The People

CHAPTER II. THE PEOPLE

General Survey of the People

India is divided into two classes of territories; first, Provinces under British rule; second, States under Native Chiefs. The population of the whole amounted in 1901 to over 294 millions, or more than double the number estimated for the Roman Empire in the height of its power. But the English, even more than the Romans, have respected the rights of Native Chiefs who are willing to govern well. Such Chiefs still rule on their own account nearly one-third of the area of India, with over 63 millions of subjects, or more than a quarter of the whole Indian people. The British territories, therefore, comprise about two-thirds of the area of India, and over three-quarters, or more than 231 millions, of its inhabitants.

The Native States

The Native princes govern their States with the help and under the advice of a British Resident, whom the Viceroy stations at their courts. Some of them reign almost as independent sovereigns; others have less power. They form a great body of feudatory rulers, possessed of revenues and armies of their own. The more important exercise the power of life and death over their subjects; but the authority of all is limited by treaties, by which they acknowledge their ‘subordinate dependence’ to the British Government. The British Government, as Suzerain in India, does not allow its feudatories to make war upon each other, or to form alliances with foreign States. It interferes when any Chief misgoverns his people; rebukes, and if needful dethrones, the oppressor; protects the weak, and imposes peace upon all.

The British Provinces

The British possessions are distributed into fourteen Provinces. Each has its own Governor or head; but all are controlled by the supreme Government of India, consisting of a Governor-General in Council. The Governor-General also bears the title of Viceroy. He holds his court and government at Calcutta in the cold weather; and during summer at Simla, in the Himalayas, 7,000 feet above the level of the sea. The Viceroy of India is appointed by the King of England; so also are the Governors of Madras and Bombay. The heads of the other Provinces are chosen for their merit from the Anglo-Indian services, almost always from the Civil Service, and are nominated by the Viceroy, subject in the case of the Lieutenant-Governorships to the approval of the Secretary of State. The King of England is Emperor of India, and is spoken of both officially and commonly in India as ’the King-Emperor.’

Area and Population

The two tables following show the area and population, first, of the fourteen Provinces of British India, including Aden and the Andaman Islands; and, second, the area and population of the Feudatory States arranged in thirteen groups.

The first table gives the population counted by the Census Officers in British India, inclusive of Aden and the Andaman Islands, in 1901. But, as shown in the footnotes to the table, certain additions have to be made for districts in which the population could only be roughly enumerated or estimated. But, remembering this, we find that the actual total population of British India, inclusive of Aden and the Andaman Islands, amounted to nearly 232 millions in 1901. In the second table it must be observed that certain areas can only be roughly counted. Making, then, some additions, the actual population of Feudatory or Native India in 1901 was nearly 62½ millions. Adding this number to the actual population of nearly 233 millions in British India, we find that the total population of British and Feudatory India in 1901 (inclusive of Aden and the Andaman Islands) was in round figures 294½ millions.

*Includes South Luchai and Manipur. †Certain areas were imperfectly enumerated owing to tribal disputes. ‡Includes Shan States, Chin Hills, and Karrenni. §This province was formed in 1901 out of certain Punjab districts and areas not previously included in India.

*Certain areas imperfectly enumerated owing to tribal disputes.

If to the figures in the foregoing tables of the population actually counted by the Census Officers for British and Feudatory India we add the French and Portuguese possessions, we obtain the total for all India. Thus:

Density of the Population

British India is very thickly peopled; and some parts are so overcrowded that the inhabitants can with difficulty obtain land to cultivate. Each square mile of the British Provinces has to feed, on an average, 229 persons. Each square mile of the Native States has to feed, on an average, only 110 persons, or less than one-half. If we exclude the outlying Provinces of Burma and Assam, the people in British India average 279 to the square mile; so that British India is two and a half times more thickly inhabited than the Native States. How thick this population is, may be realized from the fact that, in 1886, France only had 187 people to the square mile; while even in crowded England, wherever the density approaches 200 to the square mile the population ceases to be rural, and has to live by manufactures, by mining, or by city industries.

Few Large Towns in India

Unlike England, India has few large towns. Thus, in England and Wales, more than one-half of the population, in 1901, lived in towns with upwards of 20,000 inhabitants, while in British India less than one-fifteenth of the people lived in such towns. India, therefore, is almost entirely a rural country; and many of the so-called towns are mere groups of villages, in the midst of which the cattle are driven a-field, and ploughing and reaping go on.

Overcrowded Districts

We see, therefore, in India a dense population of husbandmen. Wherever their numbers exceed 1 to the acre, or 640 to the square mile—excepting near towns or in irrigated tracts—they find it difficult to raise sufficient crops from the land to supply them with food. Yet many millions of peasants in India are struggling to live off half an acre apiece. In such districts, if the rain falls short by a few inches, the people suffer great distress; if the rain fails to a large extent, thousands die of famine.

Under-peopled Districts

In some parts of India, therefore, there are more husbandmen than the land can feed. In other parts, vast tracts of fertile soil still await the cultivator. In England, people move freely from over-populated to the thinly-inhabited districts. In India, though emigration is beginning, the peasant generally does not move: he parcels his fields among his children, even when his family has grown too numerous to live upon the crops. If the Indian husbandmen will learn to migrate to tracts where spare land abounds, they will do more than the utmost efforts of Government can accomplish to better themselves and to prevent famines.

Distribution of the People

It is not stupidity that makes the Indian peasant cling to his hereditary fields. In old days he could move to other districts or provinces only with great difficulty and danger. Roads for carts or wheeled traffic were few and far between; and in many parts of India only existed along the chief military routes. During the century of confusion and Native misrule which preceded the establishment of the British Power, travelling even by such roads as did exist was perilous owing to robbers and armed bands. Railways and steamboats, which are the great modern distributors of population, were altogether unknown in India under Native rule, and have only been introduced into India in our own generation. By the help of roads, railways and river-steamers, it is now possible for the first time for the Indian peasants in overcrowded districts to move to districts where there is still spare land. The Indian cultivators are slowly but surely learning this, and they are moving in large numbers to thinly peopled districts in Eastern and Northern Bengal, Assam, and the Central Provinces.

The Nomadic System of Husbandry

Throughout many of the hill and frontier tracts land is so plentiful that it yields no rent. The hillmen settle for a few years in some fertile spot, which they clear of jungle. They then exhaust the soil by a rapid succession of crops, and leave it to relapse into forest. In such tracts no rent is charged; but each family of wandering husbandmen pays a poll-tax to the Chief, under whose protection it dwells. As the inhabitants increase, this nomadic system of cultivation gives place to regular tillage. Throughout Burma we see both methods at work side by side; while on the thickly-peopled plains of India the ‘wandering husbandmen’ have disappeared, and each peasant family remains rooted to the same plot of ground during many generations.

Rise in Rents

Yet only a hundred years ago there was more land even in Bengal than there were cultivators to till it. The landlords had to tempt husbandmen to settle on their estates, by giving them land at low rents. Now the cultivators have grown so numerous, that in some districts they will offer any rent for a piece of ground. The Government has, therefore, had to pass laws to prevent too great a rise in rents. These laws recognize the rights of the cultivators in the fields which they have long tilled; and the rents of such hereditary husbandmen cannot be raised above fair rates, fixed by the Courts.

Serfdom abolished

In the old times the scarcity of people made each family of cultivators of great value to their landlord. In many parts of India, when once a peasant had settled in a village, he was not allowed to go away. In hill districts where the nomadic or wandering system of husbandry still survives, no family is allowed by the Native Chief to quit his territory; for each household pays a poll-tax to the Chief, and the Chief cannot afford to lose this money. In some Provinces the English found the lower classes of husbandmen attached like serfs to the soil. Our officers in South-Eastern Bengal almost raised a rebellion by their efforts to liberate the rural slaves. The descendants of the old serfs still survive; but they are now freemen.

Fourfold Division of the People

European writers formerly divided the Indian population into two races,—the Hindus and the Muhammadans. But when we look more closely at the people, we find that they consist of four elements. These are—

First, the Non-Aryan Tribes, called the Aborigines, who numbered in 1872 (when the first Census of India was taken) about 18 millions in the British Provinces.* Second, the descendants of the Aryan or Sanskrit-speaking Race, now called Brahmans and Rajputs, who numbered in 1872 about 16 millions. Third, the great Mixed Population, generally known as the Hindus, which has grown out of the Aryan and non-Aryan elements (chiefly from the latter), and numbered in 1872 about 121 millions. Fourth, the Muhammadans, who began to come to India about 1000 A.D., and who numbered in 1872 over 45 millions. These made up the 200 millions of the people under British rule in 1873. Since then the population of British India has grown to over 231 millions in 1901. All the four sections of the population above mentioned have contributed to this increase. But many of the non-Aryan or Aboriginal tribes have during the past twenty years been converted to the Hindu religion, and are now reckoned in the Census as Hindus. The same fourfold division applies to the population of the 62 millions in Feudatory India, but we do not know the numbers of the different classes.

• For the new system of classification adopted by the Census of 1881 and 1891 see post, p. 50.

The Two Chief Races of Prehistoric India

The great sources of the Indian population were, therefore, the non-Aryans and the Aryans; and we must first try to get a clear view of these ancient peoples. Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races struggling for the soil. The one was a fair-skinned people, which had lately entered by the north-western passes, a people who called themselves Aryan, literally of ’noble’ lineage, speaking a stately language, worshipping friendly and powerful gods. These Aryans became the Brahmans and Rajputs of India. The other race was of a lower type, who had long dwelt in the land, and whom the lordly new-comers drove back into the mountains, or reduced to servitude on the plains. The comparatively pure descendants of these two races are now nearly equal in numbers; the intermediate castes, sprung chiefly from the ruder stock, make up the great mass of the Indian population. We shall afterwards see that a third race, the Scythians, also played an important part in India, about the beginning of the Christian era. The Muhammadans belong to a period a thousand years later.

Materials for Reference

Full particulars as to the population of India, according to their birth-place, sex, race, age, religion, their distribution into town and country, and their ability to read and write, are given in the Appendices to my Indian Empire (Third edition, 1893). [See also the full tables given in Statistical Abstracts relating to British India from 1891-2 to 1900-1, 1902.]