Great Famine of 1876–78 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Great Famine of 1876–1878 (also the Southern India famine of 1876–78 or the Madras famine of 1877) was a famine

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...

in 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...

that began in 1876 and affected south

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

and southwestern India

West India

West India or the Western region of India consists of the states of Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra, along with the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. It is highly industrialized, with a large urban population. Most of Western India was part of the Maratha Empire before...

(Madras

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...

, Mysore

Kingdom of Mysore

The Kingdom of Mysore was a kingdom of southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. The kingdom, which was ruled by the Wodeyar family, initially served as a vassal state of the Vijayanagara Empire...

, Hyderabad

Hyderabad State

-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...

, and Bombay

Bombay Presidency

The Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...

) for a period of two years. In its second year famine also spread north

North India

North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...

to some regions of the Central Provinces

Central Provinces

The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur....

and the United Provinces

United Provinces of Agra and Oudh

The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was a province of India under the British Raj, which existed from 1902 to 1947; the official name was shortened by the Government of India Act 1935 to United Provinces, by which the province had been commonly known, and by which name it was also a province of...

, and to a small area in the Punjab

Punjab region

The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...

. The famine ultimately covered an area of 257000 square miles (665,626.9 km²) and caused distress to a population totaling 58,500,000.

Preceding events

The Great Famine was preceded by an intense drought (or "crop failure") in the Deccan Plateau

Deccan Plateau

The Deccan Plateau is a large plateau in India, making up the majority of the southern part of the country. It rises a hundred meters high in the north, rising further to more than a kilometers high in the south, forming a raised triangle nested within the familiar downward-pointing triangle of...

. Earlier, after the Bihar famine of 1873–74, in which mortality was avoided, the Government of Bengal

Bengal Presidency

The Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...

and its Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Richard Temple

Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet

Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet, FRS, GCSI, CIE, PC was an administrator in British India and a British politician.-Career:...

, were criticized for excessive expenditure, which had included the costs of importing 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...

from Burma and providing generous charitable relief. Sensitive to any renewed accusations of excess in 1876, Temple, who was now Famine Commissioner for the Government of India, insisted not only on a policy of laissez faire with respect to the trade in grain

GRAIN

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

, but also on stricter standards of qualification for relief and on more meager relief rations. Two kinds of relief were offered: "relief works" for able-bodied men, women, and working children, and gratuitous (or charitable) relief for small children, the elderly, and the indigent.

Famine and relief

The insistence on more rigorous tests for qualification, however, led to strikes by "relief workers" in the Bombay presidency

Bombay Presidency

.
Furthermore, in January 1877, Temple suggested that in Madras

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...

and Bombay, a reduced wage (the Temple wage) be adopted in the relief works; this consisted of 1 pound (0.45359237 kg) of grain plus one anna

Indian anna

An Anna was a currency unit formerly used in India, equal to 1/16 rupee. It was subdivided into 4 Paise or 12 Pies . The term belonged to the Muslim monetary system...

for a man, and a slightly reduced amount for a woman or working child, for a "long day of hard labour without shade or rest." The rationale behind the reduced wage, which was in keeping with a prevailing belief of the time, was that any excessive payment might create dependency
Dependent personality disorder
Dependent personality disorder , formerly known as asthenic personality disorder, is a personality disorder that is characterized by a pervasive psychological dependence on other people...

(or "demoralization" in contemporaneous usage) among the famine-afflicted population.

However, Temple's recommendation was opposed by W. R. Cornish, a physician who was the Sanitary Commissioner for 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...

. Cornish had investigated prison diets in India a decade earlier and was of the view that a minimum of 1.5 pound (0.680388555 kg) of grain and, in addition, supplements in the form of vegetables and protein were needed for a healthy diet, especially if, in return, the individuals were performing strenuous labor in the relief works. Eventually, in March 1877, the provincial government of Madras, moved by Cornish's argument, agreed on a compromise ration of 1.25 pound (0.5669904625 kg) of grain and 1.5 ounces (43 g) of protein in the form of daal (pulse

Pulse (legume)

A pulse is an annual leguminous crop yielding from one to twelve seeds of variable size, shape, and color within a pod. Pulses are used for food and animal feed. The term "pulse", as used by the Food and Agricultural Organization , is reserved for crops harvested solely for the dry seed...

s), but not before more people had succumbed to the famine. In other parts of India, such as the United Provinces

United Provinces of Agra and Oudh

, where relief was meager, the resulting mortality was high. In the autumn and winter of 1878, an epidemic of malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

killed many more who were already weakened by malnutrition.

All in all, the Government of India spent Rs. 8 1/3 crore

Crore

A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....

s in relieving 700 million units (1 unit = relief for 1 person for 1 day) in British India and, in addition, another Rs. 72 lakh

Lakh

A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...

s in relieving 72 million units in the princely states of Mysore

Kingdom of Mysore

and Hyderabad

Hyderabad State

. Revenue (tax) payments to the amount of Rs. 60 lakh

Lakh

s were either not enforced or postponed until the following year, and charitable donations from Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

and the colonies

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

totaled Rs. 84 lakh

Lakh

s. However, this cost was small per capita
Per capita
Per capita is a Latin prepositional phrase: per and capita . The phrase thus means "by heads" or "for each head", i.e. per individual or per person...

; for example, the expenditure incurred in the Bombay Presidency

Bombay Presidency

was less than one-fifth of that in the Bihar famine of 1873–74, which affected a smaller area and did not last as long.

Aftermath

The mortality in the famine was exceedingly high; in the British areas

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...

alone, 5.25 to 5.5 million people died of starvation or disease. Estimates of total famine related deaths vary. The following table gives the varying estimates of famine related deaths.

Estimate (in millions)	Done by	Publication
10.3	William Digby	"Prosperous" British India, London: Fisher Unwin, 1901
8.2	Arup Maharatna	The Demography of Famines: An Indian Historical Perspective, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996
6.1	Ronald E. Seavoy	Famine in Peasant Societies (Contributions in Economics and Economic History), New York: Greenwood Press, 1986

The excessive mortality of the Great Famine and the renewed questions of "relief and protection" that were asked in its wake, led directly to the constituting of the Famine Commission of 1880 and to the eventual adoption of the Provisional Famine Code in British India. After the famine, a large number of agricultural laborers and handloom weavers in South India

South India

emigrated to British tropical colonies to work 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...

in plantations. The excessive mortality in the famine also neutralized the natural population growth in the Bombay and Madras presidencies during the decade between the first and second censuses of British India in 1871 and 1881 respectively.

The Great Famine was to have a lasting political impact on events in India; among the British administrators in India who were unsettled by the official reactions to the famine and, in particular by the stifling of the official debate about the best form of famine relief, were William Wedderburn

William Wedderburn

Sir William Wedderburn, 4th Baronet, JP DL was a Scottish civil servant and politician.Born in Edinburgh, the fourth son of Sir John Wedderburn, 2nd Baronet, he was educated at Hofwyl Workshop, then Loretto School and finally at Edinburgh University.He entered the Indian Civil Service in Bombay in...

and A. O. Hume. Less than a decade later, they would found the Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

and, in turn, influence a generation of Indian nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain...

and Romesh Chunder Dutt

Romesh Chunder Dutt

Romesh Chunder Dutt, CIE was an Indian civil servant, economic historian, writer, and translator of Ramayana and Mahabharata.- Formative years :...

for whom the Great Famine would become a cornerstone of the economic critique of the British Raj

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...

Preceding events

Famine and relief

Aftermath

See also