Census in British India
Census in British India refers to the census of India prior to independence which was conducted periodically from 1865 to 1941. The censuses were primarily concerned with administration and faced numerous problems in their design and conduct ranging from the absence of house numbering in hamlets to cultural objections on various grounds to dangers posed by wild animals to census personnel. The sociologist Michael Mann called the census exercise "more telling of the administrative needs of the British than of the social reality for the people of British India".[1] The differences in the nature of Indian society during the British Raj from the value system and the societies of the West were highlighted by the inclusion of "caste", "religion", "profession" and "age" in the data to be collected, as the collection and analysis of that information had a considerable impact on the structure and politics of Indian society.
Administrative background[edit]
The first modern census in the United Kingdom (of a much smaller population) had been in 1801, repeated every ten years thereafter, and this provided the pattern for the Indian process, although this threw up many different problems.
There were historical attempts to enumerate the population in parts of the Indian subcontinent as well as to assess landholdings for revenue purposes, which was then a primary consideration, as attested in the writings of Kautilya, Abul Fazl and Muhnot Nainsi.[2] The East India Company, too, carried out quantitative exercises in various places and at various times prior to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 after which its authority to govern the country, often referred to as Company Rule, was replaced by the administrators operating under the auspices of the British Crown.[3]
The 1865 census of the North-Western Provinces is sometimes referred to as the first proper census in India.[4] By 1872, the only administrative area of British India in which there had not been an attempt to conduct a regionwide enumeration was Bengal Province.[5] The various limited exercises conducted prior to 1869 have been described as "fragmentary, hardly systematic and lack[ing in] any uniformity".[2][a] In 1872, the British Raj authorities concluded the first "all-India census". However, S. C. Srivastava noted that it did not in fact cover all of the country and that it was asynchronous by being conducted between 1867 and 1872 after an initial 1856 decision to introduce decennial enumerations from 1861 had been disrupted by the 1857 Rebellion.[7] The first synchronous decennial census was conducted in 1881[8] and has continued thus since,[9] but the 1941 exercise was severely curtailed and very little of its data was published due to World War II.[10] The 1931 census is often considered be the last British-administered census.[11][b] The report of the 1881 census comprised three volumes;[2] that of 1931 comprised 28.[12]
British India ceased to exist in 1947, when Partition occurred. Throughout the British Raj, and onwards until 1961 in the Republic of India, responsibility for census operations lay with temporary administrative structures, which were established for each census and then dismantled.[8]
Those tasked with gathering the data faced various unusual situations. Matters of culture affected even simple processes such as house numbering, with Bhil people objecting on the grounds of superstition and Burmese people on the grounds of artistry. Enumerators also faced dangerous situations, including instances of being attacked by tigers.[12] According to the 1891 Census Commissioner, the respondents were almost all illiterate and often "unwilling and obtuse".[13] Objections based on various rumours that the censuses were intended to introduce new taxes, aid military or labour recruitment, assist in conversions to Christianity or force migration were not uncommon, at least in the early decades. There were also incidents of violence although they tended to occur in places where tensions between native people and the British were already high.[14]