Abstract
India’s north-eastern region (NER hereafter) is extraordinarily diverse, distinct, or rather distinguished on several counts. Apart from bordering itself with a few neighbouring countries, entire land is a mixture of disparate races, civilisations, culture, and languages. Until independence, NER had consisted of Assam province and the princely states of Manipur and Tripura. Heralded by Nagaland’s official separation from the erstwhile Assam in 1963, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Mizoram have been subsequently carved out of Assam between 1971 and 1987 by dint of the North-Eastern Re-Organization Act 1971. Together with Sikkim, the present-day NER thus consists of eight states.
This chapter draws on a research paper entitled ‘Long Term Demographic Trends in North-East India and their wider significance’ written jointly with Anindita Sinha, a doctoral student at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, India. I am thankful to Aninidita for allowing me to draw on our joint paper.
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Notes
- 1.
Deb, B. J. (ed.) (2010) Population and Development in North East India, Concept Publishing Company: New Delhi; Nayak, P. (ed.) (2010) Growth and Human Development in North East India, Oxford University Press: New Delhi; Saikia, U.S. (2005) High fertility in Khasi Tribe of Northeast India—a repercussion of the fear of identity loss?, international union for the scientific study of population (IUSSP) XXV International Population Conference, pp. 1–40; Tyagi, D. (2000), The Pnar of Jaintia Hills: a bio-demographic profile, International Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 125–136; Dass, S,K (1980) Immigration and Demographic Transformation of Assam, 1891–1981, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 15 no. 19, May, pp. 850–859; and Mishra, U. (1999) ‘Immigration and Identity Transformation in Assam’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 34, No. 21, May, pp. 1264–1271.
- 2.
For details of the demographic dimensions of the famines of this period, Maharatna, A. (1996), The Demography of Famines: An Indian Historical Perspective, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
- 3.
Census of India, 1921, Vol. III, Assam Part I Report, pp. 4.
- 4.
See Assam Census Report, 1911, pp. 22.
- 5.
Public Health Reports (1896–1970), Vol. 34, No. 30, pp. 1624. The Assam Manipur and Tripura Report of 1951 Census also noted that in the 1921–1931 decade there was no violent epidemic in the region, and the population growth in Assam, while the highest recorded till then, was chiefly due to its natural increase.
- 6.
See Visaria, P. and L. Visaria (1994) ‘Demographic Transition: Accelerating Fertility Decline in 1980s’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 29 no. 51/52, December, pp. 3281–3292.
- 7.
Ghosh, A. (1956), ‘The Trend of Birth Rate in India 1911–50’, Population Studies, vol. 10 no. 1, pp. 53–68. The estimates by Ghosh can be considered relatively reliable, as his estimates of birth under-registration appear close to those arrived at by Kingsley Davis for the period 1926–1930. The details of the methodology are contained in the notes to Table 17.2 In Maharatna, A. and A. Sinha (2011), Long-Term Demographic Trends in North-east India and their wider significance, Occasional Paper No. 26, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata.
- 8.
This finding happens to have had corroboration in the estimates made by the Census Commissioner of Assam, J. McSwiney, in the 1911 Census of Assam Report.
- 9.
Chaudhuri, T.K. (1982), Demographic Trends in Assam, 1921–1971, B.R. Publishing House: Delhi.
- 10.
General marital fertility rate (GMFR) is the number of births per thousand married women aged 15–50 years. It is somewhat immune to the effects of differential age–sex compositions of population and had indeed been higher than the all-India levels during 1911–1920 to 1941–1950.
- 11.
This conclusion is derived on the basis of information for Assam Plains (i.e. exclusive of Assam Hill areas).
- 12.
Davis, K. (1951), The Population of India and Pakistan, Princeton University Press: New Jersey.Davis, 1951, pp. 121.
- 13.
For a detailed discussion on this, see Maharatna, A. (2005), Demographic Perspectives on India’s Tribes, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
- 14.
Secular declines in mortality, particularly in the infancy and childhood, generally serve as a precursor to the onset of fertility decline, as the former lead—often with a lag—to sustained increases in average family size beyond the desired level; see Dyson, T (2001), ‘A partial theory of world development: the neglected role of the demographic transition in shaping of modern society’, International Journal of Population Geography, vol. 7 no. 2, pp. 67-90.
- 15.
Assam, Manipur, Tripura Census Report, 1951.
- 16.
Assam Report, Part 1, Vol. 4, Census of India, 1901, pp. 13.
- 17.
Devi, M. (2007), ‘Economic History of Nepali Migration and Settlement in Assam’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 42 no. 29, July, pp. 3005–3007.
- 18.
Census 1921 Report.
- 19.
Chaudhuri 1982, op.cit.
- 20.
Immigration can affect population growth in the receiving region in (at least) two ways. First and rather obvious one is through direct increase in the number of people inhabiting the region. Second, and rather indirect, if immigrants happen to have higher (lower) fertility than that of the native people, this would, over a period, tend to pull the natural growth rates upward (downward), given an imperceptible difference in mortality rates between these groups. In case of immigrant population of Assam, there are indications of somewhat higher fertility vis-à-vis that of non-migrant population.
- 21.
SRS, a dual record system, consists of continuous enumeration of births and deaths in a sample of villages/urban blocks by resident part-time enumerators, and an independent six monthly retrospective survey by a full-time supervisor. The data obtained through these two sources are then matched. The unmatched and partially matched events are re-verified in the field to arrive at an unduplicated count of actual events. The revision of SRS sampling frame is undertaken every ten years with the results of a new census. The sample design adopted for SRS is a uni-stage stratified simple random sample without replacement (except in stratum II, larger villages) of rural areas. In urban areas, the categories of towns/cities are divided into four strata based on the size classes. The Office of the Registrar General, Government of India initiated the scheme of sample registration of births and deaths under the SRS on a pilot basis during 1964–1965 and on a regular basis in all Indian states (except smaller states of NER) since 1970, with a view to providing reliable fertility and mortality indicators. Since then, the SRS is virtually the official source on vital statistics for India and states on an annual basis.
- 22.
Mahapatra, P. (2010), Sample Registration System in India-An Overview, paper presented at Prince Mahidol Award Conference, Bangkok, 27–30 January.
- 23.
Narasimhan et al (1997) ‘Comparison of fertility estimates from India Sample Registration System and National Family Health Survey’, National Family Health Survey Subject Report, No. 4, International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai; and Mari Bhat, P.N. (1994), ‘Levels and Trends in Indian Fertility: A Reassessment’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 29 no. 51/52, December, pp. 3273–3274 and 3277–3280.
- 24.
Mari Bhat 1994 ibid.
- 25.
See Maharatna, A. (2011) ‘How can “beautiful” be “backward”? Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XLVI no. 4, pp. 42–52.
- 26.
Weiner, M. (1983), ‘The Political Demography of Assam’s Anti-Immigrant Movement’, Population and Development Review, vol. 9 no. 2, pp. 279–292.
- 27.
Singh, M A (2009), A Study of Illegal Immigration into North-East India: The Case of Nagaland, IDSA Occasional Paper No. 8, November.
- 28.
See Bandyopadhyay, S. and D. Chakraborty (1999), ‘Migration in the north-eastern region of India during 1901–1991: size, trends, reasons and impact’, Demography India, vol. 28 no. 1, pp 75–97
- 29.
See Maharatna, A. and A. Sinha (2011), ‘Long Term Demographic Trends in North-East India and their wider Significance, 1901-2001, Occasional Paper 26, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata.
- 30.
See, for example, Goswami, U. (2007), ‘Internal Displacement, Migration, and Policy in North-Eastern India’, Working Paper No.8, East-West Centre Washington, Washington.
- 31.
See Maharatna 2005 op. cit.; Maharatna 2011, op. cit.
- 32.
In fact, India’s population sex ratio had been unfavourable to females ever since the census was first conducted for the country in 1871 (see Mayer, P. (1999), India’s Falling Sex Ratios’, Population and Development Review, 25).
- 33.
A slight increase in f/m ratio in 1981 was arguably due to a better census enumeration of females in that particular census as compared to the previous ones; see, for instance, Dyson, T (1994), ‘On the Demography of the 1991 Census’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 29 no. 51/52, December, pp. 3235–3239; and Srinivasan, K (1994) ‘Sex Ratios: What they Hide and What they Reveal’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 29 no. 51/52, December, pp. 3233–3234.
- 34.
See Maharatna, A. Demographic Perspectives on India’s Tribes
- 35.
Quoted in Maharatna, A (2000), ‘Fertility, mortality and gender-bias among tribal population: an Indian perspective’, Social Science and Medicine, vol. 50, no. 10, pp. 200.
- 36.
See Maharatna 2005 op. cit. and the literature cited therein for further details.
- 37.
See for example Nag, S. (2002), Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North-East India, New Delhi: Manohar; see also Bandyopadhyay snd Chakraborty 1999 op.cit.
- 38.
For detailed discussion on these issues, see Maharatna, 2000 op. cit.; Maharatna 2005, op. cit.
- 39.
See Sinha, A. and A. Maharatna (2012), ‘Features and Determinants of Fertility Stall among the North-Eastern States of India, 1990-92 to 2003-05’—the paper presented at the Second Asian Population Association Conference held at Bangkok, Thailand during 26–29 August, 2012.
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Maharatna, A. (2013). The Demography of North-East India: Perilous Pluralism?. In: India’s Perception, Society, and Development. Springer, India. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1017-7_17
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