Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

4P
REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
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the country first give out, they will in the end outnumber them.. As in the case of.
the Musalmans, the bulk of the Hindus enumerated in Burma proper at; the re-i
cent Census were found in Lower Burma, the Upper Burman Hindus forming only'.
12 per cent, of the provincial total. Mandalay is the only Upper Burma: district!
where the Hindus exceed four thousand in number. There are more than twice
as many Hindus in Rangoon Town alone than in the whole of Upper Burma, and'
the Hanthawaddy district by itself boasts of a larger Hindu population than all'
the Upper Burma districts put together. Taken on the population of Burma proper,
Hinduism shows a percentage of 30. Computed on the Provincial total including
the Shan States and the Chin Hills, where there were only 5,509 Hindus
altogether, the percentage falls to 27. It is fourth in numercial strength of the
religions of the province.
55. The number of Christians in Burma proper in 189 1 was 120,768. This
. total has now risen to 145,726, a figure which reiani
y-
presents an increase of 21 per cent. The growth of
the Christian population during the decade that is just over is not so marked as it
was during the preceding decennial period. In 1881 the returns showed 84,219;
Christians, and the rise from this to the 1891 total meant an accession of strength
to the extent of 43'4 per cent. The reduction of the British garrison is no doubt a
fact that has operated to arrest the progress of the growth of the Christian population
in the province. What increase there is is proportionately greater in Upper
than in Lower Burma. In his 1891 Report Mr. Eales said in regard to the Christians
of Upper Burma—
" It would be unfair to take Upper Burma into ourcalculations, as it is only after the
annexation of the Kingdom of Ava that our missionaries have had free opportunities since
Thebaw Min came to the throne. The six years that have elapsed since the proclamation of
Lord Dufferin annexing the Upper Province have witnessed a wonderful extension of missionary
work in various districts of the newly annexed province, and everything points to the
probability that the returns of 1901 will reveal still greater progress."
Events have shown that Mr. Eales' surmise was correct. The Upper Burma
Christians in 1891 totalled 8,786. In 1901 they had risen in number to 12,107.
This increase of 38 per cent, cannot but, in some measure, be attributed to increased
activity in the mission field. In the Province as a whole the Christians
totalled 147,525. Of these between one-fifth and one-sixth were enumerated in the
Toungoo District, which, second only to Bassein in 1891 in its aggregate of Christians,
now shows the highest district total in this particular.
56. The strength of the various Christian denominations is shown in Imperial
-. . . . . . TableXVII. Subsidiary Tables Nos. III-C and III-D
Christian denominations. . ,. ,,' '. J
, ,
indicate the relative growth
,
of
,,
the
,. r
different ,
sects
during the past in Lower Burma and Burma proper. Before going into details
denomination by denomination, it may be well to draw attention to the very large
number of people who are shown in the tables under the head " Denomination not
returned." Some little time before the date of the Census I issued a letter to Ministers
of religion asking them to assist in the enumeration by instructing the native
members of their congregations, as far as possible, how to answer the enumerators,
when, on the night of the census, they asked them to name the sect to which they
belonged. I also suggested that it would be advantageous if those who could
write were told how to write the name of their denomination in English or the
vernacular. I had hoped that this precautionary measure would have resulted "in
a very small aggregate of entries in which the Christian sect was not shown. In
this respect I was disappointed, for the number of cases in which column 4 of the
schedule showed " Christian " only was surprisingly large. Here and there I
was able to infer from the locality of enumeration what the sect of Native Christians
probably was and to show the persons concerned accordingly, but in nearly nineteen
thousand cases the data seemed insufficient to justify any assumption as to the
sect of the Christians concerned, who in consequence were not placed in any
specified denomination. Looking at the figures as a whole, it seems clear now that
the bulk of Christians whose denominations were not returned must have been
Baptists. The number of Native Baptists is so large that I fear that the pastors
may have been unable, with the best intentions, to comply with my request in re-