Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (A.D. 1000-1800)
is a book by K.S. Lal
published in 1973
The book asseses the demographics of India between 1000 CE and 1500 CE. On the basis of the available historical evidence, K.S. Lal concluded that the population of India in 1000 CE was about 200 million and in 1500 CE 170 million. He says however that "any study of the population of the precensus times can be based only on estimates, and estimates by their very nature tend to be tentative"
K.S. Lal estimates that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 and 1525 CE as a result of the Islamic invasion of India. He concluded that about 2 million people died during Mahmud of Ghazni's invasions of India (pp. 211-217).
K.S. Lal's study of the demographic situation in medieval India was also criticized. Simon Digby criticized the book in a review in "Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies":
- "The author is known for his detailed studies of the Khalji dynasty and of the fifteenth-century Delhi Sultanate. He is well versed in the sources of medieval North Indian history. In the present study he has assembled almost all the conceivably relevant data and for this reason it will remain of value as a compendium of references. Yet the unknown variables are so great and the quality of the data yielded by our sources so poor that almost any detailed general estimates of population based upon them must appear wilful, if not fantastic."
Historian Irfan Habib criticized the book in his "Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate - An Essay in Interpretation" (Habib 1978). K.S. Lal wrote a reply to Irfan Habib's cricism in 1979 (Lal 1979) and in 1999 (Lal 1999).
- Irfan Habib. "Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate - An Essay in Interpretation" (1978)
- K.S. Lal. (1979) Bias in Indian Historiography (edited by Dr. Devahuti)
- K.S. Lal. 1999. Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India
- Simon Digby, review in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 38, No. 1. (1975), pp. 176-177.