Change of area, and Statistics of population.

57. Both the external boundaries of the District and the internal distribution of its tahsils have undergone extensive changes since the formation of the Central Provinces. In 1860-61 ten villages were added to Chanda from the Nagpur District. On the completion of the 30 yearssettlement in 1869 the District comprised about 9700 square miles, and consisted of three tahsils, Mul with an area of 5098 square miles, Bramhapuri 3321 square miles, and Warora 1281 square miles. In 1874, the area of the District received a substantial addition by the transfer from the Upper Godavari District (which was simultaneously abolished) of the taluks of Sironcha, Nugur, Albaka and Cherla with an area of 1053 square miles, which were formed into a new tahsil with its headquarters at Sironcha. From this date until 1895 the area of the four tahsils of the District was as follows: Mul 5058 square miles, Bramhapuri 3324, Sironcha T085, and Warora 1282, or a total of 10,749 square miles. In 1895, the headquarters of the Mul tahsil were shifted to Chanda and the tahsil was thenceforward known as the Chanda tahsil; no alteration of area, however, took place at this time. At the beginning of 1905 a new tahsil with an area of 3708 square miles was formed with its headquarters at Garhchiroli, 1181 square miles being taken from the Chanda tahsil, and 2527 square miles from Bramhapuri. At the same time an area of 2603 square miles, almost the whole of which consisted of the Ahiri zamindari, was transferred from Chanda to Sironcha, and another 100 square miles was transferred from Chanda to Bramhapuri. In October, 1907, four of the northern zamindaris, comprising an area of 838 square miles with a population of 47,428 persons were transferred from the Garhchiroli tahsil to the Drug District and at the same time an area of 13 square miles was transferred from Sironcha to Garhchiroli. Besides these changes which have actually taken place, it has long been contemplated to transfer the lower taluks of the Sironcha tahsil to the Madras Presidency, and the transfer has been shown in the B. Volume as actually having taken place in 1905 but as a matter of fact the Lower Taluks still remain (1908) attached to the District. [The Lower Taluks have since been transferred to Madras from is July 1909.] As the result of all these changes the District has, as at present constituted, an area of 9911 square miles divided among five tahsils. Its population, which at the census of 1901 amounted to 601,533 souls, is now, allowing for territorial changes and neglecting this subsequent increase due to the excess of births over deaths, 554,105. The area and population of each tahsil, as adapted from the figures of the last census, now stand as shown below:—

Of this total, 273,607 were males and 280,498 females, or roughly, 40 females to every 39 males. The returns of vital statistics since 1901 indicate that the population has already once more expanded to over 600,000. Since 1902, the birth rate has been exceedingly high ranging from 44 to 52 per mille. while the death rate, except in 1906 when it reached 346, has averaged only about 24 per mille. In proportion to its area, Chanda is the most sparsely inhabited District in the Provinces, a fact which is attributable to the huge areas of zamindari lands inhabited by a mere handful of aborigines. The incidence of population by tahsils shows this clearly enough. Chanda, Warora and Bramhapuri, which contain no zamindaris, all have an average incidence of over 100 persons to the square mile, whereas Sironcha, which contains the Ahiri zamindari with its huge area of 2600 square miles almost entirely abandoned to jungle, and Garhchiroli, in which there are 15 zamindaris covering an area of 1413 square miles, only boast 20 and 38 persons to the square mile respectively. The total khalsa area of the District is 5900 square miles with an ascertained population of 495,454 persons or 84 to the square mile, whereas the zamindari tracts with a total area of 4013 square miles have a population of only 58,651, or between 14 and 15 to the square mile. Even within the khalsa itself the distribution of the population is very uneven. Thus in Sironcha almost the whole of the population is confined to a narrow strip along the bank of the Godavari: that strip supports nearly 700 persons to the square mile of occupied land, whereas inland the country is pure jungle and almost entirely uninhabited The population is most dense in the rice tracts, a fact which is reflected in the figures for the Bramhapuri tahsil. In pure rice tracts the population often comes to over 600 souls per occupied square mile and is never below 550. The reason is not far to seek: rice gives a far heavier outturn than any other crop, and so we find holdings smaller and the pressure of population greater. The Bramhapuri Station-house area had at the last census a population of 194 to the square mile, while the adjoining Talodhi Station-house area had 192, whereas the Warora Station-house area, representing the richest open field tract of the District, averaged only 157 to the square mile.

Towns and villages.

58. The District contains, according to the census figures and allowing for the territory transferred to Drug, two towns and 3134 villages, of which latter 935 are uninhabited, while 154 are ryotwari and 39 forest villages. The urban population is confined to the towns of Chanda, 17,803, and Warora, 10,626, and forms only 5 per cent, of the total population. Twenty-two villages boast a population of over 2000 persons:—Mul (2847), Saoli Khas (2548), Talodhi (2494), Dabha (2320), and Chaudampalli (2227) in the Chanda tahsll; Chimur, (4088), Neri (3362), Bhandak (3188) and Bhisi (2586) in Warora; Bramhapuri (4328), Nawargaon Buzurg (4100), Nagbhir (2940), Sindewahi Mokasa (2932), Talodhi Raj (2727), Pipalgaon Makta(2288) and Arher Nawargaon (2231), in the Bramhapuri tahsil; Armori (4802), Chamursi (2449) and Garhchiroli {2077) in the Garhchiroli tahsil; and Asaralli (3128), Ankisa (3029) and Sironcha (2813) in the Sironcha tahsil. Forty-seven other villages have between 1000 and 2000 inhabitants, while the very large number of 960 inhabited villages contain populations of less than 100 each.

Variation of population.

59. A census of the District has been taken on five occasions, in 1866, 1872, 1881, 1891 and 1901. There have, however, as has been explained at length in the preceding section, been considerable changes in the area of the District which vitiate comparisons between the earlier and the later returns. Making allowance for these changes, the population of the present area of the District as ascertained on the last three occasions of taking the census is shown below:—

The total population thus increased by 61 per cent, during the decade 1881 —1891, and decreased by 14.2 during the decade 1891—1901. During the first decade the increase was almost entirely due to the natural expansion of the population, not to immigration; it was most marked in the northern zamindaris, but was there doubtless in large measure due to more accurate returns. The khalsa tract which showed the greatest increase was Warora, where the increase was 61 or exactly equal to the average for the whole District. The appalling decrease in the population which took place during the next decade was of course in the main attributable to the bad years and famine immediately preceding the last census. Some of the loss was due to emigration, but much of it must be assigned to the heavy mortality of the decade. From 1895 to 1897 the number of deaths exceeded that of births by over 10,000, and although an abnormal birth rate in 1899 temporarily made good the wastage, the famine of 1900 resulted in a death rate of 96.62 per mille and the deaths of that year exceeded the births by nearly 37,000. It is very doubtful, too, if the mortality during the scarcity of 1897 was not a good deal heavier than was indicated by the official returns. The only part of the District which has steadily increased in population during the twenty years from 1881 to 1901 is the Sironcha tahsil, where the increase during the first decade amounted to 4.8 per cent, and during the second to 22 per cent. According to Mr. Hemingway, the reason given for this locally is the immunity from dacoits under British rule, but, as he observes, this hardly seems an adequate explanation, and the true reason appears to be that this part, owing to the fertilising action of the river, never suffers an entire failure of the crops, a circumstance which has not only favoured the multiplication of the present population but has also encouraged a rapid influx of tenants from the Hyderabad side of the river. Since the last census, matters have, thanks to rather more favourable seasons, considerably improved, and, as has been remarked in a foregoing paragraph, the vital statistics indicate that the population has once more expanded to at least 600,000.

Effect of recent bad years on the population.

60. The effect of the cycle of bad years upon the population is summarised by Mr. Hemingway thus: 'The decrease over the rest of the District (i.e., excluding Sironcha) varies very largely from group to group. A succession of poor 'rice years has encouraged the small tenants of rice tracts to seek their fortunes elsewhere in the open tracts where a 'greater variety of cropping is possible, and the probability of all crops failing utterly is very small. The Warora tahsil, for instance, has larger areas of open-field crops: the total drop in that tahsil was 6 per cent, only, the best of the open field groups showing a good increase: in the khalsa portion of Chanda tahsil the drop was 12 per cent., in the corres-ponding portion of Bramhapuri tahsil it was 19 per cent. If the open tract at the extreme north of Bramhapuri tahsil is excepted, the tract is purely rice-growing; and there are a large number of small villages interspersed between the 'large stable villages, where the area secured by irrigation is comparatively small and tenants had a succession of really unpropitious years for their rice. In the Chanda tahsil the Ghatkul group returned a large increase in the population; this is an open-field tract, somewhat remote, and for that reason not fully occupied until poor rice years brought its soil into high favour. The increase here is mainly dueto immigration from the poorer rice tracts.........To what extent the decrease in the population is a permanent loss or merely a temporary exodus in search of work must be largely a matter of conjecture. In certain tracts it has always been customary for the village labourers to repair to Berar after the rice harvest is over, in order to find employment on cotton-picking; and the census is taken at the exact time when most of the labourers who make a practice of going to Berar have already gone. It may be said with some certainty that the drop in the figures of open tracts adjoining Berar was caused entirely by this temporary exodus, since there is now no marked want of labour for agricultural work in these open tracts. But it is equally certain that the loss in some of the rice groups is more permanent; to prove this, there are large areas of second rate rice land unoccupied, which in normal years were occupied by the village labourers and small tenants; and also a rough census was taken at attestation of a few villages which seemed to be very short of labour for the reaping of their rice: this rough census, though its figures are of little use in that they concern a very small area, showed that a very large proportion of the regular labourers of certain villages had been absent for three years from their villages, and it might safely be assumed that they would not return as permanent inhabitants until the rice crops were giving sufficient outturn to induce them to return. This want of labour was very marked two years ago (i.e.,1903-04) when there was a bumper rice crop, but not enough labour to cut it in time: also the survey parties in railway employ could get no labour; and at the present moment the railway construction, and tank construction as well, is proceeding very slowly indeed, because there is not sufficient labour in the District. It may safely be said that the population of the poorer rice tracts will continue to be very short indeed, until a succession of good rice years has been enjoyed.'

Migration.

61. The statistics compiled at the census of 1901 do not, of course, reveal the ebb and flow of migration between different parts of the District, which Mr. Hemingway's remarks quoted above show to have been considerable. As regards the course of migration between this and other Districts of the Province and other parts of India, the figures of that census showed that 90 per cent, of the population was indigenous to the District, while of the balance about 6 per cent, came from other parts of the Province and 4 per cent, from the rest of India. The chief fields of emigration are Berar and Hyderabad. Twenty-eight thousand persons born in Chanda were enumerated in Berar, while out of nearly 17,000 natives of the Province enumerated in Hyderabad the great majority probably belonged to Chanda. The Berar figures were, of course, much swelled by immigrants who had moved over merely for the harvesting season. Twelve thousand natives of this District were found in Wardha and nearly 9000 in Nagpur at the time of the census, while the corresponding figures for Bhandara were 6000 and for the Feudatory States 5000. Some 60,000 persons hailing from other parts were enumerated in this District. The largest number of immigrants came from Hyderabad which claimed over 14,000: natives of Raipur numbered 10,000, of Bhandara 7000, of Berar over 6000, while there were some 4000 immigrants apiece from Nagpur and Wardha and 8000 from the Feudatory States. On the whole, making allowance for the season at which the census was taken, the interchange of population with the outside is a very even one, the only marked streams of emigration being towards Hyderabad, and Berar, and of immigration from Hyderabad, mainly into Sironcha, and from Raipur and the Nandgaon State into the northern zamindaris since transferred to the Drug District.

Language.

62. Three distinct languages—Marathi, Telugu and Gondi—meet in the Chanda District, and around and between each has accumulated a weltering mass of dialects which almost defies enumeration. Roughly it may be said that Marathi is the language of the khalsa exclusive of the Sironcha tahsil, Telugu of Sironcha, and Gondl of the zamindaris. Marathi is now far more widely spoken than either of the other two languages, and is the tongue of nearly two-thirds of the population. It does not appear that it always possessed this predominance, as Sir R. Jenkins wrote in 1826 that Marathi and Telugu were spoken in nearly equal proportion, and this statement of course refers to the District exclusive of Sironcha which is now the principal seat of Telugu. Hindi and Urdu are comparatively little employed: out of some 42,000 shown as speaking these languages at the last census, 30,000 were speakers of Chhattisgarhi belonging to the zamindaris since transferred to Drug.

Marathi.

63. Marathi was found at the last census to be the language of 382,641 persons, or 64 per cent, of the total population of the District. This language is the standard language of the whole of the Warora and Bramhapuri tahsils and of the northern half of the Chanda tahsil. It is also found in all other parts of the District holding the field with competitors of varying strength. Roughly it may be said to be the predominating language of the whole of the khalsa except the Sironcha tahsil. It is also the language of the courts. The variety spoken is that known as Nagpuri. Marathi, which is identical with that of Berar, and is the typical Marathi of the Province. The local dialect is sometimes called Jhari, i.e., jungle language, Jhari meaning forest-country. Various dialects are distinguished which are really nothing more than jargons of the standard type. The most important of these is Kunbau, the dialect of the Kunbis, stated in the Linguistic Survey to be used by over 110,000 speakers. Others are Gowari (500), Kumhari (1000), Koshti (3123), Mahari (10,000), Kosri (630) and Neta-kani (180). The figures in brackets indicate the numbers of persons using each dialect, but the classification of these appears to be somewhat rough and ready, and in some cases the classes overlap one another. Most of them are, as the names indicate, caste dialects, and these are all rejected by Dr. Grierson as essentially identical with the ordinary Marathi of the locality. Netakani is confined to a small body of persons in the Sironcha tahsil, where Telugu is the principal language. It is based on the common Marathi, but largely modified by Telugu, and must be looked upon as a broken form of speech.

Gondi.

64. Gondi belongs to the Dravidian family of languages, and forms a link between Telugu on the one hand and Tamil and Kanarese on the other, on the whole approximating more closely to these latter languages. The language as spoken in Chanda, however, forms an exception to this generalisation in that Telugu influence is strong, increasing in power the further one goes south. At the census of 1881 Gondi was ascertained to be the native tongue of 132, 348 residents of the District: in 1891 the figure was 132,598 and in 1901, 98,428. Speakers of Gondi are to be found in almost every town and village in the District, but the true home of the language is in the tract east of the Wainganga. The Gonds speak Gondi among themselves, but talk Telugu, Marathi or Hindi with strangers. The language has no literature and in fact no written character; there are however several popular folk songs, of which some were collected and transcribed by the Rev. Stephen Hislop. Three variations of the language, which are usually classified as sub-dialects, are found in the District, but Dr. Grierson does not consider that they differ sufficiently from the main language to be so classified and holds that the various denominations are only local names for the border dialects where Gondi merges into Telugu. The Maria dialect differs very slightly from ordinary Gondi: it is not confined to any particular locality, and-is spoken, according to the census of 1901, by 9655 persons only. Koi is the dialect of 8144 persons: it is an advanced form of the language with more points of analogy with Telugu than is the case in other Districts. The Kois or Gonds of the hills, especially in Sironcha, are known as Gattu or Gotte Kois, and a dialect has been distinguished under the name of Gattu which, according to the last census returns, is spoken by 5483 persons. Dr. Grierson considers that both Koi and Gattu represent the same dialect, which can be characterised as a link between the forms of Gondi spoken in the north-east of Chanda and the adjoining Districts in the Bastar State on one side, and the Gondi dialects of Hyderabad and the Madras Presidency on the other. The chief local peculiarities of the tongue as a whole are the substitution of 'ifor standard Gondi r when an initial letter, the possession of separate forms of the dative and accusative (this points to Aryan influence), and certain variations in the personal terminations of verbs. An interesting point about the Gondi language is that with one or two exceptions all its numerals above seven are borrowed from Aryan languages. The Gond is undoubtedly taking freely to the use of other languages than his own, and Dr. Grierson remarks that it is probably only a question of time when Gondl shall have ceased to exist as an independent form of speech.

Telugu.

65. Telugu is spoken by 71,811 persons, the majority of whom are residents of the Sironcha tahsil, but it is also used freely in the south of the Chanda tahsll and follows the course of the Wainganga as far north as Chamursi and Garhchiroli. Telugu in many respects occupies an independent position among the Dravidian languages, and is the only descendant of the Andhra dialect of old Dravidian. It is supposed to be a most melli-fluous language, the Italian of the east, but according to the Census Report of 1901 the euphonious nature of Telugu is not appreciated by the people of Nagpur, among whom it is said to sound like stones rattled in a tin. It has a voluminous literature, mostly poetical, which is written in a dialect widely differing from the colloquial form of the language. The bulk of the Telugu speaking population of this District use the standard form of the language, but its purity and the quality of pronunciation markedly improve from north to south; when spoken in the direction of Mul and Chamursi it is to a great extent mixed with Marathi. The wide divergencies from place to place may be illustrated by the translation of a simple phrase, Come again.About Mul and Chanda, this would be rendered 'Ayinaka rain Sironcha Taruwala ra , in the pure Telugu of the south Malli randior Thu-thaku randi.Several minor dialects have been distinguished, such as Salewari, the dialect of the weaver, Komtau, the language of the Komtis or shopkeepers, Kapewari, which is ascribed to a certain class of agriculturists, Golari, spoken by the nomadic Golars or Golkars, a dialect called Manthani, and so forth, but Dr. Grierson does not think that the departures from standard Telugu which these forms exhibit are striking enough to warrant their separate classification. Mr. Russell in his Census Report lumps all these dialects together under the alternative titles of Golari, Holia or Komtau, and states that they are one dialect spoken by a number of castes whose native Telugu has undergone some modification by being brought into contact with Marathi.

Halbi.

66. Halbi is spoken by 3258 inhabitants of the zamindaris. Linguistic evidence indicates that the Halbas are an aboriginal tribe who have adopted Hinduism and an Aryan language. Their dialect is a curious mixture of Uriya, Chhattisgarhi, and Marathi.

Occupation.

67. Out of the total District population of 601,533 as ascertained at the last census 412,212 were found to be actually employed in earning a livelihood. These were broadly divided into eight classes and the number of persons employed in each class and the percentage borne by that number to the number of actual workers in the District are shown below:—

Out of every 10,000 actual workers, 3723 are landowners or landholders, 2518 are field labourers and 657 are farm-servants. The proportion of herdsmen is 241, of cattle and small stock breeders and dealers 41 and of cow and buffalo keepers and ghi-sellers 27. In the preparation and supply of material substances, fishermen, fish curers and dealers number 319 in each 10,000 actual workers, persons employed on the provision of vegetable food 189, providers of drink, condiments and stimulants 98, of light, fuel and forage 79, oil pressers and oil sellers 77, cotton-spinners, sizers and yarn dealers 272, cotton weavers 420, workers in metals and precious stones 146, basket, mat and broom makers 101, workers in leather 79, potters 42, carpenters 47, tailors 44, and persons employed on building 25. Persons employed in administration number 107 per 10,000, this figure including village servants and persons in the employ of local and municipal bodies. In the same ratio, barbers number 42, washermen 63, professional men 46, moneylenders and bankers 33, unskilled labourers other than agricultural 190, and mendicants 137. This leaves a balance of 237 in each 10,000 workers who are employed in various occupations, whose followers do not in any instance total 1000 in the whole District.

Attitude of the people towards the census.

68. The people have by now learnt to look on the census merely as one of the many hrmless eccentricities of the Sarkar, but it was not always so in earlier days, and it may be worth while to reproduce some of the stories originating in this District which are chronicled in the Report of the Census held in 1881. The counting operation was of course held to bring ill-luck, which was generally expected among the women of the lower classes to take the form of illness or death among their children. In Sironcha a story was current that the Sarkar had made a grand find of gold, and that it was intended to select one young man and one young woman from each household and march them off to the diggings. In the Ahiri zamindari the number-boards supplied to each house were carefully stowed away underground in rice stores and similar places of concealment, because a story had been circulated to the effect that it was a settled plan on the part of the Police to have these boards stolen, and then to get every householders fined Rs. 25, who failed to produce his number-board on the night of the census. But the most ingenuous rumour was that which went round in Chanda itself. Here some waggish person spread a report that on the night of the census a brass measure would be applied to the breasts of the women, and that those too liberally endowed by nature were to be deprived of this superabundance by a surgical operation. A little timely ridicule, however, quickly scotched this canard.

Health.

69. Although the climate of Chanda is one of excessive heat, the fact that there are no great extremes of cold at any time of the year conduces to the general health, which is well up to the provincial average. In point of fact the District ranks eighth in the provincial scale of health. But to all but natives of them the jungle tracts are unhealthy all the year round owing to the prevalence of malarial fever in them, and the comparative immunity of their inhabitants is probably only due to their becoming salted by survival from attacks during infancy, or possibly in some degree to heredity. The chief diseases are malarial fevers and bowel complaints. Fever as a rule accounts for fully half the mortality of the year. Only once in the fifteen years 1892—1906 did the deaths from fever fall below 10 per mille of the total population: in six years, they ranged from 10 to 15 per mille, in five from 15 to 20 per mille, and in three over 20 per mille, but one of these was the famine year, 1900, when circumstances favoured excessive mortality and the death rate from fever alone was over 37 per cent. Cholera seldom gets a fair grip on the District: for four years during the period 1902—1906 Chanda was wholly immune from this disease: in seven other years the mortality fell below one per mille. From 1895 to 1897 there were three successive epidemics which in all accounted for nearly 8000 lives, and in the fatal year 1900 the mortality was over 8000 or 15.5 per mille. Plague broke out in this District for the first time in January 1903, five years after its first appearance in the neighbouring District of Wardha, and seven years after the initial outbreak in Bombay. The mortality, however, has been small, the highest figure reached being 201 in 1904. Evacuation has been readily resorted to by the people, and the only other preventive measure found necessary has been the destruction of rats which was commenced in 1906, and thoroughly organised in the following year. Inoculation has not as yet been introduced into this District. Of other diseases, dysentery and diarrhoea are observed to be most common in tracts where juari is the staple food. So far as is indicated by the hospital returns tubercular diseases are not prevalent, but Captain Fleming is of opinion that phthisical conditions of the lungs which would in the absence of microscopical examination be deemed tubercular are quite as common as, if not more so than, in England: he attributes this to the almost constant presence of fine dust in the air and to the results of neglected or imperfectly treated pneumonia. Apart from the lungs, tubercular diseases of the joints, glands, etc., do not seem to be so common as in England. Among nervous diseases, hemicrania or half-headache is very common, though it is somewhat difficult to understand why it should be so. Diseases of the eye are very prevalent, as elsewhere in the plains of India, and the usual forms of inflammation generally lumped together under the term ophthalmia, especially cataract, are common, but granular conjunctivitis or trachorna is seldom seen. Captain Fleming thinks that glaucoma is far more common than in England, and this is as might be expected from the fact that errors of refraction much more frequently take the hypermetropic than the allyopic form. The number of persons who have hypermetropia but have never suffered on account of it must be enormous. Night-blindness is common and is usually associated with errors of refraction. Diseases of the heart valves are rare, as also is abscess of the liver. There is a remarkable absence of cases of stone: only five cases came to Captain Fleming's notice in four years. Cancer of all sorts is found but does not appear to be common. Lathyrism is unknown. There is a disease called Gondi boilthe nature of which is somewhat obscure, but it is not improbably secondary syphilis or yaws. Cases of Madura foot are very rare, and guinea-worm is confined to imported cases.