llat. This race, the most primitive of the Indian types, occupies the oldest geological formation in India, the medley of forest-clad ranges, terraced plateau, and undulating plains which stretch roughly speaking, from the Vindhyas to Cape Comorin. On the east and the west of the peninsular area the domain of the Dravidian is conterminous with the Ghats, while further north it reaches on one side to the Aravallis, and on the other to the Rajmahal Hills. Where the original characteristics have been unchanged by contact with Indo Aryan or Mongoloid people, the type is remarkably uniform and distinctive. Labour is the birthright of the pure Dravidian whether hoeing tea in Assam, the Duars, of Ceylon, cutting rice in the swamps of Eastern Bengal or doing scavenger's work in the streets of Calcutta, Kangoon and Singapore, he is recognizable at a glance by his black skin, his MAIN STATISTICS OF The Indian Empire has an area of 1,805,332 square miles, about 3,000 square miles being added at the last census owing to the enumeration by estimate of certain tracts in Burma which had been excluded from previous censuses. Of the total area 1,094,300 square miles, or 61 per cent. lie in British Territory, while the Indian States cover an area of 711,032 square miles, or 39 per cent. The total population is 318,942,480, British Territory containing 247,003,293 persons, or 77 per cent., and the Indian States 71,939,187 persons, or 23 per cent. of the whole population. It is usual to illustrate squat figure, and the negro-like proportion of his nose. In the upper strata of the vast social deposit which is here treated as Dravidian these typical characteristics tend to thin and disap pear, but even among them traces of the original stock survive in varying degrees. The areas occupied by these various types do not admit of being defined as sharply as they must be shown on an ethnographic map. They melt into each other insensibly; and although at the close of a day's journey from one ethnic tract to another, an observer whose attention had been directed to the subject would realise clearly enough that the physical characteristies of the people had undergone an appreciable change, he would certainly be unable to say at what particular stage in his progress the transformation had taken place. THE INDIAN EMPIRE. these figures by comparison with the countries of Europe and in respect of area and population the Indian Empire has been frequently compared to Europe without Russia. The war has, however, considerably altered the national and political distribution of countrics and the new political map of Europe is perhaps harily yet sufficiently familiar to form a graphic contrast. Turning further west we find that India with an area about half that of the United States has a population almost three times as large. The most important statistics are set out in the following table: Density. Over the whole of India the population per square mile averages 177, the mean density in the British Provinces being 226 and in the States 101. If the districts (and small States) are taken as a unit, and the cities are excluded, the mean density ranges between a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 1,882 per square mile. The unequal distribution of the population of India is due to causes analysed in previous editions of the Year Book; it is chiefly dictated by physical conditions. Other influences are at work, such as the state of law and order, the means of communication, tlimate, and the existence of irrigation. Indusarial factors are becoming more and more important as the population moves out of the congested tural tracts to supply the labour needed for industrial enterprise for the tea in Assam, the docks and jute mills of Calcutta, the mineral of Bengal and Chota Nagpur, the cotton of Bombay and the coffee and rubber of Southern India. For the purposes of comparison the manner in which the population is distributed in other countries of the world is indicated in the following statement:-- MOVEMENT OF THE The population of India has increased by 1'2 per cent, during the decade. The figures of previous censuses with the variations per cent. are given below. The average increase since the census of 1872 falls at a rate of 5.5 per cent., but the real gain is considerably less than this figure owing to two factors, (a) the additions of area and population included at each census and (b) the progressive increase in the accuracy of the enumeration from census to census. So far as the present census is concerned the additional area and population included amount to 2,675 square miles and 86,533 persons, respectively, while for the present purpose it may be taken that the enumeration of 1921 was, as regards numbers, as accurate but not more accurate than that of 1911. The real increase in the population during the last 49 years is thus estimated at about fifty-four millions or 20.1 percent. The War. The war itself had little direct effect on the population of India. Such effect could operate in three ways (1) by death casualties, (2) by increasing thenumber of persons outside India at the census, and (3) by decreasing the birth-rate. The actual number of death casualties among the officers and ranks of Indian Army units and labour corps was 58,238. The maximum number serving out of India in combatant and labour units at any one time between 1914 and 1919 was, approximately, Indian troops 250,000, labour corps 230,000, total 180,000; the number about the time of the census being troops 105,000, labour corps 20,800, total 125,800. So far as the larger totals are concerned the war is not a direct factor of any importance in the census in any province. Factors in the Movement. The increase was slightly greater in the British districts (1.3) than in the States (1-0). Assam and Burma show comparatively high rates of increase; immigration is an important factor in the rise in Assam, but neither of these Provinces was exposed to the invasion of influenza which wiped off the whole of the natural increase in the Central Provinces and Berar, Bihar and Orissa, and Bombay, and substantially reduced the population in the United Provinces and Rajputana, the Central India Agency, and Hyderabad State. The stimulus given to agricultural prosperity in the Punjab by a large expansion of canal irrigation did much to neutralise the effects of the high death rate in 1918. In Bengal and Madras unhealthy conditions were more localised and the development of the population was only partially retarded, Economic Conditions. In considering the economic factorswhich determined the movement of the population during the decade it can be divided into two periods, a fairly normal period from 1911 to 1917 and the disastrous epidemic year 1918, accompanied by scarcity and followed by a second crop failure in 1920. In 1917 conditions in India began to respond to the world conditions of the war, men for the fighting and labour units and food, munitions and war material of all kinds were demanded. The strain on the railway organisation dislocated the local markets and the distribution system of the country was impaired. The rising prices of imported necessities hit the poorer classes. Then followed the disastrous seasons of 1918 and 1919. Famine relief organisation is now so highly perfected in India that searcity is not necessarily accompanied by high mortality but influenza, starting in 1918, visited almost every portion of the country and in a few months wiped out the natural increase in the population of the previous seven years. Public Health. - The distinctive feature of the decade 1901-1911 was plague. The recorded number of deaths from plague in the ten years was 6 millions. In the recent decade the deaths were less than half that number. Cholera is normally most prevalent in the Eastern Provinces. Virulent as the epidemic can still be when its hold is established it is now usually of a temporary and local nature, and the total deathrate in British India from the disease during the decade did not amount to more than 1.5 per cent. By far the largest number of deaths in India are entered under the category of "fever," and allowing for inaccuracy of diag nosis it has usually been assumed that about two-thirds of the deaths so recorded may be ascribed to malaria. Recent investigations made in special areas, however, suggest that this proportion has been considerably overestimated and that malaria only accounts for from one-fifth to one-fourth of the number of reported fever cases, the remainder being cases of dysentery, pneumonia, phthisis and other diseases. of In the last few years the prevalence an affection which is the cause of considerable mortality called Relapsing Fever has received considerable attention by the Health Department. This disease has been diagnosed as common in most parts of the country, specially in the northern provinces and in the Central Provinces and Berarand Bombay, but the extent of the mortality which can be ascribed to it cannot at present be estimated. Nor can figures be given of phthisis whichis undoubtedly responsible for considerable mortality; especially in the towns of western India, the deaths from this disease in Ahmedabad amounting in 1918 to 5 per mille of the population. All other factors in the health of the people have been overshadowed by the influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919 which has dominated the population figures at the 1921 census. At have been made based on the excess mortality over some suitable mean. The average of these calculations gives a total number of deaths in the areas under registration of about 7,100,000 in 1918, to which must be added, as the results of similar calculation, another 14 million deaths nearly 84 millions in the two years. Even in 1919, giving a total recorded mortality of this, however, must be a substantial unders estimate since, owing to the complete breakdown of the reporting staff, the registration of vital statistics was in many cases suspended during the progress of the epidemic in 1918. put at between 12 and 13 millions. This is a The total influenza mortality for India is conservative estimate. Even this estimate which occurred in three or four months, males the influenza mortality, a large part of exceed by nearly two millions the total estimated deaths from plague in twenty years. On an estimated case mortality of ten per cent. the total number of persons affected was 125 millions or two-fifths of the population of India. There was a further reaction on the birth rate. Houses a number of persons per house has not changed and Families. The average in the last decade, though there was decline between 1881 and 1911. The trend of the figures varies in different provinces, but they do not afford substantial ground example, be expected that the incidence of for any material inference. It would, for the influenza mortality would fall fairly evenly upon the individual households and would therefore cause a reduction in the number of persons per house. It does not appear to have the Central Provinces, or Rajputana, while in done so either in Bombay, the United Provinces, Bengal, where there is a rise in the population, figures are unsatisfactory, and though they there is a fall in the size of the household. The invite a discussion on the condition of the joint illuminate it. The general opinion of the Profamily it is doubtful if they can really be held to vincial Superintendents is that they do not do the joint family system has yet undergone any so and that other indications do not show that tracts of the country. radical change, at any rate in the agricultural The rural areas were most severely infected, the reason probably being that while villages have little advantage over towns in the matter of overcrowding, sanitation and ventilation the urban areas have the benefit of qualified medical aid and organised effort. Mortality was specially high among adults (20-40), particularly among adult females, the disease being generally fatal to women in pregnancy. the worst period whole villages were absolutely laid desolate by the disease. There was some times no means of disposing of the dead, crops were left unharvested and all local official action was largely paralysed, owing to the fact that the majority of the official staff were put out of action by the epidemic. To add to the distress the disease came at a period of widespread crop failure and reached its climax in November when the cold weather had set in; and, as the price of cloth happened at the time to be at its highest, many were unable to provide themselves with the warm clothing that was essential in the case of an illness that so readily attacked the lungs. The disease lasted in most provinces 1921 well into 1919 and gave a high mortality in that year in Bengal and the United Provinces. 1911 Even after it had subsided there were in the Central Provinces, Bombay and Burma mild recrudescences later in the year, while local outbreaks continued over the country during 1891 the next two years. There is no direct means of ascertaining the mortality from the epidemic. Various estimates 1901 31.7 NOTES. (1) The figures for the Provinces are inclusive of the States attached to them except in the case of Madras where they exclude Cochin and Travancore. XI was not compiled. (2) The Actual and Natural population shown in this table is less by 56,500 persons owing to the exclusion of Aden where Table (3) Columns 2 and 6-Persons not enumerated by birth-place or whose birth-place was not returned have been included in these columns. (4) Columns 4 and 8-The figures against India in columns 4 and 8 represent emigrants to foreign countries, details of which for 1921 will be found in Subsidiary Table V of Chapter III. |