How many Sindhis live in India?
Indian government finally released the Census 2011 data on language and mother tongue in last week of Jun’18 and it gives us lot of interesting details about Sindhi population in India.
Some important facts:
· Sindhi is mother tongue of 27.7 lakhs people living in India
· It is 17th most cited mother tongue amongst 22 official (scheduled) languages
· As of 2011 Sindhi’s are 0.23% of India’s total population
· As compared to 2001 growth in Sindhi population is 9.3%
This data is very important as almost all of the sources available online show incorrect or estimated data of Sindhi population.
Sindhi & its dialects:
According to government / census authority, Kachchhi (Kutchi) is a dialect of Sindhi and included in the total Sindhi population. As of 2011, there are around 10 lakh Kachchhi (27%) and around 17 lakh Sindhis (61%). There are small population of Sindhi’s who have identified other dialects like Bhatia.
However comparing the dialect data vs 2001 we see that Kachchhi’s have a higher growth rate (~25%) compared to Sindhi (1.7%). Importantly the 2001 census was carried out in just few months after the dreadful earthquake in Kutch which lead to decrease and also temporary dispersion of population which would have impacted the 2001 data. Note that increase in Kachchhi was higher than the national average as well. Its worrying to see a very low growth of Sindhi speaking population.
Trend:
From 1971 to 2011 (40 years) average per annum growth rate of Sindhi speaking population has been 1.3% against national average of around 2%. This has lead to decrease in the % of total population from 0.31% to 0.23% in 2011. Growth has been higher than national average only in year 1971–81.
Demography
In terms of demography, sex ratio of Sindhis is 963 females per 1000 males which is higher as compared to India’s avg of 940 females per 1000.
Now looking at where Sindhis are living, 95% of Sindhis live in Western and Central regions of India. This is mainly because migration and refugee camp post partition were in mainly in these region which includes present day states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Also as mentioned earlier Kachchhi is also considered Sindhi dialect, hence Kachchhi population in Kutch, Gujarat leads to higher concentration in Gujarat.
Gujarat has highest Sindhi population of around 11.8 lakhs, followed by Maharashtra with 7.2 lakhs. Rajasthan has 3rd highest Sindhi population of 3.9 lakhs and Madhya Pradesh 4th with 2.45 lakhs.
Interestingly, you would find Sindhis in all the States and Union territories in India except 2 i.e. Manipur and Mizoram
Some interesting Trivia:
· In 2 state / union territory, all the Sindhi’s are males :) i.e. there is no Sindhi female living in these States/UTs. There are 7 Sindhi males residing in UT of Lakshadweep and just 2 males in Sikkim.
· You will find 14 Sindhis living in Andaman & Nicobar Islands which is around 3100 km from our original homeland
· Assam has the 8th highest Sindhi population in India (it is around 2600 km from Sindh), this population is higher than many larger states in South and North India. (A note on this in Part 2 of the blog)
· Like in case of India, Sindhi’s residing in South India have a higher sex ratio of 1026 females per 1000 males
· Punjab has very low Sindhi population (just 754) even though there are cultural and religious similarities
Part 2 of the blog -LINK
This was my analysis of Sindhi population in India, please share your feedback via email : nischaykalra@gmail.com
Source : http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language_MTs.html
