Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c11.112

c11.112

W.H. Moreland has estimated that the population of India at the time of Akbar's death (A.D. 1605) or about 1600 was a hundred million⁸¹—about 70 million in northern and 30 in southern India. He bases his computation on three sources, (i) impression of foreign visitors, (ii) the strength of the armies and (iii) the extent of cultivation.⁸² The design of Indian population as given by foreign visitors has been already discussed at length. Indian historians corroborate it; nay, they give even a brighter portrayal of the demographic scene. According to Nizamuddin Ahmad, the author of the voluminous but authentic work entitled *Tabqat-i-Akbari*, Akbar's empire contained 120 large cities and 3,200 small towns (*qasba*), each having under it a hundred to a thousand villages.⁸³ Wherefrom did Nizamuddin gather this information ? In the twentyfifth year of his reign (1581), Akbar had ordered a general census of his empire. An imperial mandate was issued", says Abul Fazl, "directing the *jagirdars*, *shikkdars*, and *daroghas* throughout the Empire to draw up, village by village, lists of all the inhabitants, specifying their names and occupations." Besides the general census, Akbar's *farman* listing the duties of the *kotwal* clearly lays down that ‘he should jot down the residents of every street from house to house as to what sort of men they are, how many of them are cultivators, how many professional men, how many sepoys, how many darweshes.’⁸⁵ No such records are extant now, but Nizamuddin certainly appears to have had access to them. At least the way in which he mentions the large and small cities shows that he was sure of what he was writing. However, it is not possible to estimate the population on the basis of the number of *qasbas*, because each *qasba* is said to have had a hundred to a thousand villages, and this big variation leads us nowhere. But, as seen earlier, the average population of a large Indian city was about 200,000 to 250,000 inhabitants. On this basis, the urban population in Akbar’s empire would have been 120 (cities) × 200,000 (inhabitants) = about 24,000,000 people. Now according to the census of 1961 the ratio of urban to rural population was 17.84:82.16.⁸⁶ Commercially and industrially the India of 1600 is said to have been more advanced than many European countries. At least it was not entirely agricultural and its cities were many and in a flourishing state. Therefore if this same urban-rural ratio could be taken as holding good for Akbar’s empire also, its total population would have been about 133 million. Add to this the 30 to 32 millions for the South (not included in Akbar’s empire) and the total for the whole of India in 1600 would come to about 165 million.