Famines and Their Causes

PART FIVE

“The test of a people’s prosperity is not the extension of exports, the multiplication of manufactures, or other industries, the construction of cities. No. A prosperous country is one in which the great mass of the inhabitants are able to procure with moderate toil, what is necessary for living human lives, lives of frugal and assured comfort. Judged by this criterion, can India be called prosperous?

“Comfort of course is a relative term. In a tropical country like India, the standard is very low. Little clothing is required,—simple diet suffices. An unfailing well full of water, a plot of land and a bit of orchard—these will satisfy his heart’s desire, if needed, you add the cattle needful to him. Such is the ryot’s ideal—very few realise it. Millions of peasants in India are struggling to live on half an acre. Their existence is a constant struggle with starvation, ending too often in defeat. Their difficulty is not to live human lives,—lives up to the level of their poor standard of comfort,—but to live at all, and not die. We may well say that in India, except in the irrigated tracts, famine is chronic—endemic.” —“India and Its Problems,” by W. S. Lily, pp. 284-85.

CHAPTER X

FAMINES AND THEIR CAUSES

Famines in the Past

“The famines of India are among the most startling phenomena of our time. They seem to be steadily increasing both in frequency and severity. During the last forty years of the nineteenth century,— from 1860-1900,— India was smitten by not less than ten famines of great magnitude, causing a loss of life that has been conservatively estimated at 15,000,000. These figures are appalling. Such a condition of things naturally awakens the sympathy of the whole world.”

Statements like this made by the Rev. Dr. Sunderland of New York, have forced British Imperialists to extenuate their position in the eyes of the nations, by citing the frequency of famines in India in pre-British days, and by the fact that under the old economic order, famines were not unknown in England and France. Sir Theodore Morison, Member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India, opens his chapter on famines in his book called “The Economic Transition in India,” by the remark that “dearth or famine, at irregular intervals, was inseparably connected with conditions which determined the old economic order” (page 92). He then proceeds with an account of the English famine of 1586, and the French famines of 1675 and 1699,— following with a description of the Indian famines of pre-British days. Four pages have been devoted to extracts from the diary of " the blunt English sailor, Peter Lundy,” about the famine of 1630; four more to extracts from British documents about famines in Madras from 1709 to 1752; thereafter proceeding with extreme brevity to describe the terrible famines of 1770, 1783, 1790-92, and 1837, during the British occupation. Famines during the latter part of the century are described in a page and a half of generalities, although the greatest famines of the century occurred during its latter half. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the nature of Indian famines and what has been done by the British Government to prevent them.

In a paper entitled " Some Plain Facts About Famines in India," read before, and published by the East India Association of London,— Hindu legends, and the great epics, the Mahabbarata and the Ramayana were requisitioned to prove that " severe famines occurred between 1107 and 1143 A.D." A southern tradition was vaguely quoted to establish the fact of a " twelve years’ famine," time and place not stated. To these statistics is appended a list of famines during the Mogul dynasty, 1596-1792, itemised as follows:

Sixteenth century, two famines. Seventeenth century, two famines. Eighteenth century, four famines (two of which fell within the time of British occupation).

Mr. Digby’s Table

The following list of Indian famines of the past, made by Mr. William Digby, is however, more accurate and includes every famine known to Indian history.

11th century………Two famines, both local 13th century………One famine around Delhi, local 14th century………Three famines, all local 15th century………Two famines, both local 16th century………Three famines, all local 17th century………Three famines, area not defined 18th century (to 1745) Four famines, all local The last thirty years of the 18th century. 1769–1800………..Four famines, Bengal, Madras, Bombay and southern India.

Famines of the 19th century and loss of life thereby; divided into four periods of 25 years: 1800–1825, five famines….Approx. 1,000,000 deaths 1826–1850 two famines…. " 500,000 " 1851–1875, six famines….Recorded 5,000,000 " 1876–1900, EIGHTEEN FAMINES, Estimated 26,000,000 deaths.

“The foregoing official figures show over one million deaths per annum during the last ten years, or two British-Indian subjects passed away from starvation, or starvation-induced diseases, every minute of every day and night, from Jan. 1, 1889, to Sept. 30, 1901! Nevertheless, only a few persons in the United Kingdom are doing aught to prevent the continuance of such an awful state of things, and the Secretary of State for India ‘stands amazed at the prosperity’ of the region he is governing.”¹

Digby’s " Prosperous British India."

The author of “Prosperous British India” then adds (pages 137–139):

" Are Indian famines more destructive to human life now than in ancient days? Yes — they were more destructive within the famine areas until ‘76–78; since then, the Famine Code, when acted upon, as it mercifully was in 1901, checks mortality. The extent of the relief administered may be judged when, in the district of Raipur, forty inhabitants out of every hundred were on relief. As much time and energy given to devising means of prevention as have been devoted to relief measures, would ere this have stopped famines. There are districts in Bombay, in which, despite the Famine Code, people died like flies. Meanwhile, the Census Returns have been published:

1891 Total population of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287,223,431 1901 Gov’t estimate of normal increase as it should be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330,306,945 1901 Population as it actually was . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294,000,000

" The Indian special correspondent of the Lancet, writing to that journal May 16, 1901, put the loss of life at 19,000,000 people. To quote:

" ’ During the last decade, it is estimated that the total population of India has only increased by 2,800,000 (?) a rate considerably less than that of the previous decade. Two causes only can affect the numbers of people; a diminished birth-rate — at the outside, 20 per cent. could be put down to this cause. An enhanced mortality must be the chief factor. It is estimated there were 20,000,000 more deaths than there should have been, and if we put 1,000,000 deaths down to plague, there remain 19,000,000 that can be attributed either to actual starvation or diseases therefrom.’

" This statement by what is probably the foremost medical journal in the world, means that the loss of life thus recorded represented ’the disappearance’ of fully one-half a population as large as that of the United Kingdom."

Famines in the Twentieth Century

Table has been fromatted for readability.

“In 1907-8 a widespread failure of the autumn harvest, and serious reductions in the area and out turn of the spring crop forced large numbers to resort to Government Relief. The executive was faced with the necessity of providing direct measures of famine relief in an area of 66,000 square miles with a population of 30,000,000. Gratuitous relief continued till the end of August.”

Thus the general famine of 1907 persisted in large districts until 1909. Bengal, Behar, Central Provinces with Berar, Assam and Bombay, all felt the effects and suffered acutely, most of them having relief works and gratuitous relief grants until 1909.

In 1911 the rainfall failed over a considerable area in Gujrat in the Bombay Presidency and also in 1912 in the Ahmednagar District of the Bombay Deccan. Again rains failed over large areas in the United Provinces in 1913-14. This famine affected 17,000 square miles with a population of five and a quarter millions while distress was grave in 30,000 square miles with a population of fourteen millions. There was acute distress in parts of Bengal in 1914-15, yet the export of grain from India was never stopped.

Famines During the British Period

Critics of British rule in India argue:

1. That famines have been more frequent under British domination.

2. That there have been a larger number of “general” famines, during British rule, than were ever known before in Indian history.

3. That though Indian famines are primarily due sometimes to failure of monsoons, and at other times to floods and other causes beyond the control of man, yet the widespread distress and huge mortalities that have followed the failure of monsoons during British occupation are to a great extent due to the economic effects of Great Britain’s fiscal policy in India, which annihilated indigenous industries, exacted exorbitant land revenues and impoverished the people.

4. That the development of railway systems with an eye to furthering British trade, has been pushed to the detriment of canal construction and other methods of irrigation.

5. That the widespread mortality and woful destitution of the people during famine periods are preventable.

6. That famine conditions are now chronic in India.

7. That the Indian famines of modern times are not famines of foodstuffs, but of money — there being at all times sufficient food in the country to feed the entire population, had the people the wherewithal to buy it at the prices demanded by export-merchants and dealers.

The facts for the famines of the decade 1900 to 1910 are taken from the government Blue Books. In the majority of the reports the mortality is neither given nor estimated. The facts, however, speak for themselves; famine or scarcity over all, or a large part of India, every year, from 1901 to 1910. To a people ravaged by starvation and disease, the decrease in powers of resistance necessarily increases mortality lists. In the year 1899–1900, one of the greatest famine years of the century, more than a million persons died in British India alone. Preceded by the “exceeding great” famine of 1895–97, it proved, in Lord Curzon’s words, to be the “most terrible famine in Indian history.” Crops, and incidental losses were estimated to be not less than £150,000,000;² the total admitted loss of life in forty-seven years, from 1854 to 1901, was 28,825,000 persons!

Causes of Famines

The British Imperialist ascribes Indian famines to the following causes:

(1) Shortage of rainfall and other natural causes. (2) Overpopulation. (3) Lack of thrift by the Indian ryot in years of prosperity, particularly on the occasions of marriages and funerals.

All of these ostensible causes have been examined from time to time, by honest and disinterested Britishers, actuated by humane motives. Most prominent and often most outspoken among them have been those who served their Government in India in various capacities. Their observations are based, not on casual trips of a few days or months, but on periods of service extending over twenty-five and thirty years, or longer. Various Americans have examined the facts about Indian famines, and pronounced themselves in agreement with these British humanitarians, as to their real cause.

Shortage of Rainfall

On page 140 of his book, “Prosperous British India,” Mr. Digby propounds the question:

“Why is it India is more liable to devastation by famine than are other countries? Answer: Not because rains fail and moisture is denied; always in the worst of years there is water enough poured from the skies on Indian soil, to germinate and ripen the grain,—but because India is steadily growing poorer.”

For detailed information on this point, and an analysis of rain registers for nearly ninety years, Mr. Digby refers the reader to a chapter in the life of Sir Arthur Cotton (Hodder & Stoughton, London) entitled, “Is famine in India due to an insufficiency of Land?”

Says the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, of New York:

“It is generally supposed that famines in India are always in years of very light rainfall; this is a great mistake—they are often years of very heavy rainfall. The only trouble is, the rain comes too early, too late, or too much at a time, and is not stored. The water is allowed to go to waste for lack of storage, hence there is disaster. The year of the great Madras famine of 1877 was one with the enormous rainfall of sixty-six inches. In the year of the Orissa famine, 1865–66, the rainfall was sixty inches. In the Bombay famine of 1876 the rainfall of the year was fifty inches. In the famine of 1896–97 in the Central Provinces, the record of the two years was fifty-two and forty-two inches. In the great famine year, 1900, the average rainfall where the famine was most severe was, (I omit fractions) Northwestern Provinces, thirty-two inches; Punjab, eighteen inches; Central Provinces, fifty-two inches; Central India, thirty-six inches; Rajputana, twenty inches; Berar, thirty-one inches; Bombay, forty inches. Thus we see, in most instances, the real lack is not rain, it is storage. Says Major Philip B. Phipson, and few persons can speak with more authority: ‘The water supply of India is ample for all requirements; it only requires to be diverted from her rivers, stored up from her rainfall, and distributed over her fields, to secure such an abundance as shall leave no single human being wanting it.’”³

Are the Famines of India Due to Over-Population?

This question also may best be answered in the language of Dr. Sunderland:

“Very little study of the facts furnishes an answer to this question. The population of India is not so dense as in a number of the European States, which are prosperous, which have no difficulty in supporting their people, and in which famines are never dreamed of. Nor is the birthrate high in India. It is less than in England, and much less than in Germany and other Continental countries. India is not overpopulated.⁴ Even under present conditions, she produces more than enough food for all her people. Were her agricultural possibilities properly developed, she could easily support a greatly increased population. There are enormous areas of waste land that should be brought under cultivation.⁵ The Hon. D. M. Hamilton, in his speech in the Viceroy’s Council on the Indian Budget for 1904, declared that there are a hundred million acres of cultivable land still available in India. In these very large reclaimable areas, and in the opportunities for the extension of irrigation already referred to, we have ample provision for increase in India’s population.

“But beyond these is another resource still greater. Long ago, Sir James Caird urged upon the Indian Government the necessity for better agricultural methods, calling attention to the fact that a single additional bushel per acre raised by the ryot would mean food for another 22,000,000 people. But the addition of a bushel per acre is only a beginning of what might be done. Here is a resource practically inexhaustible, which, added to the others, makes the suggestion that population outstrips agricultural possibilities, and that therefore, famines are inevitable, positively ludicrous.”

The following figures support Mr. Sunderland’s conclusion:

The following table (Hazells " Annual " for 1917) supports Dr. Sunderland’s statement:

The population of Russia is said to be increasing at the rate of 2,500,000 a year. The total population, in 1916, was 182,182,600. Comparing the pressure of population per square mile we find that while the United Kingdom has a population of 374 per square mile; Austria 222; Belgium 658; Denmark 280; France 193; German Empire 311; Hungary 270; Italy 315; Japan 356; Netherlands 607; Switzerland 236; India has only 158. Then Japan with a density of population twice as great as that of India and only one-sixth of her area arable does not suffer from famines.

Should the reader enquire at this point, why Indian agriculture is still primitive, the reply is,— want of capital.⁶

Are Famines Due to Scarcity of Food?

Says Dr. Sunderland: “But even under present conditions, with irrigation as imperfectly developed as now, and so large a part of the rainfall wasted, India is one of the greatest food-producing lands. No matter how severe the drought may be in some parts, there is never a time when India as a whole does not produce food enough for all her people. Indeed, in her worst famine years, she exports food. In her worst famine years there is plenty of food to be obtained, and in the famine areas themselves, for those who have money to buy with. This the Famine Commissioners themselves have told us.”

Says Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., in “The Awakening of India,” page 163: “In studying famines, one must begin by grasping what it is and how it presents itself. Even in the worst times there is no scarcity of grain in the famine stricken districts. At the very worst time in the Gujerat famine of 1900, it was shown by the official returns that there was ‘sufficient grain to last for a couple of years in the hands of the grain dealers of the district. It is, therefore, not a scarcity of grain that causes famines.’ In recent times, famine has been caused by a destruction of capital and the consequent cessation of the demand for labour.” High prices coincide with low wages, and unemployment, and the people starve in the midst of plenty.”

Is the Distress Due to the Extravagance of the Ryot on Occasions of Marriages and Funerals?

The reports of the government enquiry in 1887-88 repudiate this theory. Says Mr. Digby:

“Taking the first twenty cases exactly as they appear in the record of the Government enquiry in which reference is made to indebtedness, they do not sustain the assertion of the Lieutenant-Governor. In only two of these cases are marriage and family expenses put down as the occasion of indebtedness. In one case, the amount was the trifle of Rs. 10, half already repaid in monthly instalments of one rupee. That is to say, 10 per cent. of borrowings only, are specifically for marriage purposes. In the Punjab, Mr. Thorburn’s particulars compare not unfavourably: ‘Of seven hundred and forty-two families, only in three cases was marriage extravagance the cause of their serious indebtedness.’ The common idea about the extravagance of marriage is not supported by evidence. Unnecessary marriage expenses show a tendency year by year to decrease. This is susceptible of statistical proof:

Average: less than 8%

Mr. Loveday has also incidentally spoken of the extravagance of the Indian ryot. Examining into the causes of the ryot’s indebtedness he says: “Temptations to unnecessary extravagance have been accompanied in some instances by a growing pressure from above for rent, by an inelastic demand for land revenue and to a less degree in the more distant parts, by an insecurity from enhanced assessments (page 131).

The True Cause

We have laboured in vain if the reader is not in a position, after these citations, to judge for himself. The question: what causes Indian famines? is best answered in the language of the American gentleman quoted above. Says Dr. Sunderland:

“What then is the cause of the famines in India? The real cause is the extreme poverty of the people. It is a poverty so severe, that it keeps a majority of all on the verge of suffering even in years of plenty, and prevents them from laying up anything to tide them over in years of scarcity. If their conditions were such that in good seasons they could get a little ahead, in the bad years they could draw upon that as a resource. This would not save them from hardship, but it would from starvation. But as things are, the vast majority have no such resource.”

“If the poor sufferers are so fortunate as to be received by the government at the famine relief works, where, in return for exacting labour in breaking stone, or similar work, they are supplied with sufficient means to buy food to sustain life, then the hardiest of them survive until the rains come, when, with depleted strength they go back to their stripped homes, and barehanded, begin as best they can to raise a new crop and support such members of their family as may be left. Here we have the real cause of the famines in India.”

FAMINE RELIEF

As to famine relief, the work of the English deserves ungrudging praise.⁷ They have reduced it to a science. One is sorry the brain, the energy, the talent, the zeal employed in saving life and ameliorating distress, should not have been spent in preventing famines, instead of in systematising relief. The demoralising effect of such relief cannot be sufficiently appreciated by the foreigner. India has perhaps the largest number of professional beggars in the world, yet the average Indian, be he Hindu or Mohammedan, hates nothing so much as accepting charity. The middle class Hindu would rather die than let his wants be known and relieved by a stranger. This systematic relief of the British is undermining the innate fineness of feeling and converting the people into a horde of “shameless beggars” (according to English interpretation). It is true the money spent in famine relief comes from the pockets of Indians, it is all money that has been wrung from the people at one time or another, in various ingenious ways. But all the masses feel and know is that they receive charity in small doles; it is that consciousness that demoralises them. Says Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., in his “Awakening of India”:

“In their strenuous efforts to provide relief when famine is upon the land, our officers are above praise. The story of famine relief in India will shine with a bright glow, after many other achievements of ours have ceased to emit a beam of light. . . . Yet this relief work, so unlike the charity which India has been accustomed to dispense, has had a solvent effect on Indian social organisation. It tends to pauperise the people, to make them lose their self-respect; it damaged the status of some; it destroyed the morals of others. Indeed the coarsening and degrading effects which come from relief works are the same in India as they are at home.”

The present writer has had personal experience in famine relief, having organised private relief works for orphans and other famine stricken people, during three of the most disastrous of these periods that occurred within the last twenty-five years : the famines of 1897, 1899 and 1907-08. He travelled widely over famine-stricken areas in the superintendence of relief, and can assert from personal experience that the “coarsening and degrading,” and the utter demoralisation that results from the British system of famine relief, beggars description. Mr. MacDonald adds:

“Over and over again, Government has been warned that its duty is not to relieve, but to prevent, and the only way to prevent is to strengthen the economic position of the cultivator, mainly by extricating him from the financial meshes in which he lives, and to give support, as far as possible, to the old economy by encouraging its methods of mutual helpfulness.”

Let us examine what has been, or is being done, by way of prevention.

Building of Railways

“In one way,” says Mr. MacDonald, “railways have added to the difficulty and have widened the apparent famine area. In the first place, they are the means by which the export of Indian grain is carried on. No one who has not been in India and seen the workings of the system, from the great granaries at Karachee to the agencies in every little village having a surplus of anything to be sent away,⁸ can grasp the colossal nature of the export organisation. One firm alone saps the blood of Indian life like a tropical sun, leaving dust and barrenness (it might be added, destitution) behind.

“A week or two after harvest, India’s surplus (?) wheat and rice have passed into the hands of dealers, and when the monsoon fails, she starves. The cultivator used to have reserves. He has practically none now. He has a little money, but not much, and it is just this turning everything into cash which is the source of so much of his trouble.⁹ When famine overtook India in olden times, if the famine stricken tract was in distress, neighbouring tracts were little affected, owing to lack of communication, thus preventing famine influences from affecting neighbouring markets. The means which relieve famine widen its influence, because scarcity in one part immediately puts up prices in another, and deepens poverty everywhere. The poison which used to be virulent but local, is now milder but carried further through the system.”

Says Sir B. Fuller in “The Empire of India” (London, 1913), “Railways blunt the edge of famine but by equalizing prices cause general distress” (p. 67). He also remarks that during an Indian famine two-thirds of the Indian population lose their means of livelihood. See also A. Loveday, p. 107.

Building of Canals and Irrigation Works

The famine commission of 1878 recommended the building of canal and irrigation works as the most important step. This work was neglected, comparatively speaking, for a considerable period, and has only within this century received some attention. The figures of profits made by these canals tell their own astounding tale; the prices which the Government charges to reap such profits, can only be exorbitant. Mr. Thorburn, the retired Financial Commissioner of the Punjab, states in his book, “The Punjab in Peace and War,” written in 1904:

“The annual net return on the outlay on canals now averages 11 per cent. and in another decade may rise to 18 per cent. The Chenab Canal already gives this rate of interest.” (Page 275.)

The eastern Jumna Canal has been yielding a net revenue of from 20 to 25 per cent. throughout the decade 1901-11. The lower Chenab Canal yielded a net revenue of 34.06 per cent. on the capital investment in 1911-12. These figures show how relentlessly the water rates are assessed. In canal-irrigated areas, the cultivator has to pay three taxes: (a) Ordinary land revenue. (b) A water rate graded on the increase in price and productivity of the land caused by its inclusion in a canal zone,— called in Hindusthani, “Khush haisiyyati” or “water-advantages.” (c) The price of the water actually used.

Pressure on Land

Mr. Gait, I. C. S., admits frankly in his report on the census of 1911 that “there seems to be no doubt that the number of persons who live by cultivation is increasing at a relatively rapid rate.” Reviewing the increase or decrease of persons employed in industries he notices a fall of 6.1 per cent. in the number of persons supported by textile industries only during the decade 1901-11. There has been a similar decrease in the hides and skin industry and in workers in metals.

In 1911 there were 7113 factories in British India employing 2.1 million persons out of a total population of 244 millions, or 9 per mille. Of these, two-fifths of the total number were employed in growing special products, 558,000 in textile industries, 224,000 in mines, 125,000 in transport, 74,000 in food industries, 71,000 in metal industries, 49,000 in glass and earthenware industries, the same number in industries connected with chemical products, and 45,000 in industries of luxury.

The Opening of Agricultural Banks

This step was advocated as far back as 1884, and was promptly rejected by the Secretary of State. After a good deal of delay, cogitation and discussion, village co-operative societies were started in 1904. These are now to be found in every province “in a state of more or less vigour.” In 1914 there were 14,566 Co-operative Credit Societies in India, of which 13,715 had been started to provide agricultural credit. In an article contributed to the Calcutta Review Sir D. Hamilton states the total membership of the Co-operative Credit Societies as 750,000 with a capital of £5,000,000. Very properly he calls it a “mere drop in the ocean.”

Special Agrarian Legislation

As a palliative for the heavy indebtedness of the agriculturist, the result of a too-rigorous revenue system, a land-alienation act has been passed in the Punjab, prohibiting alienation of land by members of agricultural tribes, specially notified by the local government,— except to members of the same or other tribes so notified. This measure is of extremely doubtful utility. It has been denounced by British officers as unsound and mischievous, in its likelihood to absorb the holdings of many small peasant-proprietors into those of a few big landlords. There is a keen controversy over it, in the Punjab, but there is not space enough to include the arguments for or against it here. As a measure of famine prevention, it is useless.

The official reports give frequent expression to the growing prosperity of India, which are apt to mislead those who do not bear in mind real conditions of acute distress. The Blue Book for 1904–05 says of the districts of Agra and Oude: “THE YEAR ENDING SEPT. 30, 1904, WAS THE LAST OF A SERIES OF FAT YEARS!” These provinces had several famines in 1896–97–99 and 1900–01. This reduces the “series” to two or three years. Such general statements of prosperity made in official reports should be read with a great deal of discrimination, if not with actual distrust.

Footnotes