Great Famine of 1876–1878
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The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
in India under Crown rule. It began in 1876 after an intense drought resulted in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. It affected
south South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
and Southwestern India—the British-administered presidencies of
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and Bombay, and the
princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...
s of Mysore and Hyderabad—for a period of two years. In 1877, famine came to affect regions northward, including parts of the
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 North-Western Provinces, and a small area in the Punjab. The famine ultimately affected an area of and caused distress to a population totalling 58,500,000. The excess mortality in the famine has been estimated in a range whose low end is 5.6 million human fatalities, high end 9.6 million fatalities, and a careful modern demographic estimate 8.2 million fatalities. The famine is also known as the Southern India famine of 1876–1878 and the Madras famine of 1877.


Preceding events

The ''Great Famine'' may have partially been caused by an intense drought resulting in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. It was part of a larger pattern of drought and crop failure across India, China, South America and parts of Africa caused by an interplay between a strong El Niño and an active Indian Ocean Dipole that led to between 19 and 50 million deaths. The regular export of grain by the colonial government continued; during the famine, the viceroy, Lord Robert Bulwer-Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight (320,000 tons) of wheat, which made the region more vulnerable. The cultivation of alternate
cash crop A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...
s, in addition to the
commodification Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trad ...
of grain, played a significant role in the events. The famine occurred at a time when the colonial government was attempting to reduce expenses on welfare. Earlier, in the
Bihar famine of 1873–74 Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Ben ...
, severe mortality had been avoided by importing rice from Burma. The Government of Bengal and its Lieutenant-Governor,
Sir Richard Temple Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet (8 March 1826 – 15 March 1902) was a British colonial administrator in 19th-century India, who served as Governor of Bombay from 1877 to 1880. Early life Temple was the son of Richard Temple (1800–1874) and ...
, were criticised for excessive expenditure on 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, but also on stricter standards of qualification for relief and on more meagre 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 Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage ...
, 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 The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainl ...
. In January 1877, Temple reduced the wage for a day's hard work in the relief camps in
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and Bombay—this 'Temple wage' consisted of of grain plus one
anna Anna may refer to: People Surname and given name * Anna (name) Mononym * Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke * Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773) * Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th century) * Anna (Anisia) (fl. 1218 to 1221) ...
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' (or "demoralisation" in contemporaneous usage) among the famine-afflicted population. Temple's recommendations were opposed by some officials, including William Digby and the physician W. R. Cornish, Sanitary Commissioner for the
Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...
. Cornish argued for a minimum of of grain and, in addition, supplements of vegetables and protein, especially if the individuals were performing strenuous labour in the relief works. However, Lytton supported Temple, who argued that "everything must be subordinated to the financial consideration of disbursing the smallest sum of money."Mike Davis, ''Late Victorian Holocausts, El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World'', Verso, 2001; calories for Buchenwald diet: 1750; Temple wage: 1627. Both involved hard labour (p.39); Temple's remark on financial considerations p.40 In March 1877, the provincial government of Madras increased the ration halfway towards Cornish's recommendations, to of grain and of protein in the form of '' daal'' ( pulses). Meanwhile, many more people had succumbed to the famine. In other parts of India, such as the United Provinces, where relief was meagre, the resulting mortality was high. In the second half of 1878, an epidemic of malaria killed many more who were already weakened by malnutrition. By early 1877, Temple proclaimed that he had put "the famine under control". Digby noted that "a famine can scarcely be said to be adequately controlled which leaves one-fourth of the people dead." All in all, the Government of India spent Rs. 30 million in relieving 700 million units (1 unit = relief for 1 person for 1 day) in British India and, in addition, another Rs. 7.2 million in relieving 72 million units in the princely states of Mysore and Hyderabad. Revenue (tax) payments to the amount of Rs. 6 million were either not enforced or postponed until the following year, and charitable donations from Great Britain and the colonies totaled Rs. 8.4 million. However, this cost was minuscule ''per capita''; for example, the expenditure incurred in the
Bombay Presidency The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainl ...
was less than one-fifth of that in the
Bihar famine of 1873–74 Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Ben ...
, which affected a smaller area and did not last as long.


Famine in Mysore State

Two years before the famine of 1876, heavy rain destroyed ragi crops (a type of
millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
) in Kolar and Bangalore. Scant rainfall the following year resulted in drying up of lakes, affecting food stock. As a result of the famine, the population of the state decreased by 874,000 (in comparison with the 1871 census). Sir Richard Temple was sent by the British India Government as Special Famine Commissioner to oversee the relief works of the Mysore government. To deal with the famine, the
government of Mysore The Government of Karnataka, abbreviated as, GoK, or simply Karnataka Government, is a democratically-elected state body with the governor as the ceremonial head to govern the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka. The governor who is appointed ...
started relief kitchens. A large number of people journeyed to Bangalore when relief was available. These people had to work on the Bangalore–Mysore railway line in exchange for food and grains. The Mysore government imported large quantities of grain from the neighbouring British ruled
Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...
. Grazing in forests was allowed temporarily, and new tanks were constructed and old tanks repaired. The Dewan of Mysore State, C. V. Rungacharlu, in his Dasara speech estimated the cost to the state at 160
lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...
s, with the state incurring a debt of 80 lakhs.


Aftermath

The excess mortality in the famine has been estimated to lie in a range whose low end is approximately 5.5 million human deaths, the high end approximately is 9.6 million deaths and a careful modern demographic estimate of which is 8.2 million deaths. Quote: "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. Thus, to take only some of the worst famines for which the death rate is known, some 800,000 died in the North West Provinces, Punjab, and Rajasthan in 1837–38; perhaps 2 million in the same region in 1860–61; nearly a million in different areas in 1866–67; 4.3 million in widely spread areas in 1876–78, an additional 1.2 million in the North West Provinces and Kashmir in 1877–78; and, worst of all, over 5 million in a famine that affected a large population of India in 1896–97. In 1899–1900 more than a million were thought to have died, conditions being worse because of the shortage of food following the famines only two years earlier. Thereafter the only major loss of life through famine was in 1943 under exceptional wartime conditions.(p. 132)" Quote: "Estimating the number of people who died as a result of a famine is not straightforward. Assumptions are required, and often they are not specified in detail and can be influenced by political considerations. However, for the 1876‒78 famine, towards the low end of the range Visaria and Visaria mention official estimates for British administered provinces which suggest that there were about 5.6 million ‘excess’ deaths. Towards the high end of the range, the campaigner William Digby—who witnessed the crisis in Madras Presidency—put the figure at 9.4 million for India. Between these numbers, a careful estimate by Arup Maharatna is that there were around 8.2 million deaths. (p. 137)" The excessive mortality and the renewed questions of "relief and protection" asked in its wake, led directly to the constituting of the Famine Commission of 1880 and to the eventual adoption of the Indian Famine Codes. After the famine, a large number of agricultural labourers and handloom weavers in South India emigrated to British tropical colonies to work as
indentured labourers Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...
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 famine lives on in the Tamil and other literary traditions......panchalakshna tirumugavilasam, a satire published in 1899, composed by Villiappa Pillai, one of the court poets of Sivagangai. This narrative piece full of humour and biting irony deals in ca.4500 lines with the conditions of the people suffering in the great famine of 1876... God Sunderesvara of Madurai pleads his helplessness in solving the problems of inhabitants hit by the famine.. A large number of '' Kummi'' folk songs describing this famine have been documented. The Great Famine had 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 and
A. O. Hume Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British civil servant, political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was the founder of the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hum ...
. Less than a decade later, they would found the Indian National Congress and, in turn, influence a generation of
Indian nationalist Indian nationalism is an instance of territorial nationalism, which is inclusive of all of the people of India, despite their diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. Indian nationalism can trace roots to pre-colonial India, b ...
s. Among the latter were
Dadabhai Naoroji Dadabhai Naoroji (4 September 1825 – 30 June 1917) also known as the "Grand Old Man of India" and "Unofficial Ambassador of India", was an Indian political leader, merchant, scholar and writer who served as 2nd, 9th, and 22nd President of t ...
and Romesh Chunder Dutt for whom the ''Great Famine'' would become a cornerstone of the economic critique of the British Raj.


See also

*
Indian famine of 1896–1897 The Indian famine of 1896–1897 was a famine that began in Bundelkhand, India, early in 1896 and spread to many parts of the country, including the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Berar, Bihar, parts of the Bombay and Madras p ...
*
Indian famine of 1899–1900 The Indian famine of 1899–1900 began with the failure of the summer monsoons in 1899 over Western and Central India and, during the next year, affected an area of and a population of 59.5 million. The famine was acute in the Central Provinc ...
*
Timeline of major famines in India during British rule The timeline of major famines in India during British rule covers major famines on the Indian subcontinent from 1765 to 1947. The famines included here occurred both in the princely states (regions administered by Indian rulers), British India ...
* Company rule in India * Famine in India * Drought in India *
Great Famine (Ireland) The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...
*
Bengal famine of 1943 The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal and eastern India) during World War II. An estimated 0.8 to 3.8 million Bengalis perished, out of a population of 60.3 millio ...
* El Niño–Southern Oscillation * William Digby * Late Victorian Holocausts * Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879 *
Great Eastern Crisis The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–78 began in the Ottoman Empire's territories on the Balkan peninsula in 1875, with the outbreak of several uprisings and wars that resulted in the intervention of international powers, and was ended with the T ...


Notes


References

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Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Great Famine of 1876-1878 Famines in British India Famines in India 1870s in British India 1876 in India 1877 in India 1878 in India History of Chennai 1876 natural disasters 1877 natural disasters 1878 natural disasters History of Andhra Pradesh Disasters in Andhra Pradesh History of Karnataka History of Tamil Nadu Disasters in Tamil Nadu Natural disasters in Maharashtra 19th-century famines