proportionally the largest number of pupils? Or, which of them possesses the larger comparative degree of cultivation?
In order to settle this point, with any degree of satisfaction, it is clear that we must ascertain the relative proportions of the Musalman and Hindu population. And this is the more necessary, as hitherto the most erroneous impressions have prevailed on the subject. Indeed, it may with truth be affirmed, that ignorance of India, its affairs and people, has heretofore been the rule, and accurate or even approximately accurate information, the exception. Of this a singular instance has been irrefragably established by Mr. Adam. Before visiting Rajshahi, he had been led to suppose that it was “a peculiarly Hindu district.” Hamilton, on official authority, states the proportion to be that of two Hindus to one Musalman; and the statement has been transferred, without question, into the various publications of the day. Now Mr. Adam ascertained, with a precision that defies all challenge, that in the selected or model Thana of Nattore, the proportion was exactly reversed—there being actually two Musalmans to one Hindu! In other five thanas he found the proportion of Musalmans to Hindus to be somewhat larger than even in Nattore; while in other four, it was still more in excess of the latter, amounting to not less than three Musalmans to one Hindu. Thus the aggregate average of the entire district or Zillah is that of seven Musalmans to three Hindus, or considerably more than two to one. How an impression so very contrary to the truth could have gained ground among the European functionaries Mr. Adam thus endeavours to explain:—
“The Hindus, with exceptions of course, are the principal zemindars, talookdars, public officers, men of learning, money-lenders, traders, shopkeepers, &c., engaging in the most active pursuits of life, and coming directly and frequently under the notice of the rulers of the country, while the Musalmans, with exceptions also, form a very large majority of the cultivators of the ground and of day labourers, and others engage in the very humblest forms of mechanical skill, and of buying and selling, as tailors, turban makers, makers of huqqa-snakes, dyers, wood-polishers, oil-sellers, sellers of vegetables, fish, &c., in few instances attracting the attention of those who do not mix much with the humbler classes of the people, or make special inquiry into their occupations and circumstances.”
Elsewhere, as the general result of the whole of his researches, he speaks of “the greater degradation and ignorance of the lower classes of Musalmans when compared with the corresponding classes of the Hindu population, as a simple, undeniable, matter of fact.”
Let us now present, at one view, the proportions of the Musalman and Hindu population in all the districts investigated by Mr. Adam:—
