9.6 Major Famines, Famine Commissions, and Famine Codes

1. Context & Foundation

Famines in pre-colonial India were rare, highly localized events primarily caused by the natural failure of monsoons. When droughts did strike, the traditional economic systems of Indian villages possessed natural resilience. Native rulers maintained highly flexible revenue demands, collected taxes in kind rather than cash, and actively distributed grain from state-maintained granaries. More importantly, because land was not a marketable commodity, a temporary crop failure could never result in the eviction of a peasant from his ancestral fields.

The establishment of British East India Company rule violently dismantled this protective agrarian framework. The colonial state introduced rigid, exorbitant land revenue systems—the Permanent, Ryotwari, and Mahalwari settlements—which demanded taxes strictly in cash on fixed calendar dates, regardless of monsoons or harvest yields. This created a devastating, inescapable cycle. To pay their taxes and avoid the immediate public auction of their lands under the Sunset Law, desperate peasants had no option but to sell their food grain reserves immediately at depressed post-harvest prices, or borrow cash from usurious village moneylenders. Overnight, the self-sufficient Indian peasantry was stripped of its food security, transforming a single bad monsoon season into a death sentence.

The human drama of these famines was intensified by the economic policies of the British Raj. Guided by the cold principles of laissez-faire and commercial capitalism, the colonial government refused to intervene in the grain market to control prices or restrict exports. Even during the worst periods of starvation, record quantities of Indian food grains were exported to Great Britain to satisfy imperial trading balances, while the transport networks—primarily the newly laid railways—were utilized to siphon food grains out of drought-stricken interior districts rather than importing relief.

The tragic climax of this policy occurred during the Great Famine of 1876–1878, when Lord Lytton's administration famously declared that spending state funds to save Indian lives would "bankrupt India." While nearly fifty lakh people starved to death in the fields of Madras and the Deccan, Lytton spent millions of rupees from the public exchequer to host the grand, ostentatious Delhi Durbar of 1877. This systematic priority of imperial prestige and commercial profit over human lives turned natural droughts into state-sponsored genocides, leaving the Indian countryside mired in absolute destitution and triggering the early nationalist economic critiques that permanently shook the moral legitimacy of British rule.

2. Detailed Study Notes

A. Major Famines in Colonial India

The colonial era witnessed a dramatic increase in the frequency and intensity of famines, resulting in unprecedented mortality:

• The Great Bengal Famine of 1770:

  • Context: The first major administrative disaster following the East India Company’s acquisition of the Diwani of Bengal in 1765.

  • The Cause: A severe drought in 1769 led to total crop failure, which was catastrophically exacerbated by the Company's aggressive hoarding of rice for military supplies and their refusal to lower the rigid land revenue collections.

  • The Devastation: Nearly one crore (10 million) people perished, representing approximately one-third to one-half of Bengal's entire population. The tragedy brought the EIC perilously close to bankruptcy and forced the appointment of Warren Hastings to centralize the revenue administration.

• The Doji Bara or Skull Famine (1788–1794 / 1791–1792):

  • Context: One of the most widespread famines of the late eighteenth century, primarily impacting Southern India, Marwar, and the Deccan.

  • The Devastation: Caused an estimated 1.1 crore (11 million) deaths. It was called the "Skull Famine" because the ground was literally littered with the unburied bones of the dead who had starved to death in search of food.

• The Orissa Famine of 1865–1866:

  • Context: Affected the eastern coast of India, with its epicenter in Orissa.

  • The Devastation: Claimed nearly 20 to 30 lakh lives, with Orissa losing one-third of its population (10 lakh lives). It was described by contemporary British officers as the "Sea of Calamity" due to the complete lack of advanced warning and the total failure of the local administrative machinery.

• The Great Famine of 1876–1878:

  • Context: Impacted Madras, Bombay, Mysore, Hyderabad, Central India, and Punjab.

  • The Devastation: Claimed over 50 lakh lives. This famine is historically significant for the extreme callousness of Viceroy Lord Lytton, who rigidly collected land taxes and exported grain to Europe while hosting the extravagant Delhi Durbar in 1877 to celebrate Queen Victoria assuming the title of Kaiser-i-Hind.

• The North Indian Famine of 1899–1900:

  • Context: Affected the Central Provinces, Berar, Bombay, and parts of Punjab.

  • The Devastation: Over 1 crore people were severely affected, with millions dying of starvation. Lord Curzon appointed a formal commission to evaluate relief, but spent millions on the Coronation Durbar in Delhi shortly thereafter.

• The Great Bengal Famine of 1943:

  • Context: The final major famine of the British Raj, which struck during the height of the Second World War.

  • The Cause: A completely man-made catastrophe. It was triggered by the stoppage of rice imports from Japanese-occupied Burma, the British government’s "Scorched Earth Policy" (which involved the systematic seizing and destruction of local boats and rice stocks in coastal Bengal to prevent them from falling to the Japanese), the diversion of food grains to feed Allied military units, and unchecked, lucrative profiteering by local hoarders.

  • The Devastation: Over 30 to 40 lakh (3-4 million) people starved to death in Bengal.

B. The Famine Commissions and Their Recommendations

Under intense public pressure and rising nationalist criticism, the British government appointed successive commissions to formulate a systematic administrative response:

1. George Campbell Commission (1866)

• Context: Appointed by Lord Lawrence following the disastrous Orissa Famine of 1865–1866.

• Key Recommendations:

  • Formally recognized that the government had a duty to provide relief to the starving population.

  • Accepted the crucial role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities in distributing food.

  • Recommended the rapid expansion of railway lines directly into remote interior districts to facilitate the transportation of grain.

  • Urged the state to draft formal, standardized relief laws to prevent administrative confusion.

2. Richard Strachey Commission (1878–1880)

• Context: Appointed by Lord Lytton after the devastating Great Famine of 1876–1878. It served as the foundational baseline for all future famine policy.

• Key Recommendations:

  • State Intervention: Recommended that the state must intervene in the grain trade and regulate food supplies during crises.

  • Wages and Public Works: Suggested the creation of public relief works to provide employment and wages to able-bodied persons, allowing them to purchase grain.

  • Welfare Houses: Mandated the construction of "poor houses" to distribute free cooked food to the old, infirm, and children.

  • Tax Remissions: Urged the suspension and reduction of land revenue during crop failures.

  • The Famine Insurance Fund: Recommended setting aside an annual sum of 1.5 crore rupees as a reserve fund specifically for famine relief.

• The Outcome: These recommendations led to the compilation of the historic Famine Code of 1880/1883, which provided a detailed manual for district collectors to declare and manage famine relief.

3. James Lyall Commission (1897)

• Context: Appointed by Lord Elgin II following the North Indian famine of 1896–1897.

• Key Recommendations:

  • Fiercely advocated for the rapid development of irrigation facilities and canal systems to reduce the agricultural dependency on monsoons.

  • Suggested increasing the wages paid to laborers working in state relief camps.

4. Anthony MacDonnell Commission (1901)

• Context: Appointed by Lord Curzon after the devastating famine of 1899–1900.

• Key Recommendations:

  • Preventive Strategy (Moral Strategy): Advocated that the official machinery dealing with scarcity must work around the year. Instead of waiting for mass starvation to occur, the government should provide advanced loans and employment to peasants at the very first sign of crop distress to prevent them from selling their agricultural assets.

  • Agricultural Banks: Recommended the establishment of cooperative land banks to provide cheap credit, bypassing usurious moneylenders.

  • Animal Protection: Mandated state-sponsored protection of cattle and livestock during droughts.

  • Famine Commissioner: Recommended the appointment of a dedicated Famine Commissioner in each province to ensure unified administrative coordination.

C. The Famine Codes

Compiled in 1880 and formally implemented under Lord Ripon's administration in 1883, the Famine Code divided the agrarian crisis into three systematic stages:

                            ┌──────────────────────────────┐
                            │    STAGES OF AGRARIAN CRISIS │
                            └──────────────┬───────────────┘
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         ┌─────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────┐
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    1. SCRATCH PHASE                 2. SCARCITY PHASE                 3. FAMINE PHASE
• Crop yields fall below normal.  • Peasant distress rises.         • Mass starvation occurs.
• Food grain prices rise.         • Emigration from villages.       • Extensive relief works
• State issues warning notices.   • Public relief works opened.       and poor houses opened.

• The Revenue Remission Rule: The code legally established that if three-fourths (75%) of the crops in a region were destroyed, the collection of land revenue for that year would be completely suspended, and peasants would be exempted from tax liabilities.

• Relief Administration: Outlined structured steps for provincial governments to coordinate emergency grain transfers, set up public relief works, and provide specialized medical care to prevent cholera and plague epidemics in relief camps.

D. Local Deccan, Hyderabad State, and Telangana Connections

The devastating famine policies and agrarian distress of British India had a direct, parallel impact on the neighboring Nizam's Hyderabad State and Telangana:

• Devastation of the Great Famine (1876–1878): The water-stressed districts of Telangana (particularly Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, and Medak) were severely affected by the Great Famine. The rigid land revenue systems of both the British and the Nizam forced desperate, indebted peasants to sell their grain reserves, resulting in massive starvation deaths across rural Telangana.

• Salar Jung I's Tank Restoration Reforms: While the British spent hundreds of millions of rupees on constructing railways to transport raw materials, Hyderabad's reformist Prime Minister, Sir Salar Jung I, pursued a different strategy. In the 1870s, he launched a comprehensive program to repair and restore the ancient, Kakatiya-era chain tank irrigation systems of Telangana. Salar Jung recognized that maintaining these localized water bodies was the only effective shield to protect the Telangana peasantry from recurring monsoonal failures.

• The Pullari and Naka Grievance: During periods of drought, the Nizam's forest and revenue departments rigidly enforced the collection of the Pullari (cattle-grazing tax) and the Naka (forest entry tax). Denying desperate tribal communities and peasants access to forest pasture lands to graze their starving cattle during droughts became a major source of rural anger, directly contributing to the tribal uprisings led by Komaram Bheem in Adilabad.

• The Birth of the Bhoodan Movement (Pochampally Connection): The long-term accumulation of land alienation, high debt, and structural agricultural distress caused by colonial and feudal policies eventually led to the historic Telangana Peasant Armed Struggle (1946–1951). Following the pacification of the armed conflict, Acharya Vinoba Bhave visited the Telangana countryside to resolve the acute landless peasant crisis. On 18th April 1951, in the Telangana village of Pochampally, Bhave received the first voluntary donation of land from a local landlord, launching the historic Bhoodan Movement as a non-violent, grassroots land redistribution campaign to directly heal the scars of agricultural destitution in the Deccan.

E. Comparison of Famine Commissions in British India

3. Quick Revision Cheat Sheet

• 1770: The Great Bengal Famine; one-third to half of Bengal's population perishes; EIC rigidly maintains tax collections.

• 1791–1792: Doji Bara / Skull Famine; devastates the Deccan and Hyderabad State, claiming nearly 1.1 crore lives.

• 1865–1866: Orissa Famine (the "Sea of Calamity"); led to the appointment of the George Campbell Commission (1866).

• 1876–1878: Great Famine; Lord Lytton hosts the extravagant Delhi Durbar in 1877 while millions starve; leads to the Richard Strachey Commission.

• 1880/1883: The Famine Code compiled (1880) and implemented (1883) under Lord Ripon; suspends land revenue if three-fourths of the crop is destroyed.

• 1897: James Lyall Commission; emphasizes the construction of irrigation canals to reduce monsoonal dependency.

• 1901: Anthony MacDonnell Commission appointed by Lord Curzon; proposes a "preventive" moral strategy and agricultural banks.

• 1943: The Great Bengal Famine; man-made catastrophe caused by the stoppage of Burma rice imports, military grain diversions, and hoarding; claims over 30 lakh lives.

• Salar Jung I: Restored Telangana's Kakatiya-era chain tank irrigation systems in the 1870s as a localized protective measure against drought.

• April 18, 1951: Acharya Vinoba Bhave launches the Bhoodan Movement from Pochampally (Telangana) to resolve the landless crisis left behind by agricultural stagnation and feudal oppression.

4. Exam Strategy & PYQ Focus

High-Yield Focus Areas

• The "Delhi Durbar vs. Famine" Contrast (Extremely High Priority): TSPSC and other civil service exams frequently test the historical ironies of Lytton's administration. Always connect the Great Famine of 1876–1878 with Lord Lytton organizing the Delhi Durbar of 1877 to proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India. This is a favorite target for statement-based questions.

• Match the Commission with the Viceroy: Ensure you match the famine commissions with their respective Viceroys and years:

  • George Campbell Commission (1866) $\rightarrow$ Lord Lawrence.

  • Richard Strachey Commission (1878) $\rightarrow$ Lord Lytton.

  • James Lyall Commission (1897) $\rightarrow$ Lord Elgin II.

  • Anthony MacDonnell Commission (1901) $\rightarrow$ Lord Curzon.

• The Famine Code's 75% Rule: Memorize the specific threshold for revenue suspension under the Famine Code: three-fourths (75%) crop destruction was required to legally suspend land revenue collection, not 50% or 100%.

• The MacDonnell "Preventive" Strategy: Pay close attention to the term "moral strategy" or "preventive strategy" associated with the MacDonnell Commission of 1901. This referred to providing advanced agricultural loans (Taccavi) and relief employment at the very first signs of monsoonal failure, rather than waiting for a full-scale famine to manifest.

• The 1943 Bengal Famine Causes: Focus on the specific reasons for the 1943 Bengal Famine. PYQs frequently test whether it was a natural disaster. The correct answer is that it was a man-made famine caused by wartime administrative decisions, the stoppage of Burmese imports, and commercial hoarding, not a simple monsoonal drought.

• Pochampally's Bhoodan Genesis: SPSC exams heavily target the birthplace and date of the Bhoodan Movement: 18th April 1951, Pochampally. Connect this directly as a grassroots, non-violent response to resolve the landless peasant crisis and rural poverty left behind by centuries of colonial land revenue exploitation and Deccan famines.

What to Skip / Low-Yield

• Minor meteorological statistics on daily millimetric rainfall variations in individual sub-districts during the summer of 1876.

• Detailed list of minor, short-tenured European relief camp doctors who treated individual cholera patients in local villages.

How to Study This Topic

1. Construct a Chronological Commission Flowchart: Draw a visual flowchart tracing the progression of famine policy: Campbell (1866 - First recognition of relief responsibility) $\rightarrow$ Strachey (1878 - Drafted Famine Code & Insurance Fund) $\rightarrow$ Lyall (1897 - Stressed Canal Irrigation) $\rightarrow$ MacDonnell (1901 - Shifted to preventive "moral strategy" and cooperative agricultural banks). This makes memorizing the policy shift highly logical.

2. Contrast Salar Jung's and British Infrastructural Priorities: Keep a clear mental comparison showing how the British prioritized commercial, export-oriented railways (which drained grain from villages), while Hyderabad's Prime Minister, Salar Jung I, focused on the restoration of traditional chain tank irrigation systems to directly preserve local food and water security in Telangana.

5. Chronology & Broader Context (Past – Present – Future)

EIC Acquires Diwani of Bengal (1765) & Initiates Rigid Cash Revenue Extraction
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GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1770 (Nearly 1 crore deaths; Warren Hastings appointed to overhaul revenue)
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Doji Bara / Skull Famine devastates Hyderabad State and the Deccan (1791–1792)
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Lord Dalhousie forces Nizam to cede cotton-rich Berar, transforming Deccan agriculture (1853)
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Orissa Famine / "Sea of Calamity" leads to George Campbell Commission (1865–1866)
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Lord Lytton organizes the Delhi Durbar amid the devastating Great Famine of 1876–1878
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Richard Strachey Commission compiles the first Famine Code (1878–1880)
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Salar Jung I restores Telangana's Kakatiya-era chain tank irrigation systems (1870s)
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James Lyall Commission emphasizes the construction of irrigation canals (1897)
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Anthony MacDonnell Commission proposes a preventive "moral strategy" under Lord Curzon (1901)
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Wartime administrative decisions trigger the man-made Great Bengal Famine of 1943
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India achieves Independence (1947) with a crippled rural economy and 32yr life expectancy
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Acharya Vinoba Bhave launches Bhoodan Movement from Pochampally, Telangana (April 18, 1951)

• Pre-Context:

  • Pre-1757: Famines in pre-colonial India were treated as temporary natural shocks. Native rulers adjusted their tax demands, accepted grain in lieu of cash, and banned food exports during droughts. The EIC's acquisition of the Diwani in 1765 introduced rigid, cash-only revenue collections, preventing peasants from maintaining food grain reserves and converting natural droughts into widespread starvation.

• Concurrent Events:

  • The British Industrial Revolution (1850s–1900s): Raging in the background, this global economic shift created a massive demand for Indian raw materials. The construction of the Indian railway network (celebrated by colonial apologists as a modernizing achievement) served to quickly transport food grains out of rural areas for export, keeping grain prices high and exacerbating local famines, which Jean Drèze analyzed as a crisis of purchasing power rather than absolute grain availability.

  • The American Civil War (1861–1865): Blockaded Southern US ports, forcing British textile mills to look to the Indian Deccan (exemplified by the Berar cession of 1853) as their primary source of raw cotton, initiating a speculative cotton boom and subsequent financial crash that devastated the Deccan peasantry, leaving them heavily indebted and vulnerable to the Great Famine of 1876.

• Post-Context:

  • 1946–1951: The long-term accumulation of agrarian debt, land alienation, and extreme poverty caused by these colonial famine policies and feudal oppression eventually erupted into the historic Telangana Peasant Armed Struggle (1946–1951).

  • 1951 Onward: Following the armed struggle, Acharya Vinoba Bhave launched the Bhoodan Movement from Pochampally (Telangana) on 18th April 1951 to resolve the landless peasant crisis. In independent India, the first government utilized the Nehruvian Economic Model (characterized by the Second Five-Year Plan designed by P.C. Mahalanobis) to enforce land ceiling laws, abolish Zamindari, and execute massive multipurpose river valley projects (like the Bhakra Nangal and Nagarjuna Sagar) to permanently break the back of monsoonal dependency and eliminate recurring famines from the subcontinent.