MOVEMENTS OF THE people. 47 population reaches the stationary stage. For example, in Allahábád District during twenty years, the inhabitants increased by only 6 persons in 10,000 each year. During the nine years from 1872 to 1881, the annual increase was 8 persons in 10,000. In still more densely-peopled localities upon the line of railway, facilities for migration have drained off the excessive population, and their total number in 1872 was less than it had been twenty years before. On the other hand, in thinly-peopled Provinces the inhabitants quickly multiply. UnderThus, when we obtained the District of Amherst in 1824 from peopled the king of Burma, it had been depopulated by savage native wars. The British established their firm rule; people began to flock in; and by 1829 there were 70,000 inhabitants. fifty years the population had increased by more than fourfold, or to 301,086 in 1881. In Provinces. mobile'. In some parts of India, therefore, there are more husband- The 'immen than the land can feed; in other parts, vast tracts of fertile Indian soil still await the cultivator. In England the people would peasant. move freely from the over-populated districts to the thinlyinhabited ones; but in India the peasant clings to his hereditary homestead long after his family has outgrown his fields. If the Indian races will only learn to migrate to tracts where spare land still abounds, they will do more than the utmost efforts of Government can accomplish to prevent famines. The facts disclosed by the Census in 1872 and 1881 prove, Moveindeed, that the Indian peasant has lost something of his ments of the people. old immobility. The general tendency of the population in Bengal is south and east to the newly-formed delta, and north-east to the thinly-peopled valleys of Assam. In 1881, it was ascertained that out of a specified population of 247 millions, nearly 6 millions were living in Provinces in which they had not been born. But the clinging of the people to their old villages in spite of hardship and famine still forms a most difficult problem in India. Throughout many of the hill and border tracts, land is so plentiful that it yields no rent. Any one may settle on a patch which he clears of jungle, exhausts the soil by a rapid succession The of crops, and then leaves it to relapse into forest. In such tracts nomadic system no rent is charged; but each family of wandering husbandmen of huspays a poll-tax to the chief, or to the Government under whose bandry. protection it dwells. As the inhabitants increase, this nomadic system of cultivation gives place to regular tillage. Throughout British Burma we see both methods at work side by side; while on the thickly-peopled plains of India the 'wandering Labour and land husbandmen have long since disappeared, and each household remains rooted to the same plot of ground during generations. In some parts of India, this change in the relation of the in the last people to the land has taken place before our own eyes. Thus, century; and at the present day. in Bengal there was in the last century more cultivable land than there were husbandmen to till it. A hundred years of British rule has reversed the ratio; and there are now, in some Districts, more people than there is land for them to till. This change has produced a silent revolution in the rural economy of the Province. When the English obtained Bengal in the last century, they found in many Districts two distinct rates of rent current for the same classes of soil. The higher rate was paid by the thání ráyats, literally 'stationary' tenants, who had their houses in the hamlet, and formed the permanent body of cultivators. These tenants would bear a great deal of extortion rather than forsake the lands on which they had expended labour and capital in digging tanks, cutting irrigation channels, and building homesteads. They were oppressed accordingly; and while they had a right of occupation in their holdings, so long as they paid the rent, the very highest rates were squeezed out of them. The temporary or wandering cultivators, paikhást rayats, were those who had not their homes in the village, and who could therefore leave it whenever they pleased. They had no right of occupancy in their fields; but on the other hand, the landlord could not obtain so high a rent from them, as there was plenty of spare land in adjoining villages to which they could retire in case of oppression. The landlords were at that time competing for tenants; and one of the commonest complaints which they brought before the Company's officials was a charge against a neighbouring proprietor of 'enticing away their cultivators' by low rates of rent. This state of things is now reversed in most parts of Bengal. The landlords have no longer to compete for tenants. It is the husbandmen who have to compete with one another for land. There are still two rates of rent. But the lower rates are now paid by the 'stationary' tenants, who possess occupancy rights; while the higher or rack-rents are paid by the other class, who do not possess occupancy rights. In ancient India, the eponymous hero, or original village founder, was the man who cut down the jungle. In modern India, special legislation and a Forest Department are required to preserve the trees which remain. Not only has the country been stripped of its woodlands, but in many ITS PRESSURE ON THE LAND. 49 Districts the pastures have been brought under the plough, to the detriment of the cattle. The people can no longer afford to leave sufficient land fallow, or under grass, for their oxen and cows. It will be readily understood that in a country where, almost Serfdom down to the present day, there was more land than there in India. were people to till it, a high value was set upon the cultivating class. In tracts where the nomadic system of husbandry survives, no family is permitted by the native chief to quit his territory. For each household there pays a poll-tax. In many parts of India, we found the lower classes attached to the soil in a manner which could scarcely be distinguished from prædial slavery. In spite of our legislative enactments, this system lingered on during nearly a century of British rule. Our early officers in South-Eastern Bengal, especially in the great island of Sandwip, almost raised a rebellion by their attempts to liberate the slaves. Indeed, in certain tracts where we found the population very depressed, as in Behar, the courts have in our own day occasionally brought to light the survival of serfdom. A feeling still survives in the minds of some British officers against migrations of the people from their own Districts to adjoining ones, or to Native States. If we except the newly- annexed Provinces of Burma Unequal and Assam, the population of British India is nearly three pressure of the populatimes more dense than the population of Feudatory India. tion on the This great disproportion cannot be altogether explained by land. differences in the natural capabilities of the soil. It would be for the advantage of the people that they should spread themselves over the whole country, and so equalize the pressure throughout. The Feudatory States lie interspersed among British territory, and no costly migration by sea is involved. That the people do not thus spread themselves out, but crowd together within our Provinces, is partly due to their belief that, on the whole, they are less liable to oppression. under British rule than under native chiefs. But any outward movement of the population, even from the most denselypeopled English Districts, would probably be regarded with pain by the local officers. Indeed, the occasional exodus of a few cultivators from the overcrowded Province of Behar into the thinly-peopled frontier State of Nepál, has formed a subject of sensitive self-reproach. In proportion as we can enforce good government under the native chiefs of India, we should hope to see a gradual movement of the people into the Feudatory States. There is plenty of land in India for the whole VOL. VI. D Census of 1881. population. What is required is not the diminution of the people, but their more equal distribution. The Census, taken in February 1881, shows an increase of 15 millions for all India, or 6'4 per cent., during the nine years since 1872. But this general statement gives but an imperfect insight into the local increment of the people. For while in the southern Provinces, which suffered most from the famine of 1877-78, the numbers have stood still, or even receded, Increase of an enormous increase has taken place in the less thicklythe people, peopled tracts. Thus, the British Presidency of Madras shows a diminution of 14 per cent. ; while the Native State of Mysore, which felt the full effects of the long-continued dearth of 1876-79, had 17 per cent. fewer inhabitants in 1881 than in 1872. The Bengal population has increased by 11 per cent. in the nine years, notwithstanding the milder scarcity of 1874. But the great increase is in the outlying, under-peopled Districts of India, where the pressure of the inhabitants on the soil has not yet begun to be felt, and where thousands of acres still await the cultivator. In Assam the increase (1872-81) has been 19 per cent.-largely due to immigration; in the Central Provinces, with their Feudatory States and tracts of unreclaimed jungle, 25 per cent. ; in Berar (adjoining them), 20 per cent.; while in Burma-which, most of all the British Provinces, stands in need of inhabitants—the nine years have added 36 per cent. to the population, equivalent to doubling the people in about twenty-five years. The following table compares the results of the Census of 1872 with those of the Census of 1881. It should be borne in mind, however, that the Census of 1872 was not a synchronous one; and that in some of the Native States the returns of 1872 were estimates rather than actual enumerations.1 1 The figures for 1872 in the above table are taken from the finally revised statements, after allowing for transfers of territory and the restoration of Mysore to Native rule. How far the increase in the French and FOUR-FOLD DIVISION OF THE PEOPLE. 51 THE ETHNICAL HISTORY OF INDIA.-The statistical elucida- Ethnology. tion of the races and Provinces of India can only be effected by tabular forms. At the end of this volume, therefore, will be found a series of ten statements dealing with the various aspects of the Indian population.1 The briefest summary of the ethnological elements which compose that population is all that can be here attempted. division European writers formerly divided the Indian population into Four-fold two races-the Hindus and the Muhammadans. But when we of the look more closely at the people, we find that they consist of four People. well-marked elements. These are, first, the recognised non- (1) NonAryan Tribes, called the Aborigines, and their half-Hinduized Aryans. descendants, numbering over 17 millions in British India in 1872. Second, the comparatively pure offspring of the (2) Aryans. Aryan or Sanskrit - speaking Race (the Brahmans and Rájputs), about 16 millions in 1872. Third, the great Mixed Population, known as the Hindus, which has grown out (3) Mixed of the Aryan and non-Aryan, elements (chiefly from the Hindus. latter), III millions in 1872. Fourth, the Muhammadans, (4) Mu41 millions. These made up the 186 millions of people under dans. British rule in 1872. The same four-fold division applied to the population of the 54 millions in Feudatory India in 1872, but we do not know the numbers of the different classes. The figures for 1872 are reproduced in the last paragraph, as the Census of 1881 adopted a different classification, which Portuguese Possessions is due to more accurate enumeration in 1881, cannot be exactly ascertained. 1 Viz.-Table I. Area, villages, houses, and population, etc., in each Province of British India in 1881. II. Distribution into town and country, or 6 towns and III. Cultivated, cultivable, and uncultivable land in IV. Population of British India classified according to age V. Population of British India classified according to VI. Asiatic non-Indian population of British India classi- VII. Non-Asiatic population of British India classified VIII. Town population of India, being a list of the 149 IX. Population of British India according to education. X. Population of British India, classified according to hamma |