How many Sindhis live in India? Part 2

This is in continuation on the blog on Sindhi population in India. You can read first part of the blog here

Basis Govt of India Census 2011 there are around 27.7 lakh people who have Sindhi or its dialect as its mother tongue. This includes around 16.8 lakh Sindhis and 10.3 lakh Kachchhis which is dialect of Sindhi. This blog would aims to give few details like Urban Rural split, by district population, 2nd and 3rd language details, etc. analysis based on the census data.

Urban Sindhis

It is well known that post partition migration was mainly into urban areas of western India, due to which majority of Sindhi population is urban. Details below :

Table 1 — Urban Population of Sindhi’s

91% of Sindhis in India are living in urban areas primarily in western states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, etc. Rural population are mainly concentrated in Rajasthan primarily in border districts / Thar Desert districts like Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, etc.

Others are mainly rural and in Barmer district of Rajasthan which has Thar Desert. According to my understanding the population here would include Thari dialect which is common in tribes on both the sides of Thar Desert.

Hence we can conclude most of the rural Sindhi population are mainly living in Thar Desert region

Kachchhi’s mainly living in Rural areas in Kutch district

On Bhatia Sindhis the data becomes interesting and questionable. From Sindhi Diaspora perspective Bhatia Sindhis are originally from Thatta in Sindh. In the census data majority of Bhatia dialect persons are living in Dhubri district in Assam in rural areas. I tried to do some online search to find any information on why we have such a large Bhatia population in Dhubri specifically. What I found that there is a Muslim community that speaks a Bengali dialect and are living in Assam, the community is called Bhatia and hence there might be an error from census authority to classify them as Sindhis. I am planning to write a note to the authority for further clarification.

District wise Sindhi population

Even though our Sindhi community is just 0.23% of the Population, you would find a Sindhi in 3 of every 4 districts in India.

Details of No of district with at least 1 Sindhi is tabulated below :

Table 2 — Districts with Sindhi population

With respect to only Sindhi population of 16.8 lakh, 7 districts have Sindhi population of more than 50,000. There are 109 districts where Sindhi population is equal to or less than 10. List of population by districts are :

Table 3 — By District Sindhi Population

Majority of the settlement is mainly in cities where there was refugee camp set up after partition like Ulhasnagar in Thane, Ahmadabad, Indore, Raipur, and interiors of Maharashtra. Barmer is only exception in the list. Also just 10 districts have 50% of Sindhi population in India.

Sub district level details give more granular details on the population:

Table 4 — By District Sindhi Population

· No of Sub districts more than 1 lakh Sindhi population — 2 — Ulhasnagar and Ahmadabad

· No of Sub districts more than 10,000 Sindhi population — 173

· Sindhis are present in around 1500 sub districts out of around 5900 in India in 2011

As expected maximum Sindhis live in Ulhasnagar, over 1.6 lakhs and almost 10% of its population in India, Ahmadabad city has 2nd highest Sindhi population with over 1.2 lakhs. Surprisingly Gandhidham does not have high Sindhi population although it was a planned city made for Sindhis refugges.

Sindhi as 1st / 2nd Subsidiary mother tongue

Table 5 — Sindhi Mother tongue population

Basis the disclosure, there are around 2.8 lakh persons who have declared Sindhi as their 1st subsidiary mother tongue (2nd language) and around 48 thousand as 2nd Subsidiary language (3rd language)

Table 6 — First language of Sindhi as 2nd Language

Table 7 — First Language of Sindhi as 3rd Language

Majority of people who have declared Sindhi as 2nd or 3rd language have Hindi or Gujarati as 1st language. According to me Gujarati would mainly be for Kachachhi dialect mother tongue.

Sub language of Sindhis

This section details 1st and 2nd sub language of Sindhis in India.

Table 8–1st Sub Language spoken by Sindhis

Chart 1–1st Sub Language spoken by Sindhis

As we see most have disclosed Hindi and Gujarati as 1st subsidiary language, Gujarati might be mainly from Kachchhis and Hindi / English by rest of the Sindhis. Post partition most of Sindhis adapted local language or pan India language of Hindi and English.

Also the data clearly shows now Kachchhis associate themselves with Gujarati language more than Sindhi even though traditionally Kutchi culture has been closer to Sindhi culture.

Table 9–2nd Sub Language of Sindhis

For 2nd Subsidiary language also English and Hindi are main language, Marathi is also another language which gains prominence.

To conclude :

· Sindhis are mainly residing in urban areas, Sindhi rural population mainly in Thar desert

· Even though Sindhis are present in almost 3/4th of Districts in India, 10 districts have almost 50% of the population

· At sub district level, population is concentrated in Ulhasnagar, Ahmadabad, Mumbai, Indore, etc

· Over 31 lakh persons have declared Sindhi as 1st / 2nd or 3rd Mother tongue as Sindhi or its dialect

· Hindi, Gujarati and English are primary sub languages of persons who have mother tongue Sindhi

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