Population Concern Before Independence

Abstract

Explicit concern over India's rapid rise of population originated in the third decade of this century. Until 1920, India's population had been growing very slowly owing to the heavy toll from famines, epidemics, and wars. According to census reports, the population of the country within its present geographical boundaries actually declined between 1911 and 1921, from 252.1 to 251.3 million because of the high mortality inflicted by the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. It is estimated that about 5 per cent of the country's population-some 13 million
persons-died in that epidemic. The population has increased steadily since 1921, largely because of epidemic, famine control and sanitation measures undertaken by the provincial governments. For the first time, since the initiation of a systematic population census in 1881, India's population increased slightly by more than 10 per cent (or by 27.7 million) in a decade, with the 1931 census enumerating a population of 279.0 million (Hutton:1932).