INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

litical actions would creep into the British records. Another explanation as to why
local Nirmalas and Udasins chose to categorize themselves as Vaishnava Hindus was
simply that they did not consider themselves as Sikhs and did not see any need to
claim such an identity, especially not in a major Hindu pilgrimage centre like Varanasi.
CENSUS 1911, VARANASI
OCCUPATION
NUMBERS OF SIKHS
Army 215
Police 27
Public administration 2
Banks, establishment of credit exchange
and insurance 13
Trade in textiles 9
Trade in chemical products 9
Trade in food stuff 7
Trade in articles of luxury 3
Cashiers, clerks, book keepers 8
Industry of food (sweet makers) 5
Industry of textiles 2
Jewellers, guilders 2
Cultivators (ordinary) 11
Estate agents 2
Religion (“priests”, temple servants) 11
Medicine 2
Cooks, water carriers, doorkeepers, watchmen 6
Grooms, coachmen 7
Proprietors (pensioners, scholarship holders) 4
Unproductive (beggars, procurers, etc.) 1
Figure 2. Total 346
During the first part of the twentieth century the census officers struggled with
the fluctuating demographic figures of Sikhs in the provinces of Agra and Oudh. If
more than three hundred Sikhs were reported for Varanasi town in 1911, the figures
dropped to a modest number of 46 Sikhs in the Census of 1921 and within the following
ten-year period increased to 154 individuals. Variations of the same kind appeared
in the census of Varanasi division (See Figure 1). The gender distribution of
the Sikh population also reveals that men were over-represented. In census of 1911
only 19 percent of the urban Sikh population and 28 percent of the Sikhs within Vaport
themselves as Sikhs. As a result, the Sikh population of the province increased from 14234
in 1921 to 46500 in 1931 (Census of India 1931, Part 1, Report, 1933: 503).
47
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008