Infant mortality in India, 1901-55: a matter of life and death

THIS book is the result of a research inquiry carried out by authour as a Nuffield Foundation Fellow in the London School of Economics, University of London, for two years from November 1953 to November 1955.
When author was appointed a Nuffield Fellow in Indian Demography he was given an opportunity to inquire into some aspect of India's population problems. And out of the many possible subjects in the field of formal demography, that of Infant Mortality in India was chosen because, first, no book had ever been written on the subject and, secondly, the matter deserved serious attention from the point of view of practical policy. The importance of the subject, particularly in an under-developed country which is embarking on major planned economic and social change, cannot be over-emphasized. Hence this demographic, economic, sociological and statistical survey of Infant Mortality in India during the last half a century.
When the available literature was studied and the data assembled, two approaches presented themselves for preparing this study. One was to make a severely technical and fundamentally statistical study, refine and adjust the past rates and reveal possibly how much higher, actually the magnitude of Infant Mortality was and is in India. Such an approach could only be addressed to fellow demographers and other social scientists and would remain merely an intellectual exercise. The second approach was to outline the problem on the basis of the given, albeit crude, data, measure its size, analyse the component parts and outline a practical policy. This approach could be addressed to the intelligent reader, the patriotic citizen and those in authority.