CHAPTER VII.
The People.
Ordinary persons in British India often express surprise when they hear that His Highness's subjects are nearly all Hindus and that the Mahomedans in Hyderabad State (given the area) scarcely exceed in number the English people in British India.
"But I thought that Hyderabad was a Mahomedan State!" such people say.
The total population of Hyderabad State was, in 1911 A.D., 13,374,676 people, and the distribution of the population as regards religion was then as follows : —
Hindus . . . . 11,626,146
Mahomedans . . . . 1,380,990
Animists . . . . 285,722
Christians . . . . 54,296
Jains . . . . . . 21,026
The Census says that during the last decade there has been a twenty per cent, increase of the total population, but the Hindu rate of increase has not kept pace with that of the population as a whole. It points
