MADHYA PRADESH CENSUS 1951 LANGUAGE HANDBOOK Chhindwara, Betul, Hoshangabad, Nimar and Balaghat Districts By H. N. BANERJEE, M.Sc., LL.B. OJ the Madhya Pradesh Civil Service, Superintendent of Census Opc:mtions, Madhya Pradesh ·NAGPUR GOVERNMENT PRINTING, MADHYA PRADESH 1956 PREFACE At the 1951 Census, the data relating to mother-tongue were tabulated not by villages but by larger units called tracts. The tracts were of three kinds-rural, urban city and urban non-city. A rural tract normally consisted of the entire rural area of a tahsil. The urban city tract consis~ed of a city of one lakh or over one lakh population only and the urban non-city tract com­ prised all the towns within a district. 2. In October 1954, the Government of India communicated to the State Government their decision to obtain language data according to villages for all the multi-lingual border tahsils in India by means of a special sorting of the 1951 Census slips. They also sent a tentative list of 29 tahsils, indicating the languages in respect of each, for which they proposed to under­ take the 0 peration in this State. The list was prepared as follows. The dis­ trictwise linguistic figures of the 1951 Census were plotted on the map of Madhya Pradesh. A line was drawn separating the districts with different languages in absolute majority. All the tahsils lying on either side of this line were included in the list. The State Government agreed to share the cost of this operation for Madhya Pradesh equally with the Central Government. I was appointed Superintendent of Census Operations for Madhya Pradesh in addition to my normal work as Extra-Assistant Commissioner, Nagpur. A temporary office was organised at Nagpur in January 1955 to handle the operations. 3. After further scrutiny of the linguistic figures of the 1951 Census, I suggested the extraction of villagewise language data for another 15 multi­ lingual tahsils of the State. The Government of India accepted my proposals in this behalf. The list of languages initially proposed by the Government of India for each tahsil was also expanded, first at the instance of the Deputy Registrar General, India, who felt that the data should be exhibited for all the languages spoken by not less than 5 per cent of the tract and later at my sug­ gestion that the speakers of "Other languages" in a village/town where they numbered 10 per cent or more of the population of that village/town should also be classified according to language and details shown in a supplementary table. 4. After the termination of the 1951 Census sorting operation, the enu­ meration slips had been arranged not according to villages but according to tracts. The slips pertaining to each tract had been kept in as many as 48 separate. bundles representing the "General", "Sample" and "Displaced Persons" slips classified by sexes into eight broad livelihood classes. The first task was to mix up all the slips of a tract taking precaution to maintain the identity of the "Sample" and "Displaced Persons" slips by stamping "S" and '''D'' respectively on the back of the slips conce-rned. The next step was to sort the enumeration slips villagewise with reference to the location code num­ bers written at the top of the slips. The location code number consisted of four numerals representing the district, tahsil, village/town and house/ward. This operation over, the villagewise bundles were sorted according to the mother-tongue as recorded in the slips. (ii) 5. Considerable difficulty was experienced in the course of linguistic ~orting as the code n~mbers in. a ~arge number of enumeration slips were either mcomplete or defective or mlssmg. Reference to the National Register of Citizens and comparison of the handwriting on the slips enabled most of the difficulties to be solved. Where all attempts failed, the slips were classed as "Unidentified". Sorting by mother-tongue did not present much difficulty. 6. The. work was handled by the Sorters working in teams under three Administrative Assistants and one Tabu13tion-in-charge. The Administrative Assistants were also assisted by a staff of Supervi~ors appointed at the rate of one per ten to fifteen Sorters. Cent per cent check was carried out at every stage of the operation. The calculations were done on the Comptometer machines. 7. The brick pigeon-holes were mostly used for sorting as at the 1951 Census sorting operation, necessary modification in design having been effected in order to secure 35 or 40 holes at a time. A small number of single and double-faced pigeon-holes of wood were also tried in order to assess the com­ parative merit of each kind of pigeon-hole. The brick pigeon-holes were found to be the most economical, the only drawback of them being that they occupied more space. The wooden boxes used in the abstraction offices opened after the 1951 Census were utilised as containers for slips. A few boxes of iron and tin of various shapes and designs and kerosene oil tin provided with a suitable lid were also tried. Taking all the factors into consideration the wooden box made of some cheap variety of wood like "sal" appeared to be the most advantageous. 8. In this booklet the absolute a~d perc,entage figures of the speakers of the various languages arrived at as a result of the resorting of the slips have been shown for the different tahsils. A statement indicating the difference between the figures emerging from the present sorting and the 1951 Census sorting has been appended at the end of the table for each tahsil. Such statements have also been prepared for the district as a whole in the case of districts in which all the tahsils have been covered by this operation. These statements reveal some differences between the original sorting and present resorting in respect of Chhattisgarhi, Hindi and other closely allied languages. These are apparently due to the slips pertaining to one language having been wrongly sorted under the allied language by some sorters in the Tabulation Offices at the original sorting. Special care was taken during the present resorting to ensure that it was done accurately. A map of each tahsil also accompanies the table. The villa,ges are denoted by the location code numbers in the maps. The uninhabited villages are indicated by the word "u" a,nd forest villages by '''F. V.". Separate boundaries haye been shown for all except the unsurvey­ ed villages which have been indicated by small rectangles. Colours representing Hindi, 1\1' arathi and other numerically important languages of the tahsil have been applied to the villages according to the language, the speakers of which are the most numerou.s in the village. The villages in which neither Hindi no, ::'\larathi nor any numerically important language of the tahsil is dominant have been left uncoloured. Four copies of maps of all the tahsils have also been prepared on the scale of 1'f = 2 miles by (iii) tracing them from t~ mujmuli maps of the Land Records Department. These maps are called working maps and are for official use only. The percentages of speakers of two languages as mother-tongue, the speakers of which are the most numerous in those villages, are also entered in these maps. 9. The tables of the 44 tahsils have been printed in four hand­ books. The details of the cont~nts of the hand books are shown in the annexure accompanying this preface. 10. I must thank the staff of Sorters and Supervisors who worked very hard indeed throughout the course of this operation. I am deeply sensible ~f my very special obligation to Shri A. K. Deb, who performed the duties of two posts-Head Assistant and Accountant-of this office, the staff of which was over four hundred at one time, most admirably. Shri S. P. Singh, Tabulation-in-charge and the three Administrative Assistants, Shri Banwarilal, Shri N. P. Awadhiya and Shri N. P. Sharma, managed with great success the difficult task of exacting the m1ximum of work with absolutely no friction and discontent from a fairly large staff of temporary workers, not readily amenable to discipline. I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to them. I am also thankful to Shri D. L. WIire, Cashier-cum-Record-keeper, who was consistently diligent in the performance of his duties. I am very much beholden to Shri V. K. Aiyar, Superintendent, Shri G. N. Parthasarathi, Deputy Superintendent, Shri J. K. Abhyankar, Assis­ tant Superintendent, Shri K. B. L. Vishwakarma, Junior Assistant Superin­ tendent and Shri D. J. Cantham, Junior Assistant Superintendent of the Government Printing, Madhya Pradesh, but for whose un stinted help and co-operation the linguistic sorting operation could not have progressed so smoothly. The quality of printing of the tables and maps speaks for itself. To the Janapada Sabha, Nagpur, which very kindly made available a part of its office building for locating the Census Office at great inconvenience to itself, I am very grateful. It is difficult for me to express sufficiently my deep personal gratitude to Shri Rajeshwari Prasad, LA.S., Deputy Registrar General, India, who very kindly visited Nagpur and helped me constantly with his exceedingly valuable advice and guidance. Lastly, I must express my deep sense of gratitude to Shri K. B. L: Seth. I.C.S., Chief Secretary t9 the Government, lVladhya Pradesh, for his very kind help and guidance in all my difficulties. H. ~L BANERJEE, Superintendent of Census Operations, Madhya Pradesh. :iiv) .ANNEXURE't .