Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c6.s2: Modern Works
Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c6.s2
- Language
- English
Modern Works
c6.s2.1
In modern works, the monumental work of Kingsley Devis on the population of India and Pakistan gives very reliable estimates. Edward Thornton and W. H. Moreland have added to our knowledge, the former by collecting a plethora of reliable data about the total population and Hindu-Muslim ratio in cities, districts and regions, and the latter by doing valuable pioneering work in the field of medieval Indian demography. But from Thornton's Gazetteer itself it is evident how sometimes contemporary writers and even surveyors could make mistakes in counting. There may not be many such instances, but one is indeed staggering. Writing about the city of Thatta in Sindh, Thornton says:
c6.s2.2
⁴¹ Manucci, *Storia do Mogor*, English trs by W. Irvine, 4 vols., (London, 1906), II, p. 437.
c6.s2.3
"The present population is variously estimated—at below 2,000 (Kennedy, I, 81), at less than 10,000 (Burnes, *Report on Commerce of Thatta*, 8), at 12,000 (Outram, 18), 15,000 (Burnes, *Bokhara*, III, 30,227), 18,000 (J.R.A.S., 1834, 234), 20,000 (Pottinger, 352), and 40,000 (James Burnes, *Sinde*)".⁴³ About Moreland's estimate Carr Saunders in *World Population* has commented thus: "Moreland's figure has been quoted with favour in the census reports of India, no better estimate is available, but its factual basis is of the most slender kind".⁴⁴ Even so, modern works on population studies are results of patient scientific research and are very valuable.
c6.s2.4
⁴³ Thornton's Gazetteer, *op. cit.* (I, n. 7), IV, pp. 663-64.
c6.s2.5
⁴⁴ Cited by J. M. Datta in "A Re-examination of Moreland's Estimate...at the Death of Akbar", *op. cit.*, (I, n. 10), p. 165.
c6.s2.6
The Indian Census Reports are authentic and provide a detailed analysis of population trends from 1881 onwards. The demographic patterns marked out by them help in guaging the situation prior to 1881 and indeed for the medieval times. But these reports have only a limited value for us. If it were not so, our task would have become very easy. On the basis of the known statistics, say of the Muslim population between 1881 and 1941, we could have calculated regressively to find the Muslim numbers in the year 1781, 1681, 1581, 1500, 1400 or, for that matter, for any single year in the medieval period. But when this was done on the electronic computer, the results obtained were fantastic. (Calculation in regression on the electronic computer showed that 94 million Muslims of 1941 or 49 million of 1881, would have been 510 in A.D. 1401 and only 10 in A.D. 1241—an absolutely wrong result.) Moreover, Indian census figures have not always been unimpeachably reliable. Uneducated and even educated but superstitious parents have sometimes been found reluctant to truly disclose the number of their children as a protection against the 'evil eye of the jealous'. In the 1941 census population figures were inflated on account of communal rivalry; and the Pakistan census report of 1951 estimates that the inflation of Muhammadans in 1941 was of the order of 10 per cent.