INDIA'S POPULATION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11, 4 May 1914, Page 4

INDIA'S POPULATION.

The results of tho Indian Census now just available show that India has 815,156,396 inhabitants. The net addition to the population during the interval of 10 years and 9 days between the Censuses of 1901 ana 191 is 18.7 millions, representing an increase of 6.4 per cent. The effect of immigration and emigration on the strength if the population is inappreciable The increase is, therefore, die to natural causes. The Hindus have increased by only a little over 5 per cent. The Mussulmans, on the other hand, show an increase of about 7 per cent., Christians of nearly 33 per cent., Parsis of over 6 per cent., and Animists of nearly 20 per cent. The Arya Samajists and Brahmos are included under Hindus. If these are excluded, the Hindu increase during the decade is exactly 5 per cent. Of the other religions classed as Lndo-Aryan, Sikhism shows an increase of over 37 per cent., and Buddhism of a little more than 13 per cent, in the numbers of their respective followers. The Christian population of India now numbers close on 4 millions. Its increase during the decade has been more considerable than m the two previous ones. It is also pointed out that no feature of Indian Census statistics has been discussed more widely and zealously during the last thirty'years than the disparityin the proportion of the sexes in tne total population. Taking the country as a whole, the Censuses taken during the last thirty years have disclosed a deficiency of females ranging from 36 to 46 for every 1000 males. In the Census Report of India for 1901, Air Gait, while not denying the possibility of some few females having been omitted from the record, concluded that the local conditions of India tending to produce a relatively high mortality amongst females, wore sufficient to account for the deficiency in their number as compared with that of. males. This view, says the “Times of India,” has been challenged. It is argued that it is extremely unlikely that there should be so great a difference at 84 per mile between the proportion of females to males in India, and that in Western Europe, and argue that omission has probably played an important part in producing the disparity in the number of females at Indian Censuses. They support the belief by reference to the well-known reticence of natives of India regarding their women; to the fact that the age statistics show that the proportion of females is lowest between the ages of 10 and 20, when the tendency to reticence, particularly as regards unmarried females, might be supposed to be especially pronounced. Mr Gait responds by showing that the high proportion of females in Western Europe, and not their low proportion in India, is an exception to the general trend of the world’s statistics; that if reticence in respect of women had led to omissions, the proportion of Mussulman females should bo less, and not, as he make? out, more than that of Hindu females.