Indian Muslims: Who Are They c7.27

c7.27

To conclude: while the total population of India from 1000 to 1800 had registered rise and fall by turns, Muslim population had shown only a constant rise. In 1000 Muslim numbers in India were microscopic. In 1200 they were perhaps about three to four hundred thousand. By 1400 their number had risen probably to 3.2 million and they formed about 1.85 percent of the total population. In 1600 they were probably 15 million. And from the 1:9 to 1:10 Muslim-Hindu ratio in 1600 the proportion of Muslims to Hindus had gone up to about 1:7 by the year 1800. When Bishop Heber wrote his journal (1826), his inquiries pointed to a Muslim-Hindu ratio of 1:6.⁷⁹ Edward Thorntons Gazetteer2 published in 1854 also gives the ratio of 1:6. Thus at about the middle of the nineteenth century, the Muslim-Hindu ratio stood approximately at 1:6. This would make the Muslims 16 per cent of the total population. In 1800 this percentage was obviously less - 15 or even 14. The total population estimated for C.E. 1800 is 170 millions.⁸⁰ Muslims who were 15 percent of the total would have been about 25 millions. By the end of the nineteenth century, the ratio had changed to 1:⁵, and Stanely Lanepoole, whose *Medieval India* was first published in 1903, rightly observes: The population of India in the present day is over three hundred millions, and every sixth man is a Muslim.⁸¹ The total population of India, according to 1901 Census was 283,867,584 (including persons in the N.W. Frontier Province) and Muslims numbered 62,861,542.⁸² Therefore, approximately every sixth person was a Muslim and the ratio stood at 1:5. And since Muslim numbers in proportion to the Hindus have increased progressively through decades and centuries, a ratio of 1:6 for the middle of the nineteenth and 1:7 for the year 1800 is not only a fair estimate but almost a correct figure for which evidence is available in Thorntons Gazetteer and its authentic sources.⁸³