INDIAN FAMINE CODE-1883

2.3. HISTORY

Submitted by

Piyush Ashok Rewatkar

UID No. UG2016-38

Submitted to

Dr. S. Srinivasa Rao, Assistant Professor of History

Dr. V.P. Tiwari, Assistant Professor of Law

Academic Year: 2016-2017

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, NAGPUR

 Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................. 3

2. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY ............................................................................... 5

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 5

3. SOURCES OF DATA....................................................................................... 5

4. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY .................................................................... 5

5. ROOT CAUSES AND NATURE OF FAMINE .............................................. 6

5.1 MONEYLENDER: THE INDIAN PARASITE (Land Revenue) .................. 7

3. CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAMINE .......................................................... 10

4. RECOVERY FROM FAMINES .................................................................... 12

5. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 13
 1. INTRODUCTION

The Indian Famine Codes, developed by the colonial British in the 1880s, were one of
the earliest famine scales. “A famine is a widespread scarcity of food that may apply to any
faunal species. This phenomenon is usually accompanied and preceded by regional
malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality.”

In simpler words the Famine is a situation where most people don't have enough food to
eat. Without food, the human body grows weaker and weaker until the person becomes
very sick or dies.

Droughts becoming the root cause of famines. In turn droughts where there is a scarcity
of life giving water for the crops are usually the direct causes of crop failure in India. The
failure of the crops in turn leads to a scarcity of food in the affected area. Droughts are
themselves usually caused by the failure of monsoons.

Famine has been considered as a frequent characteristic in the history of India. However,
due to several reasons the magnitude of famine reached its optimum point in the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on south-west
summer monsoon which is sometimes crucial in securing water for cultivation and the
scarcity of which may lead to famine. In British period droughts, combined with mal-
administrative policies, have led to major Indian famines as the Central Indian famine (1868-
70), the Great Famine of 1876–78, severe starvation of 1896-97, etc. In Colonial rule
agricultural labourers, cultivators and rural artisans remained primary victims of famines.
Historical evidence portrays that famines in Colonial India resulted in more than 60 million
deaths over the course of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Famines in
British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long-term population
growth of the country.

After 1947, India focused on institutional reforms in agricultural sector. However, even
this failed to break the pattern of stagnation. It was not until the 1970s when there was
massive public investment in agriculture and India became free of famine. Florence
Nightingale, an English social reformer 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 an absence of a political
and social structure. Nightingale identified two types of famine as Grain famine and Money
famine. Grain famine is the absence of normal agricultural production caused by
unfavourable monsoons. On the contrary, Money famine is an artificial food scarcity which
was formulated by the drainage of money from the peasant to the British government in lieu
of land revenue or the money was drained to landlord to repay the debt. On both the
conditions, it was impossible for the peasant to procure food. Money which should have
been made available to the producers of food (farmers) was diverted to other uses.
 2. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The general objective of this study is to investigate major famines in India. In

particular, this proposed study seeks to achieve the following objectives.

- To trace the history and coming up of famines in India

- To analyse the institutional and legal framework of famines.

- To examine all the aspects related to famine code, which were there at the
time of Britishers in India.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In order to approach the prescribed objectives of study, doctrinal model of research
methodology is proposed, intensive literature review on the subject will be applied and the
issues under study would be examined in a systematic manner. The broad facets of the study
are indicated in terms of proposed chapter in the substantive sections of this proposal. The
study will involve:

1. Study and detailed analysis of the features of the famines.

2. This doctrinal work adopted for the writing of research work is both analytical and
descriptive. The researcher will make an effort to critically examine the primary
sources like reports of the committees and commissions besides the secondary
sources like books, articles, journals, newspapers and e-resources. E-resources have
majorly contributed in research for getting the most relevant and latest information
on the web which has helped the researcher to explore the subject through various
dimensions.

3. SOURCES OF DATA

For this research work there are available like offline as well as online data is
available. They are well used during this project work.

4. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Since, the presented research work deals with the concept of famines in the perspective
of Indian view only hence the research wok is limited to famines in India only. This project
work encompasses various views and perspectives of famines.
 5. ROOT CAUSES AND NATURE OF FAMINE

There are mainly two causes along with other small causes and they are:
1. Droughts
2. Land revenue system-
To keep paying the extortionate tax demands the farmers were permanently caught in
deep debt of money lenders. They had to sell even their reserve food stocks just to stay
afloat. This left the farmers with no safeguard when famines hit them.
These two of the main reasons for famines along with other reasons are well discussed as
follows
The Famine Codes defined three levels of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity, and
famine. "Scarcity" was defined as three successive years of crop failure, crop yields of one-
third or one-half normal and large populations in distress. "Famine" further included a rise in
food prices to above 140% of "normal", the movement of people in search of food, and
widespread mortality.1
In pre British period, tax collection was flexible and kept in line with the
circumstances of the day.” The amount of tax traditionally paid by the farmer under the
Mughal Empire was between 30-40% of the gross agricultural produce. Again this was
flexible depending on the conditions prevailing. In case of crops failure the demand of the
state would be reduced or in some cases suspended for the time being.”2
After East India Company became virtual mentor of India, Bengal was the first to
feel the devastating effects of the British rule. The principle cause is drought. Throughout the
whole of India the majority of the population have been and still remain agriculturists.
Probably never less than 70% of Indian families have collected their food from the fields,
which they themselves plough and sow despite the enormous developments in irrigation;
most of the peasants remain dependent on the monsoon rains to ripen the seed. All over the
country the arrival of the monsoon is awaited with fear and anxiety for, although the
monsoon never fails over the whole of India, it may fail over a wide area and condemn as
many as 50 million people to hunger and possible starvation. The variability of the monsoon
rains is characteristic.

1
Brennan, L (1984), "The development of the India Famine Codes: personalities, policies and politics", in
Currey, Bruce; Hugo, Graeme, Famine as a geographical phenomenon, GeoJournal library, Volume 1
(Illustrated ed.), Springer, pp. 91–110, ISBN 90-277-1762-1
2
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Indian_Famine_Codes
 “A failure may mean a total rainfall over a large area of only 20% of normal
expectation, it is important to remember that there are good years as well as bad and that the
monsoon failure is never universal. In theory, therefore, the farmer can always store grain
against a bad year or, in time of drought, purchase grain from an unaffected area. Famine
relief has always been aimed at facilitating one or both of these alternatives. In practice at all
times, and especially today, there are so many mouths to feed that even in good years the
surplus of grain is small and poverty so widespread that little money is available for the
purchase of foods from a distance. Thus overpopulation and poverty are evils, which may
precipitate disaster from even a small failure of the monsoon. Even parts of the country
where crops have been good may be reduced to want by huge migrations of wanderers from
famine areas. Wars, especially civil wars, aggravate the effects of a lack of rain and have
often converted a scarcity into a Famine.
Drought or scarcity of water leads to crop failure resulting in famine ultimately.
Droughts are usually caused by the failure of monsoons. Tirthankar Roy a professor of
economic history suggests that the famines in India were the result of environmental factors
inherent in India's ecology as scarcity of water, poor quality of soil, unproductive livestock
and obsolete cultivation practices and techniques.3

5.1 MONEYLENDER: THE INDIAN PARASITE (Land Revenue)

“The Indian society had passed through numerous phases of change. In its long and
chequered history, there have been periods of progress, regeneration and reform, as well as
periods of decay, dissolution and degeneration. The eighteenth century witnessed the latter
characteristics.”4 While in Europe it was the age of enlightenment, in India, it was a period
of stagnation. The village communities became more and more isolated and closed, and their
social life became more static. The increasing ineptness forced the farmers to sell their 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. Hence, the previously self sufficient and self
dependent farmer was forced to work as labourer on his own land. 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.
The crucial effect of this taxation pattern was to wipe out the saving capability of the
farmers in years when the harvests were good. Unable to withstand the torture meted out by
the British on non payment of taxes many farmers abandoned their lands and fled into the

3
https://www.britannica.com/science/famine#ref1007454
4
a14.139.60.114:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/715/18/The%20Famine%20Code.pdf
areas ruled by the Princely states. Millions of acres of previously fertile land went out of
cultivation as farmers abandoned their lands.

“The British rulers emphasized on the concept of white man’s burden in a number of
ways to justify their colonial rule in India.”5 They emphasized that the British policies and
programmes would benefit the Indian peasantry along with various Indian groups. A number
of land reforms were introduced with the expectation that these reforms would help peasants
in different ways. But all these reforms produced negative consequences and resulted in
large-scale exploitation of peasants.

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.
In the British Raj there was no such humanitarian response to the life threatening
crises faced by the Indian farmer. After the political subjection of India, the Colonial
government carved the Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari Settlement and Mahalwaribandobast
(Mahalwari settlement), in-order to collect land revenue. In order to extract more and more
revenue, the Colonial government introduced several land revenue or taxation patterns. All
such administrative innovations were aimed to squeeze out the last drop of blood and last
penny from the cultivators of India. Under these mechanisms, the government collected
more than 70-80% of gross agricultural production as land revenue. But this tax was not the
end of all misery. More to land revenue there were different taxes for roads, schools, post
offices, dispensary, water resources, etc. “Taxes were levied heavily and the poor farmer had
no protection against the brutal collection procedures. All these miscellaneous taxes
amounted nearly 100% of the total production of a farmer. The worst thing was that the
British government would confiscate food stocks at the time of revenue collection.” 6 The
ryots (farmers) had no option but to borrow money at rip off interest rates from money
lenders to release their grain stocks. “The case of Bengal is illuminating to show how the
British bled Indians even when farmers had nothing to eat. The British attitude towards tax
and revenue extraction remained virtually unchanged till they left India.”7

5
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/brief-essay-on-the-impact-of-famine-policy-on-rural-india/4039/
6
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=467VlNK6YfUC&pg=PA282&lpg=PA282&dq=indian+famine+code&s
ource=bl&ots=W5NX8Mgv93&sig=vhw__6wOCMgzm7Oa8qOLRhfBtfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdj
bGyycvSAhVBULwKHXsgDScQ6AEITjAJ#v=onepage&q=indian%20famine%20code&f=false
7
http://14.139.60.114:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/715/18/The%20Famine%20Code.pdf
 To keep paying the extortionate tax demands the farmers were permanently caught in
deep debt of money lenders. They had to sell even their reserve food stocks just to stay
afloat. This left the farmers with no safeguard when famines hit them. “With every passing
year the farmers sank deeper into desperate poverty and further into the clutches of money
lenders. Every year millions of farmers were dispossessed of their land. The British tyrants
and the Indian traitors who collaborated with them forced the farmers to sell their seeds
required for the next harvest and made immense profits by manipulating the prices of life
saving grain. Thus on one hand farmers were deprived of their sole source of future
sustenance and on the other hand the sky rocketing prices of food made it impossible to buy
life saving food grains.”8

8
https://jambudveep.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/an-explanatory-note-on-the-famines-in-india/
 3. CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAMINE

We know that the famine, in simpler term, is a widespread scarcity of food grains. This
phenomenon is usually followed by malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, increased mortality
rate and stagnant population growth.9
The famine in resulted in the following and as well as more harsh consequences
1. Sufferings:
The famines caused the lots sufferings to the people as sufferings being economic moreover
the sufferings were of hunger due to the scarcity and non availability of the food material
2. Death:
These sufferings also resulted in the death of lot of the people mainly because of the hunger
and not getting any food to eat during the famine.
3. Hunger- Cannibalism:
Hunger most of the times also resulted in cannibalism i.e human eating human’s flesh due to
the hunger and that is also because of the hunger.
4. Destroyed peace in the society:
These all things were resulted into destroying the peace in the society. People were
searching the food material for any cost but the condition was that the food material was not
at all available that indirectly destroyed peace in the society.
The horrors of the British made holocausts destroyed traditional Indian social web
and attitude of the society. The environment of fear and insecurity created a feeling of
revenge and violence in every nook and corner of the country. “The village communities
who had existed peacefully for centuries turned on each other for that last piece of food and
grain. Terrible violence followed the famines where the farmers fought for the last stored
supplies of grain. There were terrible peasantry riots after the holocausts of 1876 and 1898-
1902 in the respective regions. The condition of Indian women under the British regime was
especially bad, but under famine it became even worse. Sexual abuse, rape and exploitation
of Indian women were accepted norms in British practices.”10 The British officials and
historians portrayed Indian women as prostitutes and carriers of sexually transmitted
diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea, etc. In times of famine desperate starving Indian
women were forced to work as prostitutes for the survival of her family.
“Man made famines, of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, immensely affected
the economy and had a substantial impact on the long term population growth of the country.

9
http://historytuition.com/famines_and_british-rule/index.html
10
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/brief-essay-on-the-impact-of-famine-policy-on-rural-india/4039/
Due to the horrific death toll extracted by the successive holocausts population growth
stagnated and many areas of India even went into negative. As the second decade of
twentieth century approached, the average life span of Indians went on steadily
decreasing.”11
“Under the British rule population growth rate of India was more or less stagnant. Over a
period of 70 years the population grew by barely 100 million. The census reports of 1881,
1901 and 1921 also support the data of stagnation. After the attainment of independence in
1947, the responsible Indian government carved out the safeguard measures for Indian
population. Consequently, the stagnant population growth rate accelerated.”12
The recurring famines of 19th century were the inevitable consequences of the
British policies and exposed the real character of the British administration for Indian
peasantry. Famine refers to the condition of large scale mortality due to the non-availability
of food to the people .The history of British rule in India was characterized by number of
recurring famines and these famines were the essential consequences of character of British
rule in India.

11
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-009-6395-5_6
12
http://www.wikivisually.com/wiki/Indian_Famine_Codes
 4. RECOVERY FROM FAMINES

“In order to address the issues of famine in India they created an Indian Famine
commission to create ways to prevent and avoid future famine in India. So in 1880 the
secretary of commission wrote a draft of the Indian Famine Code. This famine code became
the basis of famine prevention until the 1970s.”13 More famine codes were created after the
Indian Famine Codes but they addressed similar ideas that the Indian one did, the Indian
Famine code was the foundation of multiple famine codes scales. Famine codes and scales
measure the intensity and magnitude of the famine. This famine code was one of the first
attempts to predict famine, and by predicting it, prevent it.

When the British created these 'Indian Famine Codes' they were the first modern
reaction to the famines in India. The codes classified food scarcity on a scale of intensity and
had steps that governments were required taking to mitigate the risk of famine.14

“The large-scale loss of life due to the series of famines was the cause of political
controversy and discussion which led to the formation of the Indian Famine Commission
(1880). This commission spoke for the draft of Indian Famine Code.”15 The Famine
Commission studied the cultivation patterns, practices and agricultural production in India.
“The result of the Famine Commission was a series of guidelines and regulations on how to
respond to famines and food shortages, which were termed as the Famine Code. The Famine
Code was finally passed in 1883 by a liberal minded viceroy, Lord Ripon (1880-84).”16
“When the British created these 'Indian Famine Codes' they were the first modern
reaction to the famines in India. The codes classified food scarcity on a scale of intensity and
had steps that governments were required taking to mitigate the risk of famine.”17
Though British government initiated number of steps but these steps failed to improve the
condition of Indian masses in any way.

13
http://www.wikivisually.com/wiki/Indian_Famine_Codes
14
"Historical responses to famine".Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 8 October 2009
15
http://holisticthought.com/india-under-the-british-lord-lytton/
16
http://quikrexam.in/famines-and-british-rule-in-india/
17
http://www.preservearticles.com/2012031527452/the-development-of-the-famine-policy-of-the-british-in-
india-between-1876-and-1921.html
 5. CONCLUSION

From this research work I came to know that the famines in Colonial India were
result of both unfavourable monsoon and British economic and administrative policies.
Colonial polices, directly or indirectly, focused on free trade practice, the expansion of
agricultural export and the neglect of agricultural investment in India. Indian exports of
opium, rice, wheat, jute, indigo and cotton were prominent component of the British
economy which aimed to generate vital foreign currency. The export of agricultural products
led to food crises or famines. More to the unfavourable monsoons and ill administrative
policies the introduction of railway infrastructure in India proved to be catalyst in the
occurrence of famine. Members of the British administrative machinery also exposed that
the larger market created by railway transport encouraged poor peasants to sell off their
reserve stocks of grain. Thus, we find that both nature and British mis-governance were
responsible for some of the worst famines India has to suffer.

In short if we have to say about the famine policy of Britishers then famines were not
less than genocides by the Britishers. I reached to my research objective from this research
work.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books Referred
1. Bipan Chandra, History of Modern India, 2016 edition.
2. V.D.Mahajan, Modern Indian History,2014 edition.
Websites referred
1. https://books.google.co.in
2. http://www.wikivisually.com
3. http://quikrexam.in
4. http://holisticthought.com
5. http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com
6. https://www.britannica.com
7. https://jambudveep.wordpress.com
8. http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com