The Mahommedans of India may be divided into two classes, pure Mahommedans from the Mogul and Pathan conquering races, and Mahommedan converts, who differ very little from the surrounding Hindu population from which they originally sprang. The pure Mahommedans may again be subdivided into four sections: Moguls, or the descendants of the last conquering race, including Persians; Afghans or Pathans, who from their proximity to the frontier are much more strongly represented, chiefly in the Punjab and in the Rohilkhand division of the United Provinces; Sayads, who claim to be lineally descended from the Prophet; and Sheikhs, which is a name often adopted by converts. The remainder are unspecified, but the following tribes or classes among Indian Mussulmans are worthy of notice. In Bengal the vast majority of the Mahommedans manifestly belong to the same race as the lowest castes of Hindus. They are themselves subdivided into many classes, which in their devotion to hereditary occupations are scarcely to be distinguished from Hindu castes. In the Punjab, besides the Pathan immigrants from across the frontier, Islam has taken a strong hold of the native population. The census returned large numbers of Jats, Rajputs and Gujars among the Mussulmans. Here, again, the Mahommedans are not strongly distinguished from their Hindu brethren. Bombay possesses three peculiar classes of Mussulmans, each of which is specially devoted to maritime trade—the Memons, chiefly in Sind; the Borahs, mainly in Gujarat; and the Khojahs, of whom half live in the island of Bombay. In southern India the majority are known as Deccani Mussulmans, being descendants of the armies led by the kings and nawabs of the Deccan. But the two peculiar races of the south are the Moplahs and the Labbays, both of which are seated along the coast and follow a seafaring life. They are descended from the Arab traders who settled there in very early times, and were recruited partly by voluntary adhesions and partly by forcible conversions during the persecutions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan. The Moplahs of Malabar are notorious for repeated outbreaks of bloody fanaticism. In proportion to the total population Islam is most strongly represented in the North-West Frontier Province, where it is the religion of 92% of the inhabitants; then follow Kashmir and Sind with about 75% each. Eastern Bengal and Assam with 58%, the Punjab with 49%, Bengal with 18%, and the United Provinces with 14%. In the great Mahommedan state of Hyderabad the proportion is only 10%. It appears that the Mahommedans generally tend to increase at a faster rate than the Hindus.
The Sikh religion is almost entirely confined to the Punjab. Of the total number of 2,195,339 Sikhs all but 64,352 are found in the Punjab, and two-thirds of the remainder are in the United Provinces and Kashmir which adjoin it.
Buddhism had disappeared from India long before the East India Company gained a foothold in the country, and at the present day there are very few Buddhists in India proper. Of the 9,476,759 enumerated in the census of 1901 all but some three hundred thousand were in Burma. The greater part of the remainder are found in Bengal on the borders of Burma, on the borders of Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, and in the Spiti, Lahul and Kanawar districts of the Punjab Himalayas, where many of the inhabitants are of Tibetan origin.
More than two-fifths of the Jains in India are found in Bombay and its native states, including Baroda. They are proportionally most numerous in central and western Rajputana and in Gujarat and Central India.
The Parsees, though influential and wealthy, are a very small community, numbering only 94,000, of whom all but 7000 are found in Bombay. The remainder are scattered all over India, but are most numerous in Hyderabad, the Central India Agency, and the Central Provinces.
The Christian community numbers 2,923,241, of whom, 2,664,313 are natives and the remainder Europeans and Eurasians. Of the native Christians about two-fifths are Roman Catholics and one-eighth Uniat Syrians; one-ninth belong to the Anglican communion, one-eleventh are Jacobite Syrians, and one-twelfth are Baptists; while Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians are also represented. Nearly two-thirds of the total number are found in the Madras Presidency, including its native states. In Cochin and Travancore, where the Syrian church has most of its adherents, nearly a quarter of the entire population profess the Christian faith. More than four-fifths of the Christians in Madras proper are found in the eight southernmost districts, the scene of the labours of St Francis Xavier and the Protestant missionary Schwarz. The adherents of the Syrian church, known as “Christians of St Thomas,” in Malabar, Travancore and Cochin are the most ancient Christian community in the south. After these come the Roman Catholics, who trace their origin to the teaching of St Francis Xavier and the Madura Jesuits. The Protestant churches date only from about the beginning of the 19th century, but their progress since that time has been considerable. As is to be expected in the case of a religion with a strong proselytizing agency, the growth of Christianity is far more rapid than that of the general population. Taking native Christians alone, their numbers increased from 1,246,288 in 1872 to 2,664,313 in 1901, and the rate of increase in the thirty years was even greater than these figures would show, because they include the Syrian church, whose numbers are practically constant. The classes most receptive of Christianity are those who are outside the Hindu system, or whom Hinduism regards as degraded. Amongst the Hindu higher castes there are serious obstacles in the way of conversion, of which family influence and the caste system are the greatest.
Languages.—According to the linguistic survey of India no fewer than 147 distinct languages are recorded as vernacular in India. These are grouped according to the following system:—
Vernaculars of India.
| Number of languages spoken. | |
| Malayo-Polynesian Family— | |
| Malay Group (7831) | 2 |
| Mon-Khmer Family (427,760) | 4 |
| Tibeto-Chinese Family— | |
| Tibeto-Burman Sub-family (9,560,454) | 79 |
| Siamese-Chinese Sub-family (1,724,085) | 9 |
| Dravidian Family (56,514,524) | 14 |
| Munda Family (3,179,275) | 10 |
| Indo-European Family, Aryan Sub-family— | |
| Iranian Branch (1,377,023) | 3 |
| Indo-Aryan Branch (219,780,650) | 22 |
| Semitic Family (42,881) | 1 |
| Hamitic Family (5530) | 1 |
| Unclassed Languages | 2 |
| Andamanese (1882) | |
| Gipsy Languages (344,143) | |
| Others (125) | |
| —— | |
| Total Vernaculars of India | 147 |