Kerala Hotels :
Kerala People
Kerala People
Kerala represents a veritable ethnological museum, in
which one perceives only an admixture of four different racial
strains namely the Negrito, the proto-Australoid, the Mediteranean
and the Aryan, as indicated earlier. Racial purity faded away in the
process of assimilation, accommodation and adjustment among them,
for which Kerala has been famous. The synthetic culture of Kerala,
the vitality of which still persists, has been the result of the
interaction among the races and people through the ages.
POPULATION AND ITS DISTRIBUTION
Any systematic study of population and its attended problems is possible
only from census reports. The total
population of the state was 25,453,680, which was 3.71 percentage of the
country's population. The districtwise distribution of population leads
us to the conclusion that while Trivandrum was the most populous, Wynad
was at the other end.. This takes one to the question of density of
population. While Alleppey topped the list, the district with least
density was Idukki. Considered with reference to average population of a
district, Kerala had 18.18 lakhs and the average density of population
per sq.km was 655.
The distribution of population may also be considered with reference to
other standards. According to the 1981 census, only 18.74 per cent of
the people live in urban areas. Ernakulam district was the one with the
highest percentage of urbanity (40%). In so far as the sex-ratio is
concerned, it was 1032 females for every 1000 males. Few other states
have this predominance of females. It is quite instructive to note this
constituency in all the census reports upto 1981.
The data regarding Pathanamthitta and
Kasaragod are not available.
Judged from the cirterion of literacy Kerala stands first in the
queue among the states of India. It may be seen from Table 1.2, that
the literacy rate of Kerala was 70.42 per cent. But in terms of
effective literacy rate, it is still higher. Excluding the age group
of children below four years, literacy was 81.29 per cent. In fact
this is more than double that of the whole of India, and in this
respect Kerala has hardly any close rival. The statistics regarding
literacy point to one more conclusion. The urban areas in Kerala
maintained a higher degree of literacy (69%) than the rural areas.
Among the urbanites nearly 80 per cent of men and 72 per cent of
women were literates, while the figures were 79 per cent and 64 per
cent respectively in rural areas.
Another characteristic feature of Kerala population (as per 1985
data) was that when birth-rate remained at 22.9 per cent death-rate
was only 6.6 per cent. This brings out a stark reality about the
phenomenal increase in population. From about 135 lakhs in 1951, the
population increased to 169 lakhs in 1961, 213 lakhs in 1971 and
again to 254 lakhs in 1981.
The distribution of population may also be considered on the basis
of religious faiths. All the three major religions of India are
represented in the population of Kerala. The Hindus, the predominant
group numbered 14,801,347. The Muslims represented 5,409,687 and the
Christians 5,233,865. The Sikhs though only a miniority had a
representation of 1295. While the Buddhists number 223, the Jains
were 3605. Kerala had other religions and persuasions representing
only 499 persons.- According to the 1981 census, people who did not
identify their religions also had some representation, in the
population viz. 1394.
Kerala had a total of 2,549,382 (10.01%) Scheduled Caste population
and 2,61,475 (1.02 per cent) Scheduled Tribes population. Both these
groups have come up in the social leader in recent years and enjoy
social freedom almost on a par with others.
Finally distributed on the basis of language, the population of
Kerala represents people who speak Malay-alam, Tamil, Tulu, Kannada,
Konkani, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu, Hindi, and Gujarathi. About 96.5 per
cent of the people speak in Malayalam, 2.37 per cent in Tamil and
the rest in other languages.
The above reveals how significant the data would be for the social
historians seeking to enquire into the forces and trends operating
behind the curtains in the life of the people of Kerala. The Census
of 1991 would update several figures given in this study.
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