Famine in India
Encyclopedia
Famine
has been a recurrent feature of life in the Indian sub-continental countries of India
, Pakistan
and Bangladesh
, and reached its numerically deadliest peak in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Historical and legendary evidence names some 90 famines in 2,500 years of history. There are 14 recorded famines in India
between the 11th and 17th centuries. Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The last major famine was the Bengal famine
of 1943. A famine occurred in the state of Bihar
in December 1966 on a much smaller scale. The drought of Maharashtra
in 1970–1973 is often cited as an example in which successful famine prevention processes were employed. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
India
n agriculture
is heavily dependent on the climate of India
: a favorable southwest summer monsoon
is critical in securing water for irrigating crops. Drought
s, combined with policy failures, have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770
, the Chalisa famine
, the Doji bara famine
, the Great Famine of 1876–78
, and the Bengal famine of 1943
. Some commentators have identified British government inaction as contributing factors to the severity of famines during the time India was under British rule
. The 1883 Indian Famine Codes, transportation improvements, and changes following independence have been identified as furthering famine relief. In India, traditionally, agricultural laborers and rural artisans have been the primary victims of famines. In the worst famines, cultivators have also been also susceptible.
One of the earliest treatises on famine relief goes back more than 2000 years. This treatise is commonly attributed to Kautilya, who recommended that a good king should build new forts and water-works and share his provisions with the people, or entrust the country to another king. Historically, Indian rulers have employed several methods of famine relief. Some of these were direct, such as initiating free distribution of food grains and throwing open grain stores and kitchens to the people. Other measures were monetary policies such as remission of revenue, remission of taxes, increase of pay to soldiers, and payment of advances. Yet other measures included construction of public works, canals, and embankments, and sinking wells. Migration was encouraged. Kautilya advocated raiding the provisions of the rich in times of famine to "thin them by exacting excess revenue." Information on famines from ancient India up to colonial times is found in four primary sources:
Legendary famines preserved in oral tradition are the Dvadasavarsha Panjam (Twelve-year Famine) of south India and the Durgadevi famine of the Deccan from 1396 to 1407. From Hindu literature, there is the 7th century famine due to failure of rains in Tanjore district mentioned in the Periya Puranam
. According to the Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Tamil saints Sambandhar and Appar to provide relief from the famine. Another famine in the same district is recorded on an inscription with details such as "times becoming bad", a village being ruined, and cultivation of food being disrupted in Alangudi in 1054. However, the primary sources for famines in this period are incomplete and locationally based
The ancient Ashoka
n edicts of the Mauryan age around 269 BC record emperor Ashoka's conquest of Kalinga
, roughly the modern state of Orissa
. The major rock and pillar edicts mention the massive human toll of about 100,000 due to the war. The edicts record that an even larger number later perished, presumably from wounds and famine. The Tughlaq dynasty
under Muhammad bin Tughluq
held power in Delhi during the famine in and around Delhi in 1335–42. The sultanate offered no relief to the starving residents of Delhi during this famine. The oldest famine in pre-colonial Deccan with well-preserved local documentation is the famine of 1791–92. Relief was provided by the ruler, the Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao II
, in the form of imposing restrictions on export of grain and importing rice in large quantities from Bengal via private trading, however the evidence is often too scanty to judge the 'real efficacy of relief efforts' in the Mughal period. Other pre-colonial famines in the Deccan were the Damajipant famine of 1460 and the famines starting in 1520 and 1629. The famine in the Deccan and Gujarat
, was another famine in India's history. An estimated 3 milion perished in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. In the second year the famine killed not only the poor but the rich as well. The Damajipant famine is said to have caused ruin both in the northern and southern parts of the Deccan. Famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. A further famine from 1702-1704 killed over two million people.
According to Mushtaq A. Kaw, measures employed by the Mughal and Afghan rulers to fight famine in Kashmir were insufficient due to geographic obstacles, corruption in the Mughal administration. Mughal officials took no long term measures to fight famines in Kashmir, and the land tax system of Mughal India often contributed to the scale of famines by depriving Indian peasants of much of their harvest in the goods years, denying them the opportunity to build up stocks.
, is estimated to have taken the lives of nearly one-third of the population of the region—about 10 million people. The impact of the famine caused East India Company
revenues from Bengal to decline to £174,300 in 1770–71. The stock price of the East India Company fell sharply as a result. The company was forced to obtain a loan of £1 million from the Bank of England
to fund the annual military budget of between £60,000–1 million. Attempts were later made to show that net revenue was unaffected by the famine, but this was possible only because the collection had been "violently kept up to its former standard". The 1901 Famine Commission found that twelve famines and four "severe scarcities" took place between 1765 and 1858.
Researcher Brian Murton states that the famines recorded after the arrival of the English, but before the establishment of the Indian Famine Codes
of the 1880s, bear a cultural bias regarding the stated causes of the famine because they "reflect the view of a handful of Englishmen." These sources, however, contain accurate recordings of weather and crop conditions. Florence Nightingale
made efforts to educate British citizens about India's famines through a series of publications in the 1870s and beyond. Evidence suggests that there may have been large famines in south India every forty years in pre-colonial India, and that the frequency might have been higher after the 12th century. These famines still did not approach the incidence of famines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under British rule.
Major famines in India (Death estimates in millions, where available)
Nightingale identified two types of famine: a grain famine and a "money famine". Money was drained from the peasant to the landlord, making it impossible for the peasant to procure food. Money which should have been made available to the producers of food via public works projects and jobs was instead diverted to other uses. Nightingale pointed out that money needed to combat famine was being diverted towards activities like paying for the British military effort in Afghanistan
in 1878–80.
Amartya Sen
implies that the famines in the British era were due to a lack of a serious effort on the part of the British government to prevent famines. He links the lack of this serious effort to the absence of democracy in British India. The father of India's green revolution M. S. Swaminathan credits the elimination of famines to Indian independence from the Britain despite the trebling of population.
Tirthankar Roy suggests that the famines were due to environmental factors and inherent in India's ecology. Roy argues that massive investments in agriculture were required to break India's stagnation, however these were not forthcoming owing to scarcity of water, poor quality of soil and livestock and a poorly developed input market which guaranteed that investments in agriculture were extremely risky. After 1947, India focused on institutional reforms to agriculture however even this failed to break the pattern of stagnation. It wasn't until the 1970s when there was massive public investment in agriculture that India became free of famine, although Roy is of the opinion that improvements in the market efficiency did contribute to the alleviation of weather-induced famines after 1900, an exception to which is the Bengal famine of 1943.
Mike Davis
regards the famines of the 1870s and 1890s as 'Late Victorian Holocausts
'. This negative image of British rule is common in India.Davis argues that "Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed, many were murdered ... by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill."
Michelle Burge McAlpin has argued that economic changes in India during the 19th century contributed towards the end of famine. The overwhelmingly subsistence agriculture economy of 19th century India gave way to a more diversified economy in the 20th century, which, by offering other forms of employment, created less agricultural disruption (and, consequently, less mortality) during times of scarcity. The construction of Indian railways between 1860 and 1920, and the opportunities thereby offered for greater profit in other markets, allowed farmers to accumulate assets that could then be drawn upon during times of scarcity. By the early 20th century, many farmers in the Bombay presidency were growing a portion of their crop for export. The railways also brought in food, whenever expected scarcities began to drive up food prices. Similarly, Donald Attwood writes that by the end of the 19th century 'local food scarcities in any given district and season were increasingly smoothed out by the invisible hand of the market and that 'By 1920, large-scale institutions integrated this region into an industrial and globalizing
world—ending famines and causing a rapid decline in mortality rates, hence a rise in human welfare'
policies. Colonial polices implicated include rack-rent
ing, levies for war, free trade policies, the expansion of export agriculture, and neglect of agricultural investment. Indian exports of opium
, rice
, wheat
, indigo
, and cotton
were a key component of the economy of the British empire, generating vital foreign currency, primarily from China
, and stabilizing low prices in the British grain market. Export crops displaced millions of acres that could have been used for domestic subsistence, and increased the vulnerability of Indians to food crises. Others dispute that exports were a major cause of the famine, pointing out that trade did have a stabilizing influence on India's food consumption, albeit a small one
The Orissa famine of 1866–67, which later spread through the Madras Presidency
to Hyderabad and Mysore, was one such famine. The famine of 1866 was a severe and terrible event in the history of Orissa in which about a third of the population died. The famine left an estimated 1,553 orphans whose guardians were to receive an amount of 3 rupee
s per month until the age of 17 for boys and 16 for girls. Similar famines followed in the western Ganges region, Rajasthan
, central India (1868–70), Bengal and eastern India (1873–1874), Deccan (1876–78), and again in the Ganges region, Madras, Hyderabad, Mysore, and Bombay (1876–1878). The famine of 1876–78, also known as the Great Famine of 1876–78
, caused a large migration of agricultural laborers and artisans from southern India to British tropical colonies, where they worked as indentured laborers
on plantations. The large death toll—about 10.3 million—offset the usual population growth in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies between the first and second censuses of British India in 1871 and 1881 respectively.
The large-scale loss of life due to the series of famines between 1860 and 1877 was the cause of political controversy and discussion which led to the formation of the Indian Famine Commission. This commission would later come up with a draft version of the Indian Famine Code. It was the Great Famine of 1876–78, however, that was the direct cause of investigations and the beginning of a process that led to the establishment of the Indian Famine code. The next major famine was the Indian famine of 1896–97. Although this famine was preceded by a drought in the Madras Presidency, it was made more acute by the government's policy of laissez faire in the trade of grain. For example, two of the worst famine-afflicted areas in the Madras Presidency, the districts of Ganjam
and Vizagapatam, continued to export grains throughout the famine. These famines were typically followed by various infectious diseases such as bubonic plague
and influenza
, which attacked and killed a population already weakened by starvation.
The first major famine that took place under British rule was the Bengal Famine of 1770. About a quarter to a third of the population of Bengal starved to death in about a ten-month period. East India Company's raising of taxes disastrously coincided with this famine and exacerbated it, even if the famine was not caused by the British regime. Following this famine, "Successive British governments were anxious not to add to the burden of taxation." The rains failed again in Bengal and Orissa in 1866. Policies of laissez faire were employed, which resulted in partial alleviation of the famine in Bengal. However, the southwest Monsoon made the harbor in Orissa inaccessible. As a result, food could not be imported into Orissa as easily as Bengal. In 1865–66, severe drought struck Orissa and was met by British official inaction. The British Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, did nothing for two months, by which time a million people had died. The lack of attention to the problem caused Salisbury to never feel free from blame. Some British citizens such as William Digby agitated for policy reform
s and famine relief, but Lord Lytton
, the governing British viceroy
in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."
In 1874 the response from the British authorities was better and famine was completely averted. Then in 1876 a huge famine broke out in Madras. Lord Lytton's administration believed that 'market forces alone would suffice to feed the starving Indians.' The results of such thinking proved fatal (some 5.5 million starved), so this policy was abandoned. Lord Lytton established the Famine Insurance Grant, a system in which, in times of financial surplus, INR 1,500,000 would be applied to famine relief works. The result was that the British prematurely assumed that the problem of famine had been solved forever. Future British viceroys became complacent, and this proved disastrous in 1896. About 4.5 million people were on famine relief at the peak of the famine.
Curzon
stated that such philanthropy would be criticized, but not doing so would be a crime. He also cut back rations that he characterized as "dangerously high," and stiffened relief eligibility by reinstating the Temple tests. Between 1.25 to 10 million people died in the famine. The famine during World War II
lead to the development of the Bengal Famine Mixture
(based on rice with sugar). This would later save tens of thousands of lives at liberated concentration camps such as Belsen.
, as seen by the non-interference of the government with the grain market even in times of famines. Keeping the famine relief as cheap as possible, with minimum cost to the colonial exchequer, was another important factor in determining famine policy. According to Brian Murton, a professor of geography at the University of Hawaii, another possible impact on British policy on famine in India was the influence of the English Poor Laws
of 1834, with the difference being that the English were willing to "maintain" the poor in England in normal times, whereas Indians would receive subsistence only when entire populations were endangered. Similarities between the Irish famine of 1846–49 and the later Indian famines of the last part of the 19th century were seen. In both countries, there were no impediments to the export of food during times of famines. Lessons learnt from the Irish famine were not seen in the correspondence on policy-making during the 1870s in India.
. They presented an early warning system to detect and respond to food shortages. Despite the codes, mortality from famine was highest in last 25 years of the 19th century. At that time, annual exports of rice and other grains from India was approximately one million metric tons. Development economist Jean Drèze
evaluated the conditions before and after Famine Commission policy changes: "A contrast between the earlier period of frequently recurring catastrophes, and the latter period when long stretches of tranquility were disturbed by a few large scale famines" in 1896–97, 1899–1900, and 1943–44. Drèze explains these "intermittent failures" by four factors—failure to declare a famine (particularly in 1943), the "excessively punitive character" of famine restrictions such as wages for public works, the "policy of strict non-interference with private trade," and the natural severity of the food crises.
There was a threat of famine, but after 1902 there was no major famine in India until the Bengal famine of 1943
. This famine was the most devastating; between 2.5 and 3 million people died during World War II. In India as a whole, the food supply was rarely inadequate, even in times of droughts. The Famine Commission of 1880 identified that the loss of wages from lack of employment of agricultural laborers and artisans were the cause of famines. The Famine Code applied a strategy of generating employment for these sections of the population and relied on open-ended public works to do so. The Indian Famine Code was used in India until more lessons were learnt from the Bihar famine of 1966–67. The Famine Code has been updated in independent India and it has been renamed "Scarcity Manuals." In some parts of the country, the Famine Code is no longer used, primarily because the rules embodied in them have become routine procedure in famine relief strategy.
During the famines of the 1870s, the failure to provide food to the millions who were hungry has been blamed both on the absence of adequate rail infrastructure and the incorporation of grain into the world market through rail and telegraph. Davis notes that, "The newly constructed railroads, lauded as institutional safeguards against famine, were instead used by merchants to ship grain inventories from outlying drought-stricken districts to central depots for hoarding (as well as protection from rioters)" and that telegraphs served to coordinate a rise in prices so that "food prices soared out of the reach of outcaste laborers, displaced weavers, sharecroppers and poor peasants." Members of the British administrative apparatus were also concerned that the larger market created by railway transport encouraged poor peasants to sell of their reserve stocks of grain.
Rail transport, however, also played an essential role in supplying grain from food-surplus regions to famine-stricken ones. The 1880 Famine Codes urged a restructuring and massive expansion of railways, with an emphasis on intra-Indian lines as opposed to the existing port-centered system. These new lines, extended the existing network to allow food to flow to famine-afflicted regions. Jean Drèze (1991) also finds that the necessary economic conditions were present for a national market in food to reduce scarcity by the end of the 19th century, but that export of food continued to result from that market even during times of relative scarcity. The effectiveness of this system, however, relied on government provision of famine relief: "Railroads could perform the crucial task of moving grain from one part of India to another, but they could not assure that hungry people would have the money to buy that grain".
Railways also had a separate impact on reducing famine mortality. By generating broader areas of labor migration and facilitating the massive emigration of Indians during the late 19th century, they provided famine-afflicted people the option to leave for other parts of the country and the world. By the 1912–13 scarcity crisis, migration and relief supply were able to absorb the impact of a medium-scale shortage of food. Drèze concludes, "In sum, and with a major reservation applying to international trade
, it is plausible that the improvement in communication toward the end of the nineteenth century did make a major contribution to the alleviation of distress during famines. However, it is also easy to see that this factor alone could hardly account for the very sharp reduction in the incidence of famines in the twentieth century".
found that there was enough rice in Bengal to feed all of Bengal for most of 1943. These studies, however, did not account for possible inaccuracies in estimates or the impact of fungal disease on the rice. De Waal states that the British government did not enforce the Famine Codes during the Bengal famine of 1943 because they failed to detect a food shortage. The Bengal famine of 1943 was the last catastrophic famine in India, and it holds a special place in the historiography of famine due to Sen's classic work of 1981 titled Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.
at discounted rates. Between 1947–64 the initial agricultural infrastructure was laid by the founding of organizations such as the Central Rice Institute
in Cuttack, the Central Potato Research Institute in Shimla, and universities such as the Pant Nagar University
. The population of India was growing at 3% per year, and food imports were required despite the improvements from the new infrastructure . At its peak, 10 million tonnes of food were imported from the United States.
In the twenty year period between 1965–1985 gaps in infrastructure were bridged by the establishment of The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
(NABARD). During times of famines, droughts and other natural calamities, NABARD provides loan rescheduling and loan conversion facilitates to eligible institutions such as State Cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks for periods up to seven years. In the same period, high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice were introduced. Steps taken in this phase resulted in the Green Revolution which led to a mood of self-confidence in India's agricultural capability. The Green Revolution in India
was initially hailed as a success, but has recently been 'downgraded' to a 'qualified success'— not because of a lack of increased food production, but because the increase in food production has slowed down and has not been able to keep pace with population growth. Between 1985 and 2000, emphasis was laid on production of pulses and oilseed, as well as vegetables, fruits, and milk. A wasteland development board was set up, and rain-fed areas were given more attention. Public investment in irrigation and infrastructure, however, declined. The period also saw a gradual collapse of the cooperative credit system. In 1998–99, NABARD introduced a credit scheme to allow banks to issue short-term and timely credit to farmers in need via the Kisan Credit Card
scheme. The scheme has become popular among issuing bankers and the recipient farmers with a total credit of made available via the issuing of 23,200,000 credit cards . Between 2000 and , land use for food or fuel has become a competing issue due to a demand for ethanol.
Since the time of Mahabharata
, people in several regions of India have associated spikes in rat populations and famine with bamboo flowering. The northeastern state of Mizoram
has bamboo
as a dominant species over much of the state which experiences a cyclical phenomenon of bamboo flowering followed by bamboo death. The bamboo plants are known to undergo gregarious flowering once in their life cycle which can happen anywhere in a range of 7 to 120 years. A common local belief and observation is that bamboo flowering is followed by an increase in rats, famine and unrest amongst the people. The first such event in the Republic of India was reported in 1958 when the local Mizo District Council cautioned the Assam government of an impending famine which the government rejected on the grounds that it was not scientific. A famine did occur in the region in 1961.
In 2001 the Government of India began working on an emergency plan to address regional food shortages after reports that bamboo flowering and bamboo death would occur again in the near future. According to Forest Department Special Secretary K.D.R. Jayakumar, the relationship between famine and bamboo flowering, while widely believed to be true by the tribal locals, has not been scientifically proven. John and Nadgauda, however, strongly feel that such a scientific connection exists, and that it may not simply be local myth. They describe a detailed mechanism demonstrating the relationship between the flowering and the famine. According to them, the flowering is followed by a large quantity of bamboo seeds on the forest floor which causes a spike in the population of the Rattus and Mus
genus of rats who feed of these seeds. With the changing weather and onset of rains, the seeds germinate and force the mice to migrate to land farms in search of food. On the land farms, the mice feed on crops and grains stored in granaries which causes a decline in food availability. In 2001, the local administration tried to prevent the impending famine by offering local villagers the equivalent of $2.50 for every 100 rats killed. The botanist H. Y. Mohan Ram of the University of Delhi
, who is one of the country's foremost authorities on bamboo, considered these techniques outlandish. He suggested that a better way of solving the problem was to teach the local farmers to switch to cultivating different varieties of crops such as ginger
and turmeric
during periods of bamboo flowering since these crops are not consumed by the rats.
Similar beliefs have been observed thousands of kilometers away in south India in the people of Cherthala
in the Alappuzha
district of Kerala
who associate flowering bamboo with an impending explosion in the rat population.
The annual production of food grains had dropped in Bihar from 7.5 million tonnes in 1965–66 to 7.2 million tonnes in 1966–1967 during the Bihar drought. There was an even sharper drop in 1966–67 to 4.3 million tonnes. The national grain production dropped from 89.4 million tonnes in 1964–65 to 72.3 in 1965–66 — a 19% drop. Rise in prices of food grains caused migration and starvation, but the public distribution system, relief measures by the government, and voluntary organizations limited the impact. On a number of occasions, the Indian-government sought food and grain from the United States to provide replacement for damaged crops. The government also setup more than 20,000 fair-price stores to provide food at regulated prices for the poor or those with limited incomes. A large scale famine in Bihar was adverted due to this import, although livestock and crops were destroyed. Other reasons for successfully averting a large scale famine were the employing various famine prevention measures such as improving communication abilities, issuing famine bulletins over the radio and offering employment to those affected by famine in government public works projects.
The Bihar drought of 1966–67 gave impetus to further changes in agricultural policy and this resulted in the Green Revolution.
After several years of good monsoons and a good crop in the early 1970s, India considered exporting food and being self-sufficient. Earlier in 1963, the government of the state of Maharashtra asserted that the agricultural situation in the state was constantly being watched and relief measures were taken as soon as any scarcity was detected. On the basis of this, and asserting that the word famine had now become obsolete in this context, the government passed the "The Maharashtra Deletion Of The Term 'Famine' Act, 1963". They were unable to foresee the drought in 1972 when 25 million people needed help. The relief measures undertaken by the Government of Maharashtra included employment, programs aimed at creating productive assets such as tree plantation, conservation of soil, excavation of canals, and building artificial lentic water bodies. The public distribution system distributed food through fair-price shops. No deaths from starvation were reported.
Large scale employment to the deprived sections of Maharashtrian society which attracted considerable amounts of food to Maharashtra. The implementation of the Scarcity Manuals in the Bihar and Maharashtra famines prevented the mortality arising from severe food shortages. While the relief program in Bihar was poor, Drèze calls the one in Maharastra a model program. The relief works initiated by the government helped employ over 5 million people at the height of the drought in Maharashtra leading to effective famine prevention. The effectiveness of the Maharashtra was also attributable to the direct pressure on the government of Maharashtra by the public who perceived that employment via the relief works program was their right. The public protested by marching, picketing, and even rioting . Drèze reports a laborer saying "they would let us die if they thought we would not make a noise about it."
alone, for example, there were around 45,000 childhood deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to the Times of India. Another Times of India report in 2010 has stated that 50% of childhood deaths in India are attributable to malnutrition. Around 7.5 million people per year die of malnutrition in modern India, the largest death rate caused by malnutrition for any country.
Growing export prices, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers due to global warming, changes in rainfall and temperatures are issues affecting India. If agricultural production does not remain above the population growth rate, there are indications that a return to the pre-independence famine days is a likelihood. People from various walks of life, such as social activist Vandana Shiva
and researcher Dan Banik, agree that famines and the resulting large scale loss of life from starvation have been eliminated after Indian independence in 1947. However, Shiva warned in 2002 that famines are making a comeback and government inaction would mean they would reach the scale seen in the Horn of Africa
in three or four years.
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
has been a recurrent feature of life in the Indian sub-continental countries of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, and reached its numerically deadliest peak in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Historical and legendary evidence names some 90 famines in 2,500 years of history. There are 14 recorded famines in India
History of India
The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
between the 11th and 17th centuries. Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The last major famine was the Bengal famine
Bengal famine
There have been a number of significant famines in the history of Bengal including:*Bengal famine of 1770*Bengal famine of 1943*Bangladesh famine of 1974*Bengal Famine , a movie by Bimal Roy...
of 1943. A famine occurred in the state of Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
in December 1966 on a much smaller scale. The drought of Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
in 1970–1973 is often cited as an example in which successful famine prevention processes were employed. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n agriculture
Agriculture in India
Agriculture in India has a significant history. Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and logging accounted for 16.6% of the GDP in 2007, % of the total workforce and despite a steady decline of its share in the GDP, is still the largest...
is heavily dependent on the climate of India
Climate of India
Analyzed according to the Köppen system, the climate of India resolves into six major climatic subtypes; their influences give rise to desert in the west, alpine tundra and glaciers in the north, humid tropical regions supporting rain forests in the southwest, and Indian Ocean island territories...
: a favorable southwest summer monsoon
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...
is critical in securing water for irrigating crops. Drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s, combined with policy failures, have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770
Bengal famine of 1770
The Bengal famine of 1770 was a catastrophic famine between 1769 and 1773 that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India...
, the Chalisa famine
Chalisa famine
The Chalisa famine of 1783-84 in South Asia followed unusual El Nino events that began in 1780 and caused droughts throughout the region. Chalisa refers to the Vikram Samvat calendar year 1840...
, the Doji bara famine
Doji bara famine
The Doji bara famine of 1791-92 in South Asia was brought on by a major El Niño event lasting from 1789 CE to 1795 CE and producing prolonged droughts...
, the Great Famine of 1876–78
Great Famine of 1876–78
The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine in India that began in 1876 and affected south and southwestern India for a period of two years...
, and the Bengal famine of 1943
Bengal famine of 1943
The Bengal famine of 1943 struck the Bengal. Province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 1.5 and 4 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal’s 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943 As...
. Some commentators have identified British government inaction as contributing factors to the severity of famines during the time India was under British rule
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. The 1883 Indian Famine Codes, transportation improvements, and changes following independence have been identified as furthering famine relief. In India, traditionally, agricultural laborers and rural artisans have been the primary victims of famines. In the worst famines, cultivators have also been also susceptible.
Ancient, medieval and pre-colonial India
- Legendary tales passed down in oral tradition that keep alive the memory of famines
- Ancient Indian literature such as the VedasVedasThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
, JatakaJatakaThe Jātakas refer to a voluminous body of literature native to India concerning the previous births of the Buddha....
stories, and the ArthashastraArthashastraThe Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy which identifies its author by the names Kautilya and , who are traditionally identified with The Arthashastra (IAST: Arthaśāstra) is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and... - Stone and metal inscriptions provide information on several famines before the 16th century
- Writings of Muslim historians in MughalMughal EmpireThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
India
Legendary famines preserved in oral tradition are the Dvadasavarsha Panjam (Twelve-year Famine) of south India and the Durgadevi famine of the Deccan from 1396 to 1407. From Hindu literature, there is the 7th century famine due to failure of rains in Tanjore district mentioned in the Periya Puranam
Periya Puranam
Periya Puranam , that is, the great purana or epic, sometimes also called Tiruttontarpuranam is a Tamil poetic account depicting the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanars, the canonical poets of Tamil Shaivism. It was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkizhar...
. According to the Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Tamil saints Sambandhar and Appar to provide relief from the famine. Another famine in the same district is recorded on an inscription with details such as "times becoming bad", a village being ruined, and cultivation of food being disrupted in Alangudi in 1054. However, the primary sources for famines in this period are incomplete and locationally based
The ancient Ashoka
Ashoka
Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
n edicts of the Mauryan age around 269 BC record emperor Ashoka's conquest of Kalinga
Kalinga War
The Kalinga War was a war fought between the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka the Great and the state of Kalinga, a feudal republic located on the coast of the present-day Indian state of Orissa. The Kalinga war is one of the major battles in the History of India. Kalinga put up a stiff resistance,...
, roughly the modern state of Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
. The major rock and pillar edicts mention the massive human toll of about 100,000 due to the war. The edicts record that an even larger number later perished, presumably from wounds and famine. The Tughlaq dynasty
Tughlaq dynasty
The Tughlaq dynasty of north India started in 1321 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. The Tughluqs were a Muslim family of Turkic origin...
under Muhammad bin Tughluq
Muhammad bin Tughluq
Muhammad bin Tughluq was the Turkic Sultan of Delhi from 1325 to 1351. He was the eldest son of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq.He was born in Kotla Tolay Khan in Multan. His wife was daughter of the raja of Dipalpur...
held power in Delhi during the famine in and around Delhi in 1335–42. The sultanate offered no relief to the starving residents of Delhi during this famine. The oldest famine in pre-colonial Deccan with well-preserved local documentation is the famine of 1791–92. Relief was provided by the ruler, the Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao II
Madhavrao II
Madhavrao II , also Madhu Rao Narayan, was Peshwa of the Maratha Empire in India, from a young age. He was known as Sawai Madhavrao...
, in the form of imposing restrictions on export of grain and importing rice in large quantities from Bengal via private trading, however the evidence is often too scanty to judge the 'real efficacy of relief efforts' in the Mughal period. Other pre-colonial famines in the Deccan were the Damajipant famine of 1460 and the famines starting in 1520 and 1629. The famine in the Deccan and Gujarat
Deccan Famine of 1630-32
The Deccan Famine of 1630–1632 occurred in the Deccan region of Central India. By 1632, some 2,000,000 Indians died. The famine was the result of three consecutive staple crop failures, leading to intense hunger, disease, and displacement in the region. This remains one of the most devastating...
, was another famine in India's history. An estimated 3 milion perished in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. In the second year the famine killed not only the poor but the rich as well. The Damajipant famine is said to have caused ruin both in the northern and southern parts of the Deccan. Famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. A further famine from 1702-1704 killed over two million people.
According to Mushtaq A. Kaw, measures employed by the Mughal and Afghan rulers to fight famine in Kashmir were insufficient due to geographic obstacles, corruption in the Mughal administration. Mughal officials took no long term measures to fight famines in Kashmir, and the land tax system of Mughal India often contributed to the scale of famines by depriving Indian peasants of much of their harvest in the goods years, denying them the opportunity to build up stocks.
British rule
The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the worst famines. These famines in British India were bad enough to have a remarkable impact on the long term population growth of the country, especially in the half century between 1871-1921. The first, the Bengal famine of 1770Bengal famine of 1770
The Bengal famine of 1770 was a catastrophic famine between 1769 and 1773 that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India...
, is estimated to have taken the lives of nearly one-third of the population of the region—about 10 million people. The impact of the famine caused East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
revenues from Bengal to decline to £174,300 in 1770–71. The stock price of the East India Company fell sharply as a result. The company was forced to obtain a loan of £1 million from the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
to fund the annual military budget of between £60,000–1 million. Attempts were later made to show that net revenue was unaffected by the famine, but this was possible only because the collection had been "violently kept up to its former standard". The 1901 Famine Commission found that twelve famines and four "severe scarcities" took place between 1765 and 1858.
Researcher Brian Murton states that the famines recorded after the arrival of the English, but before the establishment of the Indian Famine Codes
Indian Famine Codes
The Indian Famine Codes, developed by the colonial British in the 1880s, were one of the earliest famine scales. The Famine Codes defined three levels of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity, and famine. "Scarcity" was defined as three successive years of crop failure, crop yields of one-third...
of the 1880s, bear a cultural bias regarding the stated causes of the famine because they "reflect the view of a handful of Englishmen." These sources, however, contain accurate recordings of weather and crop conditions. Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
made efforts to educate British citizens about India's famines through a series of publications in the 1870s and beyond. Evidence suggests that there may have been large famines in south India every forty years in pre-colonial India, and that the frequency might have been higher after the 12th century. These famines still did not approach the incidence of famines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under British rule.
Major famines in India (Death estimates in millions, where available)
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EWLINE
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Scholarly opinions
Florence Nightingale pointed out that the famines in British India were not caused by the lack of food in a particular geographical area. They were instead caused by inadequate transportation of food, which in turn was caused due to an absence of a political and social structure.Nightingale identified two types of famine: a grain famine and a "money famine". Money was drained from the peasant to the landlord, making it impossible for the peasant to procure food. Money which should have been made available to the producers of food via public works projects and jobs was instead diverted to other uses. Nightingale pointed out that money needed to combat famine was being diverted towards activities like paying for the British military effort in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
in 1878–80.
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
implies that the famines in the British era were due to a lack of a serious effort on the part of the British government to prevent famines. He links the lack of this serious effort to the absence of democracy in British India. The father of India's green revolution M. S. Swaminathan credits the elimination of famines to Indian independence from the Britain despite the trebling of population.
Tirthankar Roy suggests that the famines were due to environmental factors and inherent in India's ecology. Roy argues that massive investments in agriculture were required to break India's stagnation, however these were not forthcoming owing to scarcity of water, poor quality of soil and livestock and a poorly developed input market which guaranteed that investments in agriculture were extremely risky. After 1947, India focused on institutional reforms to agriculture however even this failed to break the pattern of stagnation. It wasn't until the 1970s when there was massive public investment in agriculture that India became free of famine, although Roy is of the opinion that improvements in the market efficiency did contribute to the alleviation of weather-induced famines after 1900, an exception to which is the Bengal famine of 1943.
Mike Davis
Mike Davis (scholar)
Mike Davis is an American Marxist social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He is best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California.-Life:...
regards the famines of the 1870s and 1890s as 'Late Victorian Holocausts
Late Victorian Holocausts
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly El Niño-Southern Oscillation...
'. This negative image of British rule is common in India.Davis argues that "Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed, many were murdered ... by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill."
Michelle Burge McAlpin has argued that economic changes in India during the 19th century contributed towards the end of famine. The overwhelmingly subsistence agriculture economy of 19th century India gave way to a more diversified economy in the 20th century, which, by offering other forms of employment, created less agricultural disruption (and, consequently, less mortality) during times of scarcity. The construction of Indian railways between 1860 and 1920, and the opportunities thereby offered for greater profit in other markets, allowed farmers to accumulate assets that could then be drawn upon during times of scarcity. By the early 20th century, many farmers in the Bombay presidency were growing a portion of their crop for export. The railways also brought in food, whenever expected scarcities began to drive up food prices. Similarly, Donald Attwood writes that by the end of the 19th century 'local food scarcities in any given district and season were increasingly smoothed out by the invisible hand of the market and that 'By 1920, large-scale institutions integrated this region into an industrial and globalizing
world—ending famines and causing a rapid decline in mortality rates, hence a rise in human welfare'
Causes
The famines were a product both of uneven rainfall and British economic and administrativePublic administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
policies. Colonial polices implicated include rack-rent
Rack-rent
Rack-rent denotes two different concepts:# an excessive or extortionate rent, or# the full rent of a property, including both land and improvements if it were subject to an immediate open-market rental review...
ing, levies for war, free trade policies, the expansion of export agriculture, and neglect of agricultural investment. Indian exports of opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
, rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
, and cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
were a key component of the economy of the British empire, generating vital foreign currency, primarily from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and stabilizing low prices in the British grain market. Export crops displaced millions of acres that could have been used for domestic subsistence, and increased the vulnerability of Indians to food crises. Others dispute that exports were a major cause of the famine, pointing out that trade did have a stabilizing influence on India's food consumption, albeit a small one
The Orissa famine of 1866–67, which later spread through the Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
to Hyderabad and Mysore, was one such famine. The famine of 1866 was a severe and terrible event in the history of Orissa in which about a third of the population died. The famine left an estimated 1,553 orphans whose guardians were to receive an amount of 3 rupee
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
s per month until the age of 17 for boys and 16 for girls. Similar famines followed in the western Ganges region, Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
, central India (1868–70), Bengal and eastern India (1873–1874), Deccan (1876–78), and again in the Ganges region, Madras, Hyderabad, Mysore, and Bombay (1876–1878). The famine of 1876–78, also known as the Great Famine of 1876–78
Great Famine of 1876–78
The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine in India that began in 1876 and affected south and southwestern India for a period of two years...
, caused a large migration of agricultural laborers and artisans from southern India to British tropical colonies, where they worked as indentured laborers
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
on plantations. The large death toll—about 10.3 million—offset the usual population growth in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies between the first and second censuses of British India in 1871 and 1881 respectively.
The large-scale loss of life due to the series of famines between 1860 and 1877 was the cause of political controversy and discussion which led to the formation of the Indian Famine Commission. This commission would later come up with a draft version of the Indian Famine Code. It was the Great Famine of 1876–78, however, that was the direct cause of investigations and the beginning of a process that led to the establishment of the Indian Famine code. The next major famine was the Indian famine of 1896–97. Although this famine was preceded by a drought in the Madras Presidency, it was made more acute by the government's policy of laissez faire in the trade of grain. For example, two of the worst famine-afflicted areas in the Madras Presidency, the districts of Ganjam
Ganjam
Ganjam is a town and a notified area committee in Ganjam district in the state of Orissa, India.-Geography:Ganjam is located at . It has an average elevation of 3 metres .-Demographics:...
and Vizagapatam, continued to export grains throughout the famine. These famines were typically followed by various infectious diseases such as bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
and influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
, which attacked and killed a population already weakened by starvation.
British response
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
s and famine relief, but Lord Lytton
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, PC was an English statesman and poet...
, the governing British viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."
In 1874 the response from the British authorities was better and famine was completely averted. Then in 1876 a huge famine broke out in Madras. Lord Lytton's administration believed that 'market forces alone would suffice to feed the starving Indians.' The results of such thinking proved fatal (some 5.5 million starved), so this policy was abandoned. Lord Lytton established the Famine Insurance Grant, a system in which, in times of financial surplus, INR 1,500,000 would be applied to famine relief works. The result was that the British prematurely assumed that the problem of famine had been solved forever. Future British viceroys became complacent, and this proved disastrous in 1896. About 4.5 million people were on famine relief at the peak of the famine.
Curzon
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...
stated that such philanthropy would be criticized, but not doing so would be a crime. He also cut back rations that he characterized as "dangerously high," and stiffened relief eligibility by reinstating the Temple tests. Between 1.25 to 10 million people died in the famine. The famine during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
lead to the development of the Bengal Famine Mixture
The Relief of Belsen
The Relief of Belsen is a feature-length drama that was first shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 15 October 2007. It depicts events that unfolded at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp following the liberation of the camp by British troops in April 1945...
(based on rice with sugar). This would later save tens of thousands of lives at liberated concentration camps such as Belsen.
Policy influences
British famine policy in India was influenced by the arguments of Adam SmithAdam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, as seen by the non-interference of the government with the grain market even in times of famines. Keeping the famine relief as cheap as possible, with minimum cost to the colonial exchequer, was another important factor in determining famine policy. According to Brian Murton, a professor of geography at the University of Hawaii, another possible impact on British policy on famine in India was the influence of the English Poor Laws
English Poor Laws
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...
of 1834, with the difference being that the English were willing to "maintain" the poor in England in normal times, whereas Indians would receive subsistence only when entire populations were endangered. Similarities between the Irish famine of 1846–49 and the later Indian famines of the last part of the 19th century were seen. In both countries, there were no impediments to the export of food during times of famines. Lessons learnt from the Irish famine were not seen in the correspondence on policy-making during the 1870s in India.
Famine Codes
The Famine Commission of 1880 observed that each province in British India, including Burma, had a surplus of food grains, and that the annual surplus amounted to 5.16 million metric tons. The product of the Famine Commission was a series of government guidelines and regulations on how to respond to famines and food shortages called the Famine Code. These had to wait until the exit of the viceroy Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, and were finally passed in 1883 under a liberal British viceroy, George Fredrick Samuel RobinsonGeorge Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon
George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon KG, GCSI, CIE, PC , known as Viscount Goderich from 1833 to 1859 and as the Earl de Grey and Ripon from 1859 to 1871, was a British politician who served in every Liberal cabinet from 1861 until his death forty-eight years later.-Background...
. They presented an early warning system to detect and respond to food shortages. Despite the codes, mortality from famine was highest in last 25 years of the 19th century. At that time, annual exports of rice and other grains from India was approximately one million metric tons. Development economist Jean Drèze
Jean Drèze
Jean Drèze is a development economist who has been influential in Indian economic policymaking. He is a naturalized Indian of Belgian origin. His work in India include issues like hunger, famine, gender inequality, child health and education, and the NREGA...
evaluated the conditions before and after Famine Commission policy changes: "A contrast between the earlier period of frequently recurring catastrophes, and the latter period when long stretches of tranquility were disturbed by a few large scale famines" in 1896–97, 1899–1900, and 1943–44. Drèze explains these "intermittent failures" by four factors—failure to declare a famine (particularly in 1943), the "excessively punitive character" of famine restrictions such as wages for public works, the "policy of strict non-interference with private trade," and the natural severity of the food crises.
There was a threat of famine, but after 1902 there was no major famine in India until the Bengal famine of 1943
Bengal famine of 1943
The Bengal famine of 1943 struck the Bengal. Province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 1.5 and 4 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal’s 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943 As...
. This famine was the most devastating; between 2.5 and 3 million people died during World War II. In India as a whole, the food supply was rarely inadequate, even in times of droughts. The Famine Commission of 1880 identified that the loss of wages from lack of employment of agricultural laborers and artisans were the cause of famines. The Famine Code applied a strategy of generating employment for these sections of the population and relied on open-ended public works to do so. The Indian Famine Code was used in India until more lessons were learnt from the Bihar famine of 1966–67. The Famine Code has been updated in independent India and it has been renamed "Scarcity Manuals." In some parts of the country, the Famine Code is no longer used, primarily because the rules embodied in them have become routine procedure in famine relief strategy.
Impact of rail transport
Rail transport, however, also played an essential role in supplying grain from food-surplus regions to famine-stricken ones. The 1880 Famine Codes urged a restructuring and massive expansion of railways, with an emphasis on intra-Indian lines as opposed to the existing port-centered system. These new lines, extended the existing network to allow food to flow to famine-afflicted regions. Jean Drèze (1991) also finds that the necessary economic conditions were present for a national market in food to reduce scarcity by the end of the 19th century, but that export of food continued to result from that market even during times of relative scarcity. The effectiveness of this system, however, relied on government provision of famine relief: "Railroads could perform the crucial task of moving grain from one part of India to another, but they could not assure that hungry people would have the money to buy that grain".
Railways also had a separate impact on reducing famine mortality. By generating broader areas of labor migration and facilitating the massive emigration of Indians during the late 19th century, they provided famine-afflicted people the option to leave for other parts of the country and the world. By the 1912–13 scarcity crisis, migration and relief supply were able to absorb the impact of a medium-scale shortage of food. Drèze concludes, "In sum, and with a major reservation applying to international trade
International trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
, it is plausible that the improvement in communication toward the end of the nineteenth century did make a major contribution to the alleviation of distress during famines. However, it is also easy to see that this factor alone could hardly account for the very sharp reduction in the incidence of famines in the twentieth century".
Bengal famine of 1943
The Bengal famine of 1943 reached its peak between July and November of that year, and the worst of the famine was over by early 1945. Famine fatality statistics were unreliable, and a range of between 2–4 million has been suggested. Although one of the causes of the famine was the cutting off of the supply of rice to Bengal during the fall of Rangoon to the Japanese, this was only a fraction of the food needed for the region. According to the Irish economist and professor Cormac Ó Gráda, priority was given to military considerations, and the poor of Bengal were left unprovided for. The Famine Commission of 1948 and economist Amartya SenAmartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
found that there was enough rice in Bengal to feed all of Bengal for most of 1943. These studies, however, did not account for possible inaccuracies in estimates or the impact of fungal disease on the rice. De Waal states that the British government did not enforce the Famine Codes during the Bengal famine of 1943 because they failed to detect a food shortage. The Bengal famine of 1943 was the last catastrophic famine in India, and it holds a special place in the historiography of famine due to Sen's classic work of 1981 titled Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.
Republic of India
Since the Bengal famine of 1943, there has been a declining number of famines which have had limited effects and have been of short durations. Sen attributes this trend of decline or disappearance of famines after independence to a democratic system of governance and a free press—not to increased food production. Later famine threats of 1984, 1988 and 1998 were successfully contained by the Indian government and there has been no major famine in India since 1943. Indian Independence in 1947 did not stop damage to crops nor lack of rain. As such, the threat of famines did not go away. India faced a number of threats of severe famines in 1967, 1973, 1979 and 1987 in Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Gujarat respectively. However these did not materialize in to famines due to government intervention. The loss of life did not meet the scale of the 1943 Bengal or earlier famines but continued to be a problem. Jean Drèze finds that the post-Independence Indian government "largely remedied" the causes of the three major failures of 1880–1948 British famine policy, "an event which must count as marking the second great turning point in the history of famine relief in India over the past two centuries".Infrastructure development
Deaths from starvation were reduced by improvements to famine relief mechanisms after the British left. In independent India, policy changes aimed to make people self-reliant to earn their livelihood and by providing food through the public distribution systemPublic Distribution System
Public Distribution System is an Indian food security system. Established by the Government of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and managed jointly with state governments in India, it distributes subsidised food and non-food items to India's poor...
at discounted rates. Between 1947–64 the initial agricultural infrastructure was laid by the founding of organizations such as the Central Rice Institute
Central Rice Research Institute
The Central Rice Research Institute is situated near Vidyadharpur village on the Cuttack-Paradip Road, Orissa, India...
in Cuttack, the Central Potato Research Institute in Shimla, and universities such as the Pant Nagar University
Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology
G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology is the first agricultural university of India. It was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru on 17 November 1960 as the Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University...
. The population of India was growing at 3% per year, and food imports were required despite the improvements from the new infrastructure . At its peak, 10 million tonnes of food were imported from the United States.
In the twenty year period between 1965–1985 gaps in infrastructure were bridged by the establishment of The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development is an apex development bank in India having headquarters based in Mumbai and other branches are all over the country...
(NABARD). During times of famines, droughts and other natural calamities, NABARD provides loan rescheduling and loan conversion facilitates to eligible institutions such as State Cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks for periods up to seven years. In the same period, high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice were introduced. Steps taken in this phase resulted in the Green Revolution which led to a mood of self-confidence in India's agricultural capability. The Green Revolution in India
Green Revolution in India
The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds and the increased use of fertilizers and irrigation are known collectively as the Green Revolution, which provided the increase in production needed to make India self-sufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in India...
was initially hailed as a success, but has recently been 'downgraded' to a 'qualified success'— not because of a lack of increased food production, but because the increase in food production has slowed down and has not been able to keep pace with population growth. Between 1985 and 2000, emphasis was laid on production of pulses and oilseed, as well as vegetables, fruits, and milk. A wasteland development board was set up, and rain-fed areas were given more attention. Public investment in irrigation and infrastructure, however, declined. The period also saw a gradual collapse of the cooperative credit system. In 1998–99, NABARD introduced a credit scheme to allow banks to issue short-term and timely credit to farmers in need via the Kisan Credit Card
Kisan credit card
Kisan Credit Cards were started by the Government of India, RBI , and NABARD in 1998-99 to help farmers access timely and adequate credit....
scheme. The scheme has become popular among issuing bankers and the recipient farmers with a total credit of made available via the issuing of 23,200,000 credit cards . Between 2000 and , land use for food or fuel has become a competing issue due to a demand for ethanol.
Local Beliefs
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
, people in several regions of India have associated spikes in rat populations and famine with bamboo flowering. The northeastern state of Mizoram
Mizoram
Mizoram is one of the Seven Sister States in North Eastern India, sharing borders with the states of Tripura, Assam, Manipur and with the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Burma. Mizoram became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987. Its capital is Aizawl. Mizoram is located in the...
has bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
as a dominant species over much of the state which experiences a cyclical phenomenon of bamboo flowering followed by bamboo death. The bamboo plants are known to undergo gregarious flowering once in their life cycle which can happen anywhere in a range of 7 to 120 years. A common local belief and observation is that bamboo flowering is followed by an increase in rats, famine and unrest amongst the people. The first such event in the Republic of India was reported in 1958 when the local Mizo District Council cautioned the Assam government of an impending famine which the government rejected on the grounds that it was not scientific. A famine did occur in the region in 1961.
In 2001 the Government of India began working on an emergency plan to address regional food shortages after reports that bamboo flowering and bamboo death would occur again in the near future. According to Forest Department Special Secretary K.D.R. Jayakumar, the relationship between famine and bamboo flowering, while widely believed to be true by the tribal locals, has not been scientifically proven. John and Nadgauda, however, strongly feel that such a scientific connection exists, and that it may not simply be local myth. They describe a detailed mechanism demonstrating the relationship between the flowering and the famine. According to them, the flowering is followed by a large quantity of bamboo seeds on the forest floor which causes a spike in the population of the Rattus and Mus
MICE
-Fiction:*Mice , alien species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*The Mice -Acronyms:* "Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions", facilities terminology for events...
genus of rats who feed of these seeds. With the changing weather and onset of rains, the seeds germinate and force the mice to migrate to land farms in search of food. On the land farms, the mice feed on crops and grains stored in granaries which causes a decline in food availability. In 2001, the local administration tried to prevent the impending famine by offering local villagers the equivalent of $2.50 for every 100 rats killed. The botanist H. Y. Mohan Ram of the University of Delhi
University of Delhi
The University of Delhi is a central university situated in Delhi, India and is funded by Government of India. Established in 1922, it offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. Vice-President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari is the Chancellor of the university...
, who is one of the country's foremost authorities on bamboo, considered these techniques outlandish. He suggested that a better way of solving the problem was to teach the local farmers to switch to cultivating different varieties of crops such as ginger
Ginger
Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....
and turmeric
Turmeric
Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to tropical South Asia and needs temperatures between 20 °C and 30 °C and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive...
during periods of bamboo flowering since these crops are not consumed by the rats.
Similar beliefs have been observed thousands of kilometers away in south India in the people of Cherthala
Cherthala
Cherthala is a town located in the district of Alappuzha, in the state of Kerala, India. It is located 30 km south of the city of Kochi and 22 km north of Alappuzha town, on the Kochi-Alappuzha streatch of both the National Highway 47 as well as the costal Rail-route.lt is 85 km from the...
in the Alappuzha
Alappuzha
Alappuzha , also known as Alleppey, is a town in Alappuzha District of Kerala state of southern India. As per 2001 census Alleppey is the sixth largest city in Kerala with an urban population of 177,029. Alleppey is situated to the south of Kochi and north of Trivandrum...
district of Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
who associate flowering bamboo with an impending explosion in the rat population.
Bihar famine
The Bihar famine of 1966-7 was a minor famine with relatively very few deaths from starvation as compared to the famines of the British era. The famine demonstrated the ability of the Indian government to deal with the worst of famine related circumstances. The official death toll from starvation in the Bihar famine was 2353, roughly half of which occurred in the state of Bihar. No significant increase in the number of infant deaths from famine was found in the Bihar famine.The annual production of food grains had dropped in Bihar from 7.5 million tonnes in 1965–66 to 7.2 million tonnes in 1966–1967 during the Bihar drought. There was an even sharper drop in 1966–67 to 4.3 million tonnes. The national grain production dropped from 89.4 million tonnes in 1964–65 to 72.3 in 1965–66 — a 19% drop. Rise in prices of food grains caused migration and starvation, but the public distribution system, relief measures by the government, and voluntary organizations limited the impact. On a number of occasions, the Indian-government sought food and grain from the United States to provide replacement for damaged crops. The government also setup more than 20,000 fair-price stores to provide food at regulated prices for the poor or those with limited incomes. A large scale famine in Bihar was adverted due to this import, although livestock and crops were destroyed. Other reasons for successfully averting a large scale famine were the employing various famine prevention measures such as improving communication abilities, issuing famine bulletins over the radio and offering employment to those affected by famine in government public works projects.
The Bihar drought of 1966–67 gave impetus to further changes in agricultural policy and this resulted in the Green Revolution.
Maharashtra drought
Large scale employment to the deprived sections of Maharashtrian society which attracted considerable amounts of food to Maharashtra. The implementation of the Scarcity Manuals in the Bihar and Maharashtra famines prevented the mortality arising from severe food shortages. While the relief program in Bihar was poor, Drèze calls the one in Maharastra a model program. The relief works initiated by the government helped employ over 5 million people at the height of the drought in Maharashtra leading to effective famine prevention. The effectiveness of the Maharashtra was also attributable to the direct pressure on the government of Maharashtra by the public who perceived that employment via the relief works program was their right. The public protested by marching, picketing, and even rioting . Drèze reports a laborer saying "they would let us die if they thought we would not make a noise about it."
West Bengal drought
The drought of 1979–80 in West Bengal was the next major drought and caused a 17% decline in food production with a shortfall of 13.5 million tonnes of food grain. Stored food stocks were leveraged by the government, and there was no net import of food grains. The drought was relatively unknown outside of India. The lessons learned from the Maharashtra and West Bengal droughts led to the Desert Development Program and the Drought Prone Area Program. The intent of these programs was to reduce the negative effects of droughts by applying eco-friendly land use practices and conserving water. Major schemes in improving rural infrastructure, extending irrigation to additional areas, and diversifying agriculture were also launched. The lessons from the 1987 drought brought to light the need for employment generation, watershed planning, and ecologically integrated development.Other issues
Deaths from malnutrition on a large scale have continued across India into modern times. In MaharashtraMaharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
alone, for example, there were around 45,000 childhood deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to the Times of India. Another Times of India report in 2010 has stated that 50% of childhood deaths in India are attributable to malnutrition. Around 7.5 million people per year die of malnutrition in modern India, the largest death rate caused by malnutrition for any country.
Growing export prices, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers due to global warming, changes in rainfall and temperatures are issues affecting India. If agricultural production does not remain above the population growth rate, there are indications that a return to the pre-independence famine days is a likelihood. People from various walks of life, such as social activist Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva , is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D...
and researcher Dan Banik, agree that famines and the resulting large scale loss of life from starvation have been eliminated after Indian independence in 1947. However, Shiva warned in 2002 that famines are making a comeback and government inaction would mean they would reach the scale seen in the Horn of Africa
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
in three or four years.
See also
- 1865, 1866
- Drought in IndiaDrought in IndiaDrought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the climate of India: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical in securing water for irrigating Indian crops...
- Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British RajFamines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British RajAmong the common features of famines, epidemics, and public health in the British Raj during the 19th century were:* There was no aggregate food shortage in India, although there were localized crop failures in the affected areas...
- Great Irish famine
- List of famines
- Timeline of major famines in India during British rule
- Bengal famine of 1943Bengal famine of 1943The Bengal famine of 1943 struck the Bengal. Province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 1.5 and 4 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal’s 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943 As...