Kingsley Davis on Demographics of India
← Back to Kingsley Davis Profile
βSo in India some three to seven thousand years ago there were peoples possessing a technology sufficiently advanced to support a dense population.β
βAs far back as the 3rd or 4th millennium B.C. and probably much earlier still, India was in possession of a highly developed civilization with large and populous cities.β
βIn six decades (1881-1941)β¦ at no census have the Muslims failed to improve their percentage and the Hindus failed to loseβ¦β [It is due not only to the] βproportion of Muslim women married, but those who are married also have a higher fertility.ββ
βAlthough there were mass conversions, the country was too vast, the invaders too few, and the volume of immigration too small to change the social complexβ¦ India, therefore, never became a Muslim nation, but remained simply a Hindu country in which Muslims were numerous.β
βSo putting the evidence from archaeology, literature, and history together, we reach the conclusion that before the Christian era India had a substantial population, first because of its advanced technology and second because of the fertile environment of the application of this technology.β