Indian Famine Paradox

 While reviewing excerpt from the History of British India vol.2 at the British Library, some important revelations emerge. We were taught that the British built the Indian railway system to develop trade. True but what is also true is they accelerated the work because they were shocked to witness the unimaginable death across the country from famines and natural disasters. They had not witnessed anything like this before. Collectively, the British and the intellectual natives, realized for the first time that the Mughals had simply looted the country and never invested in any developmental activities like building new methods of travel and transport.

Did you know that in 1899, 475,000 sq miles of India was prone to drought and 69,500,00 human lives were affected by it while only 6,500,000 could be provided relief? Imagine the colossal loss of life.  Despite coming from the land of Aryabhatta, Patanjali, Brahmagupta, Charaka, Bhaskara, Kanada & Varahamihira we Indians were bereft of scientific thinking and approach. Beats me!

Gujrat has been a victim of natural calamity and probably the only other State that suffered as much after  Bengal. The first natural Bengal famine occurred in 1770 when a third of the Bengal population perished which was close to 1 crore. Add genocide on Bengali existence plus the lives lost in freedom fight, there was no other community that suffered as much as Bengali's yet we kept producing the most brilliant minds in the world until the mid 1900s.

 In 1631 a Dutch merchant went to Surat, Gujrat. He notes that 11 of the 260 families at Swally survived. He writes "the road thence to Surat covered with bodies decaying on the highway where they died, there being nobody to bury them. In Surat, a great crowded city, I could hardly see any living person but corpses at the corner of the streets lie twenty together, nobody burying them. 30,000 had perished in the town alone. This was in a manner the garden of the world is turned into wilderness".  

Again in 1900 there was a massive cholera outbreak simultaneously in Panch Mahal District in Gujrat and Bundelkhand. The outcomes were dramatically different. More than 2 lakhs people died and the locals fled from Gujrat leaving a handful of British officers to clean up. A few British officers cremated lakhs of Indian who would otherwise have simply rotting on the streets of India. In Bundelkhand however, the Lieutenant Governor was able to train  locals over 2 years on famine management. So when famine hit Bundelkhand, there was a structure and strategy in place to manage famine. Few handful of people died. This again proves that it was not always the British that were responsible for deaths of Indian. Sometimes it was our own idiosyncrasies  that resulted in disasters. 

Other States that faced the wrath of natural calamity were Rajasthan (Jaipur & Agra in 1838, 1861), Odisha (1866),  Gujrat - Kutch (1861).  In 1900, the Maharaja of Jaipur donated Rs. 16 lakhs for relief into a Government Securities fund. Other noblemen from the country also donated to this fund to take it to Rs. 30 lakhs in 1905 and was India's first Public Charitable Relief Fund.

The common narrative that, it was the British that caused famines, is not entirely true. While the Bengal famine of 1943 was completely man made and the person responsible was none other than the tyrant Churchill, major famines have been recorded in India between 1670 through 1880 (Turgot) until the Famine Commission was formed in 1880. Most of the famines between 1850-1880 were definitely man made either because the British government took too long to table the Famine Policy under a Famine Commission or Indians were busy with mutiny across the country. Most villagers and farmers were participating in the freedom movement thus had little focus on agriculture the monsoon cycles.

Thus there were 3 reasons famines occurs and how India fell victim to it over prolonged periods of time.

1) Nature
2) Lack of connectivity
3) Freedom struggle

 Famines occurred several times before the British arrived in India so India was never new to it. The 2 rain bearing currents are a) South West Monsoon and the rains b)The North East and North West monsoon rains also called Winter Rains. The agricultural cycles starts with the former. The Kharif crops are harvested after the first shower in June. Kharif crops provides relief to the poor and it covers the harvestable lands for 3-4 months.  During this time distribution of rainfall is very important. Long breaks in rains and hot dry spells lead to serious loss of this staple crop. In October /November the spring harvest (rabi) crops are sown - barley, pulses and more valuable non food crops. The NE monsoons typically break on the east coast between November - December followed by the winter rainfalls from Christmas through February. Harvesting of these crops happen in March and April. However the periods between    saw extremely long dry spells during and heavy and prolonged rain, accompanied by heavy eat winds denting the growth of wheat and barley and the hot west winds that shrivelled the grains. There were other structural cultural stumbling blocks that formed the critical fabric of the Indian feudal society. People would not relocate to other less drought affected areas due to language barriers thus thousands would die because they refused to moved to relief camps in a neighboring city. Lower castes refused to accept food from upper castes in major parts of the country especially in the Southern States and parts of North.  The shy people in the mountains would refuse to come to the plains while skilled weavers refused to participate in relief work.

The British realized that the only way to shield the people from nature's fury was to

1) Build storage facilities

2) Build a robust railways system that could transfer food to affected areas at speed and scale.

 Mughals transported produce using mules that took months to arrive. Railways expedited the process which was beneficial particularly during emergencies. Railways also helped in migration. Several parts of the country was uninhabited and railways helped relocation and rehabilitation that further ushered new growth streams across the length and breadth of this country . For example Khamargachi, one of the earliest settlements of the Mukherjees. Khamargachi was a deep forest areas habitable only through waterways and very much part of the 78 lakhs acre estate of the Mukherjees. While Uttarpara and Kolkata were bursting at the seams, at the behest of Raja Joykrishna Mukherjee, his cousin Surendralal Mukherjee was requested to develop Khamargachi into a habitable township. When Surendralal arrived at Khamargachi it was uninhabitable. There was just one property built by our ancestors but was in dilapidated condition. Only a few Buddhist monks were living in the deep forests in temporary sheds. He went back to Uttarpara and then returned to Khamargachi with reinforcements who would help clear the forests and made Khamargachi habitable. The Mukherjee house was subsequently renovated and the ancient Sridhar Narayan Shaligram Sila was established.

Earliest located settlement of the Mukherjee's of Uttarpara at Khamargachi built around 1640

A slight deviation and an interesting story about the Sridhar Narayan Shaligram Sila. If you've read Blog 2 of 4, ancestors of Mukherjee's of Uttarpara were Kulin brahmin priests from the district of Phulia. Nilkantha Thakur had a vivid dream in the night and he was visited by Lord Narayan himself. In his dream he was asked to travel to Gandaki River in Nepal and collect a Sridhar Narayan Shaligram Sila and bring it to Phulia (West Bengal) and establish it as the kul devata for the Mukherjee's. In the 12th to 13th Century there were no other modes of transportation other horsebacks, bullock carts or walking on feet, mostly bare feet. Nilkantha Thakur walked from Phulia in West Bengal to Gandaki River in Nepal. which was about 1100 km of walking through dangerous terrain, to take possession of the Sila. The Sila was exactly where he saw in his dreams. Nilkantha Thakur brought it back to Phulia and then his successor Gopiraman brought it to Khamargachi.

Rarest of the rare ancient Sridhar Narayan Shaligram Sila from Gandaki River Nepal

 Now circling back to the discussion on famine, British negligence and British contribution to building the backbone of India's railway infrastructure. The British government saw the potential to expand the entire region around Khamargachi so approached our family for land. Today the entire land on which the railway station of Khamargachi was built was a gift from the Mukherjees of #Uttarpara. A great example of Private Public Partnership. Today  Khamargachi is a bustling railway station on Bandel–Katwa line connecting from Bandel to Katwa, and under the jurisdiction of Howrah railway division of Eastern Railway zone. Khamargachi supports thousands, if not lakhs of residents which was once home to tigers, leopards and other wild animals. So to claim that the British did nothing is an over stretch.  That however does not absolve the British government for crimes against humanity and sitting on the Famine Policy for over 10 years.

In 1868 the first ever Famine Policy was drafted in India and it had 2 purposes

 1) Remedial measures in case famines occurred

2) Fortify people against drought

 The Order that directly came from the Queen clearly stated that District Officers would be held personally responsible that no deaths occurred from starvation which could have been avoided by any exertion or arrangement on his part of his subordinates. Where the British whet wrong was it took them 9 years to finally give the formal policy a shape in 1877. The Famine Policy was approved over 3 Famine Commissions - 1880, 1898, 1901.