Census of India, 1911; Volume I; Part I – Report

This report on the Census of India, 1911 – the fourth general census – was prepared by Edward Albert Gait, an administrator in the Indian Civil Service and a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. It contains an overview of British India’s history, economy and political and administrative set-up between 1901 and 1911. The census team of nearly two million members surveyed around 22 provinces. It collected information on population, age, sex, religion, caste, tribe, race, birthplace, education, marriage, occupation, language, migration and infirmities. However, the recurrence of plague interfered with the team’s enumeration in some parts of the country. In towns such as Gaya, Indore and Nagpur, people had to temporarily relocate. This decrease in the population yielded erroneous results. The census covered the whole ‘Empire of India’, including Baluchistan, the ‘Agencies’ and tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province, and several remote tracts in Burma...