Famine has been a recurrent feature of life in the Indian subcontinental countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, most commonly cited as a feature of British rule. Famines in India resulted in millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. 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.
Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on climate: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical in securing water for irrigating crops. Droughts, 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 1876–1878, and the Bengal famine of 1943. Some commentators have identified British government inaction as a contributing factor to the severity of famines during the British rule in India. Famines in the subcontinent largely ended by the start of the 20th century, with the 1943 Bengal famine being an exception linked to complications during World War II. In India, traditionally, agricultural laborers and rural artisans have been the primary victims of famines. In the worst famines, cultivators have also been susceptible.
Railroads built for the commercial goal of exporting food grains and other agricultural commodities only served to exacerbate economic conditions in times of famine. However, by the 20th century, the extension of the railroad by the British helped put an end to the massive famines in times of peace. They allowed the British to expedite faster sharing of food out to the most vulnerable.
The last major famine to affect areas within the modern Republic of India was the Bengal famine of 1943. Within the areas that were formerly part of British India, the Bangladesh famine of 1974 was the last major famine.
Ancient, medieval and pre-colonial India
One of the earliest treatises on famine relief goes back more than 2,000 years. This treatise is commonly attributed to Kautilya who was also known as Vishnugupta (Chanakya), 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, an increase of pay to soldiers, and payment of advances. Yet other measures included the 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 five primary sources: Legendary accounts passed down in oral tradition that keep alive the memory of famines Ancient Indian sacred literature such as the Vedas, Jataka stories, and the Arthashastra Stone and metal inscriptions provide information on several famines before the 16th century Writings of Indian historians in Mughal India Writings of foreigners temporarily resident in India (e.g. Ibn Battuta, Francis Xavier)
The ancient Ashokan edicts of the Mauryan age around 269 BCE record emperor Asoka's conquest of Kalinga, roughly the modern state of Odisha. 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. From Indian literature, there is the 7th-century famine due to failure of rains in Thanjavur district mentioned in the Periya Puranam. According to the Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Tamil saints Sambandar 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 Landing in 1054.
Famines preserved only in oral tradition are the Dvadasavarsha Panjam (Twelve-year Famine) of south India and the Durga Devi Famine of the Deccan from 1396 to 1407.The Vanjari story of the great Durgadevi famine, which lasted from 1396 to 1407, is that it was named from Durga a Lad Vanjari woman, who had amassed great wealth and owned a million pack bullocks, which she used in bringing grain from Nepal, Burmah, and China. She distributed the grain among the starving people and gained the honourable title of ' Mother of the World, Jagachi Mata.. The primary sources for famines in this period are incomplete and locationally based.
The Tughlaq Dynasty under Muhammad bin Tughluq held power during the famine centered on Delhi in 1335–1342 (which is reported to have killed thousands). Busy and faced with a difficult situation, the Tughluq couldn't properly address the famine. Pre-colonial famines in the Deccan included the Damajipant famine of 1460 and the famines starting in 1520 and 1629. The Damajipant famine is said to have caused ruin both in the northern and southern parts of the Deccan. Abd al-Qadir Badayuni claims to have witnessed cannibalism in Hindustan in a famine in 1555.
The 1629–32 famine in the Deccan and Gujarat was one of the worst in India's history. In the first 10 months of 1631 an estimated 3 million perished in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. Eventually, the famine killed not only the poor but the rich as well. More famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. In Vikrami Samwat 1720/1663 AD, again, there was a failure of rain in the whole of Rajasthan. This year numerous people died in Marwar and the prices of the grain rose very high. The price of grain is recorded but it is not comparable with other years. Rathora-ri-khyat, no. 5, part I. The Jain traveller notes that not only prices went up but the grain was just not to be had. Cattle perished in great numbers. In 1664 the rains were normal in Rajasthan but there was a local famine in Sojhat. Not only large numbers migrated, but many were sold away as well. Gairb Das has also described about this great famine in his Amar Granth Sahib that even Princes of Delhi had to struggle for food.
According to Mushtaq A. Kaw, "Many famines were recorded in Kashmir from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The Mughals and Afghan rulers in Kashmir took measures to fight them, but as the paper intends to show, their measures were too weak and in certain aspects were even worse than those of their predecessors. Contemporary sources point to a noticeable variation in the occurrence of famines over different years. They show that these famines took place on a great scale. We are told that great damage was caused to the standing crop when there was an unprecedented flood. For instance, the great flood of 1640–42 alone wiped out 438 villages in the region of Kashmir..
Some historians argue that the Mughals took a patrimonial attitude towards the peasantry that mitigated the effects of famine. Mike Davis, for example, claims that Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb relied on tax relief, the distribution of free food without demanding labor in return, food export embargos and price controls. Abraham Eraly, on the other hand, describes these as "token and random measures, at best palliatives." In the 1630–32 famine, for example, the emperor dispersed 100,000 rupees for famine relief, a tenth of the annual "pin-money" granted his empress Mumtaz Mahal. Imperial revenue officials and local jagir amirs each granted around 7 million rupees in tax relief.
British rule
The late 18th and 19th centuries saw an increase in the incidence of severe famine. Approximately 15 million died from 1850 to 1899 in 24 major famines; more than in any other 50-year period. These famines in British India were severe enough to have a measurable impact on the long term population growth of the country, especially in the half-century between 1871 and 1921. The first, the Great Bengal famine of 1770, is estimated to have taken the lives of between 1 and 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.
Indian famine
In the later nineteenth century there was a series of disastrous crop failures in India leading not only to starvation but to epidemics. Most were regional, but the death toll could be huge. A major famine coincided with Lord Curzon's time as viceroy which affected large parts of India and killed at least 1 million people.
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 subjects about India's famines through a series of publications in the 1870s and beyond.
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 the 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 that 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.
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 appear to approach the incidence of famines of the 18th and 19th centuries under British rule.
Scholarly opinions
Amartya Sen, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, found that the famines in the British era were not due to a lack of food but due to the inequalities in the distribution of food. He links the inequality to the undemocratic nature of the British Empire.
Mike Davis regards the famines of the 1870s and 1890s as 'Late Victorian Holocausts' in which the effects of widespread weather-induced crop failures were greatly aggravated by the negligent response of the British administration. 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." However, Davis argues that since the British Raj was authoritarian and undemocratic, these famines only occurred under a system of economic liberalism, not social liberalism.