Great care must be exercised to avoid throwing work-
people out of ordinary employ; and if drought merely produced
severe scarcity, it would probably be sufficient to enlarge ordinary
public works in such a manner as to afford additional employment.
people out of ordinary employ; and if drought merely produced
severe scarcity, it would probably be sufficient to enlarge ordinary
public works in such a manner as to afford additional employment.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Indian Empire
It has certainly increased his otherwise mani-
fold preoccupations, and where he has not been provided with ade-
quate staff the result has been harmful. But he has been able to
succeed just in so far as he has appreciated the need for, and has
skilfully arranged, wherever possible, a devolution of actual work to
properly qualified subordinates.
## p. 294 (#332) ############################################
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Three
HREE hundred years ago the Dutchman, Francisco Pelsaert,
travelling in Upper India, described in vivid language the relations
between agriculture and the seasons:
The year is here divided into three seasons. In April, May and June the heat is
intolerable, and men can scarcely breathe, more than that, hot winds blow con-
tinuously, as stifling as if they came straight from the furnace of hell. The air is
filled with the dust raised by violent whirlwinds from the sandy soil, making day
like the darkest night that human eyes have seen or that can be grasped by the
imagination. Thus in the afternoon of 15 June, 1624, I watched a hurricane of dust
coming up gradually, which so hid the sky and the sun that for two hours people
could not tell if the world was at an end, for the darkness and fury of the wind
could not have been exceeded. Then the storm disappeared gradually, as it had
come, and the sun shone again. The months of June, July, August, September and
October are reckoned as the rainy season, during which it sometimes rains steadily.
The days are still very hot, but the rain brings a pleasant and refreshing coolness.
In November, December, January, February and March it is tolerably cool, and
the climate is pleasant.
From April to June the fields lie hard and dry, unfit for ploughing or sowing
owing to the heat. When the ground has been moistened by a few days' rain, the
cultivators begin to sow indigo, rice and various food grains eaten by the poor.
When all these are off the land, they plough and sow again, for there are two harvests;
that is to say in December and January they sow wheat and barley, various pulses
and "alsi" (linseed) from which oil is extracted. Large numbers of wells have to
be dug in order to irrigate the soil, for at that time it is beginning to lose its productive
power. Provided the rain is seasonable and the cold is not excessive, there is a
year of plenty, not merely of food, but in the trade of all sorts of commodities. I
But if the rain is not seasonable, if the monsoon fails over large
tracts which cannot be sufficiently irrigated from ponds, rivers, wells
or canals, the crops which are the mainstay of the countryside must
be sown in a much restricted area and will often be poor even there;
the grass which has been burnt up by the blazing sun and burning
winds of March, April and May cannot revive, and both the milch-
cows and the plough and transport cattle, which are the cultivator's
working capital, are decimated. The water level falls; and the supply
is tainted with noxious germs. The peasantry see their means of live-
lihood vanish. If no remedy be forthcoming they must starve.
Destitution will bring cholera and pestilence in its train; and thousands
of humble lives will be sacrificed. Such is famine in that grim shape
which it has often worn. But nature sometimes relents; and man has
done much to combat this king of terrors.
The drought which follows a feeble monsoon may be mitigated by
light winter rains; and in any case there are marked differences of
· Pelsaert, Jerangir's India, pp. 47–8. For an account of the climate and rainfall see
vol. 1, chap. i of this History.
a
## p. 295 (#333) ############################################
MEANS OF IRRIGATION
295
climate and inequalities of rainfall. The populations have accustomed
themselves to this circumstance both in their density and in their
selection of crops. There are wet provinces and dry provinces, wet
areas and dry areas, sometimes within the same district; there are wet
crops and dry crops. If communications are adequate there are
flourishing tracts to come to the rescue of those less favoured. Rain
never fails throughout the whole country, even though the monsoon
sometimes disappoints not only regions inured to some degree of
drought but those which are usually blessed with abundant rainfall.
When the south-west monsoon is over the young winter crops, and
in parts the later rice, need artificial irrigation; and if the rainfall has
been deficient, the irrigation must be strenuous and constant. Rivers,
wells, "tanks” (artificial ponds) are all requisitioned. But in a dry
year, the supply from these sources shrinks, and canals, where they
exist, are the greatest stand-by of all. Large-scale systems of canals,
drawing supplies from rivers or artificial reservoirs, began with the
consolidation of British rule; but the West Jumna Canal, in a dilapi-
dated condition, was inherited from Moghul times; and the Kaveri
delta canal system in Madras comes down from remote antiquity.
In the year 1919-20 the total area irrigated by canals in British India
exceeded 27,000,000 acres. The total length of canals and distributaries
was 66,754 miles. The estimated value of the crops watered by govern-
ment irrigation works amounted to £156,000,000, double the capital
expenditure which these works had entailed.
The storage of water and the regulation of its outflow are matters of
supreme importance to Indian agriculture. Wells, tanks and canals
play their part. But the wide extension of irrigation which marked
the years 1858–1918 could not have been achieved without the skilled
and devoted co-operation nf the Indian forest service. To quote the
words of one of its most distinguished members:
It is by the agency of the forests that the surface-flow from the hills is restrained
after heavy rain; that the water level is maintained at such a height that it can be
reached by the primitive methods of the East; that the springs are kept supplied;
and that perennial springs may be made to flow in the place of those water-courses
trịckling through dreary beds of sand, that would hardly be suspected of becoming
later on in the summer turbulent and muddy torrents, often carrying devastation
instead of blessing. "
We need only summarise the history of famines before 1858. In
ancient times scarcity owing to floods or drought was not infrequent
and sometimes extended to a whole kingdom. 3 But scarcities caused
by floods have always affected comparatively small areas, and inunda-
tions have left a fertilising silt. The great famines have been caused
by drought. In his elaborate studies of economic life under the
1 Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, p. 108; Knowles, Economic Development of the
Overseas Empire, np. 366-82; Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 195-6.
• Eardley-Wilmot, Forest Life and Sport in India, p. 5.
3 Cf. vol. 1, chap. viii, supra.
>
## p. 296 (#334) ############################################
296 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Moghul emperors Mr Moreland has shown us that the famines then
were marked, not only by widespread mortality and desolation, but
by suicide, voluntary enslavement and cannibalism. 1 Before the “pax
Britannica” was definitely established the miseries of such times were
often aggravated by the ravages of armies. In 1802 the army of the
Maratha chief, Jasvant Rao Holkar, marching to Poona from the
north, laid waste the countryside. The Pindaris followed in its wake
and reduced the Deccan to such depths of misery and want that
human beings are said to have been devoured by the peasants.
Emigrants passed into the Konkan leaving a trail of dead and dying
behind them. The late rains failed; the river at Poona was black with
putrescent corpses; and “hunger, hand in hand with cholera, left
many villages permanently desolate”. 2 But, in any case, as long as
districts were land-locked and populations were isolated, famine
relief was largely regarded as hopeless. Almsgiving, storage of food
grains in central towns, remissions of revenue, digging of wells, were
palliatives occasionally resorted to. But no attempt was made to stem
the full tide of starvation and ruin. Even when the government of the
East India Company, recently established at Calcutta, was in 1769–70
first brought face to face with responsibility for some measure of
relief, its dispatches,
while breathing a tone of sincere compassion for the sufferings of the people, were
busied rather with the fiscal results as affecting the responsibility of the Company
towards its shareholders, than with schemes which would have seemed wholly
visionary for counteracting the inevitable loss of life. 3
There is no reason to dispute the finding of the 1880 Famine Com-
mission that up to the end of the eighteenth century “the position of
the British in India was not such as either to create any sense of
general obligation to give relief, or to supply sufficient means of
affording it". While the administration was endeavouring to find its
feet, while wars frequently carried devastation into large tracts of
country, while the effects of climatic disturbances on food crops were
largely a matter of conjecture, while agricultural, economic and vital
statistics were unknown, while it was difficult to transmit information
speedily, while the absence of communications rendered the timely
transmission of grain for long distances or in large quantities a very
arduous or an impossible undertaking, while hal, tarved bullocks or
heavy barges were the sole means of transport, famine was regarded
as a calamity wholly transcending the powers of man to counteract
or even materially to mitigate. 4 The years 1765–1858 were marked
by famines or scarcities in various parts of the country which were
dealt with by such measures as seemed best to the local governments
1 Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, chap. vii; From Akbar to Aurangzeb, chap. vii.
2 Grant Duff, History of the Marathas (ed. Edwardes), II, 368.
3 Report of the Famine Commission, 1880; cf. Hickey, Memoirs, 111, 343-4.
• Cf. Kaye, British India, pp. 275-6, and Maconochie, Life in Indian Civil Service, pp. 9-10.
## p. 297 (#335) ############################################
EARLIER FAMINES
297
or district officers concerned. No attempt was made to formulate any
general system of famine relief or prevention, although such experi-
ments as storage of grain by the government, penalties on hoarding,
bounies on import, poorhouses, advances of money to encourage the
sinking of wells, and relief works to afford employment, were under-
taken at one time or another. The only business which can afford
employment to Indian cultivators when tillage fails is earth-work,
the excavation of reservoirs, the construction of irrigation embank-
ments and the making of roads. But earth-works were never opened
on an adequate scale. When in 1837 famine visited the upper reaches
of the Ganges and the Jumna, the local government laid down the
principle that while the state found work for the able-bodied, the
whole community must, as in ordinary times, look after the helpless
and infirm. The measures adopted were quite insufficient. Heavy
mortality resulted; and violent riots broke out. Twenty years later
came the Mutiny, which was followed by the complete transfer of
government to the crown.
The period with which we are now concerned was marked by a
wide extension of railways1 and other communications, by a rapid
growth of trade and overseas commerce, by a great expansion of
means of irrigation, by the development of an elaborate system of
public instruction, by agrarian legislation mainly in the interest of the
cultivators, by a gradual change in economic factors which, in spite
of a great increase of population, very gradually modified the character
of famines.
The seasons of 1858-9 were irregular; and in 1860 the monsoon
practically failed over 48,000 square miles of the North-West Pro-
vinces around Agre. Alwar and other Indian states were affected;
and about half a million persons deserted the distressed tracts.
The provinces were still suffering from the effects of the Mutiny;
but their south-east districts and neighbour provinces had received
plenty of rain and were able to supply abundance of food grains.
Within the distressed area canals protected about 900,000 more acres
than they had protected in 1837; around it communications had
improved, and the East Indian Railway had progressed far enough
to render useful service. Free-trade principles were followed; and, as
in 1837, it was declared that the state would provide employment for
the able-bodied while voluntary agency should give charitable relief
to the helpless and infirm. In fact, however, voluntary agency did
very little; and the government found it necessary to undertake almost
the whole burden of relief. Able-bodied persons were organised in
gangs, housed in temporary sheds and employed upon earth-works
for roads or canals. Some helpless persons were relieved in their
homes and others in poorhouses where light tasks were imposed upon
the more capable inmates. The famine was on a small scale, but is
1 For the early history of railways in India see Quarterly Review, 1868, (xxv, 48–78.
## p. 298 (#336) ############################################
298 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
remarkable for the fact that then for the first time a special enquiry
was held into the causes, area and intensity of such a calamity. While
it was proceeding Colonel Baird Smith was deputed to examine these
matters; but his report did not lead to any formulation of general
principles of relief.
We come now to the famine of 1866–7, which is known as the
Orissa famine because in Orissa it assumed its most terrible form; but
it extended along the whole east coast from Calcutta to Madras and
penetrated inland. This calamity proved a turning point in the history
of Indian famines for it was followed by the investigations and report
of a committee (presided over by Sir George Campbell") which laid
the foundations of a definite policy.
The causes of the famine were the failure of the autumn rains, and
consequently of the rice crops, of 1865, together with the almost com-
plete absence of importation into Orissa of food from outside. The
main stress of privation fell on the three British districts which form
a comparatively narrow strip between the uplands and the sea and
are intersected by rivers which swell enormously in the rainy season.
There is a large pilgrim traffic by land to Jagannath in the dry season;
but commercial communications were then principally by sea from
several small ports open the greater part of the year but inaccessible
from the heavy surf and the prevalent winds after the breaking of the
south-west monsoon. The country is almost entirely a rice or water
country; but the supply of rain is generally ample, and there had been
no previous famines since Orissa became British territory. In 1865,
however, the monsoon ceased prematurely along the east coast, and
two-thirds of the rice crop were lost. Food stocks were low, as export
had been brisk of late years, but prices remained moderate for some
time. The warnings of certain local officers were disregarded, and
'famine arrived like a thief in the night.
"In April 1866", says Campbell, “the magistrate of Cuttack still reported that
there was no ground for serious apprehension. A few days later in May, he and his
followers were almost starved. We compared it to the case of a ship where the stores
are suddenly found to have run out. '
A panic had set in and stores were withheld from the market. Every
Indian cultivator aims at growing and keeping his own food supply.
The market supply is what he sells to pay his rent and meet his cash
needs, but in times of scarcity even grain which can be spared is held
up. Dealers also incline to wait for higher prices. If, however, im-
portation from other districts is easily practicable, even a great failure
of crops will not lead to a widespread hold-up of stocks.
In Orissa panic arose suddenly. Importation was rapidly becoming
impracticable; and the local government had been slow to appreciate
the situation. Before anything effective could be done the monsoon
a
1 Cf. his Memoirs of my Indian Career, 11, 149-55.
## p. 299 (#337) ############################################
THE ORISSA FAMINE
299
broke and Orissa was sealed up for several months. There was terrible
suffering before adequate supplies could be obtained, although the
cultivators procured or had saved sufficient to sow their autumn crops.
In October the government poured in large supplies of grain, and
some local hoards were brought out by the dealers. A good new crop
was then being reaped, and the famine ended almost as suddenly as
it had begun, except in certain tracts, where excessive floods wrought
havoc. The Bengal government had provided such relief as it could
at a cost of about one and a half millions sterling. But the commis-
sioner of the division estimated that one-fourth of the population had
died. Campbell's committee did not think this estimate excessive;
but in the entire absence of statistics and of effective machinery for
ascertaining the facts was unable to form an accurate judgment. The
census of 1871 showed an unexpectedly large population; and Camp-
bell afterwards doubted whether the famine mortality had not been
exaggerated. The grain which poured in when the mischief was done
was largely wasted and lay unused till it rotted. In Ganjam, a neigh-
bouring district of the Madras Presidency, the situation had been
easier, but a prolonged duration of high prices pressed hardly on the
people and called for relief measures. The drought of 1865 extended
in some degree to Bihar and Bengal where relief was inadequate and
badly organised.
Campbell's committee reported that timely measures had not been
taken to meet the terrible emergency which arose in May, 1866. The
Bengal government had completely failed to forecast developments
and had misled the central government. Blindly relying on the law
of demand and supply, they had not considered the isolation of Orissa
in the rainy season, and its customary dependence on its own food
supply. It was essential to improve communications considerably and
to initiate in Bengal the maintenance of land records and agricultural
statistics which was carried out in other provinces by a subordinate
revenue staff. The committee made recommendations which in some
measure anticipated those of the royal commission of 1880. Their
report produced a change of outlook; but Campbell tells us that “the
idea rather prevailed that the Orissa failure was a personal failure
which need not occur again". John Lawrence, however, who was
then governor-general, blamed himself bitterly for having accepted
the facile assurances of the Bengal government, and, when famine
again appeared elsewhere in 1868, declared in council that his object
was “to save every life", and that district officers would be held
responsible that no preventible deaths occurred. The old doctrine
that the public would be responsible for the relief of the helpless and
infirm was entirely abandoned. Money was borrowed in order to
finance additional railways and canals.
Drought and famine in 1868-9 affected parts of the North-Western
Provinces and Panjab, but were more intense in wide stretches of
## p. 300 (#338) ############################################
300
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Rajputana, and produced a great influx of emigrants into British
territory, severely straining public charity and tending to swamp
relief arrangements. The able-bodied were employed on large and
small works. Extra mortality was estimated at 1,200,000 and ascribed
mainly to cholera, smallpox and fever.
In 1873 the monsoon ceased prematurely in Northern Bihar,
causing a loss of much of the winter rice crop. Relief measures were
planned on a scale unknown before. Sir George Campbell, then
lieutenant-governor, wished to prohibit export of rice and other cereals
from Bengal overseas, the failure of these crops being largely confined
to the north-western districts of his charge. His idea was to save all
that was available in the south-east, to dam it up and drive it north-
ward. But the proposal did not commend itself to Lord Northbrook
who was then viceroy, and the central government arranged to
import 480,000 tons of rice mostly from Burma to the distressed area.
Even so up to April, 1874, the imports of rice barely equalled the
exports; and during the whole famine year the exports of food from
Calcutta were about two-thirds of the imports. Tasks were not strictly
enforced on the relief works started in the distressed area, which con-
sisted of 40,000 square miles with a population of 17,000,000.
Gratuitous relief was given in villages on a very liberal scale. The
whole cest was six and a half millions, although famine had been
acute in two districts only: 800,000 tons of surplus grain remained on
the hands of the government and were sold at a heavy loss. Relief
was undoubtedly extravagant; but, for the first time in Indian history,
a serious failure of crops had not produced heavy mortality.
The next drought soon arrived. It produced a famine of great
magnitude and eventuated in an enquiry on a large scale which
inaugurated a new era.
The famine of 1876–8 resulted from two deficient monsoons and
affected not merely rice areas but also tracts which were largely
covered by dry crops. It lasted long, covering much Madras territory,
part of the Indian states of Mysore and Hyderabad, and the Bombay
Deccan, affecting also the North-Western Provinces and Oudh. The
policy of the central government was to spare no efforts to save the
population of the distressed districts, but not to attempt the task of
giving general relief to all the poorer classes of the community.
Agreed principles and methods of relief had not yet been formulated;
operations were not conducted on any uniform plan; and in many
tracts private trade was seriously hampered by imperfect communica-
tions, for none of the areas most affected was then traversed by more
than one railway line, while various districts were dependent for food
on cattle transport from certain depôts served by the railways. In
Bombay deaths during 1877-8 were 800,000 in excess of the normal
figure, although large relief works had been promptly opened for the
able-bodied, and gratuitous relief was well organised. In Madras the
}
1
1
## p. 301 (#339) ############################################
THE STRACHEY COMMISSION
301
government commenced by importing grain with the object of
keeping down prices, but were checked by the central government on
the ground that trade should not be interfered with. A few large
works were opened; but the majority of the able-bodied were relieved
by smaller works on which wages were much too high. Gratuitous
relief was extravagant, and the viceroy, visiting the presidency in
September, observed that the relief camps were “like picnics”. “The
people on them, who do no work of any kind, are bursting with fat and
naturally enjoy themselves thoroughly. "1 Lord Lytton saw that
gratuitous relief urgently required efficient administration, and
drafted in extra British civil and military officers from Upper India.
Rain came later on in the autumn and relieved the situation; but a
number of debilitated persons remained on the hands of the Madras
government another year, until the autumn crops of 1878 were ripe.
On 11 October, 1877, the viceroy wrote to Queen Victoria:
Whilst the Madras famine has cost the Government of India over 10 millions,
the Bombay famine, under General Kennedy's management, has cost only four
millions, although a much larger saving of human life has been effected in Bombay
than in Madras.
The Madras famine was otherwise remarkable for the fact that
charitable contributions amounting to £78,000 flowed in from Great
Britain and the colonies.
Lytton's government decided that famine relief called for clear
thinking, and appointed a strong commission under General Sir
Richard Strachey, which reported in 1880, formulating general prin-
ciples and suggesting particular measures of a preventive or protective
character. It recognised to the full the duty of the state to offer
relief to the necessitous in times of famine, but held that this relief
should be so administered
as not to check the growth of thrift and self-reliance among the people, or to impair
the structure of society, which, resting as it does in India upon the moral obligation
of mutual assistance, is admirably adapted for common effort against a common
misfortune.
The great object of saving life would be far better secured if proper
care were taken to prevent the abuse and demoralisation which, all
experience showed, resulted from ill-directed and excessive distribu-
tion of charitable relief. In this spirit a provisional famine code must
be framed which the local governments would adapt to the circum-
stances of their provinces and would in future administer subject to
financial control from the central government.
Starting with these premises, the commission insisted on the urgent
need of proper statistical collection of facts relating to the condition
of the agricultural community. The opportunities for such collection
1 Letters of the Earl of Lytton, 1, 79.
82.
• Cf. Fuller, Indian Life and Sentiment, p. 202.
• Idem, p.
## p. 302 (#340) ############################################
302
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
1
offered by the revenue system in all provinces except parts of Bengal
and Sind had been imperfectly utilised. Relief, too, should everywhere
be administered on certain basic principles.
(a) Employment on works must be offered before the physical
efficiency of applicants had been impaired by privation. All applicants
must be received, but self-acting tests of wages and labour must be
enforced in order to prevent the earth-works from attracting labourers
who were not really in want, but out of work merely because at a
particular season there was little to do in the fields. The works should
be of permanent utility and capable of employing a considerable
number of persons for a considerable period. Wages should be adjusted
from time to time so as to provide sufficient food for a labourer's
support, allowing him a day's rest in the week. Separate rates should
be prescribed for different ages, sexes and classes; and allowances
must be made for dependent children of labourers. A margin should
be left to prevent accidental error on the side of deficiency. Over the
larger works which would be directed by engineers of the public
works department, district officers should exercise general super-
vision, deciding questions relating to tasks and wages, opening or
closing of works, and all arrangements except those of a technical
nature. Such works as excavation of ponds in villages and raising
embankments for water storage might be carried out under the
management of the ordinary district staff for the purpose of employing
persons unfit to be dispatched to the larger works. Arrangements
must be made for providing the latter with huts, temporary markets
and hospitals.
Great care must be exercised to avoid throwing work-
people out of ordinary employ; and if drought merely produced
severe scarcity, it would probably be sufficient to enlarge ordinary
public works in such a manner as to afford additional employment.
(6) Only of late years had the government recognised that
gratuitous relief was the duty not of the general public but of the
state. Two systems prevailed; raw grain or money might be dis-
tributed in villages, and cooked food might be given at centres subject
frequently to the condition of residence in a poorhouse or temporary
camp. The latter form of relief was very unpopular. In the North-
Western Provinces and Oudh many had died rather than accept it.
It could only be a reserve line of defence. Gratuitous relief in villages,
however, required very careful organisation and control. For this
purpose distressed tracts must be divided into circles, and each circle
must be placed under a competent officer who would be drawn from
the district staff. Non-officials might be asked to volunteer assistance.
Committees of Indian gentlemen would gladly assist in distributing
relief to purdah-nishin ladies.
(c) Government should, as a general rule, trust private trade to
supply and distribute food, giving it every possible facility. It should
prohibit export of grain only if reasonably certain that such action
1
## p. 303 (#341) ############################################
PRINCIPLES OF RELIEF
303
was necessary to conserve the resources of India as a whole (as was
done in 1918). As railways multiplied, the country was becoming
better and better able to feed itself. There were strong objections to
storage of grain by the government, and there was abundant private
storage. It was, however, important that supplies of food in distressed
areas should be carefully watched.
(d) The commission made suggestions in regard to suspensions and
remissions of land-revenue and rents. In times of famine landlords
should be encouraged and assisted by loans on easy terms to open
works on their estates which would offer employment to labourers
and poorer tenants. Loans should also be given for purchases of seed
grain and bullocks.
(e) The cost of relief must be so localised as to bring home to its
administrators a sense of personal responsibility for expenditure. The
sense of responsibility would be most effectually quickened by throwing
the burden of famine expenditure on to local taxation, and adminis-
tering relief through representative members of the tax-paying body,
themselves responsible for providing all needful funds, but this system
would involve the assumption that the various provinces were, on the
whole, equally well qualified to bear their own burdens, an assump-
tion contrary to fact. There was always a limit beyond which pro-
vincial revenues could not supply famine relief and must be assisted
from imperial funds. In ordinary times, too, the central government
should assist local governments to undertake water-storage and other
protective works, even if such enterprises seemed unlikely to yield
immediate profit.
In times of excessive drought facilities should be afforded for
the migration of cattle to grassy forest areas where abundant pasturage
was procurable.
The commission estimated that the largest population likely to be
affected by famine at one time was thirty millions. They held that
great uncertainties surrounded all estimates of degrees of failure of
crops and that in forecasting consequences attention must be paid to
the antecedent and existing circumstances of the areas affected. The
classes which suffered most from famine were the cultivators and
labourers who were thrown out of employment, the artisans and
petty traders deprived of profits mainly derived from dealing with
the poorer classes, aged or weakly dependents, and public beggars
who found the springs of charity drying up.
The commission's proposals were generally accepted, and steps
were taken to create new resources by which in normal times a surplus
of revenue could be secured to meet the extraordinary charges thrown
on the state by famine. Experience provided a basis of calculation,
and, after correspondence with the secretary of state in council, it was
eventually decided that 15,000,000 rupees would always be entered
in the budget under the head “Famine relief and Insurance", with
## p. 304 (#342) ############################################
304
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
.
sub-heads for relief, protective works and reduction of debt, or
prevention of debt which would otherwise be incurred for the con-
struction of railways and canals. When Lord Curzon's second budget
was framed arrangements were made to charge against this insurance
fund only works designed and executed exclusively as protection
against famine.
In 1883 the provisional Famine Code was promulgated. It formed
a guide and a basis for the various provincial famine codes which were
subsequently prepared, approved by the central government, and
revised again and again as experience widened. The first chapter of
these codes prescribed precautions to be taken in ordinary times. The
second gave instructions to be followed when a relief campaign seemed
a
imminent. The remaining chapters described the duties of all con-
cerned when it had actually begun. Districts might be declared by
local governments either “scarcity” or “famine”.
“famine". "Scarcity dis-
tricts” would be those less acutely distressed and would require less
general relief. They might or might not develop into "famine dis-
tricts”. In any case they would be divided into relief circles organised
.
in the manner suggested by the 1880 commission. The codes enjoined
the immediate preparation and careful maintenance of district
programmes of relief works. Projects for the larger works, which would
be the backbone of relief, would be prepared in detail by the public
works department. The codes dealt thoroughly with other matters
which had been the subjects of the commission's recommendations.
The district is and must always be the unit of famine relief; and it
is worth while to sketch briefly the preliminaries and development of
relief measures in a stricken district.
We will say that in a certain September the district officer (the
writer has served through two famines, once as district officer and
again as commissioner) recognises that the monsoon has failed to a
disastrous degree, that the autumn crops have largely perished, and
that the sowing of the winter crops on the hard dry ground will be
largely impossible. He consults his copy of the provincial famine code
and examines the programmes of relief works which, in obedience to
its provisions, have been prepared and revised by his predecessors.
He looks up the records of any previous famine which may have
visited his district, calls for reports from subdivisional officers or
tahsildars, and journeys to the tracts which cause most anxiety, in-
forming his commissioner of his plans and views. That officer com-
municates with the local government and will take an early oppor-
tunity of inspecting the precarious region himself, but may have other
threatened districts to visit. As the shadows lengthen, the district
officer will have to revise his programme of relief works, for his charge
may measure 3000 or 4000 square miles, and will contain wet and
dry areas; the rainfall has been uneven; the subdivisions are affected
in varying degrees. All the requirements of particular localities cannot
## p. 305 (#343) ############################################
DISTRICT FAMINE WORK
305
have been foreseen, and the district engineer must be carefully con-
sulted. Some new projects for roads and water-storage works must
be considered and prepared. Estimates too must be dispatched to the
commissioner forecasting the degree of crop failure, the consequent
suspension of land-revenue, the amount of advances (takavi) required
for assistance to occupiers of land, who are anxious, wherever prac-
ticable, to sow and irrigate the winter crops, and the sums required for
relief of all kinds. A rise in crimes against property will be engaging
the attention of the superintendent of police, and outbreaks of epi-
demic disease will demand special efforts on the part of the civil
surgeon. These officers will be touring from time to time and keeping
in touch with their subordinates in rural areas. Letters to the district
officer are arriving from the commissioner, frequently enclosing orders
from the local government who will allot funds and sanction necessary
expenditure.
In most provinces the district officer will find his relief circles ready
made. His tahsils or subdivisions are already split up into circles
presided over by inspectors of village records (kanungos) who move
constantly about and look after the work of the patwaris (village
accountants). The village headmen, assisted by the latter, prepare
lists of infirm and needy persons likely to require gratuitous relief
which are checked by the kanungos. The totals are collected, scru-
tinised by tahsildars and subdivisional officers, and laid before the
head of the district. That officer will call a public meeting for appeal
to the charitable and will make arrangements for the immediate
distribution of takavi advances.
“Scarcity” is declared in our district. Test works are opened which
attract increasing numbers, although by far the great majority of the
cultivators are sticking persistently to their fields, ploughing, sowing,
watering, sinking temporary wells wherever practicable, with a
courage and perseverance beyond all praise. Perhaps some fall of
early winter rain relieves the whole situation and postpones or
mitigates calamity. But this cannot be relied on; and if it does not
come, signs of distress speedily increase and “famine" is declared.
Then the whole machinery contemplated by the code comes into
operation, and everything depends upon efficiency of organisation and
supervision. One problem succeeds another rapidly for thousands
come on to the relief works, many with babies and children; and it is
almost impossible to discriminate between genuine dependents of
workers and others. In the 1908 famine the government of the United
Provinces decided to discontinue relief of dependents on works, as far
as possible, for this reason, preferring to transfer them to their homes.
But this cannot always be arranged, and in any case the timely relief
of thousands in their homes by doles is most difficult to arrange and
control. Cholera too may at any time visit one of the large works,
when, unless careful arrangements are speedily made, a panic-
a
CHI VI
20
## p. 306 (#344) ############################################
306
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
stricken crowd will disperse in all directions, some bearing with them
deadly contagion. At all times the condition of the children calls for
particular attention. Care must also be taken, as far as possible, to
save the cattle; or else even when rain comes, ploughing will be
extremely restricted. These are only some of the problems which assail
the over-burdened district staff. Extra assistants are drafted in; but
the local government may be struggling with the needs of twenty
districts or more, and the central government may be perplexed by
the conflicting claims of three or four provinces. The commander-in-
chief is appealed to and assists with the invaluable loan of some junior
military officers. Months of trial and anxiety pass by. If the district
adjoins an Indian state, crowds of immigrants may pour in. The
commissioner, moving about in his division, acts as adviser, friend
and referee. The head of the local government comes to see for
himself how things are going. At last the hot weather comes to an
end; the rains burst; the labourers on the relief works disperse with
valedictory doles; agricultural operations are resumed, and soon
relief is no longer required.
But in the meantime privation and disease have taken their toll;
the provincial finances have been badly strained; and despite an
elaborate system of accounts, the immense opportunities of pecula-
tion, which large expenditure on famine relief offers to numbers of
subordinates, have not been entirely lost. In fighting famine vigorous,
effective, unceasing supervision by officers of the superior services is,
from every point of view, absolutely essential. The difficulty of
securing this can be appreciated by remembering that sometimes
twenty districts or more, and many millions of people are affected.
In the great famine of 1899–1900 Lord Curzon regretted that more
superior and subordinate officers had not been available and re-
marked that the provinces not afflicted had been “literally scoured
for the loan of men". The Indian states had “escaped a disastrous
breakdown only through the administrative knowledge, unflagging
energy and devotion of British officers lent to them". 1
Between 1880 and 1896 minor droughts in different provinces
afforded opportunities of testing and revising the provincial codes.
In 1896–7 came a grave failure of the rains affecting 225,000 square
miles in British India and a population of sixty-two millions. The
tracts severely distressed measured 125,000 square miles with a popu-
lation of thirty-four millions. The North-Western Provinces and
Oudh, Bihar, the Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, the Panjab,
Berar, suffered in varying degrees. In the North-Western and Central
Provinces extensive relief operations were undertaken. The famine
was followed by searching enquiries from a commission presided over
by Sir James Lyall, ex-lieutenant-governor of the Panjab, who found
it most difficult to compare degrees of distress with those observed
· Raleigh, Lord Curzon in India, p. 386.
1
## p. 307 (#345) ############################################
THE FAMINE OF 1900
307
in previous famines as conditions had largely altered with expansion
of railways. But improved supervision and organisation had certainly
reduced the cost of relief to a figure below that which might have
been anticipated. The commission adhered largely to the views
expressed by their predecessors in 1880, suggesting alterations which
were designed to impart greater flexibility to the maxims then adopted.
They observed:
It may be said of India as a whole that of late years, owing to high prices, there
has been a considerable increase in the incomes of the landholding and cultivating
classes, and their standard of comfort and expenditure has also risen. With the rise
in transfer-value of their holdings, their credit also has expanded. During recent
famines they have shown greater powers of resistance. The poorer professional
classes suffer severely from rise of prices but do not come on relief. The wages of
day labourers and skilled artisans have no risen. The rise in prices of food has not
been accompanied by a rise in the wages of labour. On the contrary, as com-
petition falls off, the rate of wages offered falls frequently below the customary
rate. '
Before the proposals of the 1898 commission had been fully con-
sidered by the government, India was visited by a drought the greatest
in extent and intensity which she had experienced for 200 years. The
area affected amounted to over 400,000 square miles with a popula-
tion of about sixty millions, of whom twenty-five millions belonged
to British India and the remainder to Indian states. It embraced the
greater part of the Bombay Presidency, the Central Provinces, Berar
and much of the Panjab, the states of Kathiawar and Rajputana, the
Nizam's dominions, Baroda and the Central Indian principalities.
The loss in crops alone amounted to £50,000,000 in British India and
£30,000,000 in the Indian states. Water supplies shrank considerably;
and a fodder famine on an enormous scale was followed by a positive
devastation of all kinds of cattle. Some of the tracts which had suffered
in 1896–7 suffered even more now. Speaking to his legislative council
on 19 October, 1900, the viceroy estimated that one-fourth of the
entire population of India had come to a greater or less degree within
the radius of relief operations. Lord Curzon had followed relief
measures with devoted attention, touring in the worst districts of
Gujarat, one of the areas most afflicted, in the fierce heat of July, 1900.
By that time, as he said, famine had brought "its familiar attendant
Furies in its train, and cholera, dysentery and fever had fallen upon
already exhausted and enfeebled population”. ?
The relief campaign-was conducted on a very liberal scale. The
ratio of relief in June and July, 1900, was 18 per cent. in the famine-
stricken area of British India as compared with 10 per cent. in 1897;
637 public officials were specially deputed to famine duty from civil
and military cmploy; provinces not affected were scoured for the loan
of men. Revenue was freely suspended and remitted. Large loans
i Famine Commission's Report, p. 363.
• Raleigh, op. cit. pp. 375, 404. °CF. Ronaldshay, Life of Curzon, vol. 11, chap. v.
20-2
## p. 308 (#346) ############################################
308
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
were made to the Indian states as well as to land-holders and culti-
vators in British territory. Following the advice of the 1898 com-
mission, the government adapted its relief system more dexterously
to varying circumstances. In British India there was an excess
mortality of 750,000 persons, 230,000 of whom at least died of cholera
and smallpox. Fever also claimed its victims. All the figures included
immigrants from Indian states where, in spite of many bright examples
of benevolence and humanity, the standard of relief generally was
lower than that in British territory; 140 lakhs of rupees (nearly
£1,000,000 sterling) were contributed for charitable relief, of which
881 lakhs came from the United Kingdom. In 1896–7 the United
Kingdom had given 123 out of 137 lakhs. Australia, the Straits
Settlement, Ceylon and Hongkong, the United States of America,
Berlin, had also subscribed. From the 137 lakhs distributed by the
Central Relief Committee ui went to purchasing cattle, seed and
subsistence for peasants in British territory who were not reached by
the government loans. Fifty lakhs were given for similar purposes to
the Indian states. In 1900 the rains were satisfactory; prospects
rapidly mended; revenue was remitted on a liberal scale; another
commission was appointed to investigate particular questions in
the light of recent experiences. A famine, Lord Curzon said, was a
natural visitation in its origin, but should be a very business-like
proceeding when once it had started. More should be done by way
of precaution. District programmes of relief could be prepared with
greater method and should not be considered complete until every
possible scheme of irrigation or water-storage had been examined.
So terrible an incident as this famine was “an abiding landmark in
the history of the Indian people”, and imposed very heavy responsi-
bility upon the government.
The commission then appointed met under the presidency of
Sir Anthony (afterwards Lord) MacDonnell, who had steered the
United Provinces with distinguished success through the recent
famine. Their report published in 1901 clearly summarised accepted
principles of relief, suggesting variations. They emphasised the benefits
of a policy of “moral strategy”, early ascertainment and publication
of suspensions of revenue and rents, early distribution of advances for
purchase of seed and cattle and the sinking of temporary wells. They
advocated the appointment of a famine commissioner in a province
where relief operations promised to be extensive. They recommended
stricter regulation of famine relief in certain respects, efforts to enlist
non-official assistance on a larger scale, and preference in particular
circumstances of village works to the large public works which had
hitherto been the backbone of relief schemes. These suggestions com-
mended themselves to the central government and bore fruit in the
provincial famine codes. The commission also advised a considerable
increase in rolling stock at the cost if necessary of the famine insurance
a
## p. 309 (#347) ############################################
THE MACDONNELL COMMISSION
309
grant. The railways, they said, had been unable to carry much of the
food and fodder offered to them during the famine. The central
government, however, held that possibly the unavoidable limitations
in the carrying capacity of the lines was the main cause of blocks in
traffic.
The commission dealt fully with allegations that the land-revenue
demand was excessive and gave reasons for holding it to be very low
in comparison with the share of the produce to which the government
was traditionally entitled. 1 But they considered that as the savings
of good years were often rapidly spent, more indulgence in collection
should be shown in bad years. Agricultural banks should be estab-
lished; irrigation works should be pushed on; water-storage must be
more sedulously encouraged; measures should be taken to foster
improved methods of agriculture.
The development of village credit associations and the practica-
bility of a wide extension of irrigation had already been engaging the
government's attention. No time was lost in considering and acting
on the other recommendations of the commission. Before Lord
Curzon left India he had done more to prevent and combat famine,
than any two of his predecessors or successors.
The last considerable famine of our period visited the United
Provinces in 1907-8 and disclosed some changes in economic con-
ditions. In consequence of a failure of the south-west monsoon of
1907, which averaged only one-third to one-quarter of the normal
fall and came as a climax to more than one bad or indifferent season,
the loss of autumn food grains was estimated as approximating in
value to £4,000,000. Industrial staples suffered even more. The actual
failure of the autumn harvest was greater than and that of the spring
harvest was as great as the losses in 1896–7. The range of prices was
higher. The situation was not relieved, as in 1896, by an unusually
early fall of winter rain. Yet on 25 January, 1908, the lieutenant-
governor, Sir John Hewett, was able to describe the situation in the
following terms:
Why if the provinces have suffered so much as this, do we not see the outward
signs that are associated with famine? Why are we not brought into contact with
people in a state of emaciation? Why do we not see bodies of persons in search of
work? Why do the crime statistics of the province not show a serious rise? Why
again if the calamity of to-day is so like that of eleven years ago, do we find such
a change in the statistics of famine relief? Let us compare the figures for the two
periods. By this time in 1897 there were 16 districts in which famine relief was in
full swing while 24 were under observation and test; there were 480,000 persons
actually on relief works, 43,000 on test-works, 123,000 being relieved as dependents
of workers, 98,000 in receipt of gratuitous relief in their houses and 51,000 in poor-
houses; in all some 796,000 persons were relieved. At the present time there are
311,000 persons receiving different forms of relief. There are only 13 districts that
have been declared famine districts, and the workers on relief works number
152,000. We have in districts in which test-works are opened, but these are
· Cf. resolution by the governor-general in council, 16 January, 1902, published in
the Gazette of India, 18 January, 1902.
## p. 310 (#348) ############################################
310
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
attracting only about 5000 persons. We have 29,000 dependents of workers being
relieved on works. On the other hand we have 26 districts as compared with 34 in
1897, in which gratuitous relief is being given to persons at their homes and the
number in receipt of such relief in their homes is actually larger than it was in 1897.
The character of relief has undergone a considerable change. . . . The causes of
this change of policy must be sought for in the changed circumstances of the present
time.
The changed circumstances were mainly, these: not only had
railway mileage in the provinces increased 35 per cent. within eleven
years; not only had canal irrigation expanded to an equally marked
extent, but an established era of higher pricts had brought a con-
siderable rise in wages. Employment too had increased. Government
expenditure on all forms of public works had been very large; and
the industrial and building operations of the general public had
greatly extended. The labouring classes had become far less dependent
on agriculture than thcy had been in the past. Emigration had
very greatly increased, both overseas to British colonies and inland
to mills and factories in Calcutta and other commercial centres.
Increasing amounts of money had been received through postal orders
from abroad for payment to residents of certain eastern districts now
famine-stricken. In some districts the value of the postal orders
received from abroad exceeded the total land-revenue demand.
Labour was yearly becoming dearer and the cultivating classes were
better off. But the high prices of food grains, while benefiting agri-
culturists, were pressing heavily upon dwellers in towns with fixed
incomes. And so it was that while the calamity of 1907–8 was far
less a labourer's famine than had been anticipated, gratuitous relief
was distributed widely in circumstances not contemplated by the
MacDonnell commission who had allowed for it only in tracts where
relief works had been started.
As soon as the failure of the monsoon became apparent, the local
government had adopted whole-heartedly the policy of moral strategy
recommended by the MacDonnell commission.
fold preoccupations, and where he has not been provided with ade-
quate staff the result has been harmful. But he has been able to
succeed just in so far as he has appreciated the need for, and has
skilfully arranged, wherever possible, a devolution of actual work to
properly qualified subordinates.
## p. 294 (#332) ############################################
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Three
HREE hundred years ago the Dutchman, Francisco Pelsaert,
travelling in Upper India, described in vivid language the relations
between agriculture and the seasons:
The year is here divided into three seasons. In April, May and June the heat is
intolerable, and men can scarcely breathe, more than that, hot winds blow con-
tinuously, as stifling as if they came straight from the furnace of hell. The air is
filled with the dust raised by violent whirlwinds from the sandy soil, making day
like the darkest night that human eyes have seen or that can be grasped by the
imagination. Thus in the afternoon of 15 June, 1624, I watched a hurricane of dust
coming up gradually, which so hid the sky and the sun that for two hours people
could not tell if the world was at an end, for the darkness and fury of the wind
could not have been exceeded. Then the storm disappeared gradually, as it had
come, and the sun shone again. The months of June, July, August, September and
October are reckoned as the rainy season, during which it sometimes rains steadily.
The days are still very hot, but the rain brings a pleasant and refreshing coolness.
In November, December, January, February and March it is tolerably cool, and
the climate is pleasant.
From April to June the fields lie hard and dry, unfit for ploughing or sowing
owing to the heat. When the ground has been moistened by a few days' rain, the
cultivators begin to sow indigo, rice and various food grains eaten by the poor.
When all these are off the land, they plough and sow again, for there are two harvests;
that is to say in December and January they sow wheat and barley, various pulses
and "alsi" (linseed) from which oil is extracted. Large numbers of wells have to
be dug in order to irrigate the soil, for at that time it is beginning to lose its productive
power. Provided the rain is seasonable and the cold is not excessive, there is a
year of plenty, not merely of food, but in the trade of all sorts of commodities. I
But if the rain is not seasonable, if the monsoon fails over large
tracts which cannot be sufficiently irrigated from ponds, rivers, wells
or canals, the crops which are the mainstay of the countryside must
be sown in a much restricted area and will often be poor even there;
the grass which has been burnt up by the blazing sun and burning
winds of March, April and May cannot revive, and both the milch-
cows and the plough and transport cattle, which are the cultivator's
working capital, are decimated. The water level falls; and the supply
is tainted with noxious germs. The peasantry see their means of live-
lihood vanish. If no remedy be forthcoming they must starve.
Destitution will bring cholera and pestilence in its train; and thousands
of humble lives will be sacrificed. Such is famine in that grim shape
which it has often worn. But nature sometimes relents; and man has
done much to combat this king of terrors.
The drought which follows a feeble monsoon may be mitigated by
light winter rains; and in any case there are marked differences of
· Pelsaert, Jerangir's India, pp. 47–8. For an account of the climate and rainfall see
vol. 1, chap. i of this History.
a
## p. 295 (#333) ############################################
MEANS OF IRRIGATION
295
climate and inequalities of rainfall. The populations have accustomed
themselves to this circumstance both in their density and in their
selection of crops. There are wet provinces and dry provinces, wet
areas and dry areas, sometimes within the same district; there are wet
crops and dry crops. If communications are adequate there are
flourishing tracts to come to the rescue of those less favoured. Rain
never fails throughout the whole country, even though the monsoon
sometimes disappoints not only regions inured to some degree of
drought but those which are usually blessed with abundant rainfall.
When the south-west monsoon is over the young winter crops, and
in parts the later rice, need artificial irrigation; and if the rainfall has
been deficient, the irrigation must be strenuous and constant. Rivers,
wells, "tanks” (artificial ponds) are all requisitioned. But in a dry
year, the supply from these sources shrinks, and canals, where they
exist, are the greatest stand-by of all. Large-scale systems of canals,
drawing supplies from rivers or artificial reservoirs, began with the
consolidation of British rule; but the West Jumna Canal, in a dilapi-
dated condition, was inherited from Moghul times; and the Kaveri
delta canal system in Madras comes down from remote antiquity.
In the year 1919-20 the total area irrigated by canals in British India
exceeded 27,000,000 acres. The total length of canals and distributaries
was 66,754 miles. The estimated value of the crops watered by govern-
ment irrigation works amounted to £156,000,000, double the capital
expenditure which these works had entailed.
The storage of water and the regulation of its outflow are matters of
supreme importance to Indian agriculture. Wells, tanks and canals
play their part. But the wide extension of irrigation which marked
the years 1858–1918 could not have been achieved without the skilled
and devoted co-operation nf the Indian forest service. To quote the
words of one of its most distinguished members:
It is by the agency of the forests that the surface-flow from the hills is restrained
after heavy rain; that the water level is maintained at such a height that it can be
reached by the primitive methods of the East; that the springs are kept supplied;
and that perennial springs may be made to flow in the place of those water-courses
trịckling through dreary beds of sand, that would hardly be suspected of becoming
later on in the summer turbulent and muddy torrents, often carrying devastation
instead of blessing. "
We need only summarise the history of famines before 1858. In
ancient times scarcity owing to floods or drought was not infrequent
and sometimes extended to a whole kingdom. 3 But scarcities caused
by floods have always affected comparatively small areas, and inunda-
tions have left a fertilising silt. The great famines have been caused
by drought. In his elaborate studies of economic life under the
1 Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, p. 108; Knowles, Economic Development of the
Overseas Empire, np. 366-82; Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 195-6.
• Eardley-Wilmot, Forest Life and Sport in India, p. 5.
3 Cf. vol. 1, chap. viii, supra.
>
## p. 296 (#334) ############################################
296 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Moghul emperors Mr Moreland has shown us that the famines then
were marked, not only by widespread mortality and desolation, but
by suicide, voluntary enslavement and cannibalism. 1 Before the “pax
Britannica” was definitely established the miseries of such times were
often aggravated by the ravages of armies. In 1802 the army of the
Maratha chief, Jasvant Rao Holkar, marching to Poona from the
north, laid waste the countryside. The Pindaris followed in its wake
and reduced the Deccan to such depths of misery and want that
human beings are said to have been devoured by the peasants.
Emigrants passed into the Konkan leaving a trail of dead and dying
behind them. The late rains failed; the river at Poona was black with
putrescent corpses; and “hunger, hand in hand with cholera, left
many villages permanently desolate”. 2 But, in any case, as long as
districts were land-locked and populations were isolated, famine
relief was largely regarded as hopeless. Almsgiving, storage of food
grains in central towns, remissions of revenue, digging of wells, were
palliatives occasionally resorted to. But no attempt was made to stem
the full tide of starvation and ruin. Even when the government of the
East India Company, recently established at Calcutta, was in 1769–70
first brought face to face with responsibility for some measure of
relief, its dispatches,
while breathing a tone of sincere compassion for the sufferings of the people, were
busied rather with the fiscal results as affecting the responsibility of the Company
towards its shareholders, than with schemes which would have seemed wholly
visionary for counteracting the inevitable loss of life. 3
There is no reason to dispute the finding of the 1880 Famine Com-
mission that up to the end of the eighteenth century “the position of
the British in India was not such as either to create any sense of
general obligation to give relief, or to supply sufficient means of
affording it". While the administration was endeavouring to find its
feet, while wars frequently carried devastation into large tracts of
country, while the effects of climatic disturbances on food crops were
largely a matter of conjecture, while agricultural, economic and vital
statistics were unknown, while it was difficult to transmit information
speedily, while the absence of communications rendered the timely
transmission of grain for long distances or in large quantities a very
arduous or an impossible undertaking, while hal, tarved bullocks or
heavy barges were the sole means of transport, famine was regarded
as a calamity wholly transcending the powers of man to counteract
or even materially to mitigate. 4 The years 1765–1858 were marked
by famines or scarcities in various parts of the country which were
dealt with by such measures as seemed best to the local governments
1 Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, chap. vii; From Akbar to Aurangzeb, chap. vii.
2 Grant Duff, History of the Marathas (ed. Edwardes), II, 368.
3 Report of the Famine Commission, 1880; cf. Hickey, Memoirs, 111, 343-4.
• Cf. Kaye, British India, pp. 275-6, and Maconochie, Life in Indian Civil Service, pp. 9-10.
## p. 297 (#335) ############################################
EARLIER FAMINES
297
or district officers concerned. No attempt was made to formulate any
general system of famine relief or prevention, although such experi-
ments as storage of grain by the government, penalties on hoarding,
bounies on import, poorhouses, advances of money to encourage the
sinking of wells, and relief works to afford employment, were under-
taken at one time or another. The only business which can afford
employment to Indian cultivators when tillage fails is earth-work,
the excavation of reservoirs, the construction of irrigation embank-
ments and the making of roads. But earth-works were never opened
on an adequate scale. When in 1837 famine visited the upper reaches
of the Ganges and the Jumna, the local government laid down the
principle that while the state found work for the able-bodied, the
whole community must, as in ordinary times, look after the helpless
and infirm. The measures adopted were quite insufficient. Heavy
mortality resulted; and violent riots broke out. Twenty years later
came the Mutiny, which was followed by the complete transfer of
government to the crown.
The period with which we are now concerned was marked by a
wide extension of railways1 and other communications, by a rapid
growth of trade and overseas commerce, by a great expansion of
means of irrigation, by the development of an elaborate system of
public instruction, by agrarian legislation mainly in the interest of the
cultivators, by a gradual change in economic factors which, in spite
of a great increase of population, very gradually modified the character
of famines.
The seasons of 1858-9 were irregular; and in 1860 the monsoon
practically failed over 48,000 square miles of the North-West Pro-
vinces around Agre. Alwar and other Indian states were affected;
and about half a million persons deserted the distressed tracts.
The provinces were still suffering from the effects of the Mutiny;
but their south-east districts and neighbour provinces had received
plenty of rain and were able to supply abundance of food grains.
Within the distressed area canals protected about 900,000 more acres
than they had protected in 1837; around it communications had
improved, and the East Indian Railway had progressed far enough
to render useful service. Free-trade principles were followed; and, as
in 1837, it was declared that the state would provide employment for
the able-bodied while voluntary agency should give charitable relief
to the helpless and infirm. In fact, however, voluntary agency did
very little; and the government found it necessary to undertake almost
the whole burden of relief. Able-bodied persons were organised in
gangs, housed in temporary sheds and employed upon earth-works
for roads or canals. Some helpless persons were relieved in their
homes and others in poorhouses where light tasks were imposed upon
the more capable inmates. The famine was on a small scale, but is
1 For the early history of railways in India see Quarterly Review, 1868, (xxv, 48–78.
## p. 298 (#336) ############################################
298 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
remarkable for the fact that then for the first time a special enquiry
was held into the causes, area and intensity of such a calamity. While
it was proceeding Colonel Baird Smith was deputed to examine these
matters; but his report did not lead to any formulation of general
principles of relief.
We come now to the famine of 1866–7, which is known as the
Orissa famine because in Orissa it assumed its most terrible form; but
it extended along the whole east coast from Calcutta to Madras and
penetrated inland. This calamity proved a turning point in the history
of Indian famines for it was followed by the investigations and report
of a committee (presided over by Sir George Campbell") which laid
the foundations of a definite policy.
The causes of the famine were the failure of the autumn rains, and
consequently of the rice crops, of 1865, together with the almost com-
plete absence of importation into Orissa of food from outside. The
main stress of privation fell on the three British districts which form
a comparatively narrow strip between the uplands and the sea and
are intersected by rivers which swell enormously in the rainy season.
There is a large pilgrim traffic by land to Jagannath in the dry season;
but commercial communications were then principally by sea from
several small ports open the greater part of the year but inaccessible
from the heavy surf and the prevalent winds after the breaking of the
south-west monsoon. The country is almost entirely a rice or water
country; but the supply of rain is generally ample, and there had been
no previous famines since Orissa became British territory. In 1865,
however, the monsoon ceased prematurely along the east coast, and
two-thirds of the rice crop were lost. Food stocks were low, as export
had been brisk of late years, but prices remained moderate for some
time. The warnings of certain local officers were disregarded, and
'famine arrived like a thief in the night.
"In April 1866", says Campbell, “the magistrate of Cuttack still reported that
there was no ground for serious apprehension. A few days later in May, he and his
followers were almost starved. We compared it to the case of a ship where the stores
are suddenly found to have run out. '
A panic had set in and stores were withheld from the market. Every
Indian cultivator aims at growing and keeping his own food supply.
The market supply is what he sells to pay his rent and meet his cash
needs, but in times of scarcity even grain which can be spared is held
up. Dealers also incline to wait for higher prices. If, however, im-
portation from other districts is easily practicable, even a great failure
of crops will not lead to a widespread hold-up of stocks.
In Orissa panic arose suddenly. Importation was rapidly becoming
impracticable; and the local government had been slow to appreciate
the situation. Before anything effective could be done the monsoon
a
1 Cf. his Memoirs of my Indian Career, 11, 149-55.
## p. 299 (#337) ############################################
THE ORISSA FAMINE
299
broke and Orissa was sealed up for several months. There was terrible
suffering before adequate supplies could be obtained, although the
cultivators procured or had saved sufficient to sow their autumn crops.
In October the government poured in large supplies of grain, and
some local hoards were brought out by the dealers. A good new crop
was then being reaped, and the famine ended almost as suddenly as
it had begun, except in certain tracts, where excessive floods wrought
havoc. The Bengal government had provided such relief as it could
at a cost of about one and a half millions sterling. But the commis-
sioner of the division estimated that one-fourth of the population had
died. Campbell's committee did not think this estimate excessive;
but in the entire absence of statistics and of effective machinery for
ascertaining the facts was unable to form an accurate judgment. The
census of 1871 showed an unexpectedly large population; and Camp-
bell afterwards doubted whether the famine mortality had not been
exaggerated. The grain which poured in when the mischief was done
was largely wasted and lay unused till it rotted. In Ganjam, a neigh-
bouring district of the Madras Presidency, the situation had been
easier, but a prolonged duration of high prices pressed hardly on the
people and called for relief measures. The drought of 1865 extended
in some degree to Bihar and Bengal where relief was inadequate and
badly organised.
Campbell's committee reported that timely measures had not been
taken to meet the terrible emergency which arose in May, 1866. The
Bengal government had completely failed to forecast developments
and had misled the central government. Blindly relying on the law
of demand and supply, they had not considered the isolation of Orissa
in the rainy season, and its customary dependence on its own food
supply. It was essential to improve communications considerably and
to initiate in Bengal the maintenance of land records and agricultural
statistics which was carried out in other provinces by a subordinate
revenue staff. The committee made recommendations which in some
measure anticipated those of the royal commission of 1880. Their
report produced a change of outlook; but Campbell tells us that “the
idea rather prevailed that the Orissa failure was a personal failure
which need not occur again". John Lawrence, however, who was
then governor-general, blamed himself bitterly for having accepted
the facile assurances of the Bengal government, and, when famine
again appeared elsewhere in 1868, declared in council that his object
was “to save every life", and that district officers would be held
responsible that no preventible deaths occurred. The old doctrine
that the public would be responsible for the relief of the helpless and
infirm was entirely abandoned. Money was borrowed in order to
finance additional railways and canals.
Drought and famine in 1868-9 affected parts of the North-Western
Provinces and Panjab, but were more intense in wide stretches of
## p. 300 (#338) ############################################
300
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
Rajputana, and produced a great influx of emigrants into British
territory, severely straining public charity and tending to swamp
relief arrangements. The able-bodied were employed on large and
small works. Extra mortality was estimated at 1,200,000 and ascribed
mainly to cholera, smallpox and fever.
In 1873 the monsoon ceased prematurely in Northern Bihar,
causing a loss of much of the winter rice crop. Relief measures were
planned on a scale unknown before. Sir George Campbell, then
lieutenant-governor, wished to prohibit export of rice and other cereals
from Bengal overseas, the failure of these crops being largely confined
to the north-western districts of his charge. His idea was to save all
that was available in the south-east, to dam it up and drive it north-
ward. But the proposal did not commend itself to Lord Northbrook
who was then viceroy, and the central government arranged to
import 480,000 tons of rice mostly from Burma to the distressed area.
Even so up to April, 1874, the imports of rice barely equalled the
exports; and during the whole famine year the exports of food from
Calcutta were about two-thirds of the imports. Tasks were not strictly
enforced on the relief works started in the distressed area, which con-
sisted of 40,000 square miles with a population of 17,000,000.
Gratuitous relief was given in villages on a very liberal scale. The
whole cest was six and a half millions, although famine had been
acute in two districts only: 800,000 tons of surplus grain remained on
the hands of the government and were sold at a heavy loss. Relief
was undoubtedly extravagant; but, for the first time in Indian history,
a serious failure of crops had not produced heavy mortality.
The next drought soon arrived. It produced a famine of great
magnitude and eventuated in an enquiry on a large scale which
inaugurated a new era.
The famine of 1876–8 resulted from two deficient monsoons and
affected not merely rice areas but also tracts which were largely
covered by dry crops. It lasted long, covering much Madras territory,
part of the Indian states of Mysore and Hyderabad, and the Bombay
Deccan, affecting also the North-Western Provinces and Oudh. The
policy of the central government was to spare no efforts to save the
population of the distressed districts, but not to attempt the task of
giving general relief to all the poorer classes of the community.
Agreed principles and methods of relief had not yet been formulated;
operations were not conducted on any uniform plan; and in many
tracts private trade was seriously hampered by imperfect communica-
tions, for none of the areas most affected was then traversed by more
than one railway line, while various districts were dependent for food
on cattle transport from certain depôts served by the railways. In
Bombay deaths during 1877-8 were 800,000 in excess of the normal
figure, although large relief works had been promptly opened for the
able-bodied, and gratuitous relief was well organised. In Madras the
}
1
1
## p. 301 (#339) ############################################
THE STRACHEY COMMISSION
301
government commenced by importing grain with the object of
keeping down prices, but were checked by the central government on
the ground that trade should not be interfered with. A few large
works were opened; but the majority of the able-bodied were relieved
by smaller works on which wages were much too high. Gratuitous
relief was extravagant, and the viceroy, visiting the presidency in
September, observed that the relief camps were “like picnics”. “The
people on them, who do no work of any kind, are bursting with fat and
naturally enjoy themselves thoroughly. "1 Lord Lytton saw that
gratuitous relief urgently required efficient administration, and
drafted in extra British civil and military officers from Upper India.
Rain came later on in the autumn and relieved the situation; but a
number of debilitated persons remained on the hands of the Madras
government another year, until the autumn crops of 1878 were ripe.
On 11 October, 1877, the viceroy wrote to Queen Victoria:
Whilst the Madras famine has cost the Government of India over 10 millions,
the Bombay famine, under General Kennedy's management, has cost only four
millions, although a much larger saving of human life has been effected in Bombay
than in Madras.
The Madras famine was otherwise remarkable for the fact that
charitable contributions amounting to £78,000 flowed in from Great
Britain and the colonies.
Lytton's government decided that famine relief called for clear
thinking, and appointed a strong commission under General Sir
Richard Strachey, which reported in 1880, formulating general prin-
ciples and suggesting particular measures of a preventive or protective
character. It recognised to the full the duty of the state to offer
relief to the necessitous in times of famine, but held that this relief
should be so administered
as not to check the growth of thrift and self-reliance among the people, or to impair
the structure of society, which, resting as it does in India upon the moral obligation
of mutual assistance, is admirably adapted for common effort against a common
misfortune.
The great object of saving life would be far better secured if proper
care were taken to prevent the abuse and demoralisation which, all
experience showed, resulted from ill-directed and excessive distribu-
tion of charitable relief. In this spirit a provisional famine code must
be framed which the local governments would adapt to the circum-
stances of their provinces and would in future administer subject to
financial control from the central government.
Starting with these premises, the commission insisted on the urgent
need of proper statistical collection of facts relating to the condition
of the agricultural community. The opportunities for such collection
1 Letters of the Earl of Lytton, 1, 79.
82.
• Cf. Fuller, Indian Life and Sentiment, p. 202.
• Idem, p.
## p. 302 (#340) ############################################
302
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
1
offered by the revenue system in all provinces except parts of Bengal
and Sind had been imperfectly utilised. Relief, too, should everywhere
be administered on certain basic principles.
(a) Employment on works must be offered before the physical
efficiency of applicants had been impaired by privation. All applicants
must be received, but self-acting tests of wages and labour must be
enforced in order to prevent the earth-works from attracting labourers
who were not really in want, but out of work merely because at a
particular season there was little to do in the fields. The works should
be of permanent utility and capable of employing a considerable
number of persons for a considerable period. Wages should be adjusted
from time to time so as to provide sufficient food for a labourer's
support, allowing him a day's rest in the week. Separate rates should
be prescribed for different ages, sexes and classes; and allowances
must be made for dependent children of labourers. A margin should
be left to prevent accidental error on the side of deficiency. Over the
larger works which would be directed by engineers of the public
works department, district officers should exercise general super-
vision, deciding questions relating to tasks and wages, opening or
closing of works, and all arrangements except those of a technical
nature. Such works as excavation of ponds in villages and raising
embankments for water storage might be carried out under the
management of the ordinary district staff for the purpose of employing
persons unfit to be dispatched to the larger works. Arrangements
must be made for providing the latter with huts, temporary markets
and hospitals.
Great care must be exercised to avoid throwing work-
people out of ordinary employ; and if drought merely produced
severe scarcity, it would probably be sufficient to enlarge ordinary
public works in such a manner as to afford additional employment.
(6) Only of late years had the government recognised that
gratuitous relief was the duty not of the general public but of the
state. Two systems prevailed; raw grain or money might be dis-
tributed in villages, and cooked food might be given at centres subject
frequently to the condition of residence in a poorhouse or temporary
camp. The latter form of relief was very unpopular. In the North-
Western Provinces and Oudh many had died rather than accept it.
It could only be a reserve line of defence. Gratuitous relief in villages,
however, required very careful organisation and control. For this
purpose distressed tracts must be divided into circles, and each circle
must be placed under a competent officer who would be drawn from
the district staff. Non-officials might be asked to volunteer assistance.
Committees of Indian gentlemen would gladly assist in distributing
relief to purdah-nishin ladies.
(c) Government should, as a general rule, trust private trade to
supply and distribute food, giving it every possible facility. It should
prohibit export of grain only if reasonably certain that such action
1
## p. 303 (#341) ############################################
PRINCIPLES OF RELIEF
303
was necessary to conserve the resources of India as a whole (as was
done in 1918). As railways multiplied, the country was becoming
better and better able to feed itself. There were strong objections to
storage of grain by the government, and there was abundant private
storage. It was, however, important that supplies of food in distressed
areas should be carefully watched.
(d) The commission made suggestions in regard to suspensions and
remissions of land-revenue and rents. In times of famine landlords
should be encouraged and assisted by loans on easy terms to open
works on their estates which would offer employment to labourers
and poorer tenants. Loans should also be given for purchases of seed
grain and bullocks.
(e) The cost of relief must be so localised as to bring home to its
administrators a sense of personal responsibility for expenditure. The
sense of responsibility would be most effectually quickened by throwing
the burden of famine expenditure on to local taxation, and adminis-
tering relief through representative members of the tax-paying body,
themselves responsible for providing all needful funds, but this system
would involve the assumption that the various provinces were, on the
whole, equally well qualified to bear their own burdens, an assump-
tion contrary to fact. There was always a limit beyond which pro-
vincial revenues could not supply famine relief and must be assisted
from imperial funds. In ordinary times, too, the central government
should assist local governments to undertake water-storage and other
protective works, even if such enterprises seemed unlikely to yield
immediate profit.
In times of excessive drought facilities should be afforded for
the migration of cattle to grassy forest areas where abundant pasturage
was procurable.
The commission estimated that the largest population likely to be
affected by famine at one time was thirty millions. They held that
great uncertainties surrounded all estimates of degrees of failure of
crops and that in forecasting consequences attention must be paid to
the antecedent and existing circumstances of the areas affected. The
classes which suffered most from famine were the cultivators and
labourers who were thrown out of employment, the artisans and
petty traders deprived of profits mainly derived from dealing with
the poorer classes, aged or weakly dependents, and public beggars
who found the springs of charity drying up.
The commission's proposals were generally accepted, and steps
were taken to create new resources by which in normal times a surplus
of revenue could be secured to meet the extraordinary charges thrown
on the state by famine. Experience provided a basis of calculation,
and, after correspondence with the secretary of state in council, it was
eventually decided that 15,000,000 rupees would always be entered
in the budget under the head “Famine relief and Insurance", with
## p. 304 (#342) ############################################
304
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
.
sub-heads for relief, protective works and reduction of debt, or
prevention of debt which would otherwise be incurred for the con-
struction of railways and canals. When Lord Curzon's second budget
was framed arrangements were made to charge against this insurance
fund only works designed and executed exclusively as protection
against famine.
In 1883 the provisional Famine Code was promulgated. It formed
a guide and a basis for the various provincial famine codes which were
subsequently prepared, approved by the central government, and
revised again and again as experience widened. The first chapter of
these codes prescribed precautions to be taken in ordinary times. The
second gave instructions to be followed when a relief campaign seemed
a
imminent. The remaining chapters described the duties of all con-
cerned when it had actually begun. Districts might be declared by
local governments either “scarcity” or “famine”.
“famine". "Scarcity dis-
tricts” would be those less acutely distressed and would require less
general relief. They might or might not develop into "famine dis-
tricts”. In any case they would be divided into relief circles organised
.
in the manner suggested by the 1880 commission. The codes enjoined
the immediate preparation and careful maintenance of district
programmes of relief works. Projects for the larger works, which would
be the backbone of relief, would be prepared in detail by the public
works department. The codes dealt thoroughly with other matters
which had been the subjects of the commission's recommendations.
The district is and must always be the unit of famine relief; and it
is worth while to sketch briefly the preliminaries and development of
relief measures in a stricken district.
We will say that in a certain September the district officer (the
writer has served through two famines, once as district officer and
again as commissioner) recognises that the monsoon has failed to a
disastrous degree, that the autumn crops have largely perished, and
that the sowing of the winter crops on the hard dry ground will be
largely impossible. He consults his copy of the provincial famine code
and examines the programmes of relief works which, in obedience to
its provisions, have been prepared and revised by his predecessors.
He looks up the records of any previous famine which may have
visited his district, calls for reports from subdivisional officers or
tahsildars, and journeys to the tracts which cause most anxiety, in-
forming his commissioner of his plans and views. That officer com-
municates with the local government and will take an early oppor-
tunity of inspecting the precarious region himself, but may have other
threatened districts to visit. As the shadows lengthen, the district
officer will have to revise his programme of relief works, for his charge
may measure 3000 or 4000 square miles, and will contain wet and
dry areas; the rainfall has been uneven; the subdivisions are affected
in varying degrees. All the requirements of particular localities cannot
## p. 305 (#343) ############################################
DISTRICT FAMINE WORK
305
have been foreseen, and the district engineer must be carefully con-
sulted. Some new projects for roads and water-storage works must
be considered and prepared. Estimates too must be dispatched to the
commissioner forecasting the degree of crop failure, the consequent
suspension of land-revenue, the amount of advances (takavi) required
for assistance to occupiers of land, who are anxious, wherever prac-
ticable, to sow and irrigate the winter crops, and the sums required for
relief of all kinds. A rise in crimes against property will be engaging
the attention of the superintendent of police, and outbreaks of epi-
demic disease will demand special efforts on the part of the civil
surgeon. These officers will be touring from time to time and keeping
in touch with their subordinates in rural areas. Letters to the district
officer are arriving from the commissioner, frequently enclosing orders
from the local government who will allot funds and sanction necessary
expenditure.
In most provinces the district officer will find his relief circles ready
made. His tahsils or subdivisions are already split up into circles
presided over by inspectors of village records (kanungos) who move
constantly about and look after the work of the patwaris (village
accountants). The village headmen, assisted by the latter, prepare
lists of infirm and needy persons likely to require gratuitous relief
which are checked by the kanungos. The totals are collected, scru-
tinised by tahsildars and subdivisional officers, and laid before the
head of the district. That officer will call a public meeting for appeal
to the charitable and will make arrangements for the immediate
distribution of takavi advances.
“Scarcity” is declared in our district. Test works are opened which
attract increasing numbers, although by far the great majority of the
cultivators are sticking persistently to their fields, ploughing, sowing,
watering, sinking temporary wells wherever practicable, with a
courage and perseverance beyond all praise. Perhaps some fall of
early winter rain relieves the whole situation and postpones or
mitigates calamity. But this cannot be relied on; and if it does not
come, signs of distress speedily increase and “famine" is declared.
Then the whole machinery contemplated by the code comes into
operation, and everything depends upon efficiency of organisation and
supervision. One problem succeeds another rapidly for thousands
come on to the relief works, many with babies and children; and it is
almost impossible to discriminate between genuine dependents of
workers and others. In the 1908 famine the government of the United
Provinces decided to discontinue relief of dependents on works, as far
as possible, for this reason, preferring to transfer them to their homes.
But this cannot always be arranged, and in any case the timely relief
of thousands in their homes by doles is most difficult to arrange and
control. Cholera too may at any time visit one of the large works,
when, unless careful arrangements are speedily made, a panic-
a
CHI VI
20
## p. 306 (#344) ############################################
306
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
stricken crowd will disperse in all directions, some bearing with them
deadly contagion. At all times the condition of the children calls for
particular attention. Care must also be taken, as far as possible, to
save the cattle; or else even when rain comes, ploughing will be
extremely restricted. These are only some of the problems which assail
the over-burdened district staff. Extra assistants are drafted in; but
the local government may be struggling with the needs of twenty
districts or more, and the central government may be perplexed by
the conflicting claims of three or four provinces. The commander-in-
chief is appealed to and assists with the invaluable loan of some junior
military officers. Months of trial and anxiety pass by. If the district
adjoins an Indian state, crowds of immigrants may pour in. The
commissioner, moving about in his division, acts as adviser, friend
and referee. The head of the local government comes to see for
himself how things are going. At last the hot weather comes to an
end; the rains burst; the labourers on the relief works disperse with
valedictory doles; agricultural operations are resumed, and soon
relief is no longer required.
But in the meantime privation and disease have taken their toll;
the provincial finances have been badly strained; and despite an
elaborate system of accounts, the immense opportunities of pecula-
tion, which large expenditure on famine relief offers to numbers of
subordinates, have not been entirely lost. In fighting famine vigorous,
effective, unceasing supervision by officers of the superior services is,
from every point of view, absolutely essential. The difficulty of
securing this can be appreciated by remembering that sometimes
twenty districts or more, and many millions of people are affected.
In the great famine of 1899–1900 Lord Curzon regretted that more
superior and subordinate officers had not been available and re-
marked that the provinces not afflicted had been “literally scoured
for the loan of men". The Indian states had “escaped a disastrous
breakdown only through the administrative knowledge, unflagging
energy and devotion of British officers lent to them". 1
Between 1880 and 1896 minor droughts in different provinces
afforded opportunities of testing and revising the provincial codes.
In 1896–7 came a grave failure of the rains affecting 225,000 square
miles in British India and a population of sixty-two millions. The
tracts severely distressed measured 125,000 square miles with a popu-
lation of thirty-four millions. The North-Western Provinces and
Oudh, Bihar, the Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, the Panjab,
Berar, suffered in varying degrees. In the North-Western and Central
Provinces extensive relief operations were undertaken. The famine
was followed by searching enquiries from a commission presided over
by Sir James Lyall, ex-lieutenant-governor of the Panjab, who found
it most difficult to compare degrees of distress with those observed
· Raleigh, Lord Curzon in India, p. 386.
1
## p. 307 (#345) ############################################
THE FAMINE OF 1900
307
in previous famines as conditions had largely altered with expansion
of railways. But improved supervision and organisation had certainly
reduced the cost of relief to a figure below that which might have
been anticipated. The commission adhered largely to the views
expressed by their predecessors in 1880, suggesting alterations which
were designed to impart greater flexibility to the maxims then adopted.
They observed:
It may be said of India as a whole that of late years, owing to high prices, there
has been a considerable increase in the incomes of the landholding and cultivating
classes, and their standard of comfort and expenditure has also risen. With the rise
in transfer-value of their holdings, their credit also has expanded. During recent
famines they have shown greater powers of resistance. The poorer professional
classes suffer severely from rise of prices but do not come on relief. The wages of
day labourers and skilled artisans have no risen. The rise in prices of food has not
been accompanied by a rise in the wages of labour. On the contrary, as com-
petition falls off, the rate of wages offered falls frequently below the customary
rate. '
Before the proposals of the 1898 commission had been fully con-
sidered by the government, India was visited by a drought the greatest
in extent and intensity which she had experienced for 200 years. The
area affected amounted to over 400,000 square miles with a popula-
tion of about sixty millions, of whom twenty-five millions belonged
to British India and the remainder to Indian states. It embraced the
greater part of the Bombay Presidency, the Central Provinces, Berar
and much of the Panjab, the states of Kathiawar and Rajputana, the
Nizam's dominions, Baroda and the Central Indian principalities.
The loss in crops alone amounted to £50,000,000 in British India and
£30,000,000 in the Indian states. Water supplies shrank considerably;
and a fodder famine on an enormous scale was followed by a positive
devastation of all kinds of cattle. Some of the tracts which had suffered
in 1896–7 suffered even more now. Speaking to his legislative council
on 19 October, 1900, the viceroy estimated that one-fourth of the
entire population of India had come to a greater or less degree within
the radius of relief operations. Lord Curzon had followed relief
measures with devoted attention, touring in the worst districts of
Gujarat, one of the areas most afflicted, in the fierce heat of July, 1900.
By that time, as he said, famine had brought "its familiar attendant
Furies in its train, and cholera, dysentery and fever had fallen upon
already exhausted and enfeebled population”. ?
The relief campaign-was conducted on a very liberal scale. The
ratio of relief in June and July, 1900, was 18 per cent. in the famine-
stricken area of British India as compared with 10 per cent. in 1897;
637 public officials were specially deputed to famine duty from civil
and military cmploy; provinces not affected were scoured for the loan
of men. Revenue was freely suspended and remitted. Large loans
i Famine Commission's Report, p. 363.
• Raleigh, op. cit. pp. 375, 404. °CF. Ronaldshay, Life of Curzon, vol. 11, chap. v.
20-2
## p. 308 (#346) ############################################
308
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
were made to the Indian states as well as to land-holders and culti-
vators in British territory. Following the advice of the 1898 com-
mission, the government adapted its relief system more dexterously
to varying circumstances. In British India there was an excess
mortality of 750,000 persons, 230,000 of whom at least died of cholera
and smallpox. Fever also claimed its victims. All the figures included
immigrants from Indian states where, in spite of many bright examples
of benevolence and humanity, the standard of relief generally was
lower than that in British territory; 140 lakhs of rupees (nearly
£1,000,000 sterling) were contributed for charitable relief, of which
881 lakhs came from the United Kingdom. In 1896–7 the United
Kingdom had given 123 out of 137 lakhs. Australia, the Straits
Settlement, Ceylon and Hongkong, the United States of America,
Berlin, had also subscribed. From the 137 lakhs distributed by the
Central Relief Committee ui went to purchasing cattle, seed and
subsistence for peasants in British territory who were not reached by
the government loans. Fifty lakhs were given for similar purposes to
the Indian states. In 1900 the rains were satisfactory; prospects
rapidly mended; revenue was remitted on a liberal scale; another
commission was appointed to investigate particular questions in
the light of recent experiences. A famine, Lord Curzon said, was a
natural visitation in its origin, but should be a very business-like
proceeding when once it had started. More should be done by way
of precaution. District programmes of relief could be prepared with
greater method and should not be considered complete until every
possible scheme of irrigation or water-storage had been examined.
So terrible an incident as this famine was “an abiding landmark in
the history of the Indian people”, and imposed very heavy responsi-
bility upon the government.
The commission then appointed met under the presidency of
Sir Anthony (afterwards Lord) MacDonnell, who had steered the
United Provinces with distinguished success through the recent
famine. Their report published in 1901 clearly summarised accepted
principles of relief, suggesting variations. They emphasised the benefits
of a policy of “moral strategy”, early ascertainment and publication
of suspensions of revenue and rents, early distribution of advances for
purchase of seed and cattle and the sinking of temporary wells. They
advocated the appointment of a famine commissioner in a province
where relief operations promised to be extensive. They recommended
stricter regulation of famine relief in certain respects, efforts to enlist
non-official assistance on a larger scale, and preference in particular
circumstances of village works to the large public works which had
hitherto been the backbone of relief schemes. These suggestions com-
mended themselves to the central government and bore fruit in the
provincial famine codes. The commission also advised a considerable
increase in rolling stock at the cost if necessary of the famine insurance
a
## p. 309 (#347) ############################################
THE MACDONNELL COMMISSION
309
grant. The railways, they said, had been unable to carry much of the
food and fodder offered to them during the famine. The central
government, however, held that possibly the unavoidable limitations
in the carrying capacity of the lines was the main cause of blocks in
traffic.
The commission dealt fully with allegations that the land-revenue
demand was excessive and gave reasons for holding it to be very low
in comparison with the share of the produce to which the government
was traditionally entitled. 1 But they considered that as the savings
of good years were often rapidly spent, more indulgence in collection
should be shown in bad years. Agricultural banks should be estab-
lished; irrigation works should be pushed on; water-storage must be
more sedulously encouraged; measures should be taken to foster
improved methods of agriculture.
The development of village credit associations and the practica-
bility of a wide extension of irrigation had already been engaging the
government's attention. No time was lost in considering and acting
on the other recommendations of the commission. Before Lord
Curzon left India he had done more to prevent and combat famine,
than any two of his predecessors or successors.
The last considerable famine of our period visited the United
Provinces in 1907-8 and disclosed some changes in economic con-
ditions. In consequence of a failure of the south-west monsoon of
1907, which averaged only one-third to one-quarter of the normal
fall and came as a climax to more than one bad or indifferent season,
the loss of autumn food grains was estimated as approximating in
value to £4,000,000. Industrial staples suffered even more. The actual
failure of the autumn harvest was greater than and that of the spring
harvest was as great as the losses in 1896–7. The range of prices was
higher. The situation was not relieved, as in 1896, by an unusually
early fall of winter rain. Yet on 25 January, 1908, the lieutenant-
governor, Sir John Hewett, was able to describe the situation in the
following terms:
Why if the provinces have suffered so much as this, do we not see the outward
signs that are associated with famine? Why are we not brought into contact with
people in a state of emaciation? Why do we not see bodies of persons in search of
work? Why do the crime statistics of the province not show a serious rise? Why
again if the calamity of to-day is so like that of eleven years ago, do we find such
a change in the statistics of famine relief? Let us compare the figures for the two
periods. By this time in 1897 there were 16 districts in which famine relief was in
full swing while 24 were under observation and test; there were 480,000 persons
actually on relief works, 43,000 on test-works, 123,000 being relieved as dependents
of workers, 98,000 in receipt of gratuitous relief in their houses and 51,000 in poor-
houses; in all some 796,000 persons were relieved. At the present time there are
311,000 persons receiving different forms of relief. There are only 13 districts that
have been declared famine districts, and the workers on relief works number
152,000. We have in districts in which test-works are opened, but these are
· Cf. resolution by the governor-general in council, 16 January, 1902, published in
the Gazette of India, 18 January, 1902.
## p. 310 (#348) ############################################
310
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMINE POLICY
attracting only about 5000 persons. We have 29,000 dependents of workers being
relieved on works. On the other hand we have 26 districts as compared with 34 in
1897, in which gratuitous relief is being given to persons at their homes and the
number in receipt of such relief in their homes is actually larger than it was in 1897.
The character of relief has undergone a considerable change. . . . The causes of
this change of policy must be sought for in the changed circumstances of the present
time.
The changed circumstances were mainly, these: not only had
railway mileage in the provinces increased 35 per cent. within eleven
years; not only had canal irrigation expanded to an equally marked
extent, but an established era of higher pricts had brought a con-
siderable rise in wages. Employment too had increased. Government
expenditure on all forms of public works had been very large; and
the industrial and building operations of the general public had
greatly extended. The labouring classes had become far less dependent
on agriculture than thcy had been in the past. Emigration had
very greatly increased, both overseas to British colonies and inland
to mills and factories in Calcutta and other commercial centres.
Increasing amounts of money had been received through postal orders
from abroad for payment to residents of certain eastern districts now
famine-stricken. In some districts the value of the postal orders
received from abroad exceeded the total land-revenue demand.
Labour was yearly becoming dearer and the cultivating classes were
better off. But the high prices of food grains, while benefiting agri-
culturists, were pressing heavily upon dwellers in towns with fixed
incomes. And so it was that while the calamity of 1907–8 was far
less a labourer's famine than had been anticipated, gratuitous relief
was distributed widely in circumstances not contemplated by the
MacDonnell commission who had allowed for it only in tracts where
relief works had been started.
As soon as the failure of the monsoon became apparent, the local
government had adopted whole-heartedly the policy of moral strategy
recommended by the MacDonnell commission.
