3 | Colonial Knowledge Production and the Indian Census under the East India Company
- Apr 15
- 16 min read
By Nishitha Mandava and Shivakumar Jolad (author details below)
In the 1757 Battle of Plassey, the East India Company (EIC) emerged victorious, transforming itself from a trading enterprise into an administrative power. The grant of Diwani rights in 1765 further cemented it as a revenue-collecting state in its own right. With the authority to collect land revenue in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, EIC now faced a Sisyphean task of state-making. With the newly acquired vast lands and millions of subjects to rule over, the Company realised that for effective governance of this strange land, it was imperative to make it intelligible. The colonial officer was constantly haunted by how little he knew of the land he now administered. Hence, they felt an incessant need to convert the vast social and physical spaces of India into measurable ‘facts’ to aid them in revenue assessment, territorial consolidation, and military intelligence. To address this, cartographers, surveyors and mappers were hired.
This was an evolving cumulative process. Initial revenue surveys and topographical mapping gave way to the more ambitious trigonometric surveys that sought to measure the subcontinent with mathematical precision. Gazettes drew on the knowledge produced by such surveys. Parallel developments ensued within the domain of law where the early colonial endeavour witnessed the codification of Gentoo laws in an attempt to systematise existing Hindu legal traditions and expanded to document other local laws and customs across diverse communities, and later becoming consolidated into the Indian Penal Code of 1860. The Company officials invested in learning local languages, compiling dictionaries and curating cabinets of curiosities (Cohn, 1996). Through these practices, the colonial state sought to demystify the complexity of India into ordered knowledge. Simultaneously, the British Colonial Office aimed to create a synchronized, uniform population count across its global territories. Driven by the rise of the ‘information state,’ British officials viewed the census as a vital ‘science of government’ necessary for oversight, surveillance, and the efficient administration of imperial resources (Christopher, 2008).
Over time, these efforts expanded dramatically. Starting in the 1840s, successive Colonial Secretaries, most notably Lord Stanley and Joseph Chamberlain pushed for colonial governments to conduct censuses that coincided with the UK’s decennial counts (Christopher, 2008). The great surveys of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the provincial censuses of the 1800s and 1840s, and the systematic all-India census initiated in the 1880s all formed part of the ambitious project by the East India Company and later the British Crown to render their most lucrative colony legible for administration, taxation, and control . Such efforts produced new ways of seeing the land and its people. But their ambitions exceeded the immediate needs of governance as the knowledge generated through European expansion in India was not always solely about the colony, nor was it driven entirely by practical utility. The practices that informed imperial rule drew upon the scientific standards of the age, while the colonial encounter provided a vast laboratory in which these methods could be tested, expanded, and refined. The tension at the heart of these efforts was the oscillation between an openness to understanding India’s variety and the imperative to impose a stable, coherent narrative through which the colony could be rendered intelligible (Majeed, 2019).
Mapping the Colony
In 1765, the Governor of Bengal, Robert Clive (soon after acquiring the Dewani rights for collecting tax in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa) tasked James Rennell, a naval officer and surveyor, with surveying the newly acquired Bengal territories. The following year, Rennell was appointed the First Surveyor General of Bengal, marking the dawn of a new age of systematic mapping in India.
The scale of ambition expanded after the fall of Seringapatam in 1799 during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, when the Company took control of territories in southern India. The Mysore Survey, as part of its broader effort to scientifically document newly acquired territories, was initiated. Appointed to lead the project, Colin Mackenzie submitted a plan in 1800 proposing both mathematical and physical objectives: a systematic geographical and geometrical survey based on triangulation, alongside the collection of information relevant to natural history (Markham, 1878).
By 1808, Mackenzie had completed much of the fieldwork, with his team extending the survey into the Ceded Districts in subsequent years. Every village, along with landmarks, roads, tanks, water channels, forests, hills, and other features, was to be carefully identified and recorded. The survey produced maps at varying scales and compiled extensive statistical accounts of district resources, with particular attention to administrative boundaries and villages.
In the same period, William Lambton, another Company officer, proposed a triangulated survey to measure the Indian subcontinent using a network of precisely calculated triangles anchored by carefully measured base lines. Beginning work in 1802, Lambton’s project was formally known as the Great Trigonometrical Survey (Keay, 2000). It aimed to establish a scientifically exact geographical framework for the entire country. Lambton’s mapping extended from Goa to Masulipatnam (Machilipatnam) and from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari) to Nizam-administered Hyderabad and Maratha territories, covering a total area of 165,342 square miles (Roy, 1986).
The latter stages of the survey extended to northwards, towards the Himalayas, measuring at least 79 Himalayan peaks. Historians have argued that these surveys were not always driven purely by administrative needs. Mathew Edney (1997) for instance observes that the Trigonometrical Survey was chaotic, full of institutional conflict, expensive and was not particularly useful for administration. It served to demonstrate the potency of British scientific advancements. As Christopher Bayly (1996) elegantly puts it: ‘Empire was put to the service of the glories of national science, rather than the opposite.’
Accurate surveys, along with enabling efficient revenue assessment, facilitating troop movement, and clarifying territorial boundaries, also bolstered Europe’s image of superiority. The language of scientific advancement and improvement was central to the Company’s self-image and to its justification of its rule in nineteenth-century India. Surveying and mapping, along with the provision of technical data, also helped EIC project itself as contributing both to India’s material ‘improvement’ and to the advancement of global science.
Surveys depended on vast entourages of Indian informants, investigators, and translators who served under the Mughal and Maratha regimes. They functioned as record-keepers, while simultaneously mediating between local society and the colonial state. In some of the most remarkable cases, trained covert explorers known as the Pundits carried out clandestine surveys. Nain Singh, one of the most celebrated of these figures, blended into the company of Tibetan monks and used a prayer rosary to count his footsteps and measure distances with extraordinary precision (Keay, 2000).
Demographic Indicators and Population Estimates
One of the salient ways in which the colonial state departed from pre-colonial enumeration practices was through its interest to count individual human beings under categories such as men, women, children, and even ‘persons in the womb’ (Guha, 2003). Indigenous administrations typically limited themselves to counting houses or enclosures, with little interest in the internal composition of a household. EIC was concerned with ‘political arithmetic’ which encompassed fertility, natural increase, and vagrancy control (Guha, 2003). Local officials were often puzzled by this intrusive requirement, reflected in the awkward phrasing in manuscript returns that added columns for wives, kept women, young children, slave women, and persons in the womb.
Early efforts did not produce a comprehensive demographic overview of India as the census eventually would in the 1870s. Instead, they were often asynchronous, sporadic and land-centric since the states prioritised land revenue and boundary-making. City-level estimates were made for Madras (1639, 1648, 1670) and Bombay (1672, 1716), but interestingly, in the case of Bengal and Bihar, H.T. Colebrooke, an English botanist, through his 1794 pioneering sample surveys, utilised information from salt sales and consumption to estimate the population, which sat at 30 million (T. Roy, 2010). Colebrooke employed indirect indicators, such as consumption and production, to estimate economic aggregates, including population and agricultural output. Our understanding of population and its growth in the decades between 1707 and 1821 largely relies on such retrospective estimations by scholars. They have been able to produce a wide range of estimates on the Indian population, especially during the latter half of the eighteenth century, as evident in the table below:
Table 1: Population Size Estimates in India During the Late Eighteenth Century (Source: Dyson, 2018)
Analyst(s) | c. 1750 Estimate (millions) | c. 1800 Estimate (millions) |
Willcox | 130 | 157 |
Bhattacharya (1989) | 190 | 207 |
Clark (1967) | 200 | 190 |
Durand (1977) | 160–214 | 160–214 |
McEvedy and Jones (1978) | 170 | 185 |
Average (Calculated) | 176 | 187 |
The most striking feature of this table is the sheer variance between estimates, ranging from 130 million (Willcox) to 200 million (Clark) around 1750, a gap of 70 million people.
During this period, specific regions and crises produced fragments of demographic data, though these figures remain contested. For instance, Bengal and Bihar during the Great Famine (1769-1770) were recorded as comprising 30 million people. Contemporary Company officials, Richard Bercher and Warren Hastings, claimed that one-third of the population (10 million people) perished, but modern scholarship contests that this was likely an exaggerated figure (Dyson, 2018). A more realistic figure for mortality would have been closer to 1-2 million. Efforts to count the population were also undertaken in the Madras Presidency, and data on levels of urbanisation emerged. This data suggests that levels of urbanisation in 1800 were relatively low. Scholars estimate that only 6% of the population lived in settlements of over 10,000 inhabitants, with broader definitions of towns and cities producing figures between 9-11%. Despite the decline of some older Mughal centres such as Agra and Delhi and the simultaneous rise of British port cities, there is little evidence to suggest that overall levels of urbanisation changed substantially between 1707 and 1821.
The 19th century witnessed more systematic efforts to conduct surveys and district-level urban censuses. Cities such as Allahabad, Benares and Dacca introduced house-to-house enumeration and occupational classification. James Prinsep conducted the censuses of Allahabad (1824) and Benares (1827), and Henry Walters conducted what is considered the first comprehensive census of the city of Dhaka in 1830. It classified the population by sex, age groups and caste-occupations. The Madras presidency began conducting a series of quinquennial counts beginning in 1851-52. Other provinces followed with their own enumeration exercises, such as Punjab in 1855, Bombay in 1868, Central Provinces in 1866 and Berar in 1867. The Madras Presidency attempted systematic counts in 1822 and 1836-37 (Dyson, 2018). There was a plan for a larger, general census in 1861; however, that was postponed due to the 1857 rebellion. Examples of some other city-level censuses are provided in the table below:
Table 2: City-level population estimates in the early 19th century Indian cities (Source: Dyson, 2018)
City | Estimated Population | Year of Estimate | Reported Source |
Patna | 312,000 | 1811–12 | Survey by Francis Buchanan |
Calcutta | 230,000 | 1822 | Magistrate count |
Surat | 124,000 | 1814 | Magistrate count |
Nagpur | 111,000 | 1821 | Census by R. Jenkins |
Burdwan | 54,000 | 1814 | Walter Hamilton |
In 1838, Montgomery Martin produced a multi-volume compilation titled The History, Antiquities, Topography, and Statistics of Eastern India. This work brings together detailed information on the geography, agriculture, commerce, population, religions, and antiquities of several districts of eastern India, including Bhagalpur, Gorakhpur, and Dinajpur. It was organised district-wise, combining statistical tables, descriptions of land and rivers, accounts of settlements, and discussions of social and religious life. Particularly striking about this collection is the empirical detail it provides on each district, describing aspects like religion, social life, soil types and climate, alongside maps and illustrations of antiquities.
Table 3a Estimate of the population of the district of Puraniya (Purnia) (Source: Martin, 1838)
Division or Thanah | Mohamedans | Hindus | Total |
Haveli | 87,000 | 67,000 | 154,000 |
Dangtkhora | 69,000 | 115,000 | 184,000 |
Gondwara | 39,000 | 118,000 | 157,000 |
Dhamdaha | 65,000 | 195,000 | 260,000 |
Dimiya | 36,000 | 106,000 | 142,000 |
Matyarl | 41,000 | 125,000 | 166,000 |
Arariya | 71,000 | 71,000 | 142,000 |
Bahadurgunj | 98,000 | 164,000 | 262,000 |
Udhrall | 99,000 | 77,500 | 176,500 |
Krishnagun | 154,000 | 92,000 | 246,000 |
Dulalgunj | 91,000 | 55,000 | 146,000 |
Nehargar | 116,000 | 69,000 | 185,000 |
Kharwa | 36,000 | 60,000 | 96,000 |
Bholhat | 46,000 | 76,880 | 122,880 |
Sibgunj | 78,000 | 47,000 | 125,000 |
Kaliyachak | 43,000 | 55,000 | 98,000 |
Gorgaribah | 42,000 | 70,000 | 112,000 |
Manihari | 32,000 | 98,000 | 130,000 |
Total | 1,243,000 | 1,661,380 | 2,904,380 |
Table 3b Estimate of the occupation and proportion of marriageable girls the district of Puraniya (Purnia) (Source: Martin, 1838)
Division or Thanah | Idlers (non-working) | Agriculturists | Cultivators |
Haveli | 24,000 | 15,000 | 115,000 |
Dangtkhora | 31,000 | 12,000 | 138,000 |
Gondwara | 19,000 | 18,000 | 120,000 |
Dhamdaha | 48,000 | 17,000 | 135,000 |
Dimiya | 15,000 | 7,000 | 120,000 |
Matyarl | 30,000 | 11,000 | 125,000 |
Arariya | 13,000 | 9,000 | 120,000 |
Bahadurgunj | 16,000 | 16,000 | 230,000 |
Udhrall | 5,500 | 11,000 | 160,000 |
Krishnagun | 23,000 | 23,000 | 200,000 |
Dulalgunj | 27,000 | 9,000 | 110,000 |
Nehargar | 13,000 | 12,000 | 160,000 |
Kharwa | 12,000 | 24,000 | 60,000 |
Bholhat | 15,880 | 46,000 | 61,000 |
Sibgunj | 16,000 | 47,000 | 62,000 |
Kaliyachak | 16,000 | 9,000 | 73,000 |
Gorgaribah | 25,000 | 10,000 | 77,000 |
Manihari | 28,000 | 12,000 | 90,000 |
Total | 380,830 | 308,000 | 2,216,000 |
Another essential aspect of life that began to be enumerated was migration, especially that of indentured labourers beginning in 1834. A significant shortcoming of this data was that colonial records documented out-migrants far more diligently than the returnees. After adjusting the available data, scholars estimate that between 1834 and 1875, roughly 4.72 million left India, while only about 3.56 million are recorded as having returned (Dyson, 2018). This net outflow contributes to today’s ever-expanding global Indian diaspora.
Enumerating Indigenous Education and Population
Systematic surveying was also extended into the domain of education. While the aim here was to impose colonial education, like many imperial projects it produced unintended effects, revealing striking insights into indigenous educational practices in India. The results from the 1822 order of Sir Thomas Munroe, the Governor General of Madras to prepare a district-wise list of schools and its attending scholars and their caste led him to conclude: ‘the state of education here exhibited, low as it is compared with that of our own country, is higher than it was in most European countries at no very distant period.’ (quoted in M.S. Sundaram, 1959). Around the same time, Mountstuart Elphinstone the Governor General of Bombay ordered Gujarat and Konkan regions to report district-wise data on education. In educationist R.V. Parulekar’s compilation of findings based on Elphinstone’s survey, we gain access to revealing aspects such as district level population estimates and school-going aged population versus actual number of scholars attending.
Table 5 School Attendance among Boys in Selected Districts of Gujarat based on Judges Report 1828-1829 (Source: Parulekar, 1945)
Division of the Province | Total Population | Boys that ought to be in schools | Boys actually in schools | Proportion of boys attending to the total boys who ought to be in schools |
The Deccan (Poona, Ahmednagar & Khandesh) | 1,536,000 | 51,200 (Pop. × 1/30) | 9,700 | 1 in 5 |
Gujarat | 1,408,000 | 31,200 (Pop. × 1/45) | 11,700 | 1 in 3 |
Konkan | 1,143,000 | 38,100 (Pop. × 1/30) | 9,400 | 1 in 4 |
The Karnatak (Dharwar) | 794,000 | 26,400 (Pop. × 1/30) | 4,300 | 1 in 6 |
Total | 4,881,000 | 147,000 | 35,100 | 1 in 4 |
Table 6 Statement of Scholars in Different Collectorships Showing the Proportion of Persons Attending Schools to the Population (Source: Parulekar, 1945)
Place | Population | Total Schools | Total Scholars | Proportion Attending Schools to Population |
Poona | 558,902 | 309 | 4,917 | 1 in 113 |
Ahmednuggur | 500,000 | 168 | 3,138 | 1 in 159 |
Khandesh | 377,321 | 114 | 1,669 | 1in 226 |
Surat | 254,882 | 190 | 4,164 | 1in 61 |
Broach | 238,421 | 26 | 1,042 | 1in 228 |
Kaira | 444,298 | 84 | 3,181 | 1 in 139 |
Ahmedabad | 470,729 | 91 | 3,353 | 1in 140 |
North Concan | 387,264 | 137 | 2,678 | 1in 144 |
South Concan | 655,776 | 282 | 6,721 | 1in 97 |
Dharwar | 794,142 | 304 | 4,290 | 1in 186 |
TOTAL | 4,681,735 | 1705 | 35,153 | 1in 133 |
Across these surveys, British officials were often surprised by what they encountered. In the Madras Presidency, for instance, the data revealed that students attending from lower castes were often twice the number of Brahmins, suggesting that indigenous systems of education were more closely aligned with the region’s socio-economic realities than colonial officers and missionaries gave them credit for. Meanwhile, in the Bombay Presidency, officials expressed surprise at the breadth and complexity of the curricula taught in indigenous institutions (Kakkar, 2017).
A similar project of surveying indigenous education was undertaken in Bengal and Bihar in 1835 by William Adam, appointed by Lord William Bentinck the then Governor General of Bengal. Adam’s investigation of two years resulted in three reports. Adam’s reports provide district-wise records of population, number of pupils, usual age of admission, medium of instruction, details on the school building, structure of the curriculum and so on. For instance for the district of Rajshahi, Adam provides the following population estimates:
Table 7 Population Returns of 1834 of Rajshahi District (Source: Adam, 1836)
Thana | Families | Men Hindus | Men Muslims | Women Hindus | Women Muslims | Children Hindus | Children Muslims | Total Inhabitants |
Bhawanigung | 22,935 | 12,892 | 38,091 | 11,866 | 37,279 | 86,076 | 33,110 | 219,714 |
Nattore | 27,504 | 21,030 | 42,046 | 21,573 | 42,522 | 20,226 | 38,012 | 185,409 |
Hariyal | 21,715 | 17,417 | 29,002 | 17,764 | 29,680 | 14,589 | 29,205 | 138,617 |
Bauleah | 15,776 | 10,760 | 20,138 | 11,309 | 21,228 | 15,068 | 17,938 | 99,721 |
Bilnariya | 9,707 | 12,361 | 20,459 | 11,603 | 19,081 | 8,474 | 16,548 | 88,529 |
Tannore | 12,674 | 4,813 | 18,481 | 5,147 | 20,481 | 3,867 | 16,748 | 60,870 |
Chaugaon | 11,797 | 8,151 | 15,371 | 8,510 | 14,721 | 4,921 | 10,357 | 62,061 |
Manda | 9,336 | 7,314 | 11,690 | 7,355 | 11,614 | 4,227 | 8,001 | 50,231 |
Putliya | 6,978 | 3,856 | 11,035 | 3,833 | 11,054 | 3,510 | 11,381 | 45,669 |
Surda | 4,075 | 3,725 | 7,910 | 3,782 | 8,096 | 2,923 | 8,033 | 34,499 |
Dubalhati | 5,112 | 3,122 | 7,572 | 3,315 | 8,163 | 2,380 | 7,933 | 32,515 |
Mirgunge | 3,760 | 2,610 | 4,123 | 2,922 | 4,650 | 1,845 | 4,148 | 20,888 |
Godagari | 4,076 | 3,269 | 3,148 | 3,212 | 3,592 | 2,452 | 2,560 | 18,233 |
TOTAL | 155,445 | 111,320 | 229,066 | 112,191 | 232,161 | 170,558 | 203,974 | 1,056,956 |
Adam’s Report is representative of the individualised counting that would characterise the later census efforts. Moreover, the findings from his report similar to the case of Madras Presidency show that the lower castes were well represented both among student population and the teachers.
Another important step towards collecting population data was the creation of vital registration, a system for recording births and deaths. Death registration started first in major port cities, Calcutta from 1832 and Bombay from 1848. The main aim of this practice was to monitor the health of Company officials, their families, and soldiers. A few decades later, this system was extended to the general population. In most British-administered regions, recording deaths began around the mid-1860s, with births being recorded shortly after. This process was usually undertaken by the headman and watchman, who recorded births and deaths and reported them to the nearest police station, usually once a week or a month (Dyson, 2018). Ordinary events of life, such as birth, death, and marriage, entered the administrative gaze through systems of official registration and documentation. The primary purpose of birth registration was public health and administrative use, including tracking populations for vaccination campaigns (e.g., smallpox) and identifying regions where practices like female infanticide were prevalent. However, coverage was uneven and often incomplete, especially due to illiteracy and weak reporting systems, leading to under-registration, particularly of female births (Dyson, 2018).
Surveying the Coastline
While surveying the coasts was a sustained endeavor under the EIC, the advent of the steamship in the early 19th century generated a pronounced need for the company to create more accurate surveys of the Indian waters and coasts for administrative purposes. In the later half of the eighteenth century, a series of hydrographic surveys were undertaken by Company officers, Captain John Ritchie in the Bay of Bengal and the Ganges delta, Lieutenant Archibald Blair in the Andaman Islands, and Captain John McCluer along the west coast. By the early nineteenth century, hydrography had become important enough to require a formal administrative structure, leading to the appointment of Marine Surveyor General at Calcutta. The results that would emerge from their surveys would be sent to London for engraving and publication, while some copies were produced locally at Calcutta by lithography (Naval Hydrographic Service of India, n.d.).
The Revolt of 1857 halted these efforts, and responsibility for surveys was momentarily transferred to the Royal Navy. In 1875 efforts were revived with the formation of The Marine Survey Department under Commander A. D. Taylor. The department was instructed to conduct coastal surveys in a systematic manner using properly equipped vessels and trained personnel. These marine surveys were to be connected with land-based surveys and aligned with fixed reference points established by the Great Trigonometrical Survey (Markham, 1878). In this configuration, marine surveying became integral to the colonial state’s epistemic project: a coordinated, large-scale effort to accumulate knowledge about the colony and to render it as an integral part of the spatial image of the British Empire. One of the interesting publications by the department was a yearly revised list of different light structures like lighthouses and other navigation aids along the coast of British India, The Red Sea and the Coast of Arabia. The map below published by the Marine Survey Department in 1877 tracks the progress of maritime surveys conducted by the department:
The 1857 Uprising
A watershed moment in the Company’s political life in India was the 1857 Uprising, known by many names, Sepoy Mutiny, the First War of Independence or the Great Rebellion. The uprising was sparked by several grievances within the Bengal army but was fuelled by wider discontent over land settlements, annexations such as those of Awadh, and so on. It spread across north and central India, including Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow (Banerjee-Dube, 2014). While a brutal repression by the Company followed this, it also shattered its confidence. It became incredibly anxious and suspicious over the limits of its knowledge. In 1858, through Queen Victoria’s Proclamation, the British Crown formally assumed control, inaugurating the period of the British Raj. But the transition to the Raj did not mark a break in the knowledge project; it was only intensified by the memories of 1857. Race and religion became central in surveys in the coming decades (Guha, 2003).
In the year before, the EIC had issued a dispatch, proposing a general census all over India. It noted:
‘The practice of taking a census of the population every ten years prevails not only in Great Britain but also in the United States of America, and in some of the countries on the continent of Europe, and we see no reason why the enumeration of the people should take place more frequently in India. But we attach much importance to the manner in which the work is accomplished, and are very desirous that the census should be made upon a system and at the same period for the entire country under our administration. The next general census of our Indian territories may be taken in 1861 to correspond with the next census of Great Britain, and thence forward at intervals of ten years.’ (Maheswari, 1996).
Based on this from the 1860s onwards, systematic decennial censuses were initiated to discern the ‘progress’ of the Raj, culminating in the first synchronous all-India census in 1881. These exercises, along with population counts, also sought to classify and categorise the subjects by their caste, religion, tribe, language, and occupation. As the anthropologist Bernard Cohn summarises it, the census embodied
‘a model of the Victorian encyclopaedic quest for total knowledge.’ (Cohn, 1996).
As India prepares to conduct a new census next year, the articles in this series trace the long and complex history of the country’s decennial censuses, beginning with the first systematic enumeration undertaken in 1872.
(Authors: Nishitha Mandava is an independent researcher and research Consultant for
Center for Legislative Education and Research, FLAME University, Pune;
Dr. Shivakumar Jolad is the Chair of Center for Legislative Education and Research and Director of India State Stories, FLAME University, Pune
Nishitha contributed to research and primary writing; Shivakumar contributed to conceptualization, research and editing)
References:
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