Explanation:

Prior to 1921, India’s population was characterized by a chequered growth. Decades of substantial growth regularly alter­nated with decades of small increase or even negative growth. The Census Commissioner for the 1951 census, therefore, rightly called 1921 as the year of Great Divide, which differentiated the earlier period of fluctuating growth rates from a period of moderately increasing growth rates.
The first twenty years of the twentieth century, thus, witnessed a growth rate of only 5.42 per cent in India’s population. It may be recalled here that the decade 1901-11 was struck by several local famines. For instance, one such famine occurred in 1907 in areas what later came to be known as Uttar Pradesh.
In addition, plague claimed a heavy toll of life during the decade in Bengal and Bombay Presidencies. Further, in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab plague and malaria caused considerable number of deaths. The northern zone, comprising Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chandigarh and Delhi, had, in fact, recorded a negative growth in its population during the decade. The situation was even worse during 1911-21 when India’s population recorded a virtual shrink in its size in the wake of influenza epidemic, which had struck in 1919. It has been estimated that the epidemic claimed the life of nearly 7 per cent of the population in the country.
The central zone comprising Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had suffered the most. In western zone also, the absolute size of population is reported to have declined.
A continuous belt extending from the Ganga plain down to the Mahanadi delta, part of Rajasthan desert plain, Punjab plain and upper Godavari, Krishna and Tungbhadra basins in Maharashtra and Karnataka plateaus had recorded decline in population during the period. Some of the districts in these areas had recorded a decline in population by more than 10 per cent.