the first two states. The insufficiently hygienic water supply provides a breeding ground for diseases. Cholera usually spreads in the towns and cities where people are living on top of each other. Greater Calcutta, which lies in the delta of the Ganges, remains the most menacing of all the nidi. Only two-thirds of the population in this huge urban area use water that has been subject to sanitary filtering and treatment: the rest still drink water infected with the carriers of numerous infectious diseases. Therefore the population must be provided with a filtered water supply if diseases in general and cholera in particular are to be liquidated. The government of the republic was not in a position to take exhaustive measures immediately to combat cholera. What was done in this 153 respect from 1951 to 1961 was inadequate, and more effective measures were taken in the third five-year plan. By the eighties cholera had disappeared throughout the world, but a cloud may be cast over this heartening success by the reappearance of the disease.
Smallpox, which has now been forgotten in most countries, since a smallpox vaccine was developed 150 years ago and immunisation was made compulsory, continues to flare up in India, local epidemics occurring every five or six years. From 1920 to 1940 on average approximately three out of every ten thousand i habitants died of smallpox annually. In the sixties, according to the data of the World Health Organisation, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, and also Burma and Indonesia remained endemic smallpox localities. In 1965, all in all, approximately 35,000 cases of smallpox were registered in the countries of Asia, and more than 50,000 in the world. The disease can be completely eradicated by providing vaccine and compelling all the population to be vaccinated against it.
The Soviet Union is helping India to combat this terrible disease; in 1964 and 1965 it presented to the Republic of India 250 million doses of smallpox vaccine, to supplement the 200 million doses supplied earlier. This offered India the opportunity to vaccinate almost all the country's inhabitants against smallpox. As a result of an active campaign part of the states was free of smallpox by the end of 1972. In 1973 and 1974 new efforts were required to eradicate smallpox in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and also Madhya Pradesh; where there were two-thirds of all the smallpox cases in the world and every third person stricken died.
At the beginning of the fifties approximately 75 million cases of malaria were being recorded every year. By 1961 this figure had fallen to ten million. The necessary preventive measures and cures are being undertaken to combat malaria. In 1951, these measures embraced regions with a population of 107 million people, and in subsequent years they extended to envelope all the country's inhabitants, while the task was set of eradicating this disease by 1976. There are some 40,000 malaria prevention posts in the country. ``True, they are rather poorly equipped, but they are, nevertheless, capable of effecting prevention measures and cures. Besides, six regional centres have been set up to co-ordinate the anti-malaria effort in Baroda, Bangalore, 154 Hyderabad, Shillong, Lakhnauti, and Bhubaneswar. The All-India Institute of Infectious Diseases is responsible for organising scientific research, and the training and retraining of personnel."^^1^^ Many believe that malaria caused a greater loss of working days than any other disease in India. By 1966, only slightly more than half the population had been subject to preventive medical check-ups; in the first two years of the fourth five-year plan yet another third of the population was subjected to these check-ups, and in the following years the remaining, seventh, part of the population which was mainly comprised of the inhabitants x»f the country's regions and areas difficult of access.
In 1961, there were approximately five million cases of pulmonary tuberculosis arid approximately 120 million people underwent preventive treatment. In 1951, there were 10,400 hospital beds for patients suffering from tuberculosis, by 1961, 26,500 beds and it was intended to increase them to 30,000 beds, according to the third five-year plan, by 1966. In the seventies the number of tuberculosis patients had not decreased; every fifth patient died, which meant there were approximately one million deaths per year from tuberculosis.
There are about 2.5 million lepers in the country of whom 20 to 25 per cent are infectious. Some ten million people are suffering from this disease throughout the world, but treatment is only being administered to one-fifth of them. Nevertheless, this terrible illness is curable and less infectious than tuberculosis; if treatment is commenced in time with sulphur preparations, the patient may even recover completely. At present, treatment is being administered by mobile teams whose base is in-patient centres, which are nothing like the leper hospitals of the past. There were no in-patient centres treating leprosy in India before. These centres only began to be set up after independence. By 1961, there were 135 of them, and more and more are being started with every passing year.
At present, there is a great shortage of doctors on the globe compared with the number of patients who need them. According to the data of the World Health Organisation, the minimum requirement is 13 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants; in this case, the total number of doctors in the world _-_-_
~^^1^^ O. K. Dreyer, Cultural Transjurmations in the Developing Countries, Nauka, Moscow, 1972, p. 208 (in Russian).
155 should be more than five million, which is threefold more than there actually are. In India in 1961 there were 1.6 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants and in the seventies two doctors per 10,000. The corresponding number of hospital beds was six. The fourth five-year plan did not envisage any marked increase in the average figure for hospital beds, taking into consideration the large population growth; for 1966--1971 approximately one hospital bed per two thousand inhabitants was planned. To the above said it should be added that the medical service in India is extremely unevenly distributed: there is approximately one doctor per 40,000 of the population in the villages and one doctor per thousand of the population in the towns and cities. The ratio of the number of paramedical personnel to the number of doctors is approximately 1:2, while 3:1 are required. Only one-third of all the medical personnel work for the public health service, while two-thirds have private practices; medical aid, not to mention a lengthy course of treatment, is still expensive, and consequently, many people never go to the doctor throughout their lives.As the urban way of life develops in modern India more and more traumas and accidents are occurring which require medical aid. In developed countries accidents occupy third place as the cause of illness and death after cardio-vascular diseases and cancer. Town and city life flourishes as people's mobility and the goods produced by them increase, as machines and mechanisms become commonplace in everyday life, among which means of transport, especially cars, are dangerous.
Specialists affirm that in the second half of the seventies the number of people killed annually in motor accidents is no less than 250,000 out of the annual 50 million deaths in the world, moreover the number of those injured is 40 times more than the number killed. The corresponding indices for Africa, Latin America, and Asia are very large and are primarily connected with the increasing use of motor vehicles in the rapidly growing towns and cities. In India there are more than two million cars: the index for fatal accidents per thousand motor vehicles in Indian towns is 10 to 15 times higher than in Great Britain and the USA. In the countries of America in general road accidents are one of the main causes of death among all age groups of the population.
Researchers into causes of death say that throughout the 156 world today the types of fatal illnesses are changing. `` Whereas before the 1930s there were more deaths caused by infection than anything else and the proportion of them ranged from 60 to 70 per cent of the total number of deaths in the world, then at the present time the cause of death of 40 to 45 per cent of the cases are cardio-vascular diseases; of the five million people with malignant tumours registered annually, three million die. Of the total number of deaths up to 20 per cent are the result of ``other causes''. Naturally, although these statistics are objective in their general indices, too, they do not in actual fact reveal the true causes of mortality, if it is taken into account that more than 25 per cent of the deaths occur from the ages of three to thirty years."^^1^^
In India today, people of all ages are suffering primarily from infectious diseases, from diseases resulting from unhygienic living and working conditions, and from diseases caused by poverty which are passed down from generation to generation. Diseases of the cardio-vascular system, malignant tumours, mental illness, accidents, and the ailments of old age typical of the pathology of the population in developed countries today are found less frequently in India, insofar as can be judged from the incomplete record of illnesses. It should also be mentioned that the diseases characteristic of the developing countries usually result in rapid death, which is a loss to society; at the same time, the diseases, which are widespread in the developed countries afflict people for a long time (sometimes for the whole of their lives, as, for example, mental illness), making them invalids so that the able-bodied are compelled to provide the means to keep them. The diseases of the developed countries hamper progress more than those of the developing countries.
The high mortality in India is also connected with such a result of colonial exploitation and capitalist development as starvation and wide-scale malnutrition. Famine encourages the unrestricted spread of diseases. Even in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the starvation that rampaged in many parts of the country, became a decisive factor in declining population growth. The most recent _-_-_
~^^1^^ 0. B. Baroyan, D. R. Porter, The International and National Aspects oj Modern Epidemiology and Microbiology, Medilsina, Moscow, 1975, p. 142 (in Russian).
157 catastrophic famine occurred in Bengal in 1943 and 1944. The Anthropology Department of Calcutta University made a sample survey of the population in the regions affected by the disaster and established that all in all, 3,400,000 people died of starvation, and that in 1943 and 1944, 46 per cent of the population of Bengal were suffering from serious diseases. Examining the consequences of the famine in Bengal, K. Ghosh mentions between 3.3 and 4.5 million deaths from starvation, only a small part of the surviving population being in good health.Although the catastrophic starvation resulting in huge numbers of deaths is not characteristic of modern India, continual undernourishment does have an impact on people's health, and, consequently, on the entire process of the natural movement of a considerable part of the country's population. The calorie content of an Indian's daily intake of food hardly exceeds two-thirds of the requisite amount. If this is the average figure, then the actual calorie content of the food consumed by the masses of the people is closer to half the norm for millions of Indians and even lower for some of the population. In the final count, this is the main reason why some diseases cannot be conquered on the subcontinent. The countries of South Asia need help not only in improving their standard of living, but also in preventing famine, and in guarding themselves against diseases. According to the data of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, one-sixth of the world's population is suffering from real starvation, including several hundred million Indians.
Improved medical services and supplies of foodstuffs, as well as other factors have led to an overall decrease in mortality in India which became two or threefold lower in the towns and cities in the eighties than in the villages. The Indian demographer T. S. Chelleswami considered the following series of mortality indices to be quite probable for India between 1901 and 1976.
Total mortality (per 1,000 inhabitants) Infant mortality (per 1,000 children under one year of age) boy? girls 19C1 Iflfifi 1971 1970 19.2 10.2 13.8 11.8 127 120 110 102 97 92 84 83 158 Table 21 The Share of the Fopulation (';„) Living Helow the Poverty Line at the Beginning ol' the Sixth Five-Year Plan for India's Development (1980--1985) Tolal population Rural Urban India 48 51 38 States 1. Orissa 06 09 42 2. Tripura 60 64 26 3. Madhya Pradesh 58 60 48 4. Bihar 57 59 46 5. West Bengal 53 59 35 6. Tamil Nadu 52 50 45 7. Assam 51 53 37 8. Uttar Pradesh 50 50 49 9. Karnataka 48 50 44 10. Meghalaya 48 54 18 11. Maharashtra 48 56 32 12. Kerala 47 46 51 13. Andhra Pradesh 42 44 36 14. Gujarat 39 43 29 15. .lammu and Kashmir 34 33 39 10. Rajasthan 3-5 34 34 17. Manipur 30 31 26 18. Himachal Pradesli 27 28 17 19. Harvana 25 23 32 20. Punjab 15 12 25 21. Nagaland 4 4 All the territories 22 34 18Now that the fifteen-year period covered by the forecast has passed, it can be seen that the indices proposed have not been realised: the death-rate fell to a lesser extent than forecast by T. S. Chelleswami and remained considerably higher than the figure for the world as a whole, 16 per cent in 1980. The reason for this lies in the general lack of social well-being.
The plan for 1980--1985 states that in 1980 approximately half of India's population was living below the poverty line. The government takes as this level an average monthly income of 65 rupees in the villages and 75 rupees in the towns, with a daily calorie content of the food intake of 2400 and 2100 Cal respectively. Today more than 48 per cent of the country's population (328.3 million people), 51 per cent in the countryside and 38 per cent in the towns, live below the poverty line. The figures (in per cent) for 159 the different states are the following: Orissa 66, 69, 42; Bihar 57, 59, 46; West Bengal 53, f)9, 35; Uttar Pradesh 50, 50, 49; Maharashtra 48, 56, 32; Kerala 47, 46, 51; Gujarat 39, 43, 29. At the same time, during the iifth live-year plan the incomes of the twenty richest families in India increased from 1973 to 1976 by 1.5-2 times on an incomparably higher level than that of the poverty line.
As far as old people are concerned, there were approximately 40 million between the age of fifty and sixty or roughly six per cent of the total population in India at the beginning of the eighties, and the same number of over-sixties. Men predominate in all age groups and only among the overeighties are there slightly more women. On a European scale, forty million is a large number but on an Asian scale it is a small one. In India any one who lives to be fifty years old is an old person: active life begins early and on average it ends in a person's early sixties. The 1971 census contains the following data on the number of old people and their share in the population of India:
Country's total population, million people % Population aged fifty to sixty years, million people % Population aged sixty years and over, million people Tola I Men Womon 547.05 283.94 204.01 100.00 100.Oi) 100.00 33.35 6.09 32.09 5.97 17.98 6.33 15.30 5.82In India death from old age occurs twenty years earlier than in the developed countries. The traditionally stable respect in Indian society for old people both in the family and outside helps them in misfortune and protects them from it.
Natural population growth had an impact on life expectancy: the lower the death-rate, the longer the mean length of life. Life expectation at birth^^1^^ in colonial India was extremely short: in 1911--1921 it was estimated on average at 20 years. According to the 1931 census the life expectancy of the Indians was 27 years (26.9 for men and 26.6 years _-_-_
~^^1^^ By the expectation of life at birth is understood the number of years that the given generation is expected to live if it is presupposed that throughout the lifetime of this generalion mortality is equal to the present one.
160 for women). The India's life expectancy at birth calculated on the basis of the censuses is the following: Years 1941--1951 1951--1956 1956--1961 Men 32.45 37.76 41.08 Women 31.66 37.49 42.06Insofar as can be judged, life expectancy in 1961--1971 was less than 50 years.
The index for the life expectancy at birth in 1951--1961 in different regions of the country was the following:
Zone of the coiinlry Men Women Both sexes Northern Weste rn Southern Eastern Central 49.6 44.2 41.1 39.8 39.8 44.6 42.5 39.2 40.1 38.8 47.1 43.4 40.2 39.9 39.3Among other large countries India's life expectancy is modest: India like most of the former colonies and semicolonies lags behind the developed countries in this respect by one and a half times; the comparative data on different countries in 1980--1985 are sufficiently eloquent:
Japan France USA Great Britain Brazil Egypt India Nigeria Total population 76.3 74.2 73.2 73.0 63.5 57.1 51.5 50.0 Men 73.8 70.5 60.3 70.1 61.6 55.9 52.0 48.3 Women 79.0 10.87 15.82 5.94 5.99 78. 77. 76. 65, 58, 51 51.7Today the mean length of life in all developed countries is approximately 70 years but it is not expected to increase considerably this century since the main accessible reserves for increasing it have almost been exhausted. In the developed countries for a long time this process occurred simultaneously with a decline in the birth-rate; in the total increase in the population the share determined by natality declined comparatively and the share determined by the length of life increased relatively. B. Ts. Urlanis believes that in the countries of developed socialism the life expectation __PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---01392 161 at birth of ninety years which has not yet been attained may be taken ``as the normal length of life".^^1^^
It is quite a different matter in the developing countries, including India. Here until quite recently life expectation at birth was twenty-thirty years and is now fifty years, but the birth-rate is falling along with the slowly declining death-rate, thus, the population is aging. At the moment, this combination entails stable population growth in the near future. This means that there is an increasing demand for means of living in the broader sense of the word which still cannot be satisfied in India. Therefore, a further increase in life expectancy in this country is expected to be a slow one.
According to UN data, life expectation at birth from 1935 to 2010 has been changing and is continuing to change in the following manner:
Table 22 Life Expectation at Birth from 1935 to 2010 (number of years) 1935-- 1939 1950-- 1955 1955-- 19CO 1960-- 1965 1965-- 1970 1970-- 1975 1975-- 1980 1980-- 1980 1985-- 1990 1990-- 1995 1995-- 2000 2000-- 2005 2005-- 2010 Whole world Developed countries Developing countries Republic of India 40.0 47.0 49.8 52.1 54.1 55.8 56.0 65.2 68.4 69.8 70.5 71.3 32.0 42.4 45.4 48.3 51.0 53.1 30.0 38.7 40.7 43.7 46.1 48.4 57.5 71.9 55.1 49.4 59.2 72.4 57.0 51.5 60.8 72.9 58.9 53.7 62.3 73.3 60.7 56.1 63.9 73.7 62.5 58.4 65.5 74.2 64.2 61.0 66.8 74.5 65.7 63.0UN experts also suggest a scheme for the probable changes in life expectation at birth in different countries by the end of the 20th century. They believe that in countries where life expectation at birth in 1960 was 30.0, 40.0, 50.0, 60.4, 70.2 years in 1980 it would be 40.0, 50.0, 60.4, 70.2, 73.9 respectively and in the year 2000 it will be 50.0, 60.4, 70.2, 73.9, and 73.9 years respectively. As time passes, life expectancy is to increase less and less; the index for women in the developing countries will gradually catch up with that for men and will probably overtake it after the year 2000.
_-_-_~^^1^^ B. Ts. Urlanis, Birth-Hate and Life Expectancy in the USSR, Moscow, 1963, p. 105 (in Russian).
162 __ALPHA_LVL2__ NATURAL POPULATION GROWTHA comparison of the data on annual births and deaths per one thousand inhabitants gives the average annual population growth rale. Depending on the development of the country, the figures are sometimes calculated for principally differing age and social structures of society, and therefore, much is lost in making a global comparison. The figures are more reliable for the period when regular population censuses were taken. It is thought, although with a considerable degree of inaccuracy, that during the 18th century the natural growth was approximately 0.4 per cent per year which resulted in approximately 2.6 million people in the year 1700 and approximately 3.9 million people in the year 1800; during the 19th century this figure rose to 0.5 per cent which meant an increase of approximately __NOTE__ Right-hand half of Table 22 (including "Table 22") is HERE in original. 9.3 million people in the year 1900. During the first half of the 20th century (lie population annually grew on average by 0.8 per cent and in 1950 it grew by 19.9 million. After the Second World War, in the third quarter of this century, the planet's natural population growth came close to 1.9 per cent which led to an increase of 77 million people in 1975. A decrease in this figure is forecast during the last quarter of the century to 1.6 per cent and the corresponding population growth of the world in the year 2000 is to be 92 million people. Thus the increment in the Earth's population in a single year has increased almost thirty times over the last three hundred years and is expected to increase by thirty-five times by the end of this century, when the yearly increment in people will be 92 million and not 2.6 million as at the end of the seventeenth century.
__PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163The figures cited measure the productive capacities of society over three centuries since the world's population has increased on the basis of them. Naturally, these figures do not completely reflect the useful contribution of the productive forces, part of which were employed for other purposes. At the same time, the population increase did not occur in a continuously and evenly rising line and was rather like a curve with periodic dips and subsequent peaks denoting that growth predominated over decline. This corresponded to the actual process of society's historical development. The population growth rates for one year or another corresponded to the concept of the period of time needed for the existing population to double: where there was an average annual growth of 0.4 per cent the period needed for the population to double was 173 years, where it was 0.5 per cent it was 139 years, where it was 0.8 per cent, 8(5 years, and where it was 1.9 per cent, it was 3(5 years.
The figures for natural population growth for 1975--1980 proposed by UN experts in the average forecast of 1981 may serve as a basis for comparing natural growth throughout the regions of the world. The number of people on Earth in 1975 is taken to be approximately 4,000 million, and the average annual figures for the next five years are considered to be the following: birth-rate---28.5 per cent, mortality rate 11.4 per cent, and natural growth 17.1 per cent. In 1980, this had led to an increase in the world population up to 4.400 million, i.e. an increase of ten per cent, life expectation at birth being 57.5 years.
Central South Asia is among those regions whose population increase has had a considerable impact on the growth of the world population. Among the leading countries in this respect it lags behind Africa where the birth-rate is higher, and Latin America, where mortality is smaller and therefore the natural population growth is greater. Within the bounds of Middle South Asia itself India lags behind Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, although exceeding only Sri Lanka, in its population growth rates maintaining the birth, death, and natural growth rates of its population on a higher level than that of the average world indices.
A sharp decline in the natural population growth is observed in East Asia, the USSR, and to an even greater extent in the countries of North America and Europe which have attained great prosperity. As regards China, it must be 164 stated that its place in the forecast is only a provisional one because of the lack of reliable demographic information on that country. In particular, it is quite possible that mortality rate in China is higher than indicated and therefore the growtli of the total population is lower. In East and Southeast Asia which are some of the most densely populated areas of the Old World the Second World War and the regional conflicts following it had a fatal impact on natural population growth. As regards the developed countries of North America and Europe, UN experts evidently appraised their possibilities too optimistically, which in actual fact provided less favourable results for the second half of the seventies than indicated in the forecast of 1975. The economic depression in the USA and the capitalist countries of Europe has resulted in a further drop in the birth-rate. According to press reports, in the USA in the mid-seventies the birth-rate reached an all-time low. In those same years the Federal Republic of Germany reported an unfavourable balance in the birth and death rates: more people were dying than being born and natural growth was expressed in a population decrease or depopulation; the above said also applies to Great Britain; there is hardly any population growth in Sweden. As a whole, the share of the developed capitalist countries in the natural growth has become absolutely negligible in our time. This indicates a continuing decrease in the share of the population of the developed countries in the world population and a further growth in the share of the developing countries. The natural population growth rate in India today exceeds the corresponding figure for the world as a whole and that in the developed countries, but is sliglitly less than that for all the developing countries, owing to the higher death-rate in India.
The indices for the natural growth of the world population and in India in 1975--1980 were the following (in per cent):
Whole world Developed countries Developing countries India Birth-rate Death-rate Natural growth 28.5 11.4 17.1 25.8 9.4 6.4 H3.0 12.1 20.9 35.3 15.1 20.2The difference between births and deaths which expresses the natural population growth, has began to grow markedly and steadily in India from the 1920s onwards, mainly owing to the decline in mortality. This is reflected in the reports 165 of the regular censuses and is taken as a tendency in the country's natural population growth between 1920 and 1970. The further development of this tendency in the seventies was complicated by the inadequate attempts of society to combat mortality.
Between 1870 and 1920 the average annual increase in the number of people in India, calculated at the ten-year intercensal periods, was less than two million; it fluctuated below this figure, sometimes being close to nought or even dropping below it, comprising less than a fifth of the world population growth in that period. Then the annual increment increased to three million and by the mid-twentieth century to 4.5 million, comprising approximately one-fifth of the increase in the population of the planet. During the first decade of independence, in the fifties, the annual figure was more than seven million and in the second decade, 12 million; in the third decade the annual increase in India's population was 13--14 million people which is less than a fifth part of the growth of the world population, in the composition of which the Indians do not form more than a sixth part. The qualitative differences in the phenomena are responsible for these changes; on the level of its past development society could not provide the present increment in population and furnish it with the means of existence.
The figures for the natural population growth of the whole world today exhibit a decrease; the economic development of countries and the slow modernisation of the traditional family everywhere are contributing to this tendency. In India today the birth-rate is falling and also the death-rate to approximately the same extent or slightly less. The birthrate in the seventies was approximately 37, mortality--- approximately 16 and the natural growth rate---21 which continues to remain higher than the figure for the average annual population growth in the world as a whole (17).
Here it is expedient to draw attention once again to the dependence of the natural population movement on the place of people in the social production of material wealth. Four-fifths of India's population are engaged in agriculture or do in any case live in a rural medium for an extremely long time; they are accustomed to the rural way of life. When studying the corresponding figures, it may he noticed how the share of the farming population, the birth-rate, mortality, age structure and the total natural growth of 166 the population indices change conformably from state to state.
Adding the birth-rate and death-rate for each year gives one an idea of the concept that the Soviet scientist B. Urlanis calls the ``turnover'' of the masses of people. It is evident that, where population increase remains one and the same, this sum will differ, depending on the value of the components. The greater is the ``turnover'', the more expensive is the process of population growth for a society, the more means are lost on those who die, in whom society has invested money, and the greater is the expenditure on bringing up the newborn. The smaller is the ``turnover'', the smaller is the expenditure undertaken by a country in the reproduction and the growth of its population. A large ``turnover'', the heavy burden 'of their population growth, is typical of the developing countries.
Summing up the birth and death rates cited above, the following ``turnover'' values are obtained for India by decades:
1881--1890 1891--190U 1901--1910 1911--1920 1921--1930 90, 90, 90, 96, 1931--1940 1941--1950 1951--1960 1961--1970 1971--1980 76.4 67.3 64.5 54.0 53.0 82.7This means that nine per cent of the country's population, or 20 to 25 million people, was involved in the population turnover from 1881 to 1910. This figure continued to grow up till 1920 when it came close to 10 per cent which was twenty five million people, although the 1921 census did not note population growth. Thus, the country bore a colossal burden of reproduction and renewal of its population, without increasing (between 1911 and 1921) its size. Then, as the mortality index did in the main decline and there was a negligible decrease in birth-rate, the figure for the population turnover consequently decreased in India; now it became close to 55 per cent which was more than 36 million people. B. Ts. Urlanis gives a corresponding figure for prerevolutionary Russia---8 per cent (10 million people), the USSR in 1980---2.9 per cent (7.6 million people); the world figure for 1980 was 40 per cent (177 million people).
The social phenomena of the birth-rate, death-rate, life expectancy which furnish natural population growth form a system of phenomena which are interdependent and 167 dependent on other social phenomena. This balanced open system depends on historical conditions; the definite effects of the mode of social production and the production relations taking shape are felt in it. In a determined system the changes in certain elements do of necessity call forth changes in others. Natural population growth can only be forecast on the basis of a forecast of social development, a task which is often unfeasible if one is referring to the accuracy of population projections needed for practical purposes. The forecast of 1974 made assumptions for the next few years but the years themselves brought another picture: the forecast for 1981 spoke of a tendency for the population ``turnover'' to decrease, although in absolute terms the ``turnover'' continued to grow, probably reaching 201 million lives by the year 2000.
When examining population problems, Ya. N. Guzevaty, a Soviet demographer, says that in the Soviet Union and European socialist countries at the moment the ``main demographic tendency, besides the decline in mortality and longer life expectancy, is diminishing birth-rate. The tendency for the birth-rate to decline develops under the impact of economic and cultural progress in the course of industrialisation and urbanisation of society."^^1^^
The generally recognised norm of activity among bourgeois demographers who claim that a decrease in population growth rates is needed everywhere, is combatting by all means the high natural population growth in the developing countries. The British biologist J. Huxley describes their point of view in the following manner. The ``upper classes" whom nature has endowed with greater gifts do not oven reproduce themselves, and there is a danger of their decline. The ``lower classes'', which are supposedly less gifted from a genetic point of view, reproduce themselves too rapidly. They should be taught methods of birth control.
Such a distortion of the real facts can be seen in the works of other bourgeois scientists in which the following conclusions are drawn: the large size and rapid growth of population are the main factors preventing the solution of existing problems; almost all the possible means of increasing food output have been used already and further efforts in this direction may lead to a deterioration of the environment and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ya. N. Guzevaty, Population Problems and Socio-Economic Development of the Countries oj Asia, Ajrica and Latin America, Moscow, 1970, p. 33 (in Russian).
168 diminish the fertility of the soil; population growth intensifies international tensions and may lead to an atomic war; the production and spread of more effective contraceptives are the main way out of this situation. This is the general opinion held by bourgeois scientists including Indian scientists in appraising population growth in the developing countries.On the other hand, scientists in the socialist countries believe that efforts should be concentrated on accelerating economic and social development which will solve the problems of population growth.
[169] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 8 __ALPHA_LVL1__ MIGRATION AND POPULATION GROWTHBesides the natural movement of population, its migration, i.e. spatial mobility between countries or within a given country, may also be an important factor in increasing or decreasing population on a given territory. However, the impact of this factor, unlike that of fertility and mortality, varies considerably in different countries and epochs.
In the distant past the size and composition of India's population largely depended on migration. It is sufficient to recall the many-century-long migration of the Aryans who settled in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges and then in the central part of Hindustan and on its coasts and gradually drove out the Dravidians southwards. But this geographical mobility ended more than two thousand years ago. Just after the birth of Christ communities of Jews migrated to India from the Middle East and in the seventh to tenth centuries communities of Parsees from Iran. Later on, Mongoloids arid Islamic believers invaded and also settled within the vast boundless India of that time. All these migrations to the expances of the subcontinent of South Asia enriched the ethnic potential of the Indian population and expanded possibilities for assimilation. In the main, the peoples of South Asia have long been living where their ancestors used to live. Neither economic causes nor the wars of the feudal period have called forth mass internal migration; resettlement has been fairly negligible. The wars brought death and destruction but the population remained where it had formerly lived.
The external migration of the Indians was historically considerable only to the countries of Southeast Asia, especially to the islands of Indonesia, to the Malacca Peninsula, and to Sri Lanka. The expansion of the mighty Indian empires to the southeast dates back to the first millennium 170 A.D. and its greatest upsurge to the eighth century A.D. At that time and somewhat later the Indians settled in the countries of Southeast Asia. The Indians' migration is reflected in many geographical names of these places. The Indian impact on the development of the culture of the Southeast Asian countries can be traced even more easily. In particular, the art of these regions was subject to such strong Indian influence that, as J. Marshall writes, to know Indian art solely in India means to know only half of its history. To understand it completely one must trace the spread of Buddhism in Central Asia, China, and Japan and how it took on new forms and developed in new splendour in Tibet, Burma, and Siam; to examine the inimitable greatness of its creations in Kampuchea and on Java. In each of these countries Indian art is enriched with local features of national genius and under their influence acquires new attractiveness.
But even in the period of the greatest Indian influence in Southeast Asia, it was not accompanied by mass resettlement. The cultural influence of India in Southeast Asia was more considerable than the proportion of Indians in these countries. In the period of late feudalism and also in colonial times the external migration of the Indian population became even less. In recent times emigration from India was largely connected with the movement of contract workers, most of whom returned to their motherland.
The extremely small mobility of India's population is connected with a number of peculiarities of Indian society. The ordinary difficulty of population movement in feudal society was intensified in India owing to the village commune and caste institutions. The colonial invasion did not essentially eliminate these causes but only added to them new bureaucratic ones. It is particularly important that in colonial conditions the development of capitalism slowed down and acquired ugly forms. The extensive spread of different forms of 'individual independence, the artificial preservation of the vestiges of feudalism---all left their mark on the everyday life of.^India's population. Even now 'semi-medieval (forms of (large undivided families are preserved by which property is considered to belong to every member of the family; naturally, in the conditions obtaining today the predominance of the former system of the undivided family is not so absolute as it was earlier.
One of the main factors complicating migration is 171 Hinduism, a religious ideology in which the main features of Indian society are reflected. JIow can an Indian go away somewhere if, according to religious tradition, he cannot eat or drink with people of another caste, he cannot marry a stranger and he must seek a wife in neighbouring villages? How can he live among people speaking a language he does not know? But the main thing is how can he do work which is foreign to him or forbidden to the members of his caste? For birth determines both affiliation to caste and the nature of employment. When he dies, who will provide the necessary funeral rites for a stranger? These and many other ideas prevent Indians from moving about. Such serious causes as the threat of death from starvation, earthquake, or fire, which wreaks turmoil all around, are needed before people will leave their homes. This is what it was like quite recently, and things largely remain the same even now. Even in the biographies of Mahatma Gandhi and the former president of India Rajendra Prasad it says how difficult it was for people having means and a desire to leave their community to obtain education.
Nor must it be forgotten that colonialism, which acted in many ways as a brake on the country's economic development, thereby created direct material and technical impediments to population movement. By the time the colonizers left India, from 40 to 80 per cent of all the villages in the different regions of the country were practically cut off from the outside world during the monsoon period. Approximately one-third of the villages were situated at a distance of 10 to 15 km from the road. Naturally, the development of capitalism in the colonies was not accompanied by the growing mobility of the population to the same extent as in the independent countries. In the quarter of a century after the proclamation of independence the situation had changed relatively little although a general tendency for the mobility of the population to increase was undoubtedly discerned.
The relatively small mobility of the population which is characteristic of India does not mean, of course, that migration has had no effect at all on the demographic processes in the country. It should not be forgotten that even what is insignificant migration on an Indian scale embraces millions of people.
Let us dwell first and foremost on the features of external migration of the population on which its total growth depends 172 to a certain extent. In India emigration was expressed in the colonial period as the movement of the work force to Great Britain's other colonies, and immigration, as the movement from other countries of manpower to the eastern regions of India (primarily from Nepal and Burma) and as a constant in its size intlux of Europeans. Other migrational flows were of secondary importance. A special place in the country's history is occupied by the resettlement of people after the partitioning of the colony into India and Pakistan; the number of people to resettle and the rapidity of the mass movement were unprecedented.
Registration of migrants was never complete in colonial India, and earlier there was in fact no registration at all. In the colony migrants were registered at the internal and external borders of the British provinces, at their ports, but there was hardly any record of population movement back and forth across the borders of the principalities. The legislation of the empire with regard to forms of contracting workers changed, and depending on this, not all workers but only those migrating in accordance with the existing legislation were registered; this makes a comparison of the registration figures fairly difficult. The censuses tell us how many people were born within the place of their abode and consequently how many were migrating within the country and abroad. However, even these data are scanty and difficult to compare. Throughout the modern world systematic and exhaustive statistics regarding migration are only available in a comparatively few countries, which do not include India. Moreover, the migration statistics over the last fifty years have become less informative.
In the capitalist system of world economy the international migration of Indian manpower has reached fairly large numbers but still remains only a small percentage of India's inhabitants. Migration became marked since the legislative prohibition on slavery in the British Empire in 1834. The need for a ``free'' work force primarily on the plantations of the empire called forth the migration of Indian workers. K. Davis, who studies the question, cites figures giving a certain idea of this migration although they do not reflect the process completely. In 1834--1835, Davis notes, 62,000 people left India, and 52,000 returned; thus pure emigration, i.e. the exodus of the population beyond the bounds of the subcontinent was 10,000 people. In the future, the figures for those leaving and those returning changed greatly.
173Although the curves of population movement rise and fall sharply almost every year, they reveal a general growth in migration attaining a maximum in 1920--1930 when 660,000 people emigrated annually and 571,000 returned, and the balance comprised 89,000. Emigration declined during the world economic crisis of the thirties and a halt was put to it by the Second World War and the partitioning of India. All in all, from 1834 to 1937 approximately thirty million people emigrated from undivided India, and approximately 24 million returned; consequently some six million people left their homeland for good, i.e. every year on average over this lengthy period sixty thousand people left the country. The number of those returning over that period was not proportional to those emigrating; most of all, Indians remained outside the subcontinent in 1891--1900, owing to famine, some 150,000 left the country annually. In 1931--1935 the number of emigrants reached close on two million but more than two million returned in these years since the crisis had resulted in unemployment in all countries and people began to return home.
Among the emigrants from India contract workers predominated who were sent to the plantations, to the mines, and to build roads. Usually they were bound under contract for a certain period, their labour was like bondage, differing little from that during the time of slavery.
Among those emigrating and returning there was a constant stratum of merchants and their agents: they went, for example, from Gujarat to southern and eastern Africa, where they were engaged in big business; the Tamil traders mainly headed for the countries of Indochina.
Although gross emigration from India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries exceeds the scale of emigration over that period from any other country, it is considerably less than the general size of the exodus from Europe.
At the turn of this century, approximately thirty million people or some ten per cent of the population left India in 1900. Between 1820 and 1930 Europe provided at least 65 million emigrants and yet another two million between 1930 and 1950 of whom two thirds emigrated to the USA. Between 1846 and 1932 eighteen million people or 43.34 per cent of the population of Great Britain in 1900 left the British Isles, 10.1 million people emigrated from Italy, 1.8 million from Portugal, which was one-third of their populations at the beginning of the century.
174Of those emigrating to the USA (between 1821 and 1924) every third European returned to the homeland and every second European who had emigrated to Argentina (between 1857 and 1924). According to the estimate of K. Davis, four out of every five Indian emigrants returned to India. If we take into consideration the dreadful conditions in which they worked and their high mortality owing to them, it becomes clear that almost all those returned who were able to do so. Thus, there is a principal difference between the flows of emigrants from Europe to America or Australia and from India to the other colonies of the British Empire: one category were emigrants leaving to settle in new countries permanently, and the second, contract workers desiring to return home. In the colonial period such ``travels'' pertained on average to one Indian out of every thousand the country's inhabitants, and adult, able-bodied people, mainly men, departed; every one of six or seven hundred Indians of mature age brought tribute to the English bourgeoisie with his labour in other colonies.
Thus, if the emigration from colonial India depleted its population very little and, in this respect, was not important, it made an important contribution to the general balance of labour of the British Empire.
The lengthy process of manpower emigration from India to the other, territorially small, colonies of Great Britain, led to a considerable accumulation of Indians (in them. Although most of those who left India returned to their motherland, sufficient numbers of them remained and settled in other countries from year to year to form relatively large Indian communities there.
By 1940 the number of Indians in Sri Lanka had reached almost two million and they comprised approximately onethird of the total population. More than one-third of the Indians living on the island were plantation workers; the intelligentsia also played a significant part among them. There were more than one million Indians in Burma which accounted for only six per cent of the population; but Indians formed a sizable stratum among the low-ranking officials, traders, and people of free professions. The numerousness and specific social composition of the Indian population in Sri Lanka and in Burma left a marked imprint on the nature of the national question in these countries. In British Malaya there were approximately 800,000 Indians and every seventh person was an Indian. On the 175 island of Mauritius there were close on 270,000 Indians or two-thirds of the population; and they formed the national majority there. In British Guiana and in Trinidad and Tobago there were 150,000 of them and they comprised half the population in each community. There were more than 100,000 Indians, i.e. almost half the population, on the Fiji Islands. Somewhat later, by 1951) in the South African Union (now the Republic of South Africa) there were 285,000 Indians who did however only form three per cent of the population.^^1^^ It must be mentioned that, as a rule, the Indian population in the countries of Africa and Latin America was subject to race discrimination, especially in the South African Union; here in what was then the British dominion Mahatma Gandhi began his public activities.
By 1931 the number of Indians living outside the country (primarily in the colonies of the British Empire) was more than three million, and by the time of the partitioning of India, more than four million, which was approximately one per cent of the population of unpartitioned India in 1947.
The migratory movement in the world after the Second World War were initially expressed primarily in the returning home of people who had moved owing to the war, and then of people interested in migration. An evaluation of the net migration for parts of the world in 1946--1957 and in 1960--1970 in comparison with the natural population growth in 1970 is characterised by the following figures (millions of people):
H40--1957 19GO-1970 Natural growth for 1970 + 9.3 +47.7 +3.2 +8.2 +3.0 +0.4 Africa Asia Europe Latin America North America Australia and Oceania -1-0.5 -0.5 -5.4 -i 0.9 -1-3.4 + 1.0 -1.6 ---1.2 ---0.3 -1.9 -1-4.1 +0.9The indices for migration indicate its results over tenyear periods; if each index is divided into ten then the average annual result obtained for the given period may be compared with the average annual index of natural population growth.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The data cited are taken from various sources which do not always give the same figures.
176 The very possibility of making such a comparison reflects the considerable extent of migratory movement. All the developing regions of the world---Asia, Africa, and Latin America---lose part of their population to the developed countries. On average, every year during the sixties Asia lost to Europe 87,000 adult able-bodied people, and to North America and Australia approximately 60,000. Over the given decade the net flow of people from the developing countries to Europe was 1.7 million, including approximately half of them from Asia (the general negative balance of European migration was obtained on account of the emigration from Europe to North America and Australia); approximately 2.5 million emigrants from the developing states, two-thirds of them from Latin America, went to North America and Australia. This was summed up by the statistical services of the countries receiving the emigrants. ``One cannot fail to notice the growing tendency for the geographical movement of population from the developing countries to the economically advanced ones. Today many things hinder the normal manifestation of this tendency."^^1^^ As far as it can be judged, according to the data cited and press reports, these migratory flows are gathering strength all the time. If we return to the figures, we see that every year between 1960 and 1970 Asia lost approximately a fortieth part of its natural population growth, and Africa a sixtieth part. Disregarding the significance of the loss for relatively overpopuiated countries which are providing emigrants, one cannot help but see the great, sometimes principal, significance of the migrants for the states receiving them and acutely in need of them owing to depopulation. The immigrants take part in the ethnic, social and demographic development of the countries in which they arrive while remaining unequal citizens, as a rule.In the postwar years, except for the resettlement of considerable groups of inhabitants in Pakistan, migration from India did in fact cease. In the fifties, the emigration was expressed by an average annual figure of approximately three thousand people, i.e. less than a one-thousandth of a per cent of the population. This can be explained both by the accelerating socio-economic development of India after independence and also by the discriminatory policy in _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. I. Levkovsky, The Third World in the World Today, Moscow, 1970, p. 17 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---01392 177 many countries to which Indians have traditionally emigrated. Therefore, the total number oi' Indians abroad during the forties and iillies only increased on account oi natural growth; in 1958, there were approximately 4.5 million Indians abroad, mainly in those countries where Indian settlements had taken shape back in colonial limes. The i'actual cessation oi emigration from India has had a marked effect on the international balance oi manpower. Several thousand emigrants from India become completely lost in the three million strong mass oi people emigrating every year from all the capitalist countries, and particularly amidst the numerous emigrants from the countries of Asia.^^1^^ When analysing the international migration oi the workforce within the capitalist system of the world economy, E. P. Pletnev, a Soviet scientist, stressed the profound effect that the achievement by India of political independence has had on the volume oi external migration oi the Indian workingpopulation.In India immigration has played a less important part than emigration. All the censuses from 1891 to 1941 note approximately the same number of people being born outside India and living in India---O.U-0.7 million or approximately 0.2 per cent of the population. Approximately 80 per cent oi them originated in the neighbouring countries oi Asia and some 17 per cent came irom Europe. Almost half of the immigrants irom the Asian countries came irom Nepal from whence Gurkhas were recruited ior service in the colonial army and were contracted to work on the plantations of northern Bengal and Assam; in these regions they frequently settled in compact groups, ior example, in the district of Darjeeling in West Bengal. The movement irom the former Portuguese and French possessions in India was stimulated by the poverty of the population in these colonies and by the need for earnings; it was a seasonal movement and may rather be considered as internal migration than external. Migration from Afghanistan occurred across the north-west frontier province where registration was incomplete and partly secret; migration irom there was also seasonal, for example, to the mountain pastures.
India's northern and north-eastern neighbours, Burma, Nepal, and after the partitioning, East Bengal (now _-_-_
~^^1^^ According to UN data, both permanent and seasonal emigration is taken into account.
178 Bangladesh) as well, are loss developed countries than India. It is only natural that part of their population should have sought a means of living in India where capitalist enterprises were getting under way. Immigration to neighbouring Bengal and Assam, where the plantations were being expanded and also the industrial enterprises, iorm the main influx. The low standard of living and isolation of the Indian communities and also the relative overpopulation of this large country still form constant impediments to the expansion of immigration. As far as the plantations and industrial centres of the north-east are concerned, here much manpower was needed, and immigrants have long predominated in the population. The big cities, especially Calcutta, attracted the immigrants. However, the internal migration, to an even greater extent than the external migration, headed lor the cities, plantations, mines, arid primarily to the north-east. The How of migrants from the various regions of India did, to a certain extent, stay the influx of immigrants irom other countries.The number of Europeans living in India, as evidenced by the 1891 to 1941 censuses, was fairly constant, close to 100,000. More than 90 per cent of them were Englishmen of whom half were with the army and a considerable part with the civil service. As a rule they all stayed in India temporarily and once they had become well provided for materially, they left for the mother country. There was hardly any permanent European population in India ior its composition changed from year to year. According to the 1931 census, there were three Englishmen to every ten thousand Indians.
The mingling of the English witli the local population led to the formation of the so-called Anglo-Indians. In the censuses of republican India they are registered as a special group along with the registered castes and tribes. The hgures of the 1951 census reflect the results of the intermingling of the English with the Indians in the colonial period. All in all, this census gives 112,000 Anglo-Indians, 55,000 of them men and 57,000 women. Some 50,000 Anglo-Indians lived in south India, 12,000 in Kerala and 11,000 in Karnataka; in east India there were 38,000, 32,000 of them in West Bengal. By 19b'l, as far as can be judged from the scattered information, the number of Anglo-Indians was more than 120,000.
During the Second World War, as already mentioned, part of the external migration ceased. So, the Japanese __PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 invasion of Burma and the crossing by them of India's eastern frontier interrupted the main migratory movement between the east of India and the countries of Indochina and resulted in the resettlement of part of the Indians from these countries in their motherland again.
At the end of the war when the partitioning of India into two countries occurred, organised by the colonizers, the migratory movement became quite different: extensive resettlement began within the bounds of South Asia. Most of the people moved just in 1947 when the partitioning of India (for details see further on) was carried out. But the migration across the frontier between India and Pakistan continued in both directions later on, too, throughout the iifties. A characteristic feature of this migration was the greater immigration into India than the emigration from it.
According to the 1951 census 0.85 million people of nonIndian nationality were living in India of whom 500,000 were men. There were 680,000 Pakistanis in India at that time, mainly Bengalis from East Bengal, and 80,000 Nepalis. Three quarters of all the immigrants lived in east India: 310,000 in West Bengal, 250,000 in Assam, and 120,000 in Tripura. Approximately 40,000 immigrants were counted in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat of whom 25,000 lived in Greater Bombay. People coming from the countries of Europe numbered 62,000 of whom 28,000 were Englishmen. The figures cited do not completely reflect the number of immigrants to India but only indicate those who were not naturalised, i.e. who had not taken Indian citizenship.
The immigrants were registered in greater detail in the 1961 census. According to the data of this census the total number of immigrants to India from 1951 to 1961 from Pakistan, Tibet, and Nepal was approximately three million people; of these more than two million were resettlers from East Bengal to Assam and West Bengal. The regularities governing these processes remained the same as before: migration continued to the regions where new lands were being developed, where there were construction sites, mines, and ``small scale" local industrial enterprises, whose development is being stimulated in India. Just as before, most of the new arrivals, mainly East Bengalis, headed for the two eastern states in the Republic.
Although the number of immigrants to East India was not large in absolute terms, the constant nature of the influx makes it a noticeable factor in population growth 180 both in West Bengal and in Assam. The further economic development of these states evidently not only maintains but also increases the difference in the level of development compared with the countries from which the immigrants came; therefore it may be thought that there will be a certain increase in the influx of people into India in the future, especially from Bangladesh.
In the history of the external migration of the population of the South Asian subcontinent a special place is occupied by the movement of huge masses of people in connection with the formation of India and Pakistan in 1947, and of Bangladesh in 1971. Any kind of partitioning of what was formerly a united country is bound to involve large-scale population movement. In the case of India and Pakistan, to whose formation the former colonial masters attempted to attribute the nature of the dividing up of religious communities that had previously co-existed, the migration assumed 'a particularly large scale.
The total number of migrants resulting from the partitioning was colossal and quite unprecedented in the history of mankind. It has still not been registered completely. All the same, concentrating on the figures of the subsequent, 1951, census and using the calculations made by people who were dealing with this question, the migration may be regarded as embracing more than 18 million people of whom approximately one million perished as a result of the disasters accompanying the partitioning of the country.
The damage wrought by the partitioning was not restricted to the death of one million people; as already mentioned it led to a drop in the birth-rate and increased mortality in the regions of resettlement. So, from 1941 to 1951 the population of the Indian Punjab not only did not grow but even decreased by 0.5 per cent. The fate of the Sikhs, who lived in the Punjab and its principalities and who formed at least a seventh part of the population there, was particularly serious. They were at the very core of the catastrophe and for half of them the partitioning meant the loss of their age-old lands. In general, nine-tenths of the settlers in the west and east were engaged in farming; resettlement meant the loss of what was most important to them, the little patch of land which they were able to work; when they arrived in another country, they found themselves in an unfamiliar environment, without any means of subsistence. Many Hindus had left the fertile region of East Bengal for 181 the industrial zone of Calcutta, and the Hindus and Sikhs of the West Punjab who had lived by cultivating wheat, found themselves in the streets of Delhi.
The disaster was aggravated by the fact that the movement of the masses of the people did not always occur only once and in a definite direction, but sometimes twice and in opposite directions. For example, after the partitioning of the Bengal district of Nadia, 223,400 Moslems resettled in East Bengal of whom 121,600 subsequently returned to India; during the partitioning of the Dinajpur district the number of Moslems who left India was approximately 14,000 of whom more than 12,000 later returned; some 6,000 Moslems left the Murshidabad district, only to return later.
No preparations were made for the resettlement nor was it organised in any way. It was a purely spontaneous phenomenon resulting from religious differences, artificially aggravated to extremes, when people have no other choice than to abandon everything and flee in order to save their lives, just as happens in wartime. Only later on, when negotiations had started between the two new countries did the population transfer become organised to a certain extent. According to the data of the 1951 census, approximately 5,500,000 Moslems migrated across the Punjab into Pakistan and at least the same number of Hindus and Sikhs went in the opposite direction. The censuses testify that the losses in population owing to resettlement, caused by the separation of Pakistan from India exceed the losses in any war in which India had taken part during the colonial period.
A special commission consisting of an equal number of representatives of the leading political parties of the new states---the Indian National Congress and the Moslem League---under the chairmanship of a British representative, dealt with the demarcation of the frontier. In most cases the members of the commission could not come to an agreement on controversial questions and the decision was made by the chairman of the commission. Acting as an arbiter who was well disposed to both sides, the chairman of the commission marked out a frontier which least facilitated tl? development of the states created.
Pakistan received 23 per cent of the area of the forme colony and approximately 18 per cent of its population during the partitioning period. Thus, as a result of the 182 partitioning approximately one-fifth part of the country went to Pakistan.
With the alternate and even combined settlement of the Hindus and Moslems which was typical of the subcontinent it was impossible to draw a frontier, i.e. to completely separate the Moslems from non-Moslems. As a result some 40 million Moslems remained in India, and the entire population of Pakistan was only slightly more than 70 million. Tn Pakistan itself after the migration approximately fourfifths of the population were Moslems, just over 10 per cent of them remained in India. In most cases, the frontiers of India and Pakistan and now in the east, of India and Bangladesh, are provisional; they divide up the fertile lands, the canals, the railways, the electricity transmission lines and the settlements in such a way that Moslems remain on one side and Hindus on the other. This would be a great loss to any state and for a country like India the price of the partitioning has been inestimably great. In places the fields are separated from the sources of their irrigation, the deposits from the enterprises treating them, the regions of production of raw materials from the factories processing them.
The mass migration, which has occurred in a comparatively short period (the main masses of refugees resettled in a few weeks in 1947), led to the formation in India of large groups of the population who had not settled down normally even by the 1951 census. The census noted that in many areas of India the refugees comprised a considerable stratum of the population.^^1^^
State Punjab West Bengal Assam Bombay ( Maharashtra and Gujarat) Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Thousand people 3,232 2,099 274 % of slate's^ total population 34.35 9.24 3.13 338 480 113 0.95 0.77 0.53 _-_-_~^^1^^ In the slate of West Bengal the percentage of immigrants in the total populalion in 1951 was 18.5 including 8.5 per cent of refugees during the partitioning period. The researcher on Bengal I. V. Sakharov describes the partitioning as ``a national tragedy of the people of Bengal" (I. V. Sakharov, West Bengal. An Ethno-Demographic and Ethno-Geographical Essay, Leningrad, 1977, p. 132 (in Russian).
183In East Punjab, to which few people usually migrated, as a result of the unprecedented population transfer every third inhabitant in the state was an immigrant. Moreover, in some frontier regions, for example, Assam, Manipur, and Tripura, the events connected with the partitioning hardly affected the composition of the population. The share of Moslems, as can be seen from a comparison of 1941 and 1951 data, even grew slightly in Assam from 22.1 to 22.4 per cent and in Tripura from 21.4 to 24.1 per cent. Only in Manipur did it drop from 6.4 to 5.8 per cent of the population. The proportion of Moslems in Assam remains the highest compared with other states in India except Jammu and Kashmir.
The flows of in-migrants resulting from the partitioning continued throughout the fifties. In the west, in Punjab resettlement died down earlier than in the east, in West Bengal and Assam it continued for a longer period. The total number of immigrants from Pakistan between 1951 and 1961 grew by a further one and a half million people.
With time the migration resulting from the 1947 partitioning became smaller and smaller and in the sixties it almost ceased. However, at the beginning of the seventies a new tragedy of exodus to India began across its northeastern frontier, this time from the People's Republic of Bangladesh, which was populated by Moslem Bengalis and proclaimed its independence from non-Bengali West Pakistan. The political differences and terror in this country gave rise to mass migration to India back in 1970; migration was at its peak in 1971 when war was being waged there. By the end of 1971 some ten million people who were later repatriated had left Bangladesh for India. India helped them as far as it could (mainly by supplying them with foodstuffs) which was a heavy burden on its economy. Social wellbeing in this part of Asia seriously deteriorated and natural population growth was greatly hindered.
A special form of external migration in the non-socialist countries today is the so-called brain-drain from countries with a low standard of living to those with a higher standard of living or, to be more exact, the international migration of highly qualified workers and technical experts. This problem has acquired an acute nature in the? developing countries from which such migration is occurring. It is well known that in the sphere of higher education republican India has made considerable progress compared with 184 colonial India; at the same time, unemployment is widespread among people with higher education. This forms an objective reason for the brain-drain. Having abandoned their motherland in order to find a job, these specialists take away with them all the means spent on their education and impoverish the remaining population. The government of the Republic is taking measures to prevent the loss of qualified people.
Changes in population growth in any country are connected not only with external migration but also with internal migration. They can have a substantial impact on population growth in certain areas.
True, in India with its comparatively small population mobility internal migration does not play such an important part as in many developed countries. However, as we can sec, even the small volumes of external migration in India embrace millions of people and cannot be ignored by demographic science. Moreover, internal migration has developed more than external migration, and it has affected and is continuing to affect the size of the population in individual districts, towns, cities,'and states, to an incomparably greater extent than external migration. Nevertheless, the development of internal migration should not be particularly overestimated. Even now, the movement of people over short distances within a district or state in which they were born is most common in India, movement between states being considerably less developed.
The movement of people within the country itself may be individual, collective or at times turn into mass migration of impoverished people searching for a job. The flows of migration, negligible against the background of the gigantic subcontinent, are in themselves rather impressive; the inmigrants swell the population of the India's towns and cities, settle in the new fertile lands in the valleys of the eastern states, accelerate population growth in regions where there are plantations, industrial construction sites and [roar] building, and so forth.
On the whole, capitalism in modern India has already developed to such an extent that the life of society is unthinkable without the migratory movement within the states and between them. Uneven degree, of development of various areas of the country entail internal migration of the population. The landlessness of the peasants, the unemployment in the towns and in the countryside, the relative 185 overpopulation and the need for manpower differs throughout the country.
Unfortunately, sufficiently detailed data on the important migratory processes descrihing the country's development are not yet availahle; the only information to hand heing scanty and limited. It may be asserted that the number of migrants throughout the country is greater than estimated from the censuses. The information of the censuses is partially incomparable. Thus, the 1971 census recorded the migrants through the answers to questions about place of birth which were asked of one per cent of the population selected according to their representativeness from the entire mass of people registered by the census.
The censuses provide information (with certain omissions) on a number of people living outside the place of their birth which allows us to judge of the extent of migration. According to this data, it may be concluded that approximately 3.6 per cent of the population in colonial India migrated from one large political and administrative unit (province or principality) to another. The index remained fairly stable from 1891 to 1941, the statistics being incomplete for 1901 and 1931. The index for 1951 is 3.1 per cent, the respective index for 1971 3.6 per cent. Data on the migration between districts is not cited in all the censuses, but judging from the information of the 1911, 1921, and 1971 censuses, population movement within the provinces was thrice that across their boundaries. At the same time, the changes in the administrative boundaries of the provinces, mainly in the east of India for the period from 1912 to 1937, make comparison partly purposeless. In absolute terms, the 1921 census noted some 30 million people who were not living in their place of birth in the districts and the 1931 census, 12 million such people in the provinces and principalities. In 1971, some 55 million people who were not natives were living in the districts and some 19 million in the states and union territories. For comparison's sake, we point out that according to the 1940 census in the USA every fourth or fifth inhabitant of the country migrated from state to slate and in Australia every fourth inhabitant went from province to province. The comparative stability of the proportion of migrants in 1891--1971 indicates that in absolute terms migration grew as the population increased, but did not overtake il. V. V. Pokshishevsky draws attention to the fact that the modern states of India arc 186 considerably larger in their area and especially in the size of their populations than the regions of the European USSR, the provinces of Poland, the lands of the Federal Republic of Germany, the departments of France, and the states of the USA. Of the fifty states in the USA only the few most populous have more than ten to twenty million inhabitants and in most of them the number of inhabitants is just a few million and even a few hundred thousand. In India more then twenty million people live in each of the twelve states, while in some (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra) there are more than fifty million people and in four, more than forty million. The states of India are as a rule densely populated compact ethnic massifs; and the main volume of migration (estimated as migration in the lifetime of a whole generation) takes shape within the boundaries of the communities which have formed within them.
The maps and figures of migratory movement which are contained in the results of the 1901 and especially in the 1931 censuses allow us to define the directions of migration. For the entire first half of the twentieth century before the partitioning of the country these directions changed little although 'the 'intensity of the migration varied 'from time to 'time.
The main direction of migration remained a north-easterly one, to Bengal and from thence to Assam, while the greater part of the migrants settled in Bengal; the country's northeast had long since been a zone of constant influx of migrants. The next most important direction of migration was a western one: the entire west coast of the peninsula to the north of Kerala. The area around the capital, Delhi, and the neighbouring parts of Punjab were also zones of influx of migrants. As far as the out-migration of the population is concerned this was observed most of !all on the south-east coast.
The influx of the population into the towns and cities is particularly manifest everywhere. While the Hrthrate has fallen and mortality has risen, the number of town dwellers is being swelled on account of newcomers. The most complete data are available for Bombay, almost three quarters of the inhabitants of which from 1872 to 1941 were people who had been born outside the city. The censuses of this period provide the following information on the share of in-migrants among the inhabitants of Bombay (in per cent):
187 Year Year 1872 68.9 1911 80.4 1881 72.2 1921 74.0 1891 75.0 1931 75.4 1901 76.0 1941 63.5 1942In Bombay, one of the biggest cities in India, the share of immigrants in the population has been maintained with only small changes for a period of seventy years; it is precisely this constant migration that has determined the growth rate of Bombay's population. Similar data are only available for 1931 for India's second largest city, Calcutta. According to these data, those who were born in Bengal comprised two-thirds of Calcutta's inhabitants. Knowing that in general in the country the number of migrants over short distances within the boundaries of their own province exceeds the number of in-migrants from afar, it must be thought that Calcutta also attracted less manpower from other regions than from the Bengali districts. Both Calcutta anl Bombay are situated in those parts of the country for which the flows of migrants headed who settled in these cities to greater extent than in other populated points in the provinces.
In the same census, information is given on the share of in-migrants in Madras which is the third largest city in India, where they comprise approximately one-third of the population. But Madras lies on the east coast of the Deccan from whence there was an exodus of inhabitants, primarily to the north-east and to the west coast and also to Sri Lanka and the Malacca Peninsula. All the same, a big city like Madras attracted people and grew on account of immigrants, although not to the same extent as Calcutta and Bombay. Delhi has also grown very rapidly on account of in-migrants: by 18 per cent from 1919 to 1921, by thirty per cent in the following decade, and then by forty four per cent. In 1941--1951, its population grew by 90 per cent especially on account of the refugees from Punjab, in 1951-- 1961 and in 1961--1971 by 52 per cent. Such an increase cannot be explained by natural growth but is connected with large-scale migration. In the twentieth century the Delhi territory has become a zone of population influx. What is characteristic of the largest city is also observed in other towns, no matter where they are situated, in the zones of influx or exodus of population: thu3 the share of the in-- migrants in the fifties reached 41 per cent in Kanpura, 30 per 188 cent in Hyderabad and Lakhnauti, 22 per cent in Agra, and 20 per cent in Allahabad.
In a number of cases, the migration has provided stability or an increase in the population of the town in spite of the higher mortality there than the birth-rate.
Any growth in the urban population is always connected, although to different extents, with the development of industry. On the other hand, in a town where industry is poorly developed, migration is negligible as is illustrated by Varanasi. The shrines in this town attract enormous numbers of pilgrims, but pilgrimage does not lead to any great increase in the town's permanent population. According to the 1931 census, the share of in-migrants here was only some 16 per cent. In 1891, Varanasi was the sixth largest town in India in the number of its inhabitants, and in 1941 the fifteenth.
Migration to the towns and cities remains the main form of population movement in India today. Just as before, it is an important reason for the growth of towns and cities. This is confirmed by the ``pyramids'' of the age groups of the population in Bombay and Calcutta in 1951 where there were two and a half times more men aged 15 to 55 years than women of the same age; the greater part of the male population of these cities was not born here but came here later on. There is no marked difference in girls and boys under the age of four but there are more boys aged five to fourteen years than girls which is explained precisely by this migration to the city. The data of the 1961 census reveal the same lack of correspondence: in Calcutta on average there were 612 women for every thousand men and in Bombay 663.
From 1941 to 1951 more than nine million people moved to Indian cities, i.e. more than twenty per cent of the entire urban population in 1941. Of this number 6.6 million (1 > per cent of the entire urban population) were refugees from Pakistan. In other words, every fifth inhabitant of India's cities in 1951 was a migrant. From 1951 to 1961 migration of the population to the cities embraced five to eight million people, i.e. 8-13 per cent of the urban population in 1951; this means that possibly over this decade on average every ninth town dweller was newly arrived from the countryside. In 1951--1961 primarily the growth of the large cities was observed to which most of the migrants moved accounting for one-fifth of the inhabitants over the decade. 189 As a whole, from 1941 to i9f>1 migration Was responsible for half of the entire population increment in the cities, increasing it by 41.2 per cent over that period, and from 1951 to 1961 responsible for approximately one-third of the general growth of the urban population which had swelled by 28.1 per cent. Over the 1961--1971 decade the country's population increased by 24.8 per cent; this growth rate would have swelled the number of town dwellers from 79 million in 1961 to 97 million in 1971, i.e. by 19 million. But the 1971 census showed an increase of 29 million. Taking the natural growth of the population in the towns and countryside as approximately equal, it is considered that the remaining ten million arrived in the towns owing to migration. Thus, an extremely rough calculation leads to the conclusion that over the decade between the two censuses in 1961 and 1972 migration boosted the population of India's towns and cities by approximately one-third as it did in the previous decade. In the subsequent decade, 1971-- 1981, migration to the towns and cities is thought to have provided half the growth of their population.
When studying the population migration in India as a factor in the growth of towns and cities and boldly transferring the demographic regularities observed to the future, and after making complex assumptions and calculations, K. Davis draws the conclusion that the volume of this migration will continue to grow and will become a colossal flood. In the towns and cities of India which have 100,000 inhabitants and' more, he takes the number of migrants in 1950 to 1975 as 45.2 million, and in 1975--2000 as 109.7 million. It is obvious that Davis' forecast is greatly overemphasised. In India the economic conditions still do not exist for such a growth in the migration to the towns and cities: the level of labour productivity in farming remains low, and capital investments in the industry of the towns and cities are insufficient.
A unique place in the composition of the population moving to the Indian cities is occupied by seasonal workers, who are half way between proletarians and paupers. These people come to the towns and cities only temporarily in the intervals between periods of intensive work on the farms. They form a prominent part of the urban population. Unfortunately, the censuses which are always conducted at one and the same time of year do not allow the extent of seasonal migration to the towns and cities to be taken into 190 account. Obviously it is a question oi' millions, or perhaps ten£ of millions of people.
In India today the movement of people from one village to another within a state is far greater than any other type of migration, but this migration does not work principal changes to the life of the country. They reflect family ties the inheritance of property, and some kinds of persona interests in the life of the countryside. It is another matte when migration from the village to the towns and cities occurs, which radically changes the economic situation in the country: therefore the movement of the population into the towns and cities is the main form of internal migration.
The next significant factor determining the direction of internal population movement is the development of capitalist plantations, primarily in the country's north-east and south-west. A constant flow of people is observed to these regions, both from the neighbouring states as well as from distant states and also from countries bordering on India from the east. This particularly applies to the tea plantations in the north of Bengal and in Assam and, to a lesser extent, to the coffee plantations in Karnataka. The plantations in the north-east and south-west have attracted manpower ever since they were set up in the middle of the last century. Workers were contracted, arid became `` prisoners of the plantations''; the position of the coolies here was no better, if not worse, than on the plantations in other colonies. Flight from this imprisonment was an ordinary event. The workers' discontent with their working conditions as well a their flight became so considerable that in 1921 a government committee was set up (the Assam Labour Inquiry Committee) to expose the scandalous state of affairs on the plantations. According to the 1931 census, there were approximately 1.4 million coolies in Assam of whom 0.9 million worked on the tea plantations, primarily in the Lakhimpur, Sibsagar, Silghat, Cachar, and Darrang districts. The migration of workers to these districts was not only a temporary, seasonal phenomenon, but also led to the growth of a stratum of settlers who moved there with their families. A considerable number of migrants were concentrated in the plantations of West Bengal. On the tea plantations of this state alone the censuses recorded tens of thousands of workers, mainly migrants (40,000 in 1901, 70,000 in 1951). The labour migration to the 191 plantations has been most developed in East India as compared with other regions of the country.
As far as migration to the plantations of south-west of India in the 20th century is concerned, an influx of seasonal workers was usually observed there as a result of which every fourth inhabitant there was an in-migrant in some years. The high density of the rural population in this region of India prevented the formation here of a permanent stratum of settlers whose status was, as a rule, that of seasonal workers. The influx of these workers depended on the situation on the plantations which were connected with the world market. The development of coffee plantations in Brazil, which supplied large amounts of coffee to the world market, limited the possibilities for the Indian plantations to boost coffee cultivation.
Settlement in new lands and also in areas that had become suitable for farming thanks to irrigation occupies a special place in internal migration in India. Most of these migrants as well are moving in a north-eastern direction, especially into the state of Assam, to develop fertile lands there which need to be cleared of the age-old thickets and do not require additional irrigation owing to the favourable climatic conditions. The inhabitants of neighbouring Bengal predominated among the settlers and still continue to do so today. Migration to the fertile lands in the valleys of Assam has been going on for centuries now. This flow of people was especially considerable in 1901--1911 from the Mymensingh district. Before 1947 the Moslems comprised 85 per cent of all the settlers in Assam. Between 1881 and 1911 the number of Hindus in Assam increased by 18.7 per cent and the Moslems by 43.2 per cent. When, forty years later, the division of Assam according to religious principles was placed on the agenda, it then lost to Pakistan the lands settled by the Bengali Moslems. As a result, the total number of Bengalis in Assam decreased considerably. Before the partitioning they comprised more than half of the state's population but in 1951 the Assamis already made up 57 per cent.
The movement of population to the east of Calcutta does in many ways differ from the other internal migration in India. Until recently there were hardly any centres of capitalist economy here except the plantations. The urban population of Assam in 1921 was only 2.4 per cent. Therefore the movement of population, besides the influx of 192 plantation workers, meant the farming colonization of small peasant property holders; they initially settled in the valley of the river Surma, and then in the much vaster valley of the Brahmaputra. The availability of fertile lands and the comparative lack of oppression by the landowners, greater freedom from bureaucratic restrictions and other circumstances stimulated the resettlement of the peasants. The two flows of settlers---to the tea plantations and to the virgin lands---caused far greater population growth in the state of Assam than in any of the other states: from 3,814,200 people according to the 1901 census to 9,043,700 according to the 1951 census, i.e. by 137.8 per cent; over this period the population of the whole of India grew by 51.5 per cent. The data on the increment of the population over the tenyear intervals between the censuses of 1921 and 1971 characterise this process in greater detail (in per cent):
Years 1921--1931 1931--1941 1941--1951 1951--1961 1961--1971 Whole of India 11.0 14.2 13.3 21.5 24.7 A ssam 19.5 20 19.3 34.4 34.4Both states, West Bengal and Assam, attracted people from almost the whole of the Ganges valley and from the south-east coast of Hindustan. People have long made their way to the fertile soils on both sides of the Ganges in Bengal. However, over the last century the migration of people to the towns and cities of Bengal had far exceeded that to the farming regions. From 1951 to 1961 both states exhibited a record population growth, one and a half times greater than that for the whole of India.
At times, settlement in irrigated lands was marked in India, when the network of canals was expanded and new lands were included in the crop rotation; primarily people from neighbouring districts settled there. Punjab can be taken by way of example. Here the network of irrigation canals has been extended: by 1891 some 0.92 million hectares of land had been irrigated and by 1931, 4.96 million hectares. Particularly noticeable in this connection was the migration in 1921 to 1931 when almost a quarter of a million Punjabis settled here, which is however less than one per cent of the entire population of this province at that time. The fact that they came precisely from the __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---01392 193 neighbouring regions of the Punjab and not from other provinces can be seen from the balance of migration which was a negative one for the Punjab and from the proportion of people who were born outside the province, which changed little.
During the lifties irrigated lands were expanded in Punjab, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh; population growth in these states has swelled owing to the migratory movement from the north and south-east but the exact number of inmigrants in these regions is not known.
There can be no doubt that in the course of socio-economic progress the mobility of the population, in particular internal migration, will increase. Accordingly, the part peayed by migration in the population growth of some statls in India will also grow in importance.
[194] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 9 __ALPHA_LVL1__ URBANISATION.Throughout the centuries, the economic development of society and the progressive division of social labour have of necessity led to the formation and expansion of towns and cities, to the swelling of their populations with ever increasing numbers of people who perform a wide variety of functions. Just like all historical processes, urbanisation throughout the world is not reflected in a steady direct linear increase in the share of town dwellers in each given society and in any epoch. Since the time when towns were first founded, they have become the bearers of part of human economic potential and their significance was the greater, the more the ruling classes of society connected their activities with them; towns and cities have taken shape as centres of administrative and cultural significance and, unlike villages, throughout the centuries they have accumulated a wealth of culture.
Urbanisation is a historical category depending on the socio-economic system of society, the level and rates of its development. Urbanisation is not uniform in all countries. Each nation which has founded towns and cities, imparts to them their own special appearance and their own unique content; with time this content alters, reflecting the changes in the development of the productive forces and the relations of production of the given society. While the towns are necessary as strong points of power and military force, they express the preparatory stage of urbanisation; but, ever since towns and cities have become a medium of non-agricultural labour, they express the process of urbanisation as such. This process is characterised by the growth in labour productivity in the rural and urban economies, class stratification of society, and the growth in the country's population. The towns and cities are becoming __PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 13* 195 centres of trade, the geographical division of labour of the people gravitating towards the given town is being realised in them by the exchange of goods. In building towns and cities, a site was always chosen which was dictated by social development. It rarely happened that a town was built away from the busy roadways of life; this only happened in critical epochs, which changed the direction of people's activity. Usually, a town or city remained a centre of culture harmoniously merging with the landscape.
Labour productivity in India's agriculture changed little over the long pre-feudal period. Firstly, the exodus of the population to new lands had an impact and, secondly, society had not yet accumulated sufficient means to make the results of their agricultural labourless dependent on unfavourable natural phenomena, for instance, to ensure high yields by the extensive development of irrigation. Better harvests of agricultural produce in good years were in general proportional to the growth of the farmed land, and the latter was proportional to the increase in population. Therefore, in pre-feudal India, agrarian overpopulation was made less conspicuous by social development, and the overall population movement showed an increase in its numbers. It was quite a different matter in the epoch of feudalism. The settlement of the vast new lands ceased; the mountains in the north and east, the ocean in the south and the deserts in the west determined the frontiers of Indian society; the wars in the direction of Indochina did not lead to mass movement of population beyond the Indian world; and the inhabitants of feudal India began to recognise their own isolation. This isolation was aggravated by India's specific caste system, which had taken shape on the basis of the division of labour and its specialisation; the system, which had been useful to society in the past, still continued to maintain its elasticity in the period of early feudalism, but later on it became a fettering system. The caste divisions divided up and separated peoples, classes, strata of society and groups.
Indian feudal society which had been divided up into numerous components of different values slowly advanced. As already noted, for almost a thousand years, the total number of the population in the Indian world fluctuated around 100 million people. However, the number of towns and cities grew, as well as the size of the population living in them; the rate at which the town dwellers increased 196 overtook the growth rate for the entire population. The relative agrarian overpopulation forced people to go to the towns and cities where they settled primarily in the surrounding suburbs, continuing to engage in farming and at the same time handicrafts, which were traditional within the framework of the castes and subcastes. It was precisely the artisan population that swelled in feudal towns. Many towns became huge centres of various handicrafts, reaching a scale much wider than that in Europe; the variety of articles, their high quality and attractive appearance made India lead the world in this respect. The unusually large output of goods led to extensive trade and to the expansion of society's material possibilities. The country's colossal labour potential was expressed, in particular, in the building of palaces, temples, burial vaults, and so forth.
Usually, the feudal Indian town was not only a military headquarters and administrative centre which was the recipient of taxes. Artisans, traders, officials, priests, and the military ensuring the town's defence lived there. The economic heart of the town was the bazaar, and the centre of spiritual life, the temple. The population was fairly permanent, living and working there from generation to generation. This was especially true of the closed castes of the artisans, traders, administrative and military personnel, and the priesthood. Natural population growth determined the number of the towns' inhabitants where there was little addition to it from without. The towns and cities took shape over centuries. The density of their population decreased when mortality exceeded natality, for example, as a result of military actions or epidemics. If the town was a place of pilgrimage, then people would come to its shrines periodically (every year or every few years) for a certain time. As a market town, it would attract people from the neighbouring villages and fewer people from other towns. Among those who arrived in the towns of south-western India to trade five hundred years ago there was a Russian, Afanasy Nikitin. The market days over, the newcomers would go their Vays and the permanent population of the town would remain protected by its walls and towers. Some feudal towns in India were famous as centres of science which imparted additional significance to them and increased the number of their inhabitants.
The population in the towns and cities was more stable than that in the villages since the losses in the former were 197 made good by the latter; the influx of people from the villages was sometimes especially important after the epidemics, which raged in the towns and cities with tremendous force, desolating them. The most populous country in the world probably had the most populous towns and cities as well.
Although urbanisation in India today is connected with the development of capitalism, many of its peculiarities can only be understood if account is taken of the special features of towns in the preceding centuries. The main one is the fact that a numerous urban population was typical of the period of Indian feudalism. Many eye-witnesses stressed this peculiarity of Indian society on the eve of the English invasion. However, the large cities differed qualitatively from the modern capitalist cities: they took shape on the basis of a different mode of production and were characterised by their own way of life and external appearance, by completely different social classes.
As the entire feudal system became stagnant, old-- fashioned, smothering everything that was new, India, which was internally disconnected, became defenceless in the face of foes from outside. Feudalism in India showed the signs of crisis already in the 15th century and in the 18th century decline had already set in.
When they had begun the invasion of India, the Europeans found prospering towns and cities there. In consequence, however, they began to Hood South Asia with factory-- manufactured goods. The local articles made by the artisans could not compete with the cheaper factory-made items, and this meant that crafts in India began to die out. For example, Indian-made textiles were ousted from the market by factory-made articles from Lancashire.
The towns and cities lost their importance. In the mid18th century approximately 10 per cent of the population in India were town dwellers, but this was something like double the entire population of England, Wales, and Scotland taken together (7.5 million). In the mid-19th century, as can be judged from later censuses, India's townsfolk numbered no more than eight per cent, i.e., about 13 million people; this was no longer more but almost half the population of Great Britain which had reached 21 million by that time.
However, from the mid-19th century onwards the sprouts of new capitalist mode of production were increasingly 198 taking root in India. In this connection, capitalist towns began to spring up there. While the movement of people between the towns and villages was at first insignificant in both directions, it gradually began to intensify and became constant migration to the towns, as capitalist production developed in them, penetrating to the villages considerably more slowly. Consequently, during the 19th century the population of the Indian towns and cities was in many ways quite different; it was swelled by newcomers who were seeking a means of living, working at small and larger factories, on the railways, in trading offices, banks, and so forth. Small handicrafts production naturally continued in the towns (and continues now), but the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were taking shape alongside it. The old town of Ahmadabad in Gujarat which is famous for the mastery offits artisans and artists, was obliged to develop the manufacturing industry to ensure further growth. Nagpur, which lies deep in the interior of Maharashtra, in the cotton-- producing regions, has prospered due to its expanding cotton fabrics industry. Madurai, which was once a fortress on the river Vaigai and is the capital of Karnataka, a place of pilgrimage to the temple of Siva, was famous as a handicrafts and trade centre, but it gained a new lease of life with the development there of the textile industry. In the valley of the Ganges the towns such as Delhi, Kanpur, and Meerut have expanded owing to the light and food industries they have developed.
New towns have also mushroomed. Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, which have become the three most highly populated and important cities in the country, have grown up over the few recent centuries: Calcutta sprang up on the site of three villages, Bombay on a desert island, and Madras on the site of a small settlement. These were new capitalist cities: their development was boosted by the setting up of the colonial administration and by the activity of both British and local capital. The new towns sprang up on new sites. In conditions of colonial dependence the centre of gravity of the whole of life in South Asia moved from the banks of the sacred Ganges to the shores of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which were more tonvenient for trade and industrial ties with the colonizer state. The development of a railway network oriented on the sea ports promoted the shift of the main centres of urbanisation to the new regions.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1985/ISOP276/20070612/276.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.13) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+Both the decline of the feudal towns and cities and the development of the capitalist ones occurred simultaneously almost up to the twenties, i.e., to the end of the First World War, but with varying intensity. If we take the battle of Plassey in 1757 as the starting point for the count, then the decline of the old towns certainly occurred more rapidly than the formation of the new ones, in any case during the one hundred years preceding the national mutiny of 1857. The total population of the towns decreased and the proportion of town dwellers in the entire population diminished even more. The development of new towns and the capitalist economy within the framework of the old towns occurred slowly over that period. Nevertheless, by the 1870s a fairly considerable part of India's urban population was probably engaged in the new production relations in one form or another. From the First World War onwards most of India's town dwellers were dependent on the capitalist economy, modern culture, the state apparatus and so forth. As a result of the development of capitalism in the towns and cities, the movement of the urban population at the turn of the century was determined rather by the growth of the capitalist town than by the decline of the feudal one. This latter process did, however, make itself felt increasingly strongly. As a result, the urban population grew in absolute terms, but there was hardly any relative growth. The data on the share of the town dwellers in India's entire population (within the frontiers at the turn of the century), according to the materials of the 1872--1921 censuses, convincingly bear witness to this (in per cent):
1872 8.72 1881 9.41 1891 9.46 1901 9.88 1911 9.42 1921 10.2Generally speaking, there can be no doubt that the socioeconomic (and consequently demographic) shifts in colonial India have a slow nature. However, the sluggish social development resulting from colonialist oppression should not be taken as complete stagnation. For before the mid-19th century the proportion of the urban population in India did not remain stable, but decreased. Moreover, these more or less constant figures, which are typical of the share of town dwellers in 1870--1920, conceal, as already mentioned, two contradictory processes, namely, the ``erosion'' of the population of the old, semi-feudal towns and the swelling 200 of these and other towns by a population engaged in the capitalist economy.
The urban population that was employed in the capitalist economy grew from the beginning of the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century approximately from one to ten per cent of the country's entire population. The number of inhabitants of India's towns, which were turning into capitalist ones, grew tenfold over a hundred years, and this gives one an idea of the rates of capitalist urbanisation in South Asia in the colonial years. These rates did not remain the same throughout the period; in particular, they were negligible until the mid-1860s. In those years, Britain began to export capital to the world's biggest colony, which intensified the growth of the towns during the last quarter of the century, mostly expressed in the renewal of their population, rather than numerically. The towns were founded not only as bourgeois-proletarian centres but as a concentration of the intelligentsia who were playing such an important part in the history of the national liberation struggle. The role played by the urban population in the revolutionary events of 1905--1908 graphically illustrates the social and political results of urbanisation at the turn of the century.
The principles governing urbanisation in this period may be traced in greater detail from the data of the universal population censuses. It should however be recalled that the Indian censuses (before the 1951 census inclusive) did not register the population of the towns precisely, since there were no obligatory criteria for defining the difference between towns and villages. In principle, towns were considered to be populated points which had more than five thousand inhabitants; however, according to a number of indices, populated points with fewer inhabitants were sometimes considered to be towns and those with more inhabitants to be villages.
The census organisers in the provinces and principalities of colonial India, the so-called superintendents, made their own interpretation of the concept of a ``town'', which varied greatly in different parts of the country, increasing the inaccuracy of registration and making the results even less comparable. Thus, the concept of ``town'' changed from census to census.
The 1881 census considered a town to be a populated point having no less than five thousand inhabitants and 201 Table 23 Growth Indices of India's Cities from the 1872--1901 Censuses* Number of women per 1,000 men in 1901 Size of population, 1,000 people Changes in population, 1,000 people Population growth in 1872-- 1901, % 1872 1881 1891 1901 1872--1881 1881--1891 1891--1901 1872--1901 Calcutta 507 633 612 682 848 ---21 70 166 215 34 How rah 577 84 91 117 158 7 26 41 74 88 Bombay 617 644 773 822 776 129 49 -46 132 20.5 Puna 915 119 130 161 153 11 31 ---8 34 29 Nagpur 928 84 98 117 128 14 19 11 44 52 Madras 984 398 406 453 509 8 47 56 111 28 Madurai 1,012 52 74 87 106 22 13 19 54 104 Tiruchchirappalli 1.045 77 84 91 105 / 7 14 28 36 Hyderabad 931 367 415 448 48 33 Lucknow 876 285 261 273 264 ---24 12 ---9 - 21 ---/ Varanasi 924 175 215 219 209 40 4 ---10 34 20 [202] Kanpur 772 123 151 189 197 28 38 8 74 60 Agra 882 149 160 169 188 11 9 19 39 26 Allahabad 875 144 160 175 172 16 15 -3 28 20 Bare illy 878 103 113 121 131 10 8 10 28 27 Meerut 802 81 100 119 118 19 19 ____ A 37 46 Delhi 817 154 173 193 209 19 20 16 55 36 Ahmadabad 910 120 128 148 186 8 20 38 66 55 Surat 935 108 110 109 119 2 ____ A 10 11 10 Baroda 853 116 107 116 104 ---9 9 -12 -12 -10 Amritsar 743 136 152 137 162 16 ---15 25 26 19 Jaipur 910 143 159 160 16 1 Bangalore 961 143 156 180 159 13 24 ---21 16 11 Patna 1,011 159 171 165 135 12 -6 ---30 -24 ---15 Srinagar 871 ... 119 123 4 . . . Total ** --- 4,087 4,425 4,843 5,136 338 418 293 1,049 25.7 * Towns with a population of more than 100,000 in 1901. ... . . . . ** The towns of Hyderabad, Jaipur and Srinagar were not included in the results owing to incomplete data. [203] urban-type layout; the latter description left plenty of room for arbitrary interpretations, all the more so since the features of municipal administration characteristic of the town were ignored. The 1891 census stipulated that the specific nature of employment should be taken into account as well: in a town the number of inhabitants engaged in trade and industry should be higher than the number involved in farming; the criteria were introduced of the existence of municipal administration responsible for running the town and ensuring sanitary conditions there. In the 1901 census the criteria previously established were used; the ultimate right for any populated point to be recognised as a town remained with the superintendents organising the census on the spot. In 1911, the census organisers acted in the same way as in 1901; it is known that in the principalities, for example, some populated points were recognised as towns which did not answer to the town criteria; the census report indicates that this was done for some special reasons. In 1921, the superintendents sometimes recognised as towns settlements with more than five thousand inhabitants as well. In defining a town, the organisers of the 1931 census used the criteria formerly accepted; importance was attributed to the housing density, the historical past of the populated point, and the occupations of the population; they avoided counting as towns out-sized villages with a population of more than five thousand but with no urban features. Towns with approximately 100,000 inhabitants and more were given the common name of ``city'' in contradistinction to smaller towns, which were called ``town''. The 1941 census did not introduce any changes into the registration of the urban population. The territorial expansion of a big town was only registered sometimes miring one census or another. Errors in registration extended to the final count of the population of towns and especially to that part of the results which incorporated towns with under ten thousand inhabitants and under twenty thousand.
Therefore, it is not the census data on all of the urban population that most precisely reflect the main principles governing urbanisation in the period examined, but the indices referring to towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants; here errors could not possibly occur owing to vagueness in defining whether they were towns or villages. The urbanisation process can be better judged from data 204 referring to towns with a population of more than one hundred thousand.
As evidenced by the figures in Table 23, the population of India's cities over the last three decades of the 19th century grew by more than 25 per cent. Over that period the entire population of India (within the frontiers of that time but without the territories annexed to it after 1872) increased by only 21.7 per cent. Thus, in 1872--1901 the big towns were growing more rapidly than the country's population; this is all the more indicative that the natural population growth in the towns with their slums, epidemics, famine, and poverty was evidently half the natural population growth outside the towns at that time. The relative overpopulation of the non-urbanised part of the country continued to increase on account of the pauperised masses of the peasantry. Migration to the towns and cities was a characteristic feature of the epoch, typical of capitalist development.
The faster a town grew the more marked becams the ratio of the sexes. As already mentioned, mostly men moved to the towns and cities. K. Davis cites the following data on the male/female ratio in towns of various sizes, calculated by him from the data of the 1901 census:
Towns according to size, thousands Under 10 10--20 20--50 50--100 100--500 More than 500 Number of men per 100 women 105 106 110 111 116 156From the beginning of the 20th century urbanisation in India began to develop apace. Most of the old, feudal towns had completely declined by that time, and the growth of the urban population was now determined almost exclusively by the development of capitalism.
The overall urbanisation rate in India in the 20th century can be seen from the following comparison: the country's entire population within its present frontiers grew to 446 million or 187 per cent from 1901 to 1981, and the population of the towns grew by 133 million or 521 per cent. This means that the urban population grew at double the rate of the country's population as a whole over that period (Table 24).
Urbanisation went ahead rapidly but on a relatively low level; the share of town dwellers in India today is only one 205 Table 24 The Size and Growth of 'the Urban Population in 1901--1981 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 '-,25.6 11.0 '25.6 10.4 27.7 11.3 33.0 12.2 43.6 14.1 61.6 17.6 77.6 18.3 107.0 20.2 156.2 23.7 0.0 2.1 5.3 10.3 18.0 16.0 29.4 49.2 - 0.1 8.2 19.1 32.1 41.5 25.8 37.9 46.0, Note. Urban population excluding that, of the^states of Assam, Jammu and Kashmir owing to the incomparability of data. In 1981, the figures for the towns of these states were thought to be the following: 1.7 and 1.1 million people. In this case, the total urban population of the country in 1981 was 159 million and the total proportion 23.3 per cent. quarter of the entire population. In Japan, the level of urbanisation is thrice this, and in Britain three and a half times higher. The population of the Indian towns has been continually growing from decade to decade in the 20th century, especially from 1921 to 1981. This directly depended on the incentives that the First and Second World Wars provided to Indian industry to develop and on the influx of refugees into the towns and cities after the partitioning of the country in 1947. On the whole, the urbanisation universally stems from the development of capitalism in the country.
Although the urban population has grown comparatively rapidly in all areas of the country over the last few decades, the growth rates in the different states varied greatly. The figures for the colonial period from 1921 to 1947 are given in Table 25.
After India gained independence, the country's government began to concentrate on urbanisation for it understood the economic and social significance of this process and tried to channel it in the right direction.
In India today where a multisectoral economy, which has taken shape historically, is still significant, and its huge population is still in the grip of poverty, intensified by the 206 Table 25 The Growth Rates of the Urban Population in the States of India (in per cent for each decade) * Census year Urban population Growth of urban population million % of entire population million % of previous census State 1921--1931 1931--1941 1941--1951 Assam 30.2 30.5 65.9 Orissa 12.2 14.7 26.6 Bihar 21.8 34.2 37.8 Madhya Pradesh 21.7 26.4 29.7 Kerala 42.6 26.5 55.2 Punjab 29.6 36.7 25.1 West Bengal 15.1 64.1 32.6 Tamil Nadu 19.8 25.6 40.5 Maharashtra 1 Gujarat / 11.6 27.4 62.1 Karnataka 18.8 28.4 60.3 Uttar Pradesh 12.8 26.1 22.9 Rajasthan 17.6 22.6 39.7 Total urban population 18.4 31.1 41.2 * States taken within the 1961 frontiers. No comparable data are available for the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh. colonial past, the problem of finding a job is a vital one. The development of^he towns and cities with their industrial base offers employment opportunities, though inadequate when compared with the needs of a society with such colossal agrarian overpopulation. The towns and cities are not in a position to provide jobs for all those who move there; in the conditions obtaining today it would actually be useful to develop industry in the villages which would provide jobs for people on the spot, thereby cutting down the migration to the towns and cities. Here it is a question of the cottage industries which are traditional in the Indian village. In India it is called ``small-scale industry''. According to the five-year plans, the subsidies for the development of this small-scale industry are being increased all the time: thus, the fourth five-year plan allotted six times more subsidies than the first plan.
The limited means for industrial development in the towns and cities and the incentive to ``small-scale industry" in the countryside is acting as a brake on urbanisation and thereby hampering the progress of society. Nevertheless, the towns and cities are continuing to grow. The absolute and relative growth of the urban population is one of the 207 typical demographic regularities in India today. There are already giant cities in that country with all the characteristic features of conurbations. Whereas only one-fifth of the population lives in all the country's towns and cities, fourteen per cent of the entire population and 52.4 per cent of India's urban population are concentrated in cities and big towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The growth of the towns and cities was hardly noticeable before the twenties; since then mainly the big towns have been expanded.
All the Indian censuses of this century divide up the towns and cities into six classes, depending on the number of inhabitants: Class I---100,000 and more, Class II---from 50,000 to 99,999, Class III---from 20,000 to 49,999, Class IV---from 10,000 to 19,999, Class V-from 5,000 to 9,999, and Class VI---less than 5,000. The criterion of populousness is the main one in demographic statistics throughout the world and remains the most important feature in defining towns and cities today.
An analysis of the universal population censuses and UN publications allows us to picture the dynamics of urban population growth in the 20th century in the world as a whole and in three countries---India, the USSR and the USA (Table 26, all figures are rounded).
Table 26 The Urban Population of the World and Three Countries, Numbers and Share of Entire Population World India USSR USA Year million % million % million % million % 1900 220 13 26 11 18 15 30 40 1940 570 25 44 14 63 33 74 56 1980 1,807 41 159 23 163 63 165 73As can be seen, between 1900 and 1980 the urban population of the world increased eightfold and its share of the entire population thrice. Over that period, in India it increased sixfold, in the USSR ninefold, and in the USA five and a half times; the share of town dwellers in the entire population more than doubled, quadrupled, and less than doubled, respectively. These ratios only make sense if the 208 social conditions are taken into account in which urbanisation is occurring, the level on which it is going ahead, and the results to which it is leading. If all this is not recorded there is no point to these indices.
In republican India during the 1951 census the former approach was retained, according to which a small populated point recognised as a town in one area could be considered a village in another, and vice versa; towns with a population of from 20,000 to 100,000 were called big towns, and from 5,000 to 20,000, small towns; if a settlement with less than 5,000 people was recognised as a town, it was called a ``township''.
The 1961 census introduced a new approach in defining towns, which has further been retained*. A populated point meeting the following requirements was recognised as a town:~
a population of not less than 5,000 inhabitants;~
an average population density of no less than 1,000 people per square mile of town area;~
the employment of no less than three-fourths of the population in non-agricultural labour~
the presence of some urban features determined by the state superintendent but not obligatory in certain cases.
This reappraisal has extended to towns with a population of less than 20,000 and led to more than eight hundred small towns with a total population of some 4.4 million now being recognised as rural settlements. The decrease in the number of towns has been made up for by new towns, which achieved the required status by the time of the 1961 census. The total number of towns in the country in 1951 was established retrospectively as 2,120, in 1961---2,461, and in 1971---2,921. The smaller towns respectively numbered: 1,584 in 1951, which comprised three-quarters of all the towns, 1,726 in 1961, and 1,964 in 1971, when small towns made up two-thirds of all the country's urbanised settlements, their total number of inhabitants reaching some twenty million (18 per cent of India's urban population in 1971).
India is not alone in having difficulties with defining the concept of a ``town''. It may even be said that in India and other developing countries it is easier to arrive at such a definition; the higher the level of urbanisation, the more difficult it is to define towns whose functional significance in society is changing qualitatively.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14---01392 209Towns and villages, urbanised and non-urbanised population constantly interact. ``An apparent paradoxical phenomenon is occurring as urbanisation gathers momentum: the very concept of a `town' is increasingly being transformed, and even being eroded, as it were. This erosion is occurring on different planes: economic, social, spatial, and demographic. Only the statistical and administrative definition of a town remains stable, but it also varies greatly by countries and is subject to change."^^1^^
Agriculture continues to develop as it becomes industrialised and is increasingly characterised by the manifestation Table 27 T. e Number oi Towns in the Country According to Republican Censuses Towns (total) 1951 1961 1971 1981 India 2,894 2,425 2,654 3,245 States 2,884 2.404 2,628 3,200 Maharashtra 373 239 257 270 Tamil Nadu 264 265 241 245 Gujarat 231 167 200 220 Karnataka 286 219 230 250 Punjab 111 107 106 134 West Bengal 84 119 134 130 Manipur 118 3? Andhra Pradesh 278 Haryana 62 Rajasthan 220 Madhya Pradesh 194 Kerala 94 212 207 234 61 65 77 141 151 195 208 232 303 92 88 85 Jammu and Kashmir 24 41 45 Meghalaya 1 Uttar Pradesh 462 244 293 659 Sikkim 1 Nagaland 1 Bihar 102 Orissa 39 132 161 179 60 78 103 Tripura 1 Assam 26 Himachal Pradesh 29 Territories 10 54 78 29 35 46 21 26 45 _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. S. Khorev, The Problems of Urbanisation To~day. The Marxist-- Leninist Population Theory, Ed. D. I. Valentei, Moscow, 1971, p. 366 (in Russian).
210 of urban elements in the life of rural society; for the towns the invasion of urban elements into village life is becoming more and more typical; it is becoming ever more difficult to delimit the urbanised and non-urbanised parts of society whose interaction and influence upon one another are growing and deepening. Urbanisation changes the idea of the value of different aspects of life, and also the demographic behaviour and indices reflecting it.Unfortunately, as far as the information on distribution of the urban and rural population is concerned, until quite recently this information only covered no more than 60 per cent of the world population. India is included in these 60 per cent, although the distribution figures hare are highly inaccurate. Even with the new stipulations of the 1961 census, 850 small towns in the Republic, i.e., one-third, had less than 75 per cent of people working in the non-- agricultural sphere; many towns did not have the required population size or density. Nevertheless, they were all registered as towns and not as villages on the strength of other essential features. The relative and vague nature of the demand that there be population of a certain size and that non-agricultural occupation predominate, is obvious; as far as the criteria of average population density are concerned, they are unsatisfactory. India belongs to the densely populated countries with an overwhelming rural population, the average density of which is approximately 150 people per square kilometre throughout the country; this figure varied from state to state in 1971 (rounded figures): Maharashtra---120, Tamil Nadu---230, Uttar Pradesh---270, Bihar---300, West Bengal---400, Kerala---480. But if the rural population may have a greater density than the urban onethen which side of the dividing line should the town be?
There are many small towns, but they are widely scat tered. On the map they form a narrow strip gripped between a very wide strip of rural population and strips of towns with from 20,000 to 100,000 and more inhabitants. According to the 1971 and 1981 censuses, only some 20 million people were living in the small towns. The nature of life in villages and small towns reveals a similarity (also a similarity in demographic behaviour) based on the community of labour processes or different phases of these processes. The elements of the new are poorly expressed in small towns and hardly have any impact on people's way of thinking, which has formed over the centuries, and on their ethical postulates.
__PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 211Noteworthy is the fact that from 1901 to 1981 the country's entire population grew 2.9 times, the urban population increased 6.1 times and the rural one 2.5 times. Over the same period the population of the small towns only grew 1.8 times. Obviously, population growth in the small towns lags behind that in all the towns and even behind that of the rural population. At the same time, there are no grounds for thinking that natural growth in these towns is slower than that in boundless rural India. Evidently, the small towns, like the villages, ``give up" part of their population to the larger towns, this boosting the populousness of the latter and causing a relative decrease in the inhabitants of the former; we have before us the phenomenon of absorption of the smaller towns by the larger ones.
But something new is coming to the small towns, for example, in the form of ``small-scale industry" enterprises or the state-sponsored ``industrial estates'', provided with the infrastructure needed for their functioning.
So, the numerous small towns in India are only pseudotowns, rural settlements less connected with the land than the villages but not having become bearers of the process of modern urbanisation.
When dealing with the medium-sized towns, we would like to group together all the settlements with from 20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants each, for there is no basic difference between towns with more or less than 50,000 people, although the censuses regard them as towns of Classes III and II.
In the overall share of the country's urban population, these towns comprised approximately one-fourth at the beginning and in the middle of the century and at present (1981); the total number of their inhabitants increased from seven to 41 million, proportional to the growth of the total number of town dwellers; the medium-sized towns were not only recipients of an influx of people from the countryside--- their population also received a certain increment from the small towns. All in all, there were 455 medium-sized towns in 1951, 622 in 1961, 815 in 1971, and 1,009 in 1981. Probably, a tenth of all the medium-sized towns (especially the least populated ones) do not now correspond to any of the criteria of urbanisation which the censuses used. But all the same, these are undoubtedly towns that have accumulated the experience of previous generations and have greater opportunities (compared with the villages) passing it on to new generations. They have some industries, 212 mainly the food and the manufacturing industry in general. True, most of the production techniques and technology with their inadequate labour productivity need updating; the low level of power consumption, one of the lowest in the world, is also hampering development. The smaller part of the working people are engaged in productive labour and there are many unemployed poor people. At the same time, some of these towns are flourishing as centres of industry, especially the mining industry.
Half of the people, who move to the medium-sized towns, settle in them. The ratio of men to women there is 10 : 9, which is more even than in the big towns and cities, but not as good as in the villages. Some of the country's large manufacturing enterprises have branches or specialised workshops in the medium-sized towns; in few of the towns there are new enterprises with a modern production cycle. Sometimes ``industrial estates" appear there, symbolising the development of urbanisation rather than being an expression of it. In setting up these ``estates'' the state sees their task as that of promoting traditional-style urbanisation; however, besides providing jobs and allowing the solvent population to make a living, industry in the medium-sized towns produces saleable goods, the threads of economic interests stretching from here to the universal Indian market, and urbanisation becomes progressive. The proletariat in the mediumsized towns is comparatively small, but sometimes makes its interests quite clear.
India's cities are the main scenes of urbanisation. Their progressive growth is accompanied by the formation of vast suburbs which then merge. The territorial expansion of a city is officially confirmed by a legal act, and then the entire urban agglomeration which has taken shape is considered by subsequent censuses as a single whole within the bounds of its extended territory. But the official recognition of the factual expansion of the city boundaries does not coincide chronologically with the census date and occurs considerably more rarely than the censuses. Consequently, the indices for the population of the country's cities are becoming less and less comparable. In actual fact, part of the population of a city is still considered by the given census as a rural population living outside the limits of the city, although, according to all its other features, it is an urban population; in the case of official recognition of the city's extended limits, the subsequent census already considers 213 those living on the outskirts of the city who were formerly regarded as rural population to be urban population; this has caused a ``jump'' in the population figures for big towns and cities. In accordance with this, the subsequent censuses retrospectively amend the number of towns of various classes in the past and also the number of inhabitants; this somewhat alters the ratios of the sizes, excludes accuracy, but gives a true picture of the whole.
The following figures reveal the population growth rates of all the towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants (in per cent for ten-year periods):
Years Years 1901--1911 1911--1921 1921--1931 1931--1941 5.6 17.1 23.9 03. 7 1941--1951 1951--1961 1961--1971 1971--1981 65.3 44.2 52.7 56.8Seven per cent of the country's entire population were concentrated in the cities in 1951, eight per cent in 1901, ten per cent in 1971, and 14 per cent in 1981.
The big towns and cities are of paramount importance as cultural and administrative centres. The structure of the entire urban working population can be seen from the indices characteristic of India's big towns and cities: approximately one-fourth of the population is engaged in the service sphere, approximately the same number in trade and the warehouse economy and almost the same number in the manufacturing industry. Overt and covert unemployment is widespread. Elimination of the slums is an urgent task.
The acceleration of urbanisation rates in the twentieth century ha^ not, however, led to a radical change in the ratio of the urban and rural population in India. Although the proportion of town dwellers has almost doubled over the last fifty years, all the same, less than one-fourth of India's population live in towns and cities, while in the most developed countries more than half of the population is concentrated in the towns and cities. The level of urbanisation in India, like many other demographic indices, bears witness to the fact that the grave consequences of two centuries of colonial oppression have by no means been overcome. Population movement throughout the whole of South Asia has resulted in a much greater increase in the rural population than in the population of towns. The abovesaid holds true for present-day India.
214 In evaluating the nature and level of urbanisation, data
on the distribution of the population by towns according to
the number of inhabitants are of great significance. When
evaluating the level of urbanisation in general, the UN
demographic service excludes towns that have less than 20,000
inhabitants. In actual fact, these settlements have more to
do with agriculture than with industry and, from the point
of view of a demographic study, they do not typify the
urbanisation process. The differences in the town criteria in
the census reports refer primarily to such settlements.
Therefore, when only points with a population of 20,000 and
more are regarded as towns, we dispense with the given
differences and obtain more comparable material. In India, to
exclude about 20 million people living in small towns,
means to diminish the urbanised population registered in
1981 by a seventh. In this case, the future level of
urbanisation can be calculated with the aid of the following
formula =
b = ' ~a-+- a, =
where a is the level of
urbanisation as a percentage of the entire population of towns with
20,000 inhabitants and more to the entire population of the
country; b is the level of urbanisation expected in five years;
it is also assumed that the present motive forces of
urbanisation would generally retain their character in the next
few decades, which is of course conditional.
The indices for the level of urbanisation in India in the . second half of the 20th century, calculated according to this formula, will be the following (in per cent):
1950 11.6 1975 17.0 1955 12.6 1980 18.2 1960 13.7 1985 19.5 1965 14.8 1990 20.9 1970 15.9 1995 22.3 2000 23.7In view of the conditional nature of the forecast and the roughness of the calculations, other rates of urbanisation are not excluded in India in the last quarter of the 20th century, but we venture to put forward the given indices as tentative ones in the development of India's towns. If the present actual level of urbanisation is close on 20 per cent, then by the end of the century the share of towns will expand and possibly incorporate approximately one-fourth of India's population. Both indices are somewhat lower than __NOTE__ End of this paragraph, from here ("those for the whole of South Asia and are half the present") down to end of paragraph moved here from page 218. those for the whole of South Asia and are half the present and expected indices for the whole world. If this is the case? then the demographic processes occurring in India will continue until the end of this century and beyond in conditions similar to the present ones, slowly becoming more and more like the conditions in the developed countries.
215 Table 28 India's Urban Population According to Town Classes: Number in Million People, Shareand Growth bet ween 1971 and 1981 in% Total urban 100,000 and more 19 81 population population lei fKl of ur-- ba ni-- sat lon 0 t Rro wt^i growth / `` million % million % % India 23 .7 156.19--- 46.02 94.29 60.37 56.83 100.0% States 1 . Maharashtra 35 .0 21.97 39.82 16.53 75.24 48.61 2. Tamil Nadu 33 .0 15.93 27.78 9.91 62.10 37.62 3. Gujarat 31 .1 10.56 40.82 6.11 57.92 66.54 4. Karnataka 28 .9 10.71 50.39 6.28 58.60 72.61 5. Punjab 27 .7 4.62 43.66 2-14 46.40 04.13 6. West Bengal 26 .5 14.43 31.61 11.09 76.84 42.48 7. Manipur 26 .4 0.37 163.77 0.16 41.70 55.07 8. Andhra Pradesh 23 .2 12.46 18.26 6.69 53.69 64.59 9. Haryana 22 .0 2.82 59.16 1.60 56.64 603.34 10. Rajasthan 20 .9 7.14 57.15 3.32 46.52 74.62 11. Madhya Pradesh 20.3 10.59 56.07 4.96 46.84 62.27 12. Kerala 18 8 4.77 37.63 2.53 53.13 '72.79 13. Jammu and Kashmir 18 3 14. Meghalaya 18.0 0.24 62.74 0.17 72.26 40.99 15. Uttar Pradesh 18 0 19.97 61.22 10.28 51.49 45.47 16. Sikkim 16 2 0.05 159.86--------- 17. Nagaland 15 5 0.12 133.84 '---'--- 18. Bihar 12 5 8.70 54.40 4.71 54.12 84.10 19. Orissa 11 8 3.11 68.29 1.29 41.63 83.00 20. Tripura 11 0 0.22 38.51 0.13 58.48 31.17 21. Assam 8 5 22. Himachal Pradesh 7 7 0.33 35.25 __ ____ ___ Territories 1. Chandigarh 93. 6 0.42 80.84 0.42 100.00 80.84 2. Delhi 92 8 5.75 57.73 5.71 99.32 56.66 3. Pondicherry 52 3 0.32 59.41 0.25 79.56 64.01 4. Lakshadweep 46 3 0.02 --- '--- --- 5. Goa, Daman, Diu 32. 5 0.35 54.88 » __ __ --- 6. Andaman and Nico-- bar Islands 26. 4 0.05 89.31 __ --- --- 7. Mizoram 25. 2 0.12 225.13---'------ 8. Dadra and Nagar"j Haveli 6. 7 0.01 __ --- --- M 9. Arunachal Pradesh 6. 3 0.04 129.73--------- 50,000--99,099 population 20,000--49,999 population 10,000--19,999 population million % growth % million % growth % million % growth % 216 18.19 11.65 51.22 22.41 14.35 28.41 14.86 9.52 24.03 1.31 2.55 5.95 15.99 19 44 .94 .29 2.39 1.99 10.88 12.52 36.60 5.92 1.34 1.18 6 7 .10 .40 5.59 ---4.42 1.53 0.69 14.53 6.46 32 17 .58 .89 1.41 1.90 13.37 17.75 19.59 73.59 1.08 1.47 10 13 .23 .74 12.58 6.79 0.61 1.56 13.28 10.78 21 19 .68 .80 0.98 1.11 21.31 7.71 40.80 5.30 0.51 0.50 11 3, .07 .46 15.35 ---8.47 --- --- --- 0.04 11.29 0.05 14, .64 2-01 0.31 0.72 1.91 0.45 16.17 10.82 10.05 18.00 9.52 79. ---56. 46, 173, -2 .62 .67 .95 .85 .09 2.61 0.42 1,57 1.30 1-52 20.95 14.80 22.02 12.24 31.86 48.50 -9.63 69.01 -3.60 38.02 0. 0. 1. 1. 0. 91 33 34 63 23 7, 11, 18, 15, 4 .32 .64 .74 .13 .79 -19.02 47.74 48.99 64.30 -34.87 2.54 12.71 89 .30 0.04 2.47 14.67 12.34 19.16 0.01 2.67 5, 13, .39 .35 -16.66 106.27 3--- --- --- 0.04 71.94 _ 1.25 14.38 1*00, .38 0.07 1.68 56.86 19.26 217.15 24.36 0. 0. 03 87 24. 10. .75 .04 -0.34 7.94 0.40 12.76 445. ,43 0.68 21.83 25.94 0. 53 17. 03 85.25 --- ------ --- 0.02 9.25 --- 0. 05 23. 13 -1.42 0.07 21.54 27. 29 0.04 12.49 91.79 0. 07 22. 17 10.32 --- --- --- --- --- f i--- __ --- --- --- --- --- 0. 01 0. 22 . ___ --- --- --- 0.04 13.73 66.41 0. 01 3. 68 ------ 0.21 60.12 256.37 0.05 13.38---58.27 0.04 11.18 126.66 _ _---0.05 100.00 d.08 61.88--------- 89.31--- ------ - 0.02 14.48 -- Note. Urban population except for the two states of Assam, and .Tammu states were assumed to be 1.7 and 1.1 million people respectively. and Kashmir owing to lack ot available data. In 1981, the figures for these 217 Table 28 (continued from p. 217) 5,000-9,999 population Loss than 5,0110 population i ?"- y ion /" growth % million % growth /<> India 5.64 3.61 15.44 0.79 0.50 60.74 States 1. Maharashtra 0.35 1.58 ---20.05 0.05 0.25 16.64 2. Tamil Nadu 0.28 1.76 ---18.76 0.02 0.14 -15.38 3. Gujarat 0.39 3.74 ---22.20 0.02 0.21 2.25 4. Karnataka 0.31 2.87 ---8.90 O.Ofi 0.58 ---29.64 5. Punjab 0.31 6.72 38.05 0.06 1.22 48.31 6. West Bengal 0.15 1.05 ---43.70 0.02 0.16 79.03 7. Manipur 0.06 16.72 98.89 0.06 15.65 499.70 8. Andhra Pradesh 0.22 1.75 ---31.38 0.01 0.12 -4. 03 9. Haryana 0.16 5.83 13.32 0.01 0.27 ---56.52 10. Rajasthan 0.19 2.61 ---39.54 0.0 0.06 ---74.68 11. Madhya Pradesh 0.81 7.67 18.60 0.01 0.12 ---54.75 12. Kerala 0.03 0.70 ---55.00 --- _ --- 13. Jammu and Kashmir 14. Meghalaya 0.01 2.55 ---31 . 64 0.01 5.13 --- 15. Uttar Pradesh 1 .73 8.65 194.05 0.29 1.46 909.39 16. Sikkim ---__ --- 0.01 28.06 125.50 17. Nagaland 0.02 18.39------------ 18. Bihar 0.18 2.02 ---34.85 0.16 0.18 -10.80 19. Orissa 0.20 6.31 ---16.32 0.01 0.44 65.11 20. Tripura 0.01 6.02 44.88 0.01 3.12 --- 21. Assam 22. Himachal Pradesh 0.06 19.72 35.89 0.08 24.08 51.50 Territories 1. Chandigarh ------ --- --- --- --- 2. Delhi 0.03 0.46 ------------ 3. Pondicherry 0.01 3.03 44.46 --- __ --- 4. Lakshadweep 0.02 100.0------------ 5. Goa, Daman, Diu 0.04 11.53 47.68 0.01 3.79 31.45 6. Andaman and Nico-- bar Islands ---__ _-- --- __ --- 7. Mizoram 0.03 23.64 382.16 --- --- --- 8. Dadra and Nasar ITaveli 0.01 100.00------ 9. Arunachal Pradesh 0.04 90.42 601.90 0.00 9.58 63. 7 218 Table 29 Expected Growth of the World's Urban and Rural Population by Regions in 1970--2000 Urban population, million Rural population, million Urban population, % Growth in 1970--2000, % 1970 1980 1990 2000 1970 1980 1990 2000 1970 1980 | 1990 2000 urban rural Whole world 1,354 1,807 2,422 3,208 2,256 2,567 2,857 3,046 37.5 41.3 45.9 51.3 137 35 More developed regions 703 834 969 1,092 384 355 325 295 64.7 70.2 74.9 78.8 55 a-23 Less developed regions 651 972 1,453 2,116 1,872 2,212 2,532 2,751 25.8 30.5 36.5 43.5 225 47 USSR 138 174 209 240 105 94 84 75 56.7 64.8 71.3 76.1 74 -29 Europe (excluding USSR) 318 369 423 477 180 167 155 142 63.9 68.8 73.2 77.1 50 -21 North America 159 183 212 239 67 66 63 57 70.4 73.7 77.2 80.8 50 -15 Oceania 14 18 23 27 6 6 6 6 70.8 75.9 80.4 83.0 93 0 East Asia 265 359 476 622 662 728 757 748 28.6 33.0 38.6 45.4 135 13 South Asia 217 330 516 791 845 1,047 1,256 1,397 20.4 24.0 29.1 36.1 265 65 including Middle South Asia 144 215 336 518 597 739 886 983 19.4 22.5 27.5 34.5 260 65 Latin America 162 241 343 466 121 131 142 154 57.4 64.7 70.7 75.2 188 27 Africa 80 133 219 346 271 328 305 468 22.8 28.8 35.7 42.5 332 [219]The level of urbanisation varies in different regions of the Republic. Even now it is noticeably greater in such industrially developed states as Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Punjab, Karnataka, and less in other states. Further unevenness in the development of the states may lead to the fact that some of them will be coming close to the average world level of urbanisation, while others are lagging further behind. This in turn will mean a large gap in the demographic indices for the states within the bounds of a single country.
The urban population in India more than doubled in the first half of the 20th century, and has increased sixfold. In the United States, in the period when its economy was flourishing, it took a quarter of a century for its urban population to double. In England and France it took almost seventy years. Thus, the urbanisation of India is going ahead at medium rates.
The prospects for the global process of urbanisation before the end of the century are reflected in the UN indices proposed by the World Population Conference in 1974. It is quite possible that these indices will be generally confirmed, but even now their exaggerated nature is obvious. In particular, in the section of developed regions there are no grounds for envisaging a total population of more than 300 million people in the USSR by the year 2000; correspondingly, both parts of the growth forecast should be less. The very division of the way of life into urban and rural is becoming less essential and may possibly completely lose its present significance; the impact of urbanisation on demographic processes will become almost the same everywhere. The above-said largely applies to all the socialist countries. The indices relating to the developed capitalist countries also give rise to some doubt; current information on the natural population movement in these countries suggests that growth should be expected to be less than the UN forecast, especially in the urbanised sphere.
In the section on the developing countries, the figures for urbanisation in Africa, like those for the growth of that continent's entire population, seem to be overstated. The figures for the whole of South Asia and its middle part where the Republic of India is situated, seem to be more convincing. However, the corresponding figures for India will evidently be lower than forecast and this diminishes the figures for the given regions owing to the large share of that country.
220All the above-said points to a decrease in world urbanisation indices compared with those forecasts.
The planning commission of the Indian government suggested at the beginning of the sixties that the proportion of the urban population in the country would steadily grow, so that by 1980 it would comprise 33 per cent of the entire population, i.e., more than two hundred million people or two and a half to three times more people would be living in towns than in 1961. This was evidently an exaggeration.
Table 30 Forecasts for Urban and Rural Population Growth in India in 1961--1971 Compared with the Census Results (million) Countryside Towns men women total men women total 1961 census 183.42 176.44 359 .86 42.35 35.79 |.78 .14 Forecast for 1966 204.60 196.82 401 .42 48.13 41.99 90 .12 Forecast for 1971 229.45 220.71 450 .16 55.31 49.20 104.51 1971 census 224.73 213.85 438.58 58.52 50.26 108.78From 1961 to 1971 the economic journal of the Indian National Congress Party foresaw population growth in the towns as 33.75 per cent, i.e. a further decrease of 5.5 per cent in the urbanisation rates compared with the 1951--1961 decade (Table 30; in actual fact the growth in 1961--1971 was 37.9 per cent).
The figures forecast in Table 30 were obtained on the basis of three factors: the indices of the 1961 census; the demographic regularities that were observed in India's population in the fifties and supposed to operate in the sixties; the expected consequences of the government measures in the economic sphere and family planning which were to yield a definite result by the seventies. The forecast was close to the actual state of affairs; the differences were measured in units of a per cent. Thus, it may be said that the extent of urbanisation in the country by the 1970s was estimated sufficiently accurately.
Considerable attention was paid by the Indian press to the drop in the urbanisation rate from 1951 to 1961 and to the decrease in the influx of people into the towns and cities. The reasons for this were given as the cessation of the 221 Table 31 The Growth of India's Cities in 1911--1981 States in 1981 Cities Population, thousand 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 Changes in si/.e of population, thousand Women per 1,000 men Growth tlious. 1981 1911-- 1921 1921-- 1931 1931-- 1941 1941-- 1951 1951-- 1961 1961-- 1971 1971-- 1981 19G1 1971 1981 1911-- 1981 West Bengal Maharashtra Calculta 1,0131 Greater Bombay 979 1 ,8202,0553,4004,4905 ,2751,3001,6602,9944 ,8107 ,1525 ,005 ,969 Poona 127 164 198 278 600 737 853 Nagpur 101 145 215 302 485 690 866 Sholapur 61 120 145 213 277 338 398 Tamil Nadu Madras 519 527 647 777 1,4161 ,7292 ,470 Madurai 134 139 182 239 362 425 548 Delhi Territory Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Gujarat Delhi Bangalore Hyderabad Ahmadabad 414 89 501 214 488 119 404 271 636 172 467 310 918 407 739 591 1,4372 7861 1,1261 8771 ,3593 ,2071 ,2511 ,2061 ,630 ,648 ,799 ,588 Uttar Pradesh Kanpur Lucknow 179 252 216 241 244 275 487 387 705 497 971 656 1 ,273 826 Varanasi 204 198 205 263 356 490 583 Agra 185 186 230 284 376 509 638 Allahabad 160 146 174 261 332 431 514 Rajasthan Bihar Jaipur Patna 137 136 120 120 144 160 176 196 291 283 403 365 613 490 Jamshedpur 6 57 84 165 218 328 465 Madhya Pra-- desh Indore 45 93 127 204 311 395 573 Punjab Amritsar 153 160 465 391 336 398 433 Sources: table compiled from 1911--1981 census reports; towns taken witli a population of more than 300,000 in 1901. flow of refugees from Pakistan which had had a great impact on the growth of towns at the end of the 1940s; the extension of employment in the countryside in the course of carrying out the programme for development of the community, in particular as a result of the development of smallscale industry and cottage industries; the government-- planned decentralisation of large-scale industry; the lack of living accommodation in the cities; the improvement of transport which allowed part of those employed in the towns and white-collar workers to live outside the cities; the growth of the suburbs (the industrial ``belts'' around the cities), whose population, having already been drawn into the industrial life of the town, is counted as living in the villages and officially registered there. All these reasons are valid 222 9,166 807 235 1,3451,0901,320,1,1952,161 612 701 783 8,153 8,227 296 25 3601,334 1,1581 ,8172 ,258 663 717 773 7,248 1,685 37 34 80 322 137| 116 832 870 879 881 1,558 1,298 44 70 87 183 205' 176 432 886 900 910 1,197 514 59 25 68 64 61: 60 116, ,902 911 933 453 4,277 8 120 130 639 313 7414 ,277 901 902 930 3,758 904 5 43 57 123 63 ! 123 356 952 949 954 770 5,714 74 148 282 519 9221 ,2712 ,114 777 798 808 5,300 2,914 30 53 235 379 421'! 4411 ,266 874 875 893 2,825 2,528 -97 63 272 ;87 125' 548 729 929 927 920 2,027 2,515 57 39 281 386 329 382 927 804 834 868 2,301 1,688 37 28 243 218 266 302 415 739 762 810 1,509 1,007 -11 34 112 110 159 170 181 789 809 832 755 794 -6 7 58 93 134 93 211 812 826 844 590 770 1 44 54 92 133 129 132 824 839 854 585 642 -14 28 87 71 99 83 128 778 785 814 482 1,005 -17 24 32 115 112 210 392 856 856 867 868 916 -16 40 36 87 82 125 426 769 790 816 780 670 51 27 81 53 110 137 205 784 801 846 664 827 48 34 77 107 84 178 254 851 861 887 782 589 7 305 -74 -55 62 35 156 789 831 838 436 in various combinations, supplementing one another, and have, taken as a whole, acted as a brake on the growth of the towns and cities. But, compared with the colonial period, the natural growth of the urban population was on the increase.
[223] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 10 __ALPHA_LVL1__ LITERACY AND EDUCATIONLiteracy and education are necessary prerequisites for any country's social progress. In India today, both of them are of special importance, for the 200-year-long domination of the English colonizers has resulted in two-thirds of the population of that country not being able to read or write even now. In this age of scientific and technological progress, the poorly educated person cannot even work successfully in any occupation. It is known that learning lasts for a lifetime and is passed down from generation to generation as people's eternal striving for perfection. If this process has been restrained from without, its acceleration is only possible through the successful efforts of the masses of the people.
India is a country with a great and ancient culture. ``For many centuries before Christianity appeared, religiousphilosophical systems emerged in India which were to have a mighty impact on the intellectual and social life of the peoples of Asia in their own time. Indian literature has existed for approximately three millennia now. The subjects of this literature have long been known throughout the world and have become an inexhaustible source of inspiration for subsequent generations of artists, sculptors, writers, and actors."^^1^^ Indian mathematicians invented the decimal system which was later spread throughout the world by the Arabs, the signs of which we use today as Arabic numerals. In India differential calculus was discovered much earlier than in Europe and was used in astronomy which had reached unprecedented heights by that time. Even now in _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. K. Kudryavtsev, ``On Popular Education in Ancient India'', Trudy Institute, etnografii, New Series, Vol. XV (Indian Ethnographic Miscellany), Moscow, 1961, p. 80 (in Russian).
224 medicine Indian therapy and pharmacology have a significance of their own. It was precisely in India that linguistics emerged as a science when the famous work by Panini, the grammar of the Sanskrit language, appeared which is, according to Academician F. I. Shcherbatsky, ``so complete and perfect that subsequent studies of grammar in the course of millennia could not add anything to it".^^1^^By the end of the Vedic period, i.e., by the middle of the first millennia B.C., a definite system of people's education had taken shape in India, the traditions of which are important even today. Brahmanism asserted that man is born with certain obligations, including the obligation to study which does not, however, extend to all castes: the Sudras do not necessarily need to study, but for all the higher castes, i.e., the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas, in ancient times it was considered a religious duty to obtain an education. Tuition began at the age of eight to ten years and was marked by a special religious rite. Schooling continued up to the age of 20 and older.
Teaching at all stages^ was oral. In the beginning, the pupil listened to and learned by heart the words of his tutor, the iirst verses of the sacred hymns; gradually, the range of subjects widened and their interpretation became more profound but the tuition remained oral, leading, if not to the extensive development of the mind, then to the development of the memory. Moreover, Chinese scholar* who visited India noted not so much the. remarkable ability of Indians to memorise things, as the extent to which they were able to interpret and explain what they had learned. At a certain stage of learning the element of writing was introduced, but little used in practice. More often the pupils had to read a number of texts limited in their content, for example religious or moralistic. Buddhist monks reaching on a high level are known to have listened to and remembered word for word long scientific treatises without the help of any notes. This ability to memorise the text was similar to the ability of musicians to remember extremely long scores, and of chess players to remember a game without looking at the board. India's ancient and later literature was written in verses, whose metre made them easy to remember; one example is Panint's grammar. The primarily _-_-_
~^^1^^ F. I. Shcherbatsky, The Scientific Achievements of Ancient India. Heporl on the Activity oi' the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1923, Polrograd, 1924 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15---01392 225 oral fashion of learning led to the extensive dissemination of knowledge among the people hy philosophers, various wondering holy men, scholars, and monks. They taught in the lap of nature, in the town parks and in the squares. They possibly used the teaching methods similar to those of Socrates.The written language has existed for a long time in India but its development cannot he traced sufiiciently completely owing to the lack of direct information. The hieroglyphic writings of Harappa and iMohenjo Daro date back lo the third millennium 13.0. and to a later period. Although the writings have not yet been deciphered, it is obvious that the Indians had already had a written language for a number of centuries before that, and consequently, there were people in the country who could read and write. Between Harappa and, the edicts of Ashoka there is a period of one thousand five hundred years which has left no written monuments. Panini, however, mentions the variety of languages spoken by the peoples of India; earlier, during the time of Buddha, more than W types of written language were known in the country, and Shakyainuny taught a system of writing. Before India developed as a nation, Sanskrit was always significant as a mighty integrating factor. The development of Prakrits oil the basis of Sanskrit reflected the advances made by the ethnically different peoples in the country and their progressive creation of culture. The languages of the Dravidian peoples of the south originate from the Chentami in which people were able to write before the appearance of Sanskrit. A parallel can be drawn between this process in India and the cultural development of the peoples of Europe for whom the ancient Latin, German and Slavic languages with their written forms were important for building their own national languages.
The subsequent development of the Indian written language is inseparable from the Buddhist monastery schools of various grades where the manuscripts were compifed on the basis of oral information. M. K. Kudryavtsev says: ``It is difficult to imagine that works on special branches of science created by one or several authors ... may become the property of subsequent generations solely by being passed down by word of mouth. It is more correct to suppose that initially a written original was compiled, or the written variant of these works was composed if not by the authors themselves then by pupils extremely close to them. These 226 pupils know the texts off by heart and demanded the same of their own pupils. When the manuscript got lost, the oral tradition preserved its content word for word, so it could be restored in written form."^^1^^ Thus, education, aided by a written language, was combined with the oral dissemination of knowledge.
The Indian traditional system of education has a number of other characteristic features. The tuition of young people was free of charge at all stages, depending on the class or caste to which the pupil belonged. The remuneration of the teacher consisted of contributions made by the pupil's family, and of the offerings of private individuals and the community. Besides, the pupils had to seek alms for themselves and their teacher. The process of teaching meant that the pupil had to leave his family for the family of the teacher or to live at school or university premises together with his instructors. The teachers traditionally belonged to the Brahmin caste. At all stages, from the initial one to higher school inclusively, tuition was individual, i.e., nr>t a group of pupils was taught but each pupil individually. Success depended on the abilities: there were no strictly set teaching terms, some went through the course more quickly, others more slowly; each learned in accordance with his ability. Special education was extremely varied; the Arthashastra lists many professions taught in ancient India, which increased as the country's economy developed. R. K. Mookerji already mentions dozens of them. Secondary schools with one or several teachers were usually situated in the country's populated points; many educational establishments with separate education for boys and girls were located in the towns. Extremely strict selection existed for would-be students at ancient universities. The fact is that traditional education in India set the student four goals: the shaping of a world outlook, of a definite character and moral qualities, physical development, and the acquisition of knowledge. The selection of applicants for universities was especially strict with regard to their moral and physical qualities.
Many of these traditions of ancient Indian education have been preserved in one form or another today.
Of the practical results attained by ancient education we can only guess. There is no definite information on what _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. K. Kudryavlsov, op. cit., p. 86.
__PRINTERS_P_228_COMMENT__ 15* 227 share of tho Indian population tho throe Jiighor casios comprised and how many of them received education. Buddhism is known to have been widespread for five centuries B.C. and to have facilitated the spread of literacy among the lower strata of society as well owing to its rejection of castes and classes and its message being equally addressed to all.The attempts of Indian scholars to determine the extent of literacy in ancient India led to the suggestion that threequarters of the population belonging to the higher castes were able to read and write and obtained some kind of education; at the same time, the Sudras were comparatively rarely literate. Even if it is assumed that not more than a third of the country's entire population belonged to the higher castes, then it may be considered that the number of literate people in India at the time of Ashoka was more than twenty million (assuming that about one-fifth of the population were children of an early age and that not all girls received an education). The 1'igure would not seem particularly large since India's population at the time, as mentioned previously, comprised approximately one-third of mankind. The actual number of literate people was probably much higher than tho ligures cited which may be considered to be the lowest. Initially, learning was also obligatory for women but, with time, the marriageable age came earlier, and women were prevented from continuing their education; but, all the same, there can be no doubt that the number of literate women was fairly large. In the period when Buddhism predominated, when the monasteries became the cradles of learning, Buddhist monks obtained obligatory primary education.
As Buddhism declined and Hinduism gained in strength an important change occurred: now Hinduism teaches that the only people for whom education is obligatory are the Brahmins, who are recognised as having a monopoly right to study the sacred Vedic texts and convey their content to others. Earlier, only the Sudras were forbidden to study the Veda, but now this prohibition was extended to two other castes, the Kshatriyas and the Vaisyas, who were, however, still given the opportunity to obtain a professional education in one sphere or another. The laws of Manu, the text of which dates back to the first centuries A.D., provided for an obligatory term of learning for the Brahmins alone. Nevertheless, literacy remained accessible to 228 everyone; only the subsequent stages of education depended on class or caste affiliation.
Soviet experts on India believe that literacy in ancient and medieval India was comparatively widespread for many centuries. The rough calculations of Indian scholars indicate that approximately half of the total number of Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas were literate in the middle of the first millennium A. D. Religious, philosophical and socio-political trends in India took on a mass character which indirectly indicated to the wide scale of literacy. The famous edicts of Ashoka which were written in different languages and different alphabets, can be found in all parts of India carved on stone pedestals or on rocks. They were addressed to the people and naturally presupposed that they could read and understand what they read. Chinese travellers and pilgrims to the shrines of Buddhism testify to the widespread nature of literacy in India after the seventh century A.D. In the period of Buddhism's decline they counted more than one thousand Buddhist monasteries, which had schools, and many of them even had large libraries. The monastery libraries were not only used for learning but also were a place where scholars worked.
The Moslem conquest of northern India was to a certain extent responsible for the decline in literacy. Not to mention the fatal consequences of the wars and unrest, the consolidation of Islam in India led to a certain decrease in the total number of people who could -read and write on account of the female part of the population. At the same time, a privileged right to literacy and education was established for Moslem men over Hindus. In the midst of Hindu society important changes occurred connected with the lowering of the marriageable age: in Vedic times a girl could marry at the age of 16 to 18 years, by the 12th century this age was usually 12--14 years and in the future, when the marriageable age was lowered to 7-9 years, education for women ceased altogether.
The characteristic stagnation of late Indian feudalism was responsible for the slower development of culture and the lower' level of literacy in the 12th-18th centuries. Statistical data do not allow us to measure the scale of this process. However, there can be no doubl about the very existence of such a tendency in Indian society with its extremely slowly expanding material base, the traditional 229 conservativeness of its productive methods and the dominance of its caste institutions and so forth.
With the invasion of the colonizers from the 18th century right up to the beginning of the 20th century the number of literate people steadily decreased. To begin with, in the 18th and the first quarter of the 19th century the English bourgeoisie did not bother about the system of education in India. As capitalism developed, however, the national consolidation of the Indians, especially in Bengal, began to acquire definite forms in new literary trends, in the formation of philosophical-religious schools, and in the class solidarity of the new Indian bourgeoisie. The coloriizers saw that it was time to direct the education of the multilingual peoples of India into the channel they desired. This meant that a European system of education was to be introduced in India.
In the mid-19th century the colonizers set about creating a system of education called upon to turn the small upper crust of Indian society into faithful servants of the English administration. Tuition in secondary and high schools was conducted solely in English, therefore education was only accessible to a limited number of wealthy Indians. The fact that, after the founding of Europeanstyle teaching establishments, According to A. I. Voyeikov, only 1.7 per cent of the country's budget was spent on education indicates the standard of popular education in colonial India. ``Not a single government in Europe, perhaps with the exception of the Turkish government, spends so little on popular education,'' noted Voyeikov in this respect.^^1^^ British education, the successes of which were advertised by the colonizers, hardly spread to the country's popular masses. At the same time, notwithstanding the desire of the British imperialists, it was through education that the foremost Indian intelligentsia became acquainted with and shared the progressive ideas of recent times. This was important for the national liberation struggle of India's peoples.
The indices for the literacy of ancient and medieval India in Table 32 are tentative. Relatively authentic demographic figures on education were revealed by the universal Indian censuses. Whereas the information of 1872 is confused _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. I. Voyeikov, ``India''' Proceedings of the Russian Geographical Society, Vol. XXIX, St. Petersburg, 1892 (in Russian).
230 Table 32 Literacy in Different Periods of India's History Total population, million Literates, total Literate men, % Literate women, % million o/ Ancient India (III B.C.---Ill A. D.) 120 20 17 27 7 Medieval India (end of 12t,h cent'iryj 100 9 ,9 15 ``3 Colonial India (end of 19th century) 300 18 '6 11 0.6 Modern India '' 1961 439 105 24 34 13 1971 548 161 29 40 18 1981 634 238 36 47 25 and incomplete, the censuses of 1881 and 1891 already tell us how many people are literate. In these censuses three categories of people are registered: literate people, those learning to read and write, and illiterate people; but from 1901 the second category was not registered separately and the entire population was divided into literates and illiterates. The censuses clearly define literacy since they include both signs of it: thel ability to read' and write, although in some countries a literate is someone who can read at least. In India during the population censuses, for example, in 1911, literacy was defined as ``the ability to write a letter and read a reply to it''. Unfortunately, the 1941 census does not give complete information on literacy and in this respect, as on some other points, the 1931 census remains the last most complete demographic report of colonial India.The censuses of the colonial period cite the following data on the literacy of inhabitants over ten years of age (in per cent).
Year of census Entire population Men Women 1891 6.1 11.4 0.5 1901 6.2 11.5 0.7 1911 7.0 12.6 1.1 1921 8.3 14.2 1.9 1931 9.2 15.4 2.4The results of the republican censuses indicate that these figures are sufficiently reliable.
231The 1891 census shows that approximately one-seventh of the population belonging to the higher castes and subcastes of society, included half the literate people in the country. Consequently, these strata of society account for about nine million literate people out of forty-two million, i.e., every fifth person could read and write then and two out of every five men. Since in this stratum of society education was not restricted simply to literacy, it may be thought that the number of people in India with some kind of education had reached several million in the late 19th century. It is quite probable that this figure more depended on changes in historical development than on the total number of literates.
Between the 12th and 19th centuries the share of literate men in India noticeably decreased. At the end of the 19th century, on average, only every ninth man could read and write. Literacy especially declined among women; by the end of the 19th century only one out of every two hundred women was literate; considering that most of the literate women belonged to the upper classes, it must be concluded that among the people at large a literate woman was an exception of the order of one or two in a thousand. The decline in the number of educated women in Indian society occurred over 1,500 years, reaching its lowest ebb after the 150 years of colonial domination. At no other time was the female population of India so poorly educated. At the end of the 19th century less than half a million girls out of India's multi-million population had obtained education in primary and secondary schools and in a few colleges. These are the actual results of the colonizers' ``civilising'' effort.
At the outset of the 20th century literacy gradually began to increase. This was directly connected with the national liberation movement, the development of the economy and the spread of a modern national culture. From 1901 to 1931 literacy increased one and a half times but still only ten per cent of the population could read and write.
The following figures taken from the 1931 census an* characteristic of the distribution of literate people by sex and age at the end of the colonial period. For every literate woman there were the following number of literate men:
All ages 6.1 5-9 years 3.2 10-l'i years 3.5 lfi-19 years Over 20 years 4.8 7.0 232From the data cited it can be seen that the ratio between literate men and women in 1931 was far from favouring women, especially in the older age groups. On the eve of the partition of the British provinces of India there were 178,000 schools for boys and only 25,300 schools (seven times less!) for girls.
The turning point in the fight with illiteracy was achieved in the post-war years, when the nation-wide upsurge in the anti-imperialist struggle and the winning of independence rocked the masses of the people. In 1951, 16.6 per cent of the population over five years of age were literate. In other words, every sixth person in India was already literate during the early years of independence; every fourth man and every thirteenth woman. Now (1981), every third person, slightly less than half of the men and one-fourth of the women, can read and write.
In 1951, the average proportion of literate men and literate women in all age groups over five years of age was 3.15 to 1, i.e., between 1931 and 1951, the ratio almost halved. In 1971, it became 2.15 to 1, while at the beginning of the 20th century there was only one literate woman to every 17 literate men. Literacy grew noticeably from 1951 to 1974; but its overall level has remained low, particularly against unprecedented population growth in India over these decades.
As noted, the 1951 census registered the ability to read and the ability to write separately; people were considered literate who were able to do both, as was later recommended to all countries by UNESCO. People who have an education are registered according to the diploma or degree they have obtained. Children under five were registered as illiterate. All people of more than five years of age were divided into literate and illiterate, and the former were classified in addition according to the level of their education. This was the approach to the registration of literacy in the 1961 and 1971 censuses. After the administrative reform of 1956, the 1951 census data on literacy were officially recalculated by stales within their new boundaries. The recount was carried out later on, too, as the boundaries changed (Table 33).
The number of literate people in India is greater than the total population of such countries as Japan, Indonesia or Brazil, not to mention countries with even smaller populations. Naturally, an army of 161 million literate people is a force to be reckoned with. But in India today only one-- 233 Table 33 Literacy in the Republic of India in 1951--1981 Number of literate people per 1.000 of the population of all ages 1951* 1961** 1971 1981 1971--1981 growth, % Total 1 Men Women Total Men Women Total Men Women Total Men Women India 166 249 79 240 344 129 294 395 187 362 467 249 23.1 Kerala 407 502 315 468 550 389 604 665 539 692 740 645 14.5 Maharshtra 209 314 97 298 420 168 392 513 260 474 589 351 20.9 Tamil Nadu 208 317 100 314 445 182 395 517 268 458 572 341 16.0 Gujarat 231 323 135 305 411 191 358 462 246 438 545 323 22.2 Manipur 114 208 24 304 451 159 329 462 192 420 529 307 27.6 Nagaland 104 150 57 179 240 113 274 344 192 420 492 337 53.2 Himachal Pradesh 77 126 24 171 272 62 320 423 200 419 524 314 31.2 Tripura 155 223 80 202 296 102 310 406 206 416 510 316 34.2 West Bengal 240 342 122 293 401 170 332 428 221 409 505 303 23.1 Punjab 152 210 85 242 330 141 337 401 258 407 466 341 21.0 Karnataka 193 291 92 254 361 142 315 419 208 384 48fi 278 21.9 Haryana In the state of Punjab 269 372 147 358 478 222 33.3 Orissa 158 278 45 217 347 86 262 384 138 341 468 211 30.3 Sikkim 73 128 13 123 196 43 177 254 89 338 436 221 90.7 Meghalaya In the state of Assam 295 329 237 332 370 293 12.6 Andhra Pradesh 131 197 65 212 302 120 246 333 156 299 391 205 21.9 Madhya Pradesh 98 162 32 171 270 67 221 328 108 278 394 155 25.6 Uttar' Pradesh 108 174 36 176 273 70 217 318 102 274 389 144 26.2 Bihar 122 205 38 184 298 69 199 306 85 260 378 136 30.4 Rajasthan 89 144 30 152 237 58 191 284 83 240 358 113 26.1 Assam 183 274 79 274 373 160 288 377 189 Jammu and Kashmir 110 170 43 183 264 91 * Excluding Jammu and Kashmir, Daira ar\d Nairar Haveli, Goa, Da nan, and Diu, Arunaolial, Pondiciierry. ** Excluding Goa, Daman, and Diu. [234] third of the population can read and write; the written word continues to be out of the reach of two-thirds of the Republic's citizens. The rate of annual increase in the number of literate people in 1951--1961 was 0.9 per cent for men, 0.5 per cent for women, and 0.7 per cent for the whole population. At this rate, the absolute number of illiterate people continues to grow, although the proportion of them is getting smaller. According to UN information, one-third of the world's present population, some one and a half thousand million people, can neither read nor write. In a sense, India continues to remain a country where illiteracy is increasing all the time. Indeed, on the territory of today's India, in 1650 there were probably more than 70 million illiterates, in 1750 more than 100 million, in 1850 more than 150 million, in 1901 evidently approximately 230 million, in 1961, 334 million, in 1971, 387 million, and in 1981, 436 million. From 1951 to 1961 alone the number of illiterates in India increased by 30 million, in 1961--1971 by 53 million, and in 1971--1981 by 49 million. It is obvious from these figures that illiteracy in India today is not being eliminated swiftly enough, although there can be no doubt that progress is being made in this respect.
The prevalent illiteracy in India, especially among women, is not quite the same as that of a population that has no culture and is hopelessly backward. The Indian people have inherited a great unique culture, created over millennia, and is preserving the vital part of this heritage.
The degree of literacy among the religious communities in India varies greatly. Information published on this is usually scanty and overdue. One comes across direct and indirect data scattered in the press. Insofar as can be judged, literacy in the Parsee community is almost universal; four-fifths of the Judaists and Jains can read and write, approximately half of the Christians, more than one-third of the Sikhs, but less than one-third of the Hindus are literate; the lowest figures are recorded among the Moslems where only one-fifth of the population is evidently literate.
The level of literacy varies greatly among people in the countryside and in the towns. More than half of the town dwellers are literate, and only one-fourth of the country people. If a comparison is made of the indigenous inhabitants of the towns and villages, literacy among them is even more uneven, both from the point of view of proportions and 235 the level of education. When the country was partitioned more rural regions went to Pakistan than urban ones; this slightly raised the percentage of town dwellers and literates in India. UN experts stress that primary and secondary education are an extremely important factor responsible for the movement of school-leavers from the rural to urban regions, in search of a job and a better way of life which their local surrounding cannot provide. The migrants are easily influenced by new ideas and are characterised by behavioural flexibility.
Literacy and education figures are not even throughout the country. There is a higher proportion of literate people in the coastal states, where the percentage of town dwellers is higher. Kerala leads in literacy, for approximately twothirds of its inhabitants can read and write and the ratio of literate men to literate women is almost even, 1.2 : 1. These two high indices cannot be attributed to Kerala's large urban population. It was only 19 per cent in 1981; the high proportion of religious communities with relatively high literacy plays the decisive role. In the Hindu community, among the Malayali people, the Nair caste, the main farming caste in Kerala, has long been distinguished for its literacy; they have their own schools for people of lower castes among whom primary education is considered obligatory. Among the Malayalis vestiges of the matriarchate, the inheritance of rights and property by women and not by men, imply greater literacy among the female part of the population. In Kerala the Christians comprise a quarter of the population, and literacy among them is double the average for the country; there are almost as many literate women as men, the reason for this being the higher marriageable age among Christian Malayali women than the average for the country. Literacy among the Judaists living in Kerala is a more widespread phenomenon than among the Christians; the district of Alleppi in Kerala has more literate people than any other region in India. In the town of Trichur more than 80 per cent of the inhabitants can read and write. The smallest number of literate people is found in the district of Palghat in Kerala, where the index is still higher than that for the country as a whole. More people of all categories and all ages are literate in this state than elsewhere in India.
In the coastal states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Karnataka, approximately two-- 236 fifths of the population can read and write. In these states the ratio of male/female literacy is more favourable than in the rest of the country. In the plantation and mining state of Assam, which absorbs more immigrants than any other state, one-third of the population is literate, with two literate men to every literate woman. A considerable urban population is characteristic of all these states, except Assam, and a capitalist, economy is developing in all of them to a greater extent than in the rest of India. Of the coastal stales Orissa and Andhra Pradesh stand out for their indigence. In Orissa only 12 per cent of the population are town dwellers and in Andhra Pradesh 23 per cent, but the proportion of the urban population, and especially of literates, decreases as you go further inland into the Deccan, into the backward regions of the former principality of Hyderabad.
The state of Punjab boasts the same level of literacy as the developed coastal states, which can be explained by the predominance of the Sikh community, noted for comparatively high literacy. As far as the valley of the Ganges, Central India, and especially the far north are concerned, literacy here is lower than in the rest of India. About onefourth of the population of the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh can read and write; these states are lagging behind in their level of urbanisation and in the rates at which the numbers of literates are being swelled, especially this refers to the districts situated north of the Ganges. The states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan differ little from the above-mentioned ones. In these four states the number of literate men is almost triple that of women. The same proportion is found in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where the share of literates has increased 1.7 times in the sixties, and the number of literate women has doubled, but the state still has the smallest share of literates among all Indian states. There are only two large towns in the state (Srinagar and Jammu) whose residents still include a considerable feudal stratum, which does not boast large numbers of literates. The contrast between the low level of literacy among Moslems and the traditional erudition of the Kashmir Brahmins attracts attention. Information on literacy in the state of Sikkim still remains incomplete; the level of literacy here is evidently close to that for India as a whole, which is historically linked with the spread of Buddhism.
237The index for literacy among the population of the entire territory of Delhi was fairly high in 1981: 61 per cent of the inhabitants can read and write and the ratio of literate men to literate women is 1.3 : 1. The high level of literary here can he explained by the specifically urban nature of the territory, especially when Delhi grew rapidly in the decades after it took over from Calcutta as India's capital in March 1912, and this was the result, especially in the republican period, of the influx of civil servants of the administrative apparatus, all of whom can read and write. The city is expanding as an industrial centre as well. The cultural and historical importance of India's capital as a centre of education is growing, too.
Not only have increasing numbers of people become literate in republican India, the accessibility of learning a,s a whole has been improved. The system of education inherited by the country from colonial times was partly changed and partly supplemented. The English language predominated in colonial schools. Today schooling is carried in the pupils' mother tongue; besides the native language, Hindi is a compulsory subject (in those states where Hindi is not the mother tongue), and then English is taught, both being of nation-wide importance and a must for every applicant for entry to institutions of higher learning. There are schools of two levels. First-level schools provide elementary education; such schools are divided into primary schools taking children aged six to eleven years (who have sometimes had a year of preparatory instruction) and secondary school with the sixth to eighth class for pupils aged 11 to 14 years. The second-level school provides secondary education in the ninth to eleventh classes where teenagers aged 14 to 17 years are taught.
In the years of independence the number of pupils at primary and secondary schools has grown markedly ( Table 34).
In the early years after the winning of independence some 40 per cent of the children aged six to eleven years went to primary schools. Consequently, the number of children who did not attend the primary schools was one and a half times more than that of schoolchildren. Only three out of every five boys and one out of every five girls went to school. The number of children in the classes for 11 to 14 year-olds was three times less than in the primary school; one out of five boys and one out of twenty girls. Very few 238 fl'able ii Tin- Nil in her of I'upils at India's Schools Million % of entire number of people in t'Weii age group Academic year 6-11 11--14 14--17 6-11 11--14 14--17 years years years years years years 1950/51 1955/50 1960/51 1965/00 1908/09 1973/74 (plan) 19.2 25.2 35.0 50.5 55.5 68.6 3.1 1.2 ll'J 3.0 5.3 0.0 9.7 42.0 12.7 5.3 52.9 10.5 7.8 62.4 22.5 11.1 76.7 30.9 17.0 77.3 32.3 19.3 85.3 41.3 24.2 4. 0. 10. 12 ffi.l young people, approximately one-twentieth of all the teenagers aged 14 to 17 years, among whom there were six times more boys than girls, obtained complete secondary education. At that time, schools in India gave primary education to about 19 million children, and complete secondary education was obtained by just over one million youths and girls. This means that only some four million children entered primary schools every year and even fewer completed all classes there. Ten limes fewer people, less than 40U,000, completed secondary schools than entered primary schools. A country in which a minority of children attend primary schools and only a tenth part of this minority obtains complete secondary education is doomed to stagnation and backwardness. Sovereign India could not reconcile itself to such a state of affairs. During the first and second fiveyear periods the situation improved. By the 1900/61 academic year the number of children going to primary schools had grown by approximately one and a half times, and now the majority of children receive primary education, although these are still less than two-thirds of the children aged six to eleven years. The percentage of boys in this age group attending school has risen to 80, so only one boy out of every five does not go to primary school now; but the girls are still in the minority, with only two girls out of every live going to school. Almost one quarter of all children aged 11--14 years (every third boy of this age and every ninth girl), i.e., twice the number in the 1950/51 academic year, completed the first stage of secondary education. Thrice as many as in the early years of the Republic have 239 begun to attend the senior classes of the secondary schools, some three million, but this is still only every eighth teenager aged 14--17 years, every fourth boy and every fourteenth girl of this age. Every year about one million people leave Indian secondary schools, of whom four-fifths are boys and one-fifth girls. Naturally, this is very few, only a quarter of a per cent of the entire population.
In accordance with the tasks staled in the third liveyear plan, by 19(5(5 some 50 million children were to attend primary schools. But this did not mean that primary education embraced all children: almost all the boys went to school, but forty per cent of the girls, or one-lil'th of all India's children, did not go to school. The government of India is introducing compulsory primary schooling, but it is not yet in a position to make secondary education compulsory for all children. It is expected that this will be achieved during the following five-year periods. For 1974, the following figures are available for pupils at India's schools as a percentage of the total number of persons in a given age group:
G-ll years Hoys 99.6 11--11 yejirs 1 'i-17 years 54.3 34.3 27.7 13.7 Girls 70.1Thus, only one out of every three boys and one out of every seven or eight girls complete secondary school.
Naturally, it should not be forgotten that India is faced with an enormous task. Its ever increasing body of schoolchildren (from the first to the eleventh class inclusive) is already close on 100 million, i.e., twice the population of France. In the Soviet Union in 1974/7,> the number of pupils at general education schools of all types was more than 49 million.
In India there are still not enough schools, and it is even more difficult to train the requisite number of teachers with the necessary qualifications. At the beginning of the seventies, the total number of the Republic's teaching staff in all schools was more than 2.1 million, of whom threequarters had the necessary education (in the USSR there are 2.4 million qualified teachers). Young women could help to boost the reserves of teaching staff, but the traditional idea of the teacher as a mentor and spiritual father is inseparably linked with the male image. In India there are few women with a teacher's education who have been trained
240 for such responsible activity; this is the direct outcome of women having over many centuries lesser opportunities for obtaining education, and so it needs time to correct the situation (in the USSR more than seventy per cent of the teachers and school principals are women).The number of pupils in the world grew especially rapidly from 1950 to 1960, but during the sixties these rates slowed down, although the figures were huge. Characteristically, it is precisely the developing countries that lagged behind: from 19(50 to 1908 the share of children going to school only rose from 24 to 28 per cent in Africa, from 3(5 to 45 per cent in Asia, and from 40 to 51 per cent in Latin America. More recent education statistics reveal a general tendency to decline. At the same time, the assumed increment in the contingent of schoolchildren aged 5-14 years from 1970 to 1985 is expected to be the following:
Numbers million 1970 198D Increment million ' Developed countries Developing countries 194 642 215 914 21 272 10.8 42.4At the moment, the application in education of the new aids opened up by scientific and technological progress still remains a thing of the future for the developing countries.
In 1964, a parliamentary Education Commission was set up in India to work out proposals regarding this question. The government of India formulated its policy for developing education in the country which was made public in the form of a government resolution in 1968, primarily on the basis of the Commission's proposals. Among the clauses of the resolution the following attract attention: compulsory education for all children up to the age of fourteen; the study of a native ``regional'' language, Hindi as the official language and English for communication; emphasis on the development of education in the sphere of agriculture and industry; readiness to invest up to six per cent of the country's national income in education. It was also noted in the Commission's report that only an insignificant minority had access to good education and so it was extremely difficult to discover and develop national reserves of gifted people. In actual fact, with the existing system of relations of production in India, the narrow national basis of the entire education service does not allow it to have a powerful impact on population movement.
__PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16---01392 241Only 0.76 per cent of the population are studying at India's higher schools. In every Indian state and in the territory of Delhi, there are universities, which offer general higher education, and in most states there is more than one university; all in all, there are more than one hundred universities in the country, of which half were founded after 1960. This reflects the expansion of higher education opportunities. The universities were attended by (in millions):
1950/51 1960/01 1973/74 0.36 0.89 3.00The last figure comprises 0.8 per cent of India's population in 1975, the first figure 0.1 per cent of the population in 1951; correspondingly they comprise 6.0 and 0.8 per cent in the ages from 17 to 23 years of age.
India's higher schools are continuing to train primarily practical workers. This one-sidedness in education is a heritage from the colonial past. The need for broad theoretical education for independent research work in all fields of knowledge has long been recognised. During the second five-year period approximately one-fourth of the students were trained to be scientific workers, mainly at the universities, by 1961, this number had risen to 30 per cent, by 1975 to 45 per cent. The universities differ greatly in the number of students attending them: Calcutta University, which is the largest, has some 245,000 students, at Madras 147,000, at Punjab University in Chandigarh 126,000, at the university in the town of Trivandrum 125,000 and at Bombay University 102,000 students; 65,000 are studying at Delhi University, and less than 15,000 at the Indian University in Benares.
On the whole, the outlays on primary, secondary and higher education approximately doubled under the third five-year plan compared with those of the second fiveyear plan. For primary schooling this expenditure has grown two and a half times. This process is continuing in an upward line, from outlays of more than one per cent of the national income in 1950/51 to nearly five per cent in 1975/76.
A connection exists between the growth of the population's culture and its movement, all the changes occurring in the social position of each and everyone. This link is not a direct one, it is expressed through the movement of people from one social class to another. The census does 242 not record these phenomena, it is therefore best to judge of them hy inference. In India, as in many other countries, sample surveys have been conducted to elucidate the connection between the level of education and the number of children in a family. The results indicate that there is no dependence for people who only have some kind of primary education. The level of education which may probably influence the level of fertility, according to UN experts, is ten to 14 years of instruction. This indicates a certain bias in the formulation of the problem: education is regarded as a means of lowering the birth-rate, which it is not in fact; in such surveys society's need for education as a means of more fully reproducing life itself is disregarded. Indian literature insists on giving children an education which would already make them regard small families as ideal at primary school.
In conclusion, it should be stressed yet again that the heritage of colonialism in the sphere of literacy and education has not by any means been done away with yet, although certain successes have been achieved in this respect. Mass illiteracy has complicated the solution of such vital tasks as raising labour productivity and mastering modern technology. The illiteracy of the population makes it easier for the reactionary circles to play their political game. In these circumstances, a considerable improvement in the cultural level, literacy and education of the people at large is a must for independent India's further progress.
[243] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 11 __ALPHA_LVL1__ POPULATION AND THE ECONOMYPopulation is the main productive force in society: it is man who puts tools and the means of production into operation, it is man who is the creator of all the material and spiritual values produced by society. At the same time, the development of the productive forces and the nature of the relations of production do, in the linal count, determine all aspects of the life of society, including the growth and structure of the population. In this sense, the study of population movement by demography is interwoven with the study of production by the science of political economy and by practical economy.
The labour potential of the Earth's population is continually gaining in strength. In the mid-eighteenth century the world's total work force comprised some 360 million people, a number almost equivalent to the present population of Africa. In the next 150 years it increased by approximately 350 million and by another 360 million in the following 50 years, so that by 1950 the world's work force numbered something like 1,070 million people. It is thought that between 1950 and 1980 the globe's manpower resources were swelled by some 710 million more people, i.e., by as many as in the preceding 200 years, while an increase of some 750 million people is expected in the remaining years of this century. At the present time, approximately half of the world's work force is to be found in the developing countries, one-third in the socialist countries, and less than one-fifth in the developed capitalist countries. These ratios look quite different if one takes into account the level of cultural development of the world's population.
The socio-economic structure of population changes as the productive forces develop and socio-economic formations alter. This problem must also be studied within the 244 framework of the Formal ions. Unfortunately, the data available only allow us to determine reliable quantitaUve indices for the social and production structure of India's population for the last few decades. While the country's population can be given but approximately for precapitalist times, it is quite impossible to establish, for example, how many peasants and artisans there were in Vedic times or how large was the class of feudal peasants during the movement of the Bhakti, or how many people belonged to the other classes. True, the following may be stated for certain: in those times India was a farming country in the sense that most of the population was engaged in agriculture in general, especially in farming, and that the national income was mainly comprised of the fruits of labour in agriculture. But we cannot precisely determine the comparative number of farmers and artisans in India, even on the eve of the European invasion of that country.
The concept of the types and results of employment of the population is so varied and complicated in its original and functional ties, that a reliable model of the concept has not yet been built anywhere, even for the developed countries. In modern censuses all the inhabitants of a country are asked about their economic activity, but the very formulation of the question frequently results in erroneous or questionable conclusions, since there is no single understanding of the category of employment. Therefore, the many-sided link between the labour processes and population movement can only be clearly defined and measured by taking sample surveys, especially with regard to the developing countries.
Prerolonial India is known to have had a fairly developed industry (in the precapitalist sense of the term) in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, far fewer people were engaged in industry than in agriculture. The tragic disappearence of India's artisan production as a result, of the arrival of the colonizers led to the decline of holh industry and agriculture. However, in the early stages of colonial rule, in the epoch of direct plunder of the country by methods of primary accumulation and also in the epoch of exploitation by industrial capital, a growth in the proportion of the population dependent on agriculture was observed in India, and a decrease in those engaged in industry. In the opinion of Yu. Kuchinsky, in the middle of the last, century ``probably half of the population were employed in agriculture, but by the end of the nineteenth 245 century, the number of those engaged in farming had already reached two-thirds, and at the present time (i.e., in the 1940s---V. P.) they comprise three quarters of the entire population."^^1^^
The first nation-wide Indian censuses were unable to present a complete picture of the social and production structure of the population. It was not the aim of these censuses to collect exhaustive information on the economic activity of the population. Such a task was of limited interest to the colonizers. For instance, it did not matter for the British bourgeoisie, who flooded the Indian market with cheap factory-made goods, thereby killing the handicrafts, whether the class of artisans was numerous or small in India.
Slightly more detailed information on the economic activity of the population appears in the twentieth-century censuses. The 1911 census report stated that of the total number of India's inhabitants (taken to be 306 million in unpartitioned India and the greater part of Burma---V.P.) 72 per cent were engaged in agriculture, 69 per cent of these in ordinary farming and three per cent in commercial marketgardening, in the cultivation of industrial crops, and in forestry and livestock breeding. Of the 217 million people connected with the ordinary types of farming, approximately eight million were landowners, 167 million were peasants working their own or rented land, and more than 41 million were farmhands of various kinds and the members of their families. In 1911, some 34 million people (workers and the members of their families) were engaged in industry (including handicrafts), some eight million in textile manufacture, and 1.8 million in the metal-working industry; transport provided a means of existence for some five million people, and trade for more than 17 million people. It goes without saying that all these figures are rough estimates.
As already noted, the most complete of the colonial censuses was that of 1931, but this census does not provide the necessary information.
The statistics regarding the population's economic activity have become considerably more informative in the censuses conducted in independent India. Naturally, in this respect _-_-_
~^^1^^ Yu. Kuchinsky, The History of Working Conditions in Crcnl Britain and the British Empire, Moscow, 1948, p. 237 (in Russian).
246 the data of the 1951, 1961 and 1971 censuses are also far from complete. They do, however, make it possible to determine the most important demographic indices regarding the social structure and economic activity of the population, while some of these indices can be compared with data from preceding censuses.Among the demographic indices defining the economic activity of the population, its distribution into self-- employed and non-self-employed is of primary importance. In the social and demographic statistics by self-employed people is meant that part of the population who are engaged in occupations that provide an income, or seek to gain an income. Farm and factory owners, who enjoy unearned income, are included in the self-employed population alongside with the small producers who farm using their own labour and that of the members of their family; unemployed and those serving in the military forces are also included in the self-employed population. About two-fifths of the world's population are considered to be self-employed, in India the share of the self-employed also forms slightly more than two-fifths of the total population.
In India, strictly speaking, there are no statistics on the self-employed population. Instead, the Indian censuses register working people (employed) and non-working people. By working people are meant all those who have a definite source of livelihood, are doing some kind of work, which is producing something and bringing in an income. People are considered to be working if they have been employed for at least 15 days before the census data; this category also includes the sick and the absent who had worked for a minimum of 15 days before they fell ill or moved away. In the 1971 census this period was cut down to one week. Anyone who had worked regularly throughout the greater part of the season, even if it was only for one hour per day, was considered to be employed on seasonal work.
All the rest of the population were considered to be not working: those studying (schoolchildren and students); pensioners, including those receiving special pensions; all dependants, engaged in housework, mainly women whose work does not produce anything for outside use; children under 15 years of age; over-sixties; sick people, convicts, people who had previously been employed, but were not working at the census date; people living on an undefined income; beggars. But all these categories of non-working 247 people are considered to be working if they have permanent or seasonal earnings.
This classification differs from the division of the population into self-employed and non-self-employed mainly with regard to the unemployed. Here a person who is engaged in seasonal work, even if it is only for one hour per day, is not considered unemployed, but working. Just like the statistics for the self-employed population, the Indian censuses include non-working elements among those working. Thus absentee farmers or rentiers, who enjoy the income, but do not participate in the productive labour, are considered to be non-working people. But they are included in the category of working people if they take part in farming, industry, and trade even as supervisors, organisers or managers. Social, political and party functionaries are considered to be working people if they are working in their own sphere of activity. On the whole, the classification of working and non-working people is similar to the division of the population into self-employed and non-self-employed.
Table 35 Working Population of India (within present frontiers) Table 36 Working people Working people IT lillion % m illion % 1901 1951 Total 111.4 46.6 Total 139.5 39.1 Men 74 . 1 61 . 1 Men 99.1 54.0 Women 37.3 31.7 Women 40.4 23.3 1911 1961 Total 1 21.4 48.1 Total 182..> 43.0 Mon 79.6 61.9 Men 125.0 57.2 Women 41.8 33.7 Women 57.6 27.9 1921 1971 Total 17.9 46.9 Total 180.7* 34.2 Men 77.8 60.5 Men 144.5 52.8 Women 40.1 32.7 Women iti. 3 14.2 1931 1981 Total 120.6 43.3 Total 247.1* 37.5 Men 83.0 58.3 Men 180.8 53.2 Women 37.6 27.6 Women 66.3 20.8 * Taken Into account were those who were employed for the greater part of the year preceding the census (eight-ninths) and the lessor part of the year (one-ninth); there are no data available on the states of .Famnm and Kaslimir, and Assam for 1981. 248Although the data in Table 35 reflect not only the actual population movement, but also the change in classification, all the same they do evidence a tendency towards a certain increase in the non-working population from 52 to 53 per cent at the beginning of the century to 57--60 per cent in 1951--1961 and even to 66 per cent in 1971. This tendency depends to a degree on the growth in the share of children (under 15 years) and the decrease in the proportion of adults (15 to 60 years) in the country's population; this tendency was less pronounced during the sixties, when perhaps twenty million children were not allowed to be born owing to birth control measures, but the 1971 census showed an increase in the share of those not working. A certain drop in their numbers was noted in the 1981 census. There are no grounds for believing that the population became alienated from social labour to such a great extent during the sixties. It is, however, true that the approach to determining working and non-working people changed and this resulted in a larger index for the non-working part of the population numbering as many as two-thirds of all those living in the country.
Employment in India in 1981 (per cent of all employed) Employed most of the year Employed lesser part of the year Considered non-working Total Total 33.4 4.1 62.5 Men 51.2 2.0 46.8 Women 14.4 6.4 79.2 Rural Total 34.8 4.7 60.5 Men 52.2 2.1 45.7 Women 16.5 7.4 76.1 Urban Total 29.2 2.2 68.6 Men 48.2 1.5 50.3 Womi'ii 7.6 3.1 89.3However, the indices cited do not give a true picture of employment. Therefore, the extent of labour's influence on the movement of population, on the various demographic processes and phenomena can only be defined approximately and imprecisely with the help of census data. This is particularly true of the female part of society, among whom only 13 per cent were registered as working in 1971.
249According to the data of the UN International Labour Organisation, by 1975 the total number of people engaged in the economy throughout the world was approximately 1,640 million people out of the total population of 4,000 million; 560 million women were engaged in the economy, i.e., one-third of all those employed. There can be no doubt that those active in the economy do in fact incorporate those who do not actually work, while those involved in social production remain unregistered; all this results from the indefinite and inexact manner of determining the extent to which the population is involved in labour processes. Nevertheless, the indices are of certain importance for comparison. In particular, women gainfully employed in the economy were distributed regionwise throughout the world in 1975 in the following manner:
Whole world More developed regions Europe (excluding USSR) USSR North America Japan Temperate zone of Latin America Australia and New Zealand Less developed regions East Asia South Asia Latin America (excluding temporate /one) Oceania Million A) 561.6 100.0 198.3 35.3 71.9 12.8 65.4 11.6 34.1 6.1 21.6 3.8 3.3 0.6 2.0 0.4 363.3 64.7 158.7 28.3 142.1 25.3 16.2 2.9 0.7 0.1The indices cited indicate that there are twice as many gainfully employed women in the developing countries as in the developed ones, while South Asia accounts for approximately one-fourth of their total number of 142 million. Within the region, India accounts for half of this number for it has more than 70 million gainfully employed women; if we follow the 1971 census approach, there should have been only 40 million of them by 1975. The conclusion is appropriate that the indices for working women in India provided by the 1971 census are probably almost half the actual figures. The 1951 census gives 23.3 per cent, the 1961 one---28.0 per cent, and the 1981 census almost 21 per cent; this also indirectly confirms the conclusion drawn. The actual involvement of Indian women in socially useful modern labour is far greater than indicated by the country's last census and 250 therefore the impact of modern labour processes on the reproduction of the population and other types of population movement is also considerably more telling than it would appear from the census data.
The UN international convention of 1951 on equal pay for equal work for men and women is well known; in 1975, some 85 countries joined the convention and ratified it, among them the Republic of India. Unfortunately, the principle of equal pay for equal work is still not observed in most developed and developing countries, including India. This considerably lessens the results of the gainful employment of women and the effect of labour on demographic processes in the country.
In the future, the indices for the share of working women throughout the world and in South Asia will be the following (%):
Whole world More developed regions Less developed regions Whole of South Asia Middle South Asia 1970 1980 1990 2000 34.2 33.7 33.3 33.3 38.4 38.6 38.7 39.4 32.2 31.6 31.3 31.3 29.8 29.4 28.8 28.7 27.6 27.2 26.6 26.7If the indices cited will correspond to the actual figures, then before the end of the twentieth century only half as many women will be engaged in socially useful labour (in its present sense) as men. In Middle South Asia, including India, there will be one working woman for every three working men. It is characteristic that no increase is foreseen in the share of working women either in the developed or the developing countries. It is assumed that this proportion may even decrease owing to the tendency for an increasing number of women of working age to gain an education, rather than for it to increase for one reason or another.
At the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties it was thought that from 1961 to 1971 the army of India's working population would increase by tens of millions of people. The economics journal put out by the Indian National Congress Party has attempted to furnish more exact figures. Forecasts offered by the journal assumed that over this period India's army of toilers would be swelled by another 44 million people (Table 38). In defining the increment in the working people the journal proceeded from the ratio of self-employed and non-self-employed population as 251 indicated by the sample surveys of the fifties. The summary results of the 1961 census, which revealed an even higher rate of population growth in general and of the working people in particular, allowed it to be suggested that the total increment in the working population in 1961--1971 would be no less than 47 million as in 1951--1961. But the 1971 census revealed a decrease of almost live million compared with the 1961 level and a 49 million deviation from the forecast figure. This difference can only be explained by the change in the method of registration, especially of women working in the villages; it is obvious that the 1971 census did not envelope them all. The inadequate registration of the men was threefold less, and of the men employed in the towns and cities even less, approximately 12 per cent.
The formation of and further changes in the labour contingents depend directly on the age and sex structure of society and the changes occurring in it. These changes are dual: they are manifest both in the new quantitative ratios of the structure's components and also in the new qualities acquired by one contingent or another. When evaluating these aspects of population movement, demographers today proceed from a gradual decrease in the birth-rate throughout the world which will bring about a change in the age structures and the labour contingents everywhere. The latter will alter later on and will change less than the other components of the structure in the twentieth century. Those who will begin to work in 1990 have already been born, and the last decade of the century will possibly show new changes.
In all cases, the labour force of the developing countries is evidently increasing, which is more than can be said of the world's most developed countries in which (here is hardly any increase in the working population, or even, a decrease. In South Asia, including India, the number of people of working age will possibly double between 1970 and the year 2000; in this event, the increment will he more than 200 million people in India alone, and twice this number for the whole of South Asia. In the same period, the possible increase in the labour contingents of North America will, according to the most optimistic forecasts, be no more than 40 million. The unevenness of this growth causes changes in the geographical distribution of manpower and brains, facilitates the movement of people and capital investments and changes the composition and direction of foreign trade. The growth of society's work force is interconnected
252 Table 3? Population Growth Among Working and Non-Working People According to the Last Two Censuses In India* Entire population Men Women million % million % million % Population growth from 1951--19<il Including: Working Non-working Population growth in 1901--1971 Including: Working Non-working 77.40 100.00 40.37 100.00 37.03 100.00 47.17 30.23 00.94 28.69 39.00 11.68 57.41 71.07 28.93 18.48 49.91 17.55 50.09 100.(K) 51.05 100.00 34.45 -24.59 -47.61 05.55 76.24 147.61 109.00 100.00 19.78 37.63 -4.81 113.87 -4.41 104.41 * Tlio table docs not include data on the state of Jamrau and Kashmir and on three territories: Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Arunachal Pradesh, and 1' ondicherry. Table 38 Expected and Actual Growth of the Working Population In 1961--1971 (million) Whole of India Villages Towns PJ C Total £ a O> 0 is OJ M 0 EH e QJ 3 4^ e o £ n o E-I C cu Wome Forecast 44.2632.22 12.04 35.6925.37 10.328.576.85 1.72 De facto, according to 1971 census -4.81 19.78 -24.59--10.70 13.64--24.34 5.736.04 -0.3 Difference between forecast and actual figures 49.0712.44 36.63 46.3911.73 34.602.840.81 2.03 with the scientific and technical progress in the modern world.In India the total population growth in the twentieth century overtakes the increase in the able-bodied age groups, and the growth in the latter will exceed the increment in 253 Table 39 Growth of the Entire Population, of the Abie-Bodied Age Groups and of the Working Part of the Population (1901=100) Entire population Able-bodied age-groups (15--60 years) Working 1911 Total Men Women 105.6 106.1 105.2 107.8 108.6 106.9 108.9 107.4 111.9 1921 Total Men Women 105.1 106.1 104.2 106.2 107.7 104.7 105.8 105.0 107.4 1931 Total Men Women 116.6 117.6 115.5 118.8 120.9 116.8 108.3 112.1 100.7 1951 Total Men Women 150.7 152.7 148.6 144.4 147.7 140.9 126.5 135.2 109.3 1961 Total Men Women 183.3 186.4 180.4 169.0 173.3 164.7 169.1 174.2 159.1 1971 Total Men Women 229.3 234.3 223.9 207.4 211.6 200.7 164.8 200.9 93.1 the number of working people. (Table 39). The growth indices are more similar for the male part of society and differ more for the female part. This means that the relative overpopulation in India is increasing, especially among women.
In 1901, social production in India embraced 111.4 million people, and in 1971, 183.6 million people. For every eleven people working at the beginning of the century there were 18 in 1971, which reflects the expansion in society's production base. But at the same time the number of people not working grew from 128 million in 1901 to 364 million in 1971. Recalling that these indices are distorted by the changing system of registration, one cannot fail to note the colossal burden of dependants in the country:
254 there were two dependants for every working person in 1971. This ratio is expected to change little before the year 2000, when it will be expressed for the whole of South Asia as 1 : 1.8, the index for the whole of mankind being as it is at present, 1 : 1.5. The non-self-employed part of the population in the age groups from nought to 24 years of age will comprise a burden of 1.4 dependants for every working person in South Asia, while among those aged 55 years and over the dependant ratio is tenfold less, only 1 : 0.14 (0.11 in 1980); at the end of the century the latter index for the world as a whole will be 0.2 (0.18 in 1980); finally, there will 1)0 approximately 0.2-0.3 dependants in the age group between 25 and 55 years for every working person in India in the last quarter of the century.Naturally, the concept of ``not working'', as it is used according to the given classification, is not identical to the concept of ``unemployed''. People who are not working or not gainfully employed are mainly dependants who do not have any income.
The labour potential is being expanded owing to people who work under the age of 15 years and over 60 and is being depleted on account of sick and non-able-bodied people. Moreover, a considerable part of the ruling classes of modern India cannot be considered to form part of the labour potential, and the overall balance should be cut down by the corresponding figure, which the censuses incidentally fail to provide. Teenagers under 15 years of both sexes are engaged in labour, especially in agriculture, where children are employed from eight to ten years of age; children begin working early on the plantations, helping their parents. The numerous small industrial enterprises in the states processing agricultural raw materials employ both adults and children; child labour is also used in trade and the service sphere. The elderly also work in a variety of jobs. Children and old people are engaged in the cottage industries. Therefore, the country's manpower reserves are in fact far greater than the figures indicate. It would hardly be possible to make an accurate estimate of them.
An idea of the age and sex structure of the labour force of the world and of the groups of regions for 1970--2000 and of India for 1985 is given by the indices in Table 40. The indices are also reflected in the diagram.
The development of society depends on the rational
correlation between the non-skilled and skilled work force. The
255
More developed regions
underWork force
Non-working population
The population and the work force of the regions of the world by
sex and age in 1970 and in 2000 (forecast).
proportion of specialists in the developed countries is 5-8 per
cent of the total number of those employed, and in India
this figure is close to 1.5 per cent. This is impending the
development of the country's foundation, the productive
forces. Evidently, it would take time to adequately develop
the system of professional training. Meanwhile, millions of
people are still waiting for an opportunity to apply their
low-skilled labour in the economy, and in the obtaining
conditions they can do nothing for economic progress. In
these circumstances, the efforts of the state are quite
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__
1/2 17---01392
257
Table 40
Age and Sex Structure of the World's Labour Force* (million)
Year
Men
Women
10--24
25--54
55- +
10--24
25--54
55- +
Whole world
1970
1985
2000
More developed
regions
1970
1985
2000
Less developed
regions
1970
1985
2000
South Asia
1970
1985
2000
India
1985
276 585
330 800
384 1,107
130
162
195
48
53
56
82
109
139
33
46
60
25
163
186
209
47
48
46
116
139
163
46
61
63
30
292 61
387 76
541 92
63
61
58
213
269
326
95
130
164
60
188
235
266
397
565
841
171
244
383
125
111
140
167
181
247
374
70
95
149
48
29
33
35
32
43
58
11
16
23
8
* The indices for India are calculated by the author from various
sources.
standable to employ low-skilled labour in local industry, in
the cottage industries, and in such branches of the economy
in general which are characteristic of the developed countries'
distant past, but which are now necessary in India, and
to attract qualified personnel to India to develop the
economy. India needs workers who have medium-level
qualifications to work in modern industries. On the basis of the
information collected by the UN for different countries,
the coefficients were worked out for the optimal ratios
for workers with different levels of qualifications in modern
production. The ratio in India today is far from optimal.
The capitalist system of production creates relative
overpopulation, an army of unemployed. In the conditions
that have taken shape historically in India the standing
unemployment of a considerable part of the population is
made even worse by the absolute size of the country's
population and the rates at which it is growing. The relative
overpopulation in India has come about over a lengthy
period. First it was mainly determined by the destruction
of the feudal mode of production and by the feebleness of
capitalist development in South Asia, and then not only
258
by the development of capitalism but by the retarded
nature of this process. Part of the population constantly
remained outside social production not only because
capitalism was developing and creating relative overpopulation,
but because it developed slowly. ``Colonial exploitation in
India led to a tremendous lack of correspondence between
the mass of relative overpopulation and the active part of
the working class (employed in production---V. P.). Even
during the difficult years of the world economic crisis
unemployment enveloped approximately 20 per cent of the
working class in England, more than 40 per cent in Germany,
up to 25 per cent of the total number of employed in the
USA. No matter how large these figures are taken
separately, they cannot even be compared with the scale of
relative overpopulation in India'',^^1^^ where the mass of
unemployed at the beginning of the 1930s reached one-third of
the entire able-bodied population.
According to official statistics, the number of people who are completely unemployed is no more than a few million. But the official figures understate the real situation: for example, as mentioned above, in the 1961 and 1971 censuses, anyone who was employed on seasonal work, even if it was only for one hour a day, was considered to be gainfully employed. Meanwhile, partial unemployment is one of the forms of relative overpopulation. According to the estimates of researchers, the total number of fully and partially unemployed in India in the mid-fifties was more than 30 million; the majority of these people were concentrated in the countryside. In spite of the accelerated economic development, its rates are still inadequate to eliminate unemployment and partial employment. Moreover, at the present stage, relative overpopulation is growing more rapidly than the active army of labour. Thus, in the second half of the fifties a further ten million people joined those seeking jobs. As a result, by the outset of the third five-year period, there were, according to official data, more unemployed than at the beginning of the second five-year period. In the opinion of Indian economists, every third worker in India's agriculture in the mid-sixties was superfluous.
When analysing the results of the 1961 census and comparing them with the concepts of the third five-year plan, B. Gupta and H. Goel came to the conclusion that between _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. A. Gordon, From the History of the Working Class in India' Moscow, 1961, pp. 16--17 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 1961 and 1966 the army of labour was boosted by a further 15 million people and that India would be faced with the necessity to overcome the unemployment and overt partial employment of 22.3 million people. Moreover, they believe that there is hidden partial unemployment in the country which affects at least another 15 million people, primarily farmhands who have neither their own land nor a permanent job. B. Gupta and H. Goel concluded that even if optimal conditions are assumed, it is extremely doubtful that unemployment would be overcome in the third five-year period.The population's distributed by branches of the economy is important in socio-economic and demographic respects. In accordance with the schedules of the 1961 and 1971 censuses, the population was divided into ten categories.
Category I---those engaged in farming; this included peasants working their own or rented plots of land, and also farmers and rentiers who obtain their main income from agriculture, even if they themselves do not take part in the production process.
Category II---workers in agriculture who do not have their own land and work as hired hands, i.e. the agricultural proletariat.
Category III---those working in mines and quarries, on plantations, in market gardens, and in forestry who are engaged in cattle-breeding, fishing, and hunting.
Category IV---those engaged in domestic production of goods, the sale of which provides them with a means of subsistence; the registration of people in this category was first started in 1961; this category was only registered indirectly and incompletely by previous censuses.
Category, V---those engaged in all sectors of the manufacturing industry, heavy and light industry, except for cottage industries.
Category VI---those employed in building.
Category VII---those engaged in trade, business, financial operations and so forth.
Category VIII---those working at transport and communications enterprises and in warehouses.
Category IX---those employed in the service sphere and in similar forms of activity who have not been registered in any of the previous eight categories.
Category X- those who are not working and who do not have a definite income, mainly dependents and members of families.
260This type of classification gives an idea of the structure of the production and branch affiliation of the working population. Unfortunately, the censuses do not differentiate correspondingly between the non-working population (i.e. they do not distribute dependents according to the branches of the economy in which breadwinners are engaged). It may be thought that, on the whole, the non-working part of the population is distributed in roughly the same proportions as the working one.
When comparing the indices for the distribution of India's population among the various sectoral categories in the 1961 census, we see that more than 70 per cent of the working population are engaged in farming and cattle-breeding; thus, the incomes of approximately three quarters of the country's population are supplied by work in agriculture. Considerably fewer people are engaged in industry. Some seven per cent (including their dependents) were engaged in cottage industries. Less than two per cent of the country's population were employed in the manufacturing industry proper, including light and heavy industry sectors; the total number of people depending on incomes obtained in the manufacturing industry was less than four per cent. About one per cent of the employed were concentrated in transport and communications.
In the twentieth century, the number of those engaged in agriculture grew in proportion to the increment in the population in the able-bodied age groups, but to a lesser extent than the entire population of the Republic increased. From 1951 to 1961 the number of people running their own farming economies increased by 43 per cent, the number of agricultural workers by 14 per cent, and the number of those employed in the heavy and light manufacturing industry sectors grew by 1.6 times, and that of those in building, transport and communications by 1.4 times. In all the states of India the proportion of people engaged in farming, excluding hired hands, was higher than the proportion of those employed in other branches of the economy and comprises approximately half of all those working. Workers in agriculture occupy second place in their proportion among all categories of the employed, although their proportion in different states varies: in the state of Andhra Pradesh more than one-fourth of those working form the agricultural proletariat, in Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Orissa their numbers are above average for the 261 whole country. West Bengal leads in the proportion of people employed in the manufacturing industry, followed by Kerala, and then Maharashtra and Gujarat whose indices are higher than the nation-wide average.
The 1971 census also gives the summary figures on the distribution of the working part of the population in production. The distribution of people by the categories is the outcome of the objective process of development of society's economic base. Registration of employment by branches of production may greatly assist in understanding and evaluating the trends in and level of development; this registration is as essential for understanding life in the country, as it is difficult from a theoretical and practical point of view. The sample one-per-cent data on people's occupations, provided by the 1971 census are less representative for making judgements of the whole population than similar data on other aspects of demographic studies.
According to the first approximation, the distribution of working people by categories in 1971 was the following:
Total millions ,„ Category I 0/ /0 millions " Categor} 11 millions Categories % 1II-IX % millions Total 183, .6 100 78.7 43 47 .3 26 57 .6 31 men 148, .8 10,) 69.0 46 31 .3 21 48, .5 33 women 34. ,8 100 9.7 28 16 .0 46 9 .1 26 In greater detail, the distribution of the categories is the following (%): Categories of working people /a I Total 43.34 men 38.20 women 5.14 II Total 26.33 men 17.57 women 8.76 III Total 2.89 men 2.39 women 0.50 IV Total 3.52 men 2.78 women 0.74 V Total 5.94 men 5.46 women 0.48 Categories of working people % VI Total 1.23 men 1.12 women 0.11 VII Total 5.57 men 5.26 women 0.31 VIII Total 2.44 men 2.36 women 0.08 IX Total 8.74 men 7.50 women 1.24 262It is extremely difficult to make a direct comparison of the share of those working in one sector of the economy or another in 1961 and 1971 since some of the cases reflect differences in the methods used in the two censuses and all the cases reflect varying degrees of completeness of registration of working women. As far as can be judged, more people are occupied in agriculture than in any other branch; the redistribution of the employed in favour of the urban industrial sectors is poorly expressed. In some states it is not noticeable owing to the incompleteness of the registration in the last or previous census; in others it is veiled by omissions and distortions in the registration of women workers; in yet others it is inaccurate owing to the military action of the sixties and the streams of refugees; in some states it has been distorted by changes in the administrative division of the country; finally, for all states and territories it is evened out by the huge population growth. The growth of the towns, especially the cities, would appear to favour the suggestion that the number employed in the various types of industry has increased; but this suggestion is only partially confirmed; the huge mass of people absorbed by the towns and cities, is far more likely to go into the sphere of service and trade, than into the sphere of industrial labour, the cottage industries (the handicrafts) accumulated the working people of society in the rural localities and in the small towns and villages. Moreover, the decrease in the share of workers in agriculture is a universal phenomenon and is having enormous consequences for mankind.
Throughout the world there has been a considerable changeover from agricultural to non-agricultural activity. The share of agriculture in all spheres of employment has declined in the more developed regions from 35 per cent in 1950 to 19 per cent in 1970, and in the less developed regions from 79 per cent in 1950 to 65 per cent in 1970. A researcher on this question, Ye. V. Klinova notes that over the last two decades in the relatively developed countries there has been a decrease in agrarian overpopulation as a manpower resource and she also cites the indices of international statistical organisations: in the USA the share of the rural population has decreased from 12 to four per cent, in Britain from five to two per cent, in France from 26 to 15 per cent, and in Japan from 42 to 19 per cent. In the opinion of UN experts, by the year 2000 the decrease in the agricultural population compared with 1970 will be the following (%):
263 1970 2000 Whole world 51 34 Europe (excluding the USSR) 19 4 North America 5 1 Latin America 42 22 Africa 70 46 Australia and Oceania 22 14In the most developed countries today the share of those occupied in agriculture is measured in units of per cent of the entire gainfully employed population; in India this figure is close to three quarters of all economically active population (see Table 41). The units of per cent of people employed in the developed countries provide more agricultural produce than the tens of per cent in India where labour productivity remains low.
The data available do not allow us to describe the class structure of India's population in an exhaustive manner. It is, however, considered possible to determine the size of its proletariat approximately and the semi-proletarian groups directly affiliated to it. Since the growth of the working class reflects the course of the leading socio-economic process in India today, the development of capitalism, its numbers and proportion do to a certain extent characterise the overall type of the social structure of India's population.
The most numerous group of the proletarian population in India is the farm hands, who have been registered in most of the censuses, in particular the republican ones. According to the estimates of B. R. Kalra, the number of farm labourers as a percentage of all working was the following:
1901 1911 1921 1931 1951 1961 16.89 20.57 17.40 24.79 19.72 16.71In 1931, every fourth working person was a farm labourer, in 1951 every fifth person, and in 1961, every sixth; at the beginning of the century, as was possibly the case at the start of the seventies, every sixth working person was a farm labourer. Yet, the census figures, even when the necessary amendments have been made to them, cannot easily be compared with each other. The 1961 census showed that there were 31,482,000 agricultural workers in India, of whom 17,311,000 were men and 14,171,000 were women; together with the dependents these figures comprised approximately 70 million, which is much more than the population of any West European country. However, even these data diminish the total number of farm labourers. Special surveys by the 264 Table 41 Share of the Working People, Farmers, Agricultural Workers and Other Workers in the Total Population According to the Results of Three Republican Censuses (per cent) Total rural urban Total men women Working people Farmers Agricultural workers Other workers 1961 1971 1981 1961 1971 1981 19C1 1971 1981 1961 1971 1981 Total Total men women Total men women Total men women 43.0 33.1 33.4 22.5 14.2 13.9 7.4 8.9 5.4 13.1 10.0 11.1 Rural 57.2 56.2 51.2 29.1 24.1 22.4 7.8 11.4 10.1 20.2 17.1 18.7 27.9 12.1 14.4 15.4 3.6 4.8 6.9 6.2 6.6 5.6 2.3 3.1 45.1 34.0 34.8 27.0 17.4 17-7 8.8 10.7 10.5 9.3 5.9 6.6 58.3 53.6 52.2 35.4 29.8 28.8 9.4 13.8 12.7 13.5 10.0 10.7 Urban 31.4 13.4 16.5 18.4 4.4 6.1 8.1 7.4 33.5 29.3 29.2 2.2 1.5 1.5 1.2 1.8 52.4 48.8 48.2 2.9 2.5 2.5 1.2 2.3 11.2 6.7 7.6 1.3 0.3 0.4 1.2 1.2 8.2 5.0 1.6 2.2 1.8 30.1 26.1 25.8 2.3 48.3 44.0 43.4 1.2 8.6 5.2 6.0 [265] Indian Ministry of Labour in 1951--1952 and 195(5-195? determined the total number of farm labourers as 34 to 36 million. R. 1'. Gurvich suggests that, together with their families, farm hands in India form one-fifth of its population. Evidently, the figures of the 1961 census are underestimated. Besides, the part of the agricultural proletariat is shown in category III along with miners and cannot yet be registered individually.
Not is the proletariat on the plantations shown individually, and according to the accepted classification, it is incorporated into category III. According to the data of the Ministry of Labour, at the end of the fifties there were 1.2 to 1.3 million people employed on the tea, coffee, and rubber plantations, and at the end of the sixties, approximately 1.5 million people.
The census reports do not. contain any direct data on the numerousncss of the factory proletariat either. It has already been mentioned above that during the early decades of the twentieth century in colonial India the proportion of those employed in industry (including artisans) in the country's total population was consistently decreasing.
S. Chandrasekhar believes that in 1911, 5.5 per cent of the country's population were employed in industry, and by 1941, approximately four per cent or some 13 million people, including workers at large enterprises, small handicrafts workshops, and independent artisans. Thus, the figures cited incorporated qualitatively different components: the factory proletariat and the artisans. There can be no doubt that during the Second World War and during the period of India's independent development the share of the factory workers in the country's entire population has increased, especially during the second, third, and fourth five-year plans, but this increase was, however, negligible. According to the classification of the 1961 census, the present proletariat, i.e. the workers at the large capitalist enterprises are included in category III (workers in mines and quarries), in category V (all branches of the manufacturing industry except cottage industries), in category VI (construction workers), and category VIII (workers in transport and communications) and also, to a lesser extent, in categories VII and IX (trade, services, and other branches). The industrial statistics only register those enterprises covered by the factory law, and do not take into account the numerous small enterprises, therefore the information on the number of 266 industrial workers is incomplete; moreover, not all the registered enterprises provide information on their work force and some supply partially incorrect information, based on the average number of workers reporting for work at the enterprise every day.
The small enterprises not covered by the factory statistics did, all in all provide approximately half of all the revenues from industry; by 1960 they employed some 20 million people. The actual situation of most of them differed little from that of the proletarians, although they worked at small industrial enterprises or at home. ``The main mass of people occupied in small production is comprised of artisans who are formally considered to be independent owners. Enmeshed in the networks of trading and usury capital, they are essentially hired workers, although the buying and selling of manpower relations are of themselves not manifest here."^^1^^
On the eve of the First World War, the country's factory proletariat numbered close on one million and had almost doubled by the Second World War, after which it had reached 2.5 million. At the end of the first five-year plan the number of factory workers was close on 3.5 million, and by the end of the second five-year plan, it evidently exceeded four million. This was approximately half of all the working people indicated in category V of the 1961 census. The Indian government planned to considerably boost the number of workers employed in industry in general: by approximately fourfold by 1976. Three quarters of the country's factory workers are employed in light industry, primarily in the textiles, then the food and tobacco industries. Insofar as can be judged, only every sixth factory worker is engaged in iron and steel production, metal-working, and mechanical engineering. In 1961 approximately one-fifth of all the factory workers were to be found each in West Bengal and Maharashtra, and one-tenth in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
At the end of the second five-year plan, approximately 0.7 to 0.8 million people were employed in the mining industry of whom half were working in the coal industry. Twice as many, approximately 1.6 million, were working in transport in 1961, of them three quarters on the railways. This was approximately half the people registered in category VIII.
_-_-_~^^1^^ T. S. Pokuluyeva, The Position oj the Working Class in India, Moscow, 1960, p. 47 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_267_COMMENT__ 18* 267The relative backwardness of Indian industry is combined with a very high concentration of production and manpower. In Great Britain, for example, only two per cent of the enterprises were staffed by one thousand workers and more and one-third of workers were employed at them. In India, too, only two per cent of the enterprises had more than one thousand workers, but more than half of the entire factory proletariat worked at them. The concentration of workers in the textile industry is high, but it is even higher in the iron and steel industry where almost three-fourths of the workers are concentrated at a few large enterprises.
The industrial proletariat is less numerous than the agricultural one. If the number of today's proletariat employed at large industrial enterprises, in transport and construction, is compared with the number of farm labourers and plantation workers the ratio in 1961 was 1:4 or 1:5. If the number of workers employed in scattered petty industries is added to that of industrial workers, they will still be less numerous than the agricultural workers and the ratio will be 3~:~4.
The sum of all the workers in the country, both industrial and agricultural, amounted to approximately one-third of all those registered as working in the 1961 census. Assuming that the non-active part of the population is distributed according to the means of existence as dependents proportional to the number of working people in the various categories, the conclusion may be drawn that the whole of the Indian proletariat and the semi-proletarian groups and their families affiliated to them comprised one-third of the country's population in 1961, i.e. approximately 140--150 million people. There was little increase in this index by 1971, and the total number of the proletarian part of India's population (the proletariat and semi-proletariat and their families) had possibly exceeded 200 million by the midseventies and was approximately 270 million by 1981.
In the sixth five-year plan, proceeding from the materials of sample surveys, the average annual growth in the labour potential in the countryside in 1980--1985 is indicated as being 22 per cent, in the towns and cities 3.5 per cent, and in the whole of India 2.4 per cent; the number engaged in agriculture will reach 96 million, and those employed in other branches, 90 million, thereby creating an average annual increment in the working people of 4.2 per cent during this five-year plan.
268Of special interest are the figures for the average per capita production of various material benefits which are usually employed in comparing the economic development of different countries. Naturally, these figures do not indicate the actual distribution of the fruits of labour among the population, but they are convenient for purposes of comparison~
The results of the republican censuses indicate that three quarters of the Republic's population is involved in agriculure, mainly in farming. Academician I. P. Gerasimov said the following of India: ``Almost the entire territory of this enormous country has been cultivated and transformed... In developing the territory for farming, the Indian peasant used extremely primitive implements... He counted on... hands and the muscular power of the draught animals."^^1^^
All the land in India which is suitable for farming comprises 89 per cent of its area and slightly less than half of it is sown to crops; one-fifth of the sown land is artificially irrigated, and one-sixth of it yields two harvests per year. The soils of a quarter of this part of the country suffer from erosion. In the future, some of the plough fields may be expanded owing to the use of fallow land and deserts, which can be worked; the enlargement of the sown area may also be achieved by developing artificial irrigation, organising the gathering of a second harvest and other measures.
Four-fifths of the population in India lives in rural localities. In 1951, there were on average 0.9 hectares of the country's territory and 0.4 hectares of arable land per person; according to the 1961 census these indices had decreased to 0.74 and 0.33 respectively, and by the seventies, as a result of further population growth, to 0.6 and 0.3 hectares. On the whole, throughout the globe there is nine times more dry land than arable land, but in India there is only twice as much.
The need for India to extend its farmed land is obvious, but there are two serious impediments to this; first, the land law and the private ownership of the land that have taken shape over the centuries which have been changed somewhat by the land reforms in the period of independence; secondly, the backwardness of techniques and equipment in agriculture and the poverty of the landowners. In _-_-_
~^^1^^ I. P. Gerasiiaov, My Trips Abroad, Moscow, 1959, p. 78 (in Russian) -
269 independent India the gross yield of agricultural produce has increased, but agriculture as a whole has remained on a low level. Even now the agrarian problem in India has not been solved, although the government is taking various measures for this purpose. Although they have been boosted over the last few years, yields still remain low. The amount of fertilizers used in the country's agriculture is being increased, but still remains negligible. In 1961, on average the annual per capita amount of grain was 173 kg or less than 0.5 kg per day. On the eve of the first five-year plan the figure was even lower, for it was 145 kg and had not increased by the end of the third five-year plan (1966); by the mid-seventies this index had risen to 220 kg. A comparison of yields over a number of years reveals great fluctuations from year to year, but discerns a tendency for them to improve. In spite of the considerable outlays on farming according to the five-year plans for the development of the economy, the Indian peasants still depend completely on the caprices of nature.The efforts to develop industry in India are common knowledge. The growth rates of Indian industry are evident from the fact that from 1951 to 1961 the production of machines increased fivefold, iron and steel output 2.5 times, and chemical industry products almost thrice. The output of the textile industry has increased by one-third. Accordingly, the growth rates from 1961 to 1974 were the following: engineering---ninefold, iron and steel output, threefold, and the production of chemical fertilizers 20 times. Thus, the rates of industrial development outstripped those of population growth. Agriculture is advancing much more slowly.
Population is society's main productive force, but in India one-third of the country's labour potential is not being used at all. Most of the working people are employed at enterprises where the machines and equipment are out-- ofdate by today's standards and labour productivity remains low. Capital investments far greater than a developing country can afford, are needed if all these people are to be given jobs at modern enterprises.
The development of the productive forces and gradual social progresses are a must if demographic process are to be dealt with in an optimal manner and the living conditions in India are indeed to be imporoved. This is urgently needed by the people at large in this huge, highly populous country. And a vital prerequisite for this is lasting peace.
[270] __ALPHA_LVL1__ SUPPLEMENT [271] ~ [272] SUPPLEMENT 1 Main Statistical Data on the Population of the Republic of India from the 1971 and 1981 Censuses Political-- Administrative Units Area thous. sq. km Population, thousand Population growth, % Average population density persq. km in 1981 Number of women per 1,000 men 1971 1971 1981 1961-- 1971 1971-- 1981 I. India 3,288 548,160 634,025 24.8 24.79 221 930 States 1. Uttar Pradesh 294 88,341 110,886 19.8 25.5 377 879 2. Bihar 174 56,353 69,823 21.3 28.9 402 954 3. Maharashtra 308 50,412 62,715 27.4 24.4 204 930 4. West Bengal 88 44,312 54,486 26.9 23.0 614 891 5. Andhra Pra-- desh 277 43,503 53,593 20.9 23.2 194 977 6. Madhya Pra-- desh 444 41,654 52,138 28.7 25.2 118 941 7. Tamil Nadu 130 41,119 48,297 22.3 17.2 371 978 8. Karnataka 192 29,299 37,043 24.2 26.4 193 957 9. Rajasthan 342 25,766 34,108 27.8 27.2 100 911 10. Gujarat 196 26,698 33,961 29.4 32.4 173 934 11. Orissa 156 21,945 26,272 25.0 19.7 169 988 12. Kerala 39 21,347 25,403 26.3 19.0 654 1,016 13. Assam 79 14,625 19,903 35.0 36.1 254 896 14. Punjab 50 13,551 16,670 21.7 23.0 331 865 15. Haryana 44 10,037 12,851 32.2 28.0 291 867 16. Jammu and Kashmir 222 4,617 5,982 29.6 29.6 878 17. Himachal Pra-- desh 56 3,460 4,238 23.0 22.5 76 958 18. Tripura 10.5 1,556 2,047 36.3 31.6 196 943 19. Manipur 22.4 1,073 1,411 37.5 31.5 64 986 20. Meghalaya 22.5 1,012 1,328 31.5 31.2 59 942 21. Nagaland 16.6 516 773 39.9 49.7 47 871 22. Sikkim 7.1 210 315 29.4 50.1 44 863 Territories 1. Delhi 1.5 4,066 6,196 52.9 52.4 4,178 801 2. Goa, Daman and Diu 3.8 858 1,082 36.9 26.2 284 989 3. Arunachal Pradesh 81.4 468 628 38.9 34.3 7 861 4. Pondicherry 0.5 472 604 27.8 28.1 1,228 989 5. Mizoram 21.1 332 488 24.9 46.8 23 946 6. Chandigarh 0.1 257 450 114.6 75.0 3,948 749 7. Andaman & Nicobar Is-- lands 8.3 115 188 81.2 63.5 23 644 8. Dadra and Na-- gar Haveli 0.5 74 104 28.0 39.8 211 1,007 9. Lakshadweep 0.03 32 40 32.0 26.5 1,257 978 273 Main Statistical Data on the Population of the Republic of India from the 1971 and 1981 Censuses (Continued) Share of Number of literate people per 1,000 Share of employed 1981, % Number of women per urban popu~ lation, % 1971 1981 274 SUPPLEMENT II Main Statistical Data on the Population of Administrative Centres from the 1971 and 1981 Censuses in total popu lei- Adi n int. si rstivc cent ros tion, 1971, % and Ihoir populations in \ Ct O \ it. „.,„_ j Main language (languages), other languages a c , c 1 ,000 men i v u i , i > iuuoauu o g fe C 1981 1971 1981 Total Men Women Total Men Women Total Men Wo-- mon Delhi 5 714 Hindi 33.4 51.2 14.4 I. 935 20.2 23.7 294 394 187 362 467 249 33.1 52.6 12 1 Lucknow, 1,007 Hindi, Urdu 29.1 49.6 6.0 1. 886 14.0 18.0 217 315 106 274 389 144 30.9 52.2 FQ'-J Patna, 916 Hindi, Bihari, Urdu 29.7 49.1 9.2 2. 947 10.0 12.5 199 306 87 260 378 136 31.0 52.2 Vg Bombay, 8,227 Marathi, Urdu, Hindi 38.7 52.1 24.4 3. 939 31.2 35.0 392 510 264 474 589 351 36.5 52.1 ig'y Calcutta, 9,166 Bengali, Hindi, Santali 28.5 49.0 6.0 4. 911 24.8 26.5 332 428 224 409 505 303 27.9 48.8 4*4 Hyderabad, 2,528 Telugu, Urdu 42.2 56.2 27.9 5. 975 19.3 23.3 246 332 158 299 391 205 41.4 58.2 24^ Bhopal, 672 Hindi, Bajastbani, Marathi 38.5 53.4 22.6 6. 941 16.3 20.3 221 327 109 278 394 155 26.7 53.7 is!e Gond, Bhili 7. 978 8. 963 30.3 24.3 33.0 28.9 395 315 518 416 269 210 458 384 572 486 341 278 35.8 34.7 56.0 54.4 15 1 Madras, 4,277 14.2 Bangalore, 2,914 Tamil, Telugu Kannada, Telugu, Urdu 39.2 36.8 55.4 53.8 22.6 19.2 9. 921 17.6 20.9 191 287 85 240 358 113 31.2 52.1 8.3 Marathi, Tamil 10. 942 28.1 31.1 358 461 248 438 545 323 31 .4 51.2 10.3 Jaipur, 1,005 Rajasthani, Hindi, Bhili 32.4 51.8 11.8 11. 982 8.4 11.8 262 383 139 341 468 211 31.2 55.3 C,g Ahmadabad, 2,515 Gujarati, Urdu 30.4 49.6 9.4 12. 1,034 16.2 18.8 604 666 543 692 740 645 29.1 45.0 13 '5 Bhubaneswar, 219 Oriya, Kui 32.8 54.4 10.9 13. 900 8.5 282 367 186 28.9 48.9 (52 Trivandrum, 520 Malayalam, Tamil 26.5 40.8 12.8 14. 886 23.7 27.7 337 404 459 407 466 341 28.9 52.8 1 2 Dispur Assamese, Hindi, Bengali 15. 877 17.7 22.0 269 373 149 358 478 222 26.4 47.3 2^4 Chandigarh, 424 Punjabi, Hindi 29.0 52.0 3.1 16. 953 18.3 18.3 186 258 93 30.0 52.2 4j Chandigarh, 424 Hindi 27.9 48.2 4.8 17. 988 7.0 7.7 320 432 202 419 524 314 37.0 52.4 2 ) 8 Srinagav Urdu, Kashmiri, Ladakhi 18. 948 10.4 11.0 310 402 212 416 510 316 27.8 49.4 4'.8 Balti, Punjabi, Pahari, Dogri 19. 972 13.2 26.4 329 460 195 420 530 307 :>4.6 45.3 2,'-) 6 Simla Hindi, Pahari 33.9 48.8 18.8 2>>. 956 14.6 18.0 295 341 246 332 370 293 44.2 53.2 34 '(j Agartala, 132 Bengali, Tripura 29.6 49.1 9.1 21 . 867 10.0 15.5 274 350 186 420 492 337 50.8 55.6 /r, 'o Imphal, 156 Manipuri 41.7 46.7 36.5 22. 836 9.4 16.2 177 254 89 338 436 221 53.2 63.0 41;8 Shillong. 173 Khasi, Garo 44.2 53.0 35.0 Kohima Naga, Konyak, Ao, Sema 45.8 50.1 40.8 1. 810 89.7 92.8 556 537 478 611 680 526 30.2 50.fi 4.8 Assamese 2. 981 26.4 32.5 448 543 351 559 648 468 31.7 47.8 15.4 Gangtok Sikkimi, Gorkhali 46.4 56.2 34.7 3. 870 3.7 6.3 113 178 37 201 280 110 57.6 63.1 51-3 Delhi, 5,714 Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi 30.8 50.6 6.4 4. 985 42.0 52.3 460 573 346 542 640 443 29.9 48.6 1°-9 Panaji Konkani, Marathi, Gujarati 30.6 45.9 15.1 5. 936 11.4 25.2 598 605 467 595 660 526 45.6 51.4 39-5 Itanagar Hindi, tribal languages 49.2 56.6 40.6 6. 770 90.6 93.6 616 670 544 647 688 593 33.3 54.0 5-7 Pondicherry Tamil, French 28.6 45.9 11.0 7. 761 22.8 26.4 436 516 311 513 584 418 39.6 62.1 4-5 Aijal Myso 41.2 49.1 32.7 8. 974 0.0 6.7 150 222 78 266 362 168 47.2 55.4 W.O Chandigarh, 424 Hindi, Punjabi 34.5 54.2 8.9 9, 976 0.0 46.3 437 565 306 547 650 442 26.2 :-8.4 1^.6 port Blair Nicobaroso, Bengali, Mala- 33.0 54.2 5.0 yalam Silvassa Marathi, Bhili 40.8 55.1 26.2 Kavaralti Malayalam, Maldivian 19.7 33.5 5.6 275 SUPPLEMENT III Population (millions) and Indices of Movement (per cent of 1900) Years 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1910 World 545 623 791 978 1,262 1,650 1,741 33.0 37.8 47.9 59.3 76.5 100.0 105.5 Asia (excluding 316 387 463 585 USSR) 36.0 43.8 52.2 65.6 India (within 91 104 122 144 present fron- 38.2 43.7 51.3 60.5 tiers) 730 917 969 81.7 100.0 105.7 179 238 252.1 75.2 100.0 105.9 Years 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1975 World 1,860 2,070 2,295 2,525 3,037 3,696 4,066 112.7 125.5 139.1 153.0 184.1 224.0 246.4 Asia (exclud-l,OC5 1,120 1,244 1,390 1,692 2,111 2,353 ing USSR) 109.6 122.1 135.7 151.6 184.5 230.2 256.6 India (within 251.4 279 319 361 439 548 619 present fron- 105.5 117.2 134.0 151.7 184.5 230.2 260.1 tiers) Years 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2010 World 4,432 4,826 5,242 5,677 6,119 6,988 268.6 292.5 317.7 344.1 370.8 423.5 Asia(excluding 2,579 2,815 3,058 3,305 3,549 3,993 USSR) 281.2 307.0 333.5 360.4 387.0 435.4 India (within 684 753 821 892 961 1,083 present fron- 287.4 316.4 345.0 374.8 403.8 455.0 tiers) 276 __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. 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