Page "Toda people" Paragraph 3

According to M. B. Emeneau, the successive decennial Census of India figures for the Toda are: 1871 ( 693 ), 1881 ( 675 ), 1891 ( 739 ), 1901 ( 807 ), 1911 ( 676 ) ( corrected from 748 ), 1951 ( 879 ), 1961 ( 759 ), 1971 ( 812 ).

These in his judgment, " justifies concluding that a figure between 700 and 800 is likely to be near the norm, and that variation in either direction is due on the one hand to epidemic disaster and slow recovery thereafter ( 1921 ( 640 ), 1931 ( 597 ), 1941 ( 630 )) or on the other hand to an excess of double enumeration ( suggested already by census officers for 1901 and 1911, and possibly for 1951 ).

Another factor in the uncertainty in the figures is the declared or undeclared inclusion or exclusion of Christian Todas by the various enumerators ...

Giving a figure between 700 and 800 is highly impressionistic, and may for the immediate present and future be pessimistic, since public health efforts applied to the community seem to be resulting in an increased birth rate and consequently, one would expect, in an increased population figure.

However, earlier predictions that the community was declining were overly pessimistic and probably never well-founded.