Famine

Question 1

HISTORIOGRAPHYDefinition of Famine

Answer 1

Famines caused by there being no feed to eat, i.e. Caused by failure of the crop due to drought, monsoon failure, climate reasons. (Food Availability theories, FAD)- Several colonial writers including Mark Tauger
Famines caused by lack of purchasing power as a result of some people being able to afford food to eat and some not (Food Entitlement, Approach, FEA) Amartya Sen

Question 2

HISTORIOGRAPHY - MICHELLE MACALPIN

Answer 2

Macalpin argues that recent Indian history can be compared with European history where with the developments of markets and trade, Western Europe saw an evolution from ‘true famine’ to ‘famines caused by lack of purchasing power’ a transition in other words from problems of scarcity to those of unequal distribution in a situation of plenty. The same transition in India, she notes, was completed by India in the late nineteenth century.

Question 3

HISTORIOGRAPHY- A third view:Famine and environmental history

Answer 3

Famine research has gained ground in both Asia and Africa in recent times and it is well known that British India experienced a series of subsistence crises particularly in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, analyses of these famines by historians have rarely included a study of environmental changes

Question 4

The Moral economy of famine - davis

Answer 4

Here Famine can be seen as a process not an event. The gradual erosion of access to land and resources makes people vulnerable to famine.
As people fail to make ends meet using time honoured ways they fall victim to starvation

Mike Davis, Victorian Holocausts
Mike Davis notes that the history of British rule in India could be condensed into a single fact that there was no increase in India’s per capita income between 1757 and 1947.
His thesis looks at long term taxation policies, colonial exploitation to look at the moral economy of famine. It is also a multi-causal approach as it looks at El nino famines

Question 5

Amartya Sen’s entitlement theory and the 1943 Famine

Answer 5

Refers to a persons’ entitlement to commodity bundles using the totality of rights that he or she faces.
For Sen a person starves in the context of a famine because he or she is entitled to starve
Famine as a result of entitlement not as a result of there being not enough to eat. (FEA)

Question 6

Amartya Sen’s definition

Answer 6

Starvation is a characteristic of some people not having enough to eat. It is not a characteristic of there being not enough to eat. While the latter can be the cause of the former, it is but one of the many possible causes. Whether or how starvation relates to food supply is a matter for factual investigation.

Question 7

Famine as Multi-Causal

Answer 7

State created: Famines caused by British taxation policy
The moral economy argument: Famine as a process not as an event
Climate:Famine as a result of a natural disaster or climatic event

Question 8

The Bengal Famine of 1943

Answer 8

The immediate cause of the famine was the reduction in the crops caused by the failure of the rice crop and a cyclone.
India a food importer for the last 10 years especially from Burma
· Hoarding of traders and rising prices – price famine
· The governments free trade policy did not help – Adam Smith free hand criticised the british from interfering with the martket
· BOAT DENIAL POLICY BY CHURCHILL – check this To prevent Burmese from invading india
· CLIMATE FACTOR CAUSING SEVER FLOODING IN THOUSANDS OF VILLAGES AND CATTLE DEATHS.
· WAS THERE A FOOD AVAILABILITY DECLINE
· Paul Greenhough states seizure of boats stoped grain traveling to villages. Fear of JAPANESE SCORCHED EARTH
· Sen believed no food deline it was peoples purchasing power
· Tauger states a miscalculation, food shortage exacerbated by purchasing power or rural and urban poor. Poor were most affect
· Administrative errors – seizing of crops for the british war effort. British officers eating rice pudding while nbengal people dieing
· Churchills attitude was negliget – no attempt to help.

Question 9

Climate factors

Answer 9

Major cyclones destroys crops causing severe flooding in thousands of villages and cattle deaths
In Midnapur district environmental damage was paramount causing wide spread distress

Was there Food availability decline?

Question 10

Serious administrative failures - HISTORIOGRAPHY SEN AND GREENHOUGH

Answer 10

Paul Greenhough notes the seizure of boats on the rivers so that grain could not travel to villages easily. This was a result of the fear induced by what they felt would be Japanese scorched earth policy.
Sen believed that there was no real food availability decline and that despite this there was still food available and it was only people purchasing power that was affected as a result of rising prices.

Question 11

HISTORIOGRAPHY Sen’s statistics questioned by Tauger

Answer 11

1. These are seen to be a bit erring on the side of miscalculation.
2. There was indeed a food shortage which was exacerbated by the purchasing power of the rural and urban poor. Sen’s entitlement theory therefore holds.
3. The poor were the groups that were the most affected.

Question 12

Tauger’s critique OF SEN

Answer 12

Sen’s work because his conclusion of sufficiency in Bengal has been seriously challenged. Historian Mark Tauger has shown that Sen based his crop estimates on projections, and that crop diseases spread by wet weather appear to have drastically reduced the actual harvest. There are a number of different estimates of the crop shortage, all of which are substantial.
Furthermore, in his paper Sen misquoted the government’s estimate of the rice shortfall as a mere 140,000 tons (instead of the 1.4 million tons stated in the document he cites)—which led him to mistakenly claim that the authorities could not have predicted famine.

Question 13

Administrative errors

Answer 13

Wavell’s description of Churchill’s attitude toward India as “negligent, hostile and contemptuous” was reciprocated by the Indian population but they had no way of expressing these views.
Key seizing of crops for the British war effort

Question 14

Famine victims: Index of destitution

Answer 14

Agricultural labourers
Small cultivators
Farm workers

Question 15

Problems and strengths of Sen’s argument

Answer 15

Fails to take into account long term destitution that takes place over a long period and the moral economy of famine argument
Sees the market as providing a solution to problems and tends to see famine more as an event rather than a process
Is statistically flawed according to Tauger
However many of his ideas are still very important for understanding famines in a context of plenty as a failure of purchasing power.

Question 16

IMPORTANT CONCLUSIONS FAMINE

Answer 16

Famines are multi causal
Climatic factors and natural disasters play their part
Studies of specific famines reveal interesting links between mortality and status, mortality and disease for example

Question 17

El nino famines

Answer 17

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 (ENSO). By comparing ENSO episodes in different time periods and across countries, Davis explores the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism, and the relation with famine in particular. 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.”[1]

Question 18

Famines in British India 18,19,20 c

Answer 18

Famine had 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 18th and 19th centuries. Historical and legendary evidence names some 90 famines in 2,500 years of history.[1] 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.

Question 19

The Great Famine of 1876–78 (also the Southern India famine of 1876–78 or the Madras famine of 1877)

Answer 19

was a famine in India that began in 1876 and affected south and southwestern India (Madras, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Bombay) for a period of two years. In its second year famine also spread north to some regions of the Central Provinces and the North-Western Provinces, and to a small area in the Punjab.[1] The famine ultimately covered an area of 670,000 square kilometres (257,000 sq mi) and caused distress to a population totaling 58,500,000.[1] The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 5.5 million people.

Question 20

historiography - Tirthankar Roy

Answer 20

suggests that the famines were due to environmental factors and inherent in India’s ecology.[fn 6][fn 7] 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.[34] 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,[35] 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.[36][full citation needed]

Question 21

historiography famine

Answer 21

Between one and three million died of hunger in 1943.
The wartime leader said Britain could not spare the ships to transport emergency supplies as the streets of Calcutta filled with emaciated villagers from the surrounding countryside, but author Madhusree Mukerjee has unearthed new documents which challenge his claim.
In her book, Churchill’s Secret War, she cites ministry records and personal papers which reveal ships carrying cereals from Australia were bypassed India on their way to the Mediterranean where supplies were already abundant.
“It wasn’t a question of Churchill being inept: sending relief to Bengal was raised repeatedly and he and his close associates thwarted every effort,” the author said.

Question 22

british forcing indians to grow crops…

Answer 22

After taking over from the Mughal rulers, the British had issued widespread orders for cash crops to be cultivated. These were intended to be exported. Thus farmers who were used to growing paddy and vegetables were now being forced to cultivate indigo, poppy and other such items that yielded a high market value for them but could be of no relief to a population starved of food. There was no backup of edible crops in case of a famine. The natural causes that had contributed to the draught were commonplace. It was the single minded motive for profit that wrought about the devastating consequences. No relief measure was provided for those affected. Rather, as mentioned above, taxation was increased to make up for any shortfall in revenue. What is more ironic is that the East India Company generated a profited higher in 1771 than they did in 1768.

Question 23

enso famine

Answer 23

The failure of monsoons in turn is due to a periodic natural phenomenon known as ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation).ENSO occurs every five to seven years and causes extreme weather such as floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world.Putting it simply, ENSO is like a natural seesaw which causes the failure of monsoons over India while causing unnatural rainfall over the coast of South America.
So, is the process of famine in India as simple as sequential steps below?
ENSO causes monsoon failure —> Drought —–> Crops fail—–>Famine——> Millions dead?

Question 24

Are famines then a natural follow on from the droughts caused by ENSO?

Answer 24

Are famines then a natural follow on from the droughts caused by ENSO?
Not at all, for the last two steps where there is a food scarcity leading to a famine and consequent deaths are completely avoidable. Even a severe drought can be stopped from developing into a killer famine by Government policies such as: banning export of food grains, rushing adequate food supplies to the famine affected parts and ensuring equitable distribution, reducing the burden of taxation on people and in general making sure that there are enough reserves to tide through the crises. Famines always give advance notice as they are following on from droughts. With correct policy and timely government intervention it can be ensured that there are no famine related deaths nor the immense human suffering that precedes a famine.
Post Independence though we have had quite severe droughts, some of them even leading to famine (in Bihar in 1966-67), there have been no famine related deaths!!
Timely intervention by the Government of India was the main reason why droughts did not lead to millions of Indians dead. It is to the great credit of the governments of Independent India that they did not let Indians perish due to starvation.
This is precisely why I have referred to famines in British India as “British Made” (or Man made) .Millions of lives could have been saved if the British had really been bothered about doing the right thing. Nowadays of course they hypocritically moan about the number of people “starving” in India and gleefully make crap movies like “Slumdog Millionaire” which make them feel good about themselves.

Question 25

surplus

Answer 25

In all the famines which took place under the Christian British Raj, there never was a shortage of food in the country overall .In fact during the worst famines, surplus food grains were being exported from India. Nothing illustrates this point better than the graphs below which show that records amount of rice and wheat were being exported out of India, while millions of Indians were dying of starvation. This begs the question: If taking food from the mouth of a starving man while he dies of hunger is not deliberate murder, then what is?

Question 26

exploitative land tax

Answer 26

Exploitative Land Tax and Brutal collection methods:
The case of Bengal is illuminating to know how the British bled Indians white, even when farmers had nothing to eat. The British attitude towards tax and revenue extraction remained virtually unchanged till they left India. Bengal was the first to feel the devastating effects of the Christian British rule after East India Company became virtual rulers of the province post Battle of Plassey in 1757 CE. A devastating famine in 1768 CE killed off nearly ten million people in Bengal and Bihar.

Question 27

cash crops

Answer 27

Farmers were forced to grow cash crops such as cotton, opium, indigo simply to keep paying off the extortionate demands of the British leeches. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce dictated and controlled the growth of cotton in fertile areas such as Berar (Vidarbha in Maharashtra).The entire social system of Vidarbha was destroyed so that the British could put in place their own rapacious system known as khatedari which was implemented in 1877 CE .The old landlord families were either destroyed or pauperised and the British government became the supreme owner of the farm lands.
Crops such as cotton grew readily in the fertile black soil of Deccan but had the side effect of destroying the fertility of the soil. In addition the British parasites even turned cow dung which had acted as a natural fertiliser, into a taxable revenue source.The Manchester Chamber of Commerce pushed for the introduction of railways in Vidarbha so that it could have a vast captive cotton growing plantation. The capitalists of Britain wanted a secure source of raw cotton which they could turn to in case of any fluctuations in cotton supply from America. The poor farmers of Vidarbha were instantly exposed to the fluctuations in the world markets and had absolutely no share in the massive profits made by the British bloodsuckers. Thus when famine hit the impoverished farmers died in their lakhs.
Also increasing indebtness forced the farmers to sell their plots of land to sahukars (money lenders).This led to the concentration of fertile lands in the hands of a few thousand very rich non -resident landlords. The previously self sufficient farmer was forced to work as a labourer on his own land. Even those farmers who managed to hold on to their land, the acreage under their ownership was for most part between 5-6 acres, which was not sufficient to support the farmer and his family. Added to this was an influx of artisans, craftsmen etc who had been thrown out of work due to the British murder of Indian industry. They had no option but to work as labourers on bigger farms with virtually no resources to withstand a famine. The grim story of Vidarbha was repeated in Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu etc.

Question 28

taxation

Answer 28

The amount of tax traditionally paid by the farmer under the Maratha empire (or previously the Mughal regime) was between 16-17% of the gross produce. Again this was flexible depending on the conditions prevailing.ie if crops had failed the demand by the state would be reduced or in some cases suspended for the time being. What this used to do was to leave farmers with enough reserves to tide them over though difficult times.eg under the Maratha Empire tax collection was flexible and kept in line with the circumstances of the day.
But under the Christian British Raj there was no such humanitarian response to the life threatening crises faced by the Indian farmer. The tax itself came to about 33% of gross produce. But this tax was not the end of things. On top of this basic tax were different taxes for roads, schools, post offices, dispensary, water tax etc. Taxes were levied on the most flimsy of excuses and the poor farmer had no protection against the brutal force exercised by the British rulers. All these miscellaneous taxes added upto nearly 100% of the farmers real assets!!
The worst thing was that the British government would confiscate food stocks at the time of revenue collection. The ryots(farmers) had no option but to borrow money at rip off interest rates from money lenders to release their grain stocks.In fact the entire class of bloodsucking moneylenders came into existence because of the policies of the Christian British Raj.
The way taxes were raised was extremely arbitrary and without any basis in reality. The rise was based on the value of the land, so called “public works” done by the CBR (which included railways, roads, schools, dispensaries etc). The tax was raised irrespective of the fact whether the farmer was getting better prices for his produce or not. This inevitably led to the situation of the already beggared farmer paying over 100% of his earnings in tax. Also, the arbitrary rise in taxes could not be appealed in the courts in Bombay Presidency. Thus there was not even the illusion of justice.
Quite a few examples are given of the unsustainable level of debt burden carried by Indian farmers in RC Dutts “Famine and Land Assessments”. To quote one of these,
“ Murar the Patel, a young man, farms sixty acres, but there has been no produce this year. The farm is mortgaged to the extent of about 3000 rupees. He estimates his last year’s produce at 375 rupees, of which he paid 104 rupees to Government. He had to buy four bullocks for 100 rupees, and pay 40 rupees for servants, and was therefore unable to pay anything to the money-lender. The other expenses of cultivation amounted to nearly 60 rupees. He kept the rest for himself, his wife, uncle, and two children. He has been served with notice of assessment. He had six bullocks, and has lost four”.
The net effect of this crushing taxation was to strip away any saving capability of the farmers in years when the harvests were good. The following observation by A K Connell illustrates this point well,
“Against this calamity (drought) the cultivator, when unable to get a permanent water-supply from wells,* tanks, canals, or rivers, has provided from, time immemorial by the storage of grain in air-tight pits or earthen¬ ware jars. If war or taxation, levied in excess, or at times of distress, has depleted these stores, then the worst horrors of famine have swept over the land;”
The farmers were permanently in deep debt to money lenders just to keep paying the extortionate tax demands. They had to sell even their reserve food stocks just to stay afloat. This left the farmer with no buffer when famines hit him. With every passing year the farmers sank deeper into desperate poverty and further into the clutches of money lenders. Every year lakhs of farmers were dispossessed of their small plots of land.
In fact in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies the land tax demands kept on increasing every thirty years by an extortionate amount. For e.g. when the remnants of the Maratha empire were finally conquered by the British in 1817 CE the revenue from those parts was 80 Lakhs, within a year it went upto 115 lakhs and in a few more years it was 150 lakhs. So between 1817 and 1818 in a span of one year there was a jump of nearly 43% in the actual revenue collected!
How was this possible? Did the farmers of Deccan feel so happy at being conquered by the British that they expressed their joy by paying more tax? Or did the soil become super productive thanks to the British “genius”?
The reality was horrifying and dismal. Farmers were fleeced of every spare anna on their persons. Brutal collection methods were employed to force farmers to part with their meagre savings. Unable to withstand the torture meted out by the British on non payment of taxes many farmers abandoned their lands and fled into the areas ruled by the Princely states.Millions of acres of previously fertile land went out of cultivation as farmers voted with their feet and abandoned their lands