Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 2/Section 1

SECTION I.

Sub-Divisions and Population.

Rajshahi was formerly the most extensive district of Bengal, comprehending, according to Major Rennel’s computation in 1784, 12,999 square miles; at which period also the population appears to have been estimated at 1,997,763. After that date several important pergunnahs were detached from it, and joined, it is believed, to the district of Moorshedabad; and in 1801 the population of Rajshahi was estimated at 1,500,000. About twenty-five years ago, two thanas, viz., those of Chapai and Rahanpur, were, in respect of police and fiscal purposes, detached from Rajshahi, and employed with two from Dinajpur and four from Purniya to form the joint magistracy and deputy collectorship of Malda. About ten years after, four other thanas of Rajshahi, viz., those of Adamdighi, Nakhila, Serpur, and Buggoorah, with two from Rangpur and three from Dinajpur, were for the same administrative purposes, employed to form the joint magistracy and deputy collectorship of Buggoorah. Still more recently within the last seven and eight years, five other thanas, viz., those of Shajatpur, Khetapara, Raigunge, Mathura, and Pubna, were in like manner separated from Rajshahi to contribute with four from Jessore to form the joint magistracy and deputy collectorship of Pubna. After these large reductions the district still contains ten thanas and three ghatis, in all thirteen police sub-divisions.

These sub-divisions are here enumerated in the order of their estimated relative territorial extent, beginning with the largest; viz., thanas Bhawanigunge, Hariyal, Nattore, Chaugaon, Bauleah, Bilmariya, Tannore, Manda, Dubalhati, and Godagari; and ghatis Puthiya, Surda, and Mirgunge. Of these Nattore is the most central and is that to which the tables in the Appendix refer, being taken as a standard by which to judge of the condition of the remaining sub-divisions. Its greatest length from north to south is estimated by well informed persons in the district at 22 miles, and its greatest breadth from east to west at 20 miles. These are estimated, not measured, distances, and may be a little below or a little above the truth; and even, if taken as strictly correct, they must be understood to express only the distance of the extreme and opposite limits without implying that the same length and breadth will be found at all points. As the different districts run into and dove-tail with one another, so do the different sub-divisions of the same distinct. The space, therefore, contained in the thana of Nattore will not be correctly judged from the extreme length and breadth which would make it equal to 440 square miles, whereas the actual area probably does not amount to more than 350. Comparing the other sub-divisions with Nattore, Bhawanigunge and Hariyal have each a larger extent of surface, but much of the former is occupied by jungle and of the latter by water, the Chalan Bil, the largest lake in Bengal, being principally included within its limits. Chaugaon and Bauleah are about equal in extent, and each rather smaller than Nattore; and Bilmariya and Tannore are one grade smaller, Manda is rather larger than Dubalhati or Godagari, the two latter being the smallest in size of the thanas. The ghatis are still smaller considered merely in reference to territorial extent, and of the three Puthiya is the largest. Besides Bhawanigunge, Manda, Tannore, Dubalhati and Godagari have much jungle in which the wolf and tiger have their haunts. The three ghatis are sections of contiguous thanas, placed under separate Native superintendents, to give greater vigour and efficiency to the administration of the police.

About the end of 1834, Mr. Bury, the magistrate and collector of the district, caused returns to be made to him by the different daroghas, showing the number of families—of men, women, and children—and of chowkidars in each thana. I was permitted to examine them, and the following are the results which they exhibit, omitting the column relating to chowkidars

POPULATION RETURNS OF 1834.

			Men.		Women.		Children.
Thanas.		Families.	Hindus.	Musalmans.	Hindus.	Musalmans.	Hindus.	Musalmans.	Total of Inhabitants.
Bhawanigunge	. . .	22,935	12,892	38,691	11,666	37,279	86,076	33,110	219,7145
Nattore	. . .	27,504	21,080	42,046	21,573	42,522	20,226	38,012	185,409
Hariyal	. . .	21,715	17,417	29,962	17,764	29,680	14,589	29,205	138,617
Bauleah	. . .	15,776	10,750	20,438	11,309	24,228	15,058	17,938	99,721
Bilmariya	. . .	9,707	12,364	20,459	11,603	19,081	8,474	16,548	88,529
Tannore	. . .	12,674	4,843	18,481	5,447	20,484	3,867	16,748	69,870
Chaugaon	. . .	11,797	8,151	15,371	8,540	14,721	4,921	10,357	62,061
Manda	. . .	9,336	7,314	11,690	7,355	11,644	4,227	8,001	50,231
Puthiya	. . .	6,978	3,856	11,035	3,833	11,054	3,510	11,381	44,669
Sarda	. . .	4,075	3,725	7,940	3,782	8,096	2,923	8,033	34,499
Dubalhati	. . .	5,112	3,122	7,572	3,345	8,163	2,380	7,933	32,515
Mirgunge	. . .	3,769	2,640	4,423	2,922	4,650	1,845	4,408	20,888
Godagari	. . .	4,076	3,269	3,148	3,212	3,592	2,452	2,560	18,233

Although it is not expressly stated in the returns, yet it seems to have been generally understood that all who had entered on their sixteenth year were reckoned as men and women, and all who had not completed their fifteenth year were reckoned as children. The following is an abstract of the results thus obtained:—

1.—The total population of the district is 1,064,956 persons of both sexes and all ages.

2.—The total number of families is 155,454.

3.—The average number of persons in a family is thus 6,721, or rather more than 61/2. It should be noted here that the term translated family or house is often employed to describe an aggregate of families, as when two or more married brothers live in a collection of huts or buildings having one enclosure, one entrance, and one court.

4.—The number of males above 15 years of age is 342,629.

5.—The number of females above 15 years of age is 347,545.

6.—The number of children below 16 years of age is 374,782.

7.—The number of Hindus is 394,272.

8.—The number of Musalmans is 670,684.

9. The proportion of Musalmans to Hindus is as 1,000 to 587.8.

I have given the preceding table and its results because they exhibit the latest official returns of the population of the district; but I should add that the magistrate and collector expressed great doubt of the accuracy of the returns. The table contains internal evidence of error, of which the first series of figures relating to the thana of Bhawanigunge affords obvious examples. Thus in that police sub-division there are stated to be in all only 22,935 families, while the materials in men and women are at the same time said to exist of about 12,000 Hindu families and 38,000 Musalman families, in all 50,000 families—a difference which cannot be satisfactorily explained by supposing an unusually large number of widows and unmarried persons. Again, the Hindu men and women, are stated at about 12,000 each, and the Musalman men and women at about 38,000 each; on the other hand the Hindu children are made to amount to 86,000, giving about seven children to each Hindu couple, while the Musalman children are made to amount to only 33,000, giving less than one child to each Musalman couple—an excess in the former case, a deficiency in the latter, and a disproportion between the two classes which are irreconcileable with all experience and probability. In point of fact there were no checks whatever employed to guard against error, the magistrate requiring the return from the daroghas, and the daroghas from the zemindars; the zemindars employing their gomashtas or factors; and the gomashtas depending on the mondals or headmen and the chowkidars or watchmen of the villages for the desired information. Besides the unintentional errors that might be expected to arise in such a diluted process, executed in all its parts by ignorant and uninterested men, it is not improbably supposed that both landholders and cultivators are indisposed to make faithful returns whenever misrepresentation can escape detection. They have vague fears about the objects of such inquiries, the landholders apprehending an increase of assessment, the cultivators a requisition for their personal services, and both shrinking from that minute inspection of their condition which such inquiries involve. Without ample explanation, therefore, and without checks of any kind, it is vain to expect accuracy in such investigations.

While endeavouring to ascertain the amount of means employed for the instruction of the population of a given district, it is important to know how far those means come short of the object to be accomplished, i. e., come short of giving instruction to the whole teachable population. With a view to this result, one of my first objects was to ascertain the number of children between 14 and five years of age, which, after consideration and enquiry, I assumed to be the teachable or school-going age. It was evident that, having to deal in this matter for the most part with uninstructed villagers who, whatever their other virtues, are not remarkable for habits of accuracy and precision, they would be frequently apt to include under this age both adults above and children below it, unless I stimulated and aided their attention by requiring separate and distinct statements of the number of persons above 14 and below 5. Columns third and fifth, therefore, of Table I., were at first regarded only as auxiliary to the strict accuracy of the information contained in column fourth, which alone I considered as properly belonging to my enquiry. I mention this that I may not be supposed to have charged myself with a different duty, viz., the taking of a census of the population, from that which was entrusted to me, although I do not imagine that Government or the General Committee will regret the additional information thus supplied, besides that the conclusions reached in this way are indispensable to a correct appreciation of the amount of intellectual cultivation in the district.

In determining the number of children of the teachable age, it was obviously necessary to distinguish between boys and girls, and the distinction of sex was carried also into the other two columns. The results which the table seems to establish regarding the proportion of the sexes in Nattore are as follows:—The number of adult males is less than that of adult females, the former being only 59,500, while the latter is 61,428. On the other hand the number of non-adult males is greater than the number of non-adult females, the former being 41,079, while the latter is 33,289. Of the total population of Nattore, the number of males is 100,579, and that of females 94,717, which, disregarding fractional parts, gives 94 females to every 100 males, a proportion which, approaching very nearly to what is found to prevail where more attention has been paid to the statistics of population than in India, may be considered to derive from this coincidence a confirmation of its accuracy. I have said that Table I. “seems to establish” these results, for highly estimating the importance of the strictest accuracy in such inquiries, I do not wish to conceal the fact that, new to the work in which I engaged, and guided only by my own unaided judgment, I did not at first employ all those guards against error which afterwards occurred to me. I do not, therefore, place absolute confidence in the conclusions to which I have come respecting the population of Nattore, but at the same time I do not think that they can be very remote from the truth.

According to the loose and unchecked returns of 1834, the total population of Nattore was 185,409; and according to the most dilligent and careful examination that I have been able to make, it amounts to 195,296, making a difference of excess in my estimate amounting to 9,887. If we suppose a proportional deficiency in all the returns of 1834, then the total population of the district will amount to 1,121,745. It cannot, I think, be less; and I am strongly led to believe that this number falls considerably short of the truth. After various inquiries, and a comparison of different statements, intelligent natives, possessing extensive local knowledge, have expressed the opinion that, from all the police sub-divisions, nine might be formed, each having a population about equal to that of Nattore. To guard against the operation of unperceived causes of error, let the number be reduced to eight, merging in them the population of the remaining five and the excess of the population of Bhawanigunge above that of Nattore, the entire population of the district will thus be eight times that of Nattore; that is, it will amount to 1,562,368, or rather more than a million and a half. If, as is probable, this estimate is nearly correct, it follows either that former estimates were very erroneous, or that the population has greatly increased since they were made. It has been already mentioned that, in 1801, the population of the district was estimated at 1,500,000, and that, within the last twenty-five years, not fewer than eleven thanas, containing, it is probable, about half its territory and population, have been at different periods detached from the jurisdiction of the collector and magistrate of Rajshahi; and yet it is after all these reductions that the district as now constituted is estimated to contain a population fully equal to that which it was supposed to contain before the reductions were made.

Connected with the question of the population of the district is the distribution of it into the two great divisions of Hindus and Musalmans; the relative proportion of these two classes being not an unimportant subject of inquiry, with a view to forming a correct judgment of the nature and amount of the prejudices to be met in the execution of any measure affecting the body of the people, such as the adoption of means for the promotion of general education. Before visiting Rajshahi, I had been led to suppose that it was a peculiarly Hindu district. Hamilton on official authority states the proportion to be that of two Hindus to one Musalman; and in a work published by the Calcutta School Book Society for the use of schools (1827), the proportion is said to be that of ten Hindus to six Musalmans. Table I. shows that, in the Nattore thana, there are 10,095 Hindu families, while the number of Musalman families is not less than 19,933, just reversing the proportion and making one Hindu for about two Musalman families. I omitted to ascertain by actual enumeration the number of Hindu and Mahomedan persons separately contained in the above-mentioned number of Hindu and Mahomedan families, and I can, therefore, only estimate the probable number of individuals of each class. The total number of individuals is 195,296, and of families 30,028, which gives the high average of 6.5 individuals to each family. This gives an average of 65,656 Hindus to 129,640 Mahomedans, making the proportion of Mahomedans to Hindus as 1,000 to 506,488. Nattore is in this respect not an exception to the other thanas. According to the opinions I have been able to collect, the thanas of Bhawanigunge, Hariyal, Chaugaon, Bilmariya, and Bauleah, are considered to have nearly an equal proportion of Musalmans with Nattore, which latter, if any difference exist, is believed to have rather a larger proportion of Hindus than any of the five former; while in Manda, Tannore, Dubalhati, and Godagari, the proportion of Musalmans is alleged to be in excess of what it is in all the others, certainly amounting to not less that three to one Hindu. If we assume that the first-mentioned six thanas have the proportion of two Musalmans to one Hindu, and the four last-mentioned that of three to one, the aggregate average will be that of seven to three, or the proportion of 1,000 Musalmans to 450 Hindus. The returns of 1834 make the proportion to be that of 1,000 to 587, which is the highest proportion of Hindus that can be assumed. It is not difficult to perceive how a contrary impression has gained ground among the European functionaries, and from them has been transferred to the publications of the day. The Hindus, with exceptions of course, are the principal zemindars, talookdars, public officers, men of learning, money-lenders, traders, shop-keepers, &c, engaging in the most active pursuits of life, and coming directly and frequently under the notice of the rulers of the country; while the Musalmans, with exceptions also, form a very large majority of the cultivators of the ground and of day-laborers, and others engage in the very humblest forms of mechanical skill and of buying and selling, as tailors, turban-makers, makers of huqqa-snakes, dyers, wood-polishers, oil sellers, sellers of vegetables, fish, &c.,—in few instances attracting the attention of those who do not mix much with the humbler classes of the people, or make special inquiry into their occupations and circumstances.