Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
is shown in Table 3. To enquire about the population transition of the vil-
lages for the past century it is necessary to know the population dynamics
of Puthia Union and Puthia Upazila as a whole. Census recording in the
sub-continent of Bangladesh-India and Pakistan began as late as 1872. But
there is no information on population at the village level, nor does the Vil-
lage Census of 1901 dealt specifi cally with village statistics. It was simply
a camoufl age in the name of Village Census. In fact, population statistics
at the village level only came into existence in 1951.
The reported census of 1872 and 1901 produced data on the thana (i.e.,
present upazila) level which indicate that there has been decades of de-
clining population in Puthia Upazila. The Bengal District Gazetters-Ra-
jshahi-1916 (O'Malley, 1916) indicate that the population of Puthia and
adjoining Upazilas (i.e., Bagmara, Mohanpur, Paba & Charghat) declined
tremendously between 1872 and 1891 due to prevalence of malaria, small-
pox, and cholera together with water-hyacinth which blocked the water
channels. This caused a 15.01% decrease of population growth (1976,
p.48). Through 1901, Puthia and the adjoining upazilas sustained a loss of
population by a decrease of 12.08 % (O'Malley, 1916). Many people died
in this swampy water-logged area and others migrated to the comparative-
ly healthier and more prosperous areas (Naogaon & Panchupur, n. d.) of
Rajshahi Region (O'Malley, 1916). Nelson (1923) reported that the popu-
lation of Puthia decreased by 44% between 1872 to 1912. This declining
population trend for Puthia continued until 1951 due to a large emigration
of the Hindus to India during and after 1947 (Hossain et al., n. d.). From
1951 onwards, the population had again increased in Puthia Union, as it
had for Dhononjoypara and Gopalhati. The increase of population for Pu-
thia Union between 1951 and 1960 is 32.2% (Hossain et al., n. d.). This
growth rate has been mostly due to increasing birth rates. Side by side with
the population growth, we fi nd that there had occurred a tremendous loss
of the agricultural land in the villages of Dhononjoypara and Gopalhati.
10.6 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Based on our foregoing discussion, it is discernible that since the begin-
ning of human history, global population had increased tremendously at a
