View source for Bengal: Famines, 1769-1899

=Famines=
In an agricultural country like Bengal the failure of the crops must 
always cause considerable distress, the degree of which varies with the 
nature and extent of the failure, the material condition 
of the people, and their character, and lastly the 
accessibility or otherwise of the tract affected. 

The great cause of deficient harvests is insufficient or badly distributed 
rainfall. Sometimes much damage is done by floods, and sometimes, 
though more rarely, by blight or locusts ; but in such cases the area 
affected is generally limited. 

The crop which is most sensitive to a short or badly distributed rain- 
fall is the winter rice, which requires copious showers in May and a 
punctual commencement of the monsoon, but is especially dependent 
on the continuance of the rainfall throughout September and the early 
days of October ; it is this crop which is most liable to fail in adverse 
seasons. It follows that, if the rainfall is uncertain, the tracts most 
liable to famine are those in which the winter rice is most largely grown. 
In the favoured Districts of Eastern Bengal the winter rice is the staple 
crop ; but there a serious failure of the annual rains is unknown, and 
the subsoil water-level is so high that, in years when the rainfall is only 
moderately deficient, the ground retains sufficient moisture to prevent 
anything approaching a total loss of the crops. 

The whole of the 
Dacca* and Chittagong* Divisions are therefore excluded from the list 
of tracts liable to famine. Here the only danger of disaster arises from 
the cyclonic storm-waves which, at intervals, burst over the country and 
carry in their train widespread ruin and desolation. In other parts of 
Bengal proper, where also the winter rice is as a rule the principal crop, 
the immunity from famine is less complete ; but the rainfall is usually 
ample, and the areas liable to famine are less extensive than in the 
other sub-provinces. From time to time the submontane tracts have 
been swept by disastrous floods ; and, when the embankments on the 
left bank of the Bhaglrathi give way, floods occasionally break across 
Murshidabad and Nadia Districts. The Damodar also sometimes 
inundates the country on its right bank. 

In Bihar the conditions north and south of the Ganges differ con- 
siderably. The latter has a more scanty rainfall ; but it enjoys an 
extensive system of irrigation, partly from the Son Canals constructed 
by the Government, and partly from reservoirs constructed by the ryots 
themselves on the slopes of the undulations which characterize that part 
of the country. A great variety of crops are grown, and it rarely happens 
that famine obtains a grip over any considerable area. North of the 
Ganges the rainfall is more copious than on the south bank, but it is 
more capricious than in Bengal proper. In Saran and the south of 
Muzaffarpur there is a good deal of irrigation from wells or streams, and 
the crops are divided almost equally among the three great harvests of 
the year, so that a total crop failure is practically impossible. Elsewhere, 
and especially in the northern part of Champaran, Muzaffarpur, and 
Darbhanga Districts, which borders on the Nepal tarai, winter rice is 
the main crop. In normal years the fertile soil yields bountiful crops 
without irrigation, which has not been adequately provided and which 
is necessary only in seasons of drought ; but the population is dense, 
wages are low and rents high, and when the rains fail the distress is 
great. This is the zone described by Sir Richard Temple as the 
' blackest of black spots on the famine map.' There has scarcely ever 
been a year of distress or scarcity in any part of Bengal when North 
Bihar did not bear the brunt of it. Orissa suffered terribly from famine 
in 1866 and 1867; but, since the construction of the canals now in 
existence, there has been nf) widespread crop failure, and it is only in 
Purl District that famine on a large scale is at all likely to occur. Chota 


Nagpur is a sparsely populated region, inhabited by wild tribes ; and its 
liability to famine is due mainly to its inaccessibility, which makes it 
difficult to import food-grains, and to the suspicious and restless nature 
of the ignorant aborigines, who shun relief works as they would the 
plague. 

The danger of widespread famine is gradually being reduced, owing 
to the improvement in the material condition of the people, the growing 
demand for labour in the coal-mines, jute-mills, and other non-agricul- 
tural undertakings, the great improvement that has been made in com- 
munications, and especially the rapid growth of railways, which now tap 
nearly every District in the Province, and the construction of protective 
canals in the tracts where the danger of famine due to insufficient rain- 
fall is greatest. In the whole Province it is estimated that an area of 
74,500 square miles is liable to famine ; and of this area 28,500 square 
miles are in the sub-province of Bihar, 27,000 in Chota Nagpur, 14,500 
in Bengal proper, and 4,500 in Orissa. The population of this area is 
29,000,000 ; and if all these tracts were simultaneously affected by severe 
famine, it might be necessary to provide relief for 2,000,000 persons. 

The first great famine of which we have any trustworthy record is 
that which devastated the Province in 1769-70, when Bengal, though 
under British control, was still under native administration. Eastern 
Bengal alone escaped, and, except for the importation of a small quan- 
tity of rice from this favoured tract, it does not appear that any public 
measures for relief were taken. One-third of the population of Bengal 
is believed to have perished in this terrible catastrophe. The next 
really serious scarcity in Bengal was the memorable Orissa famine of 
1865-7. The full extent of the crop failure consequent on the scanty 
rainfall of 1865 and the exhaustion of the local food supplies was not 
realized by the authorities in time; and when at last, in June, 1866, an 
effort was made to provide the starving people with food, the south-west 
monsoon prevented the ships, lying laden with grain in the port of 
Calcutta, from reaching the stricken people ^. It is said that a quarter 
of the population died of starvation and of the diseases which resulted. 
This disaster, appalling as it was, had one good result — it led to a firm 
determination to prevent all similar occurrences in future, and from that 
time dates the earnest watchfulness which has never since been relaxed. 
At the next serious crop failure in 1874 scarcity prevailed chiefly in 
North Bihar and also, in a lesser degree, in South Bihar and North 
Bengal. On this occasion relief measures were undertaken in ample 
time, and all serious loss of life was prevented. The defect, if any, in 
the administration of this famine was that money was expended too 

The monsoon of 1886 was as licavy as that of the previous year liad been light, 
and in low-lying tracts tlie rice was destroyed by lloods. On this occasion amjile 
relief was given. 
lavishly, and the object in view might perhaps have been effected at a 
lower cost than the 6 crores actually spent. 

In 1 89 1 the early close of the monsoon and the absence of the cold- 
season rains caused much damage to the winter rice and rabi crops, 
and relief operations were necessary in parts of Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, 
Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea, and Dinajpur*, The largest number on 
relief works on any one day was 83,000, and on gratuitous relief 4,700 ; 
the total cost of the operations was rather less than 5 lakhs. 

The famine of 1896-7 was far more serious. The causes of the crop 
failure were a very unfavourable distribution of the rainftill early in 1896 
and its entire absence after the early part of September. There had 
been a very poor harvest of winter rice in 1895, and in 1896 it was 
again this crop that suffered most. The brunt of the famine fell upon 
the Districts of Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, and Saran, and 
especially upon the tracts near the Nepal frontier, where the proportion 
of rice cultivation is highest. In the Chota Nagpur plateau, Palamau, 
Hazaribagh, Manbhum, and two tracts in the Santal Parganas were 
seriously affected. Relief works were opened in November, 1896, and 
by the close of the year 45,000 persons were employed on them. In 
March, 1897, the distress deepened rapidly, and the numbers on relief 
rose steadily until May, when 402,000 persons were employed on 
famine works, and 426,000 were in receipt of gratuitous relief. As 
soon as the monsoon had fairly set in, the numbers quickly diminished, 
and during September and October relief operations were brought to 
a close. The total expenditure was nearly no lakhs, in addition to 
advances to cultivators aggregating nearly 3 lakhs, donations of nearly 
20 lakhs from the Charitable Relief Fund, the outcome of voluntary 
subscriptions in India, England, and other countries, and private relief 
by zamlndCirs and others. The measures adopted were most successful 
in saving life ; and the vital statistics, which are confirmed by the results 
of the last Census, show that, except in the wilder parts of Chota Nag- 
pur, the mortality was actually below the normal during the famine 
year\ The birth-rate was very little affected; it fell slightly in 1898, 
the year after the famine, but rose so much higher than usual in the 
following year, that the mean birth-rate of the two years taken together 
was considerably above the average for the decade. 

In 1899 the monsoon was very capricious in parts of Chota Nagpur 
and Orissa. There was excessive rain in July, but exceptionally litde 
in August and September. The crops were very poor throughout 
the area affected, but actual famine supervened only in about half of 
Ranch! and a small part of Palamau District.