Modern India eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 495 pages of information about Modern India.

Modern India eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 495 pages of information about Modern India.
plants in its flora, and the statistical survey prepared by the government fills 128 volumes of the size of our census reports.  One hundred and eighteen distinct languages are spoken in various parts of India and fifty-nine of these languages are spoken by more than 100,000 people each.  A large number of other languages and dialects are spoken by different tribes and clans of less than 100,000 population.  The British Bible Society has published the whole or parts of the Holy Scriptures in forty-two languages which reach 220,000,000 people, but leave 74,000,000 without the Holy Word.  In order to give the Bible to the remainder of the population of India it would be necessary to publish 108 additional translations, which the society has no money and no men to prepare.  From this little statement some conception of the variety of the people of India may be obtained, because each of the tribes and clans has its own distinct organization and individuality, and each is practically a separate nation.

Language.         Spoken by   Language.        Spoken by
Hindi           85,675,373   Malayalam       5,428,250
Bengali         41,343,762   Masalmani       3,669,390
Telugu          19,885,137   Sindhi          2,592,341
Marathi         18,892,875   Santhal         1,709,680
Punjabi         17,724,610   Western Pahari  1,523,098
Tamil           15,229,759   Assamese        1,435,820
Gujarathi       10,619,789   Gond            1,379,580
Kanarese         9,751,885   Central Pahari  1,153,384
Uriya            9,010,957   Marwadi         1,147,480
Burmese          5,926,864   Pashtu          1,080,931

The Province of Bengal, for example, is nearly as large as all our North Atlantic states combined, and contains an area of 122,548 square miles.  The Province of Rajputana is even larger, and has a population of 74,744,886, almost as great as that of the entire United States.  Madras has a population of 38,000,000, and the central provinces 47,000,000, while several of the 160 different states into which India is divided have more than 10,000,000 each.

The population is divided according to religions as follows: 

Hindus        207,146,422   Sikhs           2,195,268
Mohammedans    62,458,061   Jains           1,334,148
Buddhists       9,476,750   Parsees            94,190
Animistic       8,711,300   Jews               18,228
Christians      2,923,241

It will be interesting to know that of the Christians enumerated at the last census 1,202,039 were Roman Catholics, 453,612 belonged to the established Church of England, 322,586 were orthodox Greeks, 220,863 were Baptists, 155,455 Lutherans, 53,829 Presbyterians and 157,847 put themselves down as Protestants without giving the sect to which they adhere.

The foreign population of India is very small.  The British-born number only 96,653; 104,583 were born on the continent of Europe, and only 641,854 out of nearly 300,000,000 were born outside the boundaries of India.

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Modern India from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.