I was curious about number of soldiers per capita recruited from Indian states, so wrote this post. One issue was getting accurate population statistics for different states, so the per capita recruitment numbers are just for 2018-19. Looking at the figures below, following observations can be made.

If you go by per capita numbers, Himachal Pradesh is on top with 612 annual recruitments per 10 lakh population. Next is Sikkim with 372 and Uttarakhand with 319. Only other region that comes close is Jammu which sends 686*. I’ve put in Jammu different from Kashmir, as latter barely sends any soldiers. Even the muslim soldiers from state are almost always from Jammu. So top five states in India for annual recruitment of army men per 10 lakh population are:

• Himachal Pradesh: 612
• Sikkim: 372
• Uttarakhand: 319
• Jammu & Kashmir: 299 (686 if only Jammu* is considered)
• Mizoram: 167

* If Laddakh is included in the numbers, then per capita numbers of Jammu will be around 550. Exact data is unavailable.

If you go by sheer numbers, then Uttar Pradesh sends highest number of men per year to army, 6322, followed by Punjab (including Chandigarh) with 5846 and Rajasthan at 4172. Nepal is an interesting source which sent 2502 people in Indian army in 2018-19, making it’s per-capita number 83, higher than many Indian states like West Bengal and all of South India.

Additionally, there is a lot of fake information on social media like the graphic below which claims that Sikhs form between 15 to 50% of Indian army. Sikhs are nearly 57% of Punjab’s population and Hindus are 38%. Going by this figure and assuming that representation in army is proportional for both communities, number of Punjabi Sikhs in army annually should be around 3340. Punjab numbers also include Chandigarh which has a sizeable Haryanavi population. So all such posts have grossly exaggerated the numbers for fake propaganda.

No.	Name of States & UTs	Recruitments Per Year				Population	Soldiers/10 lakh
		2016-17	2017-18	2018-19
1	Andhra Pradesh	1389	1431	1301		49,577,103	26.24195286
2	Telangana	515	643	693		35,003,674	19.79792178
3	Tamil Nadu, A&N Islands & Puducherry	1886	1875	1539		72,147,030	21.33143942
4	Arunachal Pradesh	156	217	195		1,383,727	140.9237516
5	Assam	829	900	631		31,205,576	20.22074516
6	Bihar	2932	2726	2199		104,099,452	21.12403051
7	Chattisgarh	817	606	372		25,545,198	14.56242383
8	Delhi	798	166	167		16,787,941	9.947616566
9	Goa	16	1	2		1,458,545	1.371229547
10	Gujarat Incl Dadar Nagar Haveli & Daman & Diu	1257	728	1346		60,439,692	22.27013334
11	Haryana	3538	3634	3210		25,351,462	126.6199164
12	Himachal Pradesh	2174	2376	4202		6,864,602	612.1258013
13	Jammu & Kashmir	1954	1817	3672		12,267,032	299.338911
13-1	Jammu			3672		5,350,811	686.2511122
14	Jharkhand	687	925	663		32,988,134	20.09813589
15	Karnataka incl Lakshdweep	1157	1417	1693		61,095,297	27.71080727
16	Kerala	1584	1278	865		33,406,061	25.89350477
17	Madhya Pradesh	2281	2352	1570		72,626,809	21.61736171
18	Maharashtra	3980	3836	4050		112,374,333	36.04025841
19	Manipur	247	400	311		2,570,390	120.9933123
20	Meghalaya	86	75	89		2,966,889	29.99775185
21	Mizoram	200	108	184		1,097,206	167.6986819
22	Nagaland	112	103	122		1,978,502	61.66281358
23	Odissa	642	737	474		41,974,219	11.29264609
24	Punjab incl Chandigarh	4618	4991	5846		35,743,338	163.5549539
25	Rajasthan	4658	4298	4172		68,548,437	60.86207334
26	Sikkim	39	109	227		610,577	371.7794807
27	Tripura	89	55	69		3,673,917	18.78104486
28	Uttar Pradesh	6245	6339	6322		199,812,341	31.63968736
29	Uttrakhand	3360	2384	3222		10,086,292	319.4434585
30	West Bengal	2116	1862	1471		91,276,115	16.1159357
31	Nepal	1724	1049	2502		30000000	83.4

1. Recruitment Numbers: Indian Army Recruitment :Know About Number of Youths Recruited from Different States https://web.archive.org/web/20220416111005/https://www.punekarnews.in/indian-army-recruitment-know-about-number-of-youths-recruited-from-different-states/
2. Population numbers: Wikipedia