According to the census of 1901 the population of India (including
Burma) was 294,361,056. But this vast mass of people does not constitute
a single nationality, neither is it divided into a number of different
nations of distinct blood and distinct language. They are drawn, indeed,
from four well-marked elements: the non-Aryan tribes or aborigines of
the country; the Aryan or Sanskrit-speaking race; the great mixed
population which has grown out of a fusion of the two previous elements;
and the Mahommedan invaders from the north-west. These four elements,
however, have become inextricably mixed together, some predominating in
one portion of the country, some in another, while all are found in
every province and native state. The chief modern divisions of the
population, therefore, do not follow the lines of blood and language,
but of religion and caste.
Of the four elements already enumerated the oldest are the wild tribes
of central India, such as the Bhils and Gonds, who probably represent
the original inhabitants of the country. These number some 11,000,000.
Second come the Dravidians of the south, amounting to about 54,000,000.
Thirdly come the Aryans, inhabiting mainly that portion of India north
of the Nerbudda which is known as Hindustan proper. Of these only the
Brahmans and Rajputs, about 20,000,000, are of pure Aryan blood. The
remaining 135,000,000 Hindus represent the fusion of Aryan and non-Aryan
elements. Fourthly come the Mahommedans, numbering some 62,000,000. Many
of them are the descendents of Arab, Afghan, Mogul and Persian invaders,
and the remainder are converts made to Islam in the course of the
centuries of Mahommedan rule.
Racial types.
The census report of 1901 divided the population of India into seven
distinct racial types: the Turko-Iranian type, represented by the
Baluch, Brahui and Afghans of the Baluchistan Agency and the
North-West Frontier Province; the Indo-Aryan type, occupying the
Punjab, Rajputana and Kashmir, and having as its characteristic
members the Rajputs, Khatris and Jats; the Scytho-Dravidian type of
western India, comprising the Mahrattas; the Kunbis, and the Coorgs,
probably formed by a mixture of Scythian and Dravidian elements; the
Aryo-Dravidian type found in the United Provinces, in parts of
Rajputana, and in Behar, represented in its upper strata by the
Hindustani Brahman, and in its lower by the Chamar. This type is
probably the result of the intermixture, in varying proportions, of
the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian types, the former element predominating
in the higher groups and the latter in the lower. The fifth type is
the Mongolo-Dravidian of Bengal and Orissa, comprising the Bengal
Brahmans and Kayasths, the Mahommedans of Eastern Bengal, and other
groups peculiar to this part of India. It is probably a blend of
Dravidian and Mongoloid elements with a strain of Indo-Aryan blood in
the higher groups. The sixth type is the Mongoloid of the Himalayas,
Nepal, Assam and Burma, represented by the Kanets of Lahoul and Kulu,
the Lepchas of Darjeeling, the Limbus, Murmis and Gurungs of Nepal,
the Bodo of Assam, and the Burmese. Seventh and last comes the
Dravidian type, extending from Ceylon to the valley of the Ganges, and
pervading the whole of Madras and Mysore and most of Hyderabad, the
Central Provinces, Central India and Chota Nagpur. Its most
characteristic representatives are the Paniyans of the south Indian
hills and the Santals of Chota Nagpur. This is probably the original
type of the population of India, now modified to a varying extent by
the admixture of Aryan, Scythian and Mongoloid elements.
Caste.
It is apparently from the differences in civilization and political
power resulting from these successive strata of conquerors over the
conquered that the Hindu system of caste arose. A caste is defined in
the census report of 1901 as a collection of families or groups of
families bearing a common name, which usually denotes or is associated
with a specific occupation; claiming common descent from a mythical
ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same calling, and
regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a
single homogeneous community. A caste is almost invariably endogamous,
in the sense that a member of the large circle denoted by the common
name may not marry outside that circle, but within the circle there
are usually a number of smaller circles, each of which is also
endogamous. Thus it is not enough to say at the present day that a
Brahman cannot marry any woman who is not a Brahman; his wife must not
only be a Brahman, but must also belong to the same endogamous
division of the Brahman caste. The origin of caste was described by
Sir Denzil Ibbetson in the Punjab Census Report of 1881 in the
following terms: "We have the following steps in the process by which
caste has been evolved in the Punjab--(1) the tribal divisions common
to all primitive societies; (2) the gilds based upon hereditary
occupation common to the middle life of all communities; (3) the
exaltation of the priestly office to a degree unexampled in other
countries; (4) the exaltation of the Levitical blood by a special
insistence upon the necessarily hereditary nature of occupation; (5)
the preservation and support of this principle by the elaboration from
the theories of the Hindu creed or cosmogony of a purely artificial
set of rules regulating marriage and intermarriage, declaring certain
occupations and foods to be impure and polluting, and prescribing
the conditions and degree of social intercourse permitted between the
several castes. Add to these the pride of social rank and the pride of
blood, which are natural to man, and which alone could reconcile a
nation to restrictions at once irksome from a domestic and burdensome
from a material point of view, and it is hardly to be wondered at that
caste should have assumed the rigidity which distinguishes it in
India." Caste has, in fact, come to be the chief dominating factor in
the life of the ordinary native of India. All a man's actions from the
cradle to the grave are regulated by it; and the tendency in modern
India is for tribes to turn into castes. So widespread is its
influence that, though originally a purely Hindu institution, it has
come to exercise considerable influence over their Mahommedan
neighbours (see CASTE).
[Illustration: Map of India (Southern part).