p. 235 | POPULATION IN INDIA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 15.

POPULATION IN INDIA.

The Indian Churchman remarks upon some curious facts disclosed by the census of India, which were recently commented upon in a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society by Mr. J. H. Baines, the subject of which was "Distribution and Movement of Population in India." The Indian Churchman says:—

"While in England 53 per cent. of the population live in towns of over 20,000 inhabitants, in India only 4 3/4 per cent. do so. Thus it is evident that there is as yet here no 'rural exodus,' and it is for the good of the country that it should be so. Still more interesting is the fact that only 4 per cent. were found to have quitted the district where they were born, or its immediate neighborhood; and this is a fact of far less encouragement, for the recurring danger of famine can only be avoided by the transference of the population from the overcrowded districts, such as Bengal, to the thinly-populated ones, such as Assam. The small number who do leave their homes are either indigenous tribes (like the Kols of Chota Nagpur) who have not yet been infected with Hindu caste superstitions, or Christians who have risen above them; and since it is impossible for them to go back to the former state, the solution of the difficulty would seem to lie in their going forward to the latter. Quite recently a Christian colony of Santhals has been established by a C. M. S. missionary at the foot of the Himalayas; had these men been Hindus, they would have refused to leave their homes."