Famines in British and Mughal India

A must read link posted elsewher by Jinit very relevant to this topic

 Famine_in_India 

The British had caused a silent holocaust of 60 million people and I had never even realised it till now

Some links about famines during the Mughal period

3 important Economic Conditions of Mughal Empire in India

The Mughal Empire - Economy

"One negative aspect of the Mughal administration was that they did not make any major efforts in agricultural development. Hence the citizens were subject to various famines, which had devastating results. With no assistance from the centre, the situation was usually grim. Quite often severe famines led to large scale migration of the population within the empire, and in some cases they even left India. Some Mughal emperors did try initiatives to alleviate the problems, but most of the time it was a case of too little too late. These famines had a detrimental effect on the economy."

A very interesting article on little ice age

Little ice age severity in South-Asia 1600-1700 AD, beak up of Mughal empire and role of Marathas in South India, Sikhs in the Punjab and Kalhoras in* Sindh in gaining independence and unifying their states

"Famines are in general recorded from 1550-1850 for South Asia, by local historians, European travellers and East India Company’s reports and very were frequent, leading to huge losses of lives. Frequent famines was more than thirty times in the seventeenth a century. Since there was lack of communications information never came in time and lack of roads made transport of grains to affected areas difficult. Official corruption was another factor hindering movement of grains as it increased grain cost to unaffordable degree. In general this made local Mughal administrators unpopular and rebellions in the seventeenth century as will be detailed further."

and 

"The rate of land revenue was fixed at the highest rate practically possible to recover, to maintain military strength of Mansabdar/Jagirdar, used both for recovery of tax and support of wars of emperor whenever or wherever needed. The high taxes left only barest minimum needed for subsistence of farmer, whose position was no different from an untouchable. Probably never in history of South Asia worst subjugation and poverty of common man was go great as under Mughal. [Arfan Habib 319-20 quoting Pelsaert andBernier.]

Since tenure of governor/Mansabdar/Jagirdar in Sindh was on the average of only two years, and at other places slightly more to three years, he was not at all ready to invest in development of land, construct wells, tanks or small dams for storage of water, excavate new canals and desilt and maintain existing ones, the production went down and yet burden of taxes was not relaxed, the peasant were being robbed and plundered. Governors/Jagirdars always in fear of transfer demanded payment of revenue before harvest. When the farmers were not able to pay the land revenue, they were tortured, made to endure hunger and thirst and compelled to sell their women, children and cattle to pay the taxes. Villages were attacked, women and children sold in slavery on the pretext of rebellion, but actual cause being inability to pay the tax. Even the farmer were taken in heavy iron chains and sold as slaves. [Irfan Habib, 222-23 quoting Manrique, Manueci, Badauni, Mazahar Shah Jehani Pelsaert etc.]

Khafi Khan is more vocal and supports all above views of local and foreign observers and states that “Since there is no confidence that Jagirdars will be confirmed in the office next year, they size both parts of produce i.e., share of state and as well as of peasant and sell it away. Only God fearing officials do not sell away peasants bullocks, carts or what ever remains. Many Parganas and townships which used to yield full revenue have been ruined and devastated so much that they have been replaced by forests infested with tigers. Peasants one crushed by oppression and cruetty of ill-fated revenue collectors. [Khafi Khan-I pp158-58.] "

1555-1556. This was also cold period and had lead to terrible famines for two successive years, which ravaged all eastern parts of India (exuding Bengal and probably Bihar), particularly territories around Agra, Bayana and Delhi. People died in tens and twenties and dead got neither graves nor coffin. Common people lived on weed seeds, wild green grass and cow hides and Badauni himself witnessed cannibalism. From then on due to cold, famines recurred a number of times upto 1850. [Badauni Vol.2, Ain Akbari Vol.II p.35.]

1555-56. Delhi, Agra and adjoining regions faced severe famines, men eat their own kind. The whole country was deserted and no man remained to till the fields. Five famines occurred between 1573-1795, a period of twenty years. Cold prevailed, snow melt in the Himalayas reduced, and river levels went down. [HCIP-VII, 734.]

1560-1670. In this decade there was severe famine in Gujarat and parents sold their children in slavery, so that they may live (Purchas X, p.90). This traveller saw famines in Cambay (Gujarat) in during 1663-1667. [Tabqati-Akbari-II, 301, Bbadauni-II, 186.

1564. Akbar abolished Jiya [CHI-IV, p.87]

1571-1586. Akber built his new capital at Fatehpur Sikri, but only abandon it in 1586 without fully functioning of it, as due to low level of the Jummuna water could not be lead to it, due to cold and low snow melt iin Himalayas, for many years. [HCIP-VII, 125.]

1572-73. Severe famine in Sirhind [Ain-I-Akbari, III p.229.]

1573. Famine occurred in Gujarat due to low rainfall caused by cold of the Little Ice Age. It was so severe that both rich and poor left the country for fear of starvation. [HCIP-VI, 735.]

1573-1595. Five famines occurred in twenty two years [HCIP-VII, 735.]

1574-1682. Malukdas a follower of Ramanada preached Bhakti.

1574-75. Another famine in Gujarat, [Tabaqat-e-Akbari and CHI-IV, 112].

1575-1585. Worst drought in Sindh (under Mirza Baqi’s rule), which lead to cannibalism in rural areas, Jani Beg stored grain, which he did not part with until his death. [Masumi, Daudpotta 243.] Abandonment of Fatehpur Sikir also coincides with this cold and drought.

1575-1679. Northern Sindh (Bakhar Sarkar) under control of Mughals, who sent fifty one governors (Mansabdars) in one hundred and four years with average tenure of two years each. Then local tribes were allowed to run the country on a kind of lease, by paying taxes and maintaining law and order them-selves.

1578-79. Famine condition and food scarcity. [Ain-e-Akbari-III, 224.]"




AND SO ON AND SO FORTH FOR THE WHOLE OF THE MUGHAL PERIOD

http://www.toledotechnologyacademy.o...y/M3A02CAD.PDF

"But while Shah Jahan was building lovely things, his country was
suffering. A Dutch merchant who was in India during a famine at that time reported
that “. . . men abandoned towns and villages and wandered helplessly . . . eyes sunk
deep in head, lips pale and covered with slime, the skin hard, the bones showing
through. . . .”

Economic History of India - N. Jayapalan - Google Books


And many other similar links on a google search of Mughal empire famines.

My take after a day of reading:

Mughal empire was definitely as bad as British rule as far as famines are concerned.

It is likely that the Mughals were more cruel and harsh as compared to the British, who at least did have the famine commissions. 

Perhaps it is better to blame the East India Company rather than the British - but still, tax revenue in cash was what both Mughals, EIC and British were after.

That is what exacerbated the drought and caused the preventable famines.

Similarly British and Japanese imperialism in China after 1840s also contributed a great deal to worsening of the famines. 

In India there were no famine deaths (of this kind of magnitude) after independence, but China had a great famine killing millions in the late 50s and early 60s.

So a well intentioned administration even if inefficient and rickety can definitely mitigate starvation deaths during droughts.

Any dictatorship by Mughals/British/Mao/Japanese, focussed on either tax extraction - or in the case of Mao - just simply crazy megalomania - causes the slow excruciating starvation deaths of millions of people in the most unimaginably horrendous ways possible.

The relative peace provided by the Mughal, British, Ming and Manchu also provided the possibility of great population increase in normal times, of many millions of people. 

These increased population following Malthusian (still relevant !) principles, died in their millions when drought came.

To me the Mughals and British both seem guilty of genocide by excessive greed, tax extraction and poor administration.

There were no famines in the Gupta period. However it is possible that this was because the population of the empire was quite low by Indian standards after the famines of the Mauryan times and the disruptions after the Kushan Shaka invasions

History of Ancient India: Earliest Times to 1000 A. D. - Radhey Shyam Chaurasia - Google Books

Population crises and cycles in history - OzIdeas

Mauryans had famines and tried their best to provide relief.

Chandragupta Maurya And His Times - Radhakumud Mookerji - Google Books


The Rise and Fall of the Mauryan Empire - College Essays - Arusso

Interestingly, Chandragupta Maurya converted to Jainism in his old years after relinquishing his throne and fasted in sympathy with his starving people in a famine - and fasted to death. That is pretty amazing and I didnt know that 

Conquests of the Mauryan Empire, c.324-261 BC

The Maurya Empire and a Dark Age

There is little data available for the Rashtrakuta Pratihara Pala period. There were many terrible famines during Delhi Sultanate including when Timur invaded and destroyed the Tughlak empire.

Coming to post British times:

Famines in Bangladesh ocurred after 1971

The politics and economics of food and famine in Bangladesh in the early 1970s – with special reference to Amartya Sen's interpretation of the 1974 famine - Dowlah - 2006 - International Journal of Social Welfare - Wiley Online Library

 Bangladesh_famine_of_1974 

Bangladesh: Out of the basket | The Economist

One hundred years of famine

There was massive loss of life in the Bangladesh famines just after the 1971 disruptions coinciding with drought in the Indian subcontinent. There was lot of hunger in India also but no such starvation deaths like Bangladesh from 1972 to 1974.

Excellent article below on famines of 20th century.

The 1972 famine of Maharashtra with 100,000 famine deaths is mentioned.

http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0000076/Devereux.pdf

All in all - a mixed bag of information. Singling out British rule alone would be unfair but any and all outsiders ruling has exacerbated the results whereas benign rule by Mauryans and Guptas and modern India has mitigated the effects.

There have been no famines despite many droughts in Indian subcontinent after 1974.

How Indians view British rule

(As posted on Historum)

First, hatred of British rule is what defines Indian nationhood, just like hatred of India and Hindus is what defines Pakistan nationhood. India is otherwise too diverse a people riven by numerous internal divisions with nothing in common.

Having said that, any analysis of Indian history shows that if the British had not colonised India, it would have been colonised by either Europeans or Afghans.

So we were lucky that we were colonised by the very best of the lot - and who continued to evolve into better people throughout the 200 years of rule, so that by 1920s the issue was - which is better - total independence of a dominion status?

There are many people who feel dominion status would have been better than the corrupt rule of the Congress. Anyone who has visited Hong Kong and Mumbai would be able to compare say what another 50 years of British rule would have produced.

India is currently populated by three types of people - offspring of those who became educated during British rule, those who became educated after the British left and those who are illiterate or semiliterate.

The majority of those whose forefathers (like my father born in 1926) were educated by Princely states or the Presidencies have a very good opinion of British rule. Most of them admire the British based on the actual observation of what educated British were like, the way the departments (of whatever nature) used to run, the peace, the law and order. The Children of such people grew up in the sixties and seventies reading Enid Blyton and the British classics and from what their fathers and mothers told them about the British they had a good opinion of the British people. They read the latest bestsellers in English, watched British shows like Fawlty Towers, To the Manner Born and Yes Minister and listened to Rock music. Many of these emigrated to UK or USA based on their abilities and education. The Children of these people (Generation Y and beyond) probably dont even think about the issue now. But their tastes are now a lot more Indian and they listen to Indian music, interact with Indian kids on internet social networks, watch the few good Indian TV shows but are heavily influenced by much superior American TV shows of today. They are more likely to be influenced by Jay Leno's opinion of the British having bad teeth than anything else.

Unfortunately, the British educated only a very verysmall proportion of the Indians, mostly Brahmins as pointed out earlier just enough numbers to run the Civil Services. So the vast majority of Indians do not fall into this group. But most Indians writing in English and most educated immigrants in UK and USA would fall within this group.

The second group who were educated in the sixties and seventies grew up without any influence from their parents (who were illiterate or not English educated) and absorbed their views of the British from the text books. Now, as all text books are written by the victors, the Indian National Congress wrote the text books. British were villains, Congress leaders were heroes, the mutiny was a war of independence. It is justifiable because this hatred defines our nationhood. But it made this group of peoplequite biased because they never came across a counter opinion unlike the first group. This group would watch only Indian shows on TV, read mostly subject textbooks and were a much larger and diverse group.

It is the children of this second group who are the most important part of India today in terms of the numbers forming the middle class. Generation Y and beyond from this group do not watch American TV shows, are not Anglophiles and basically focussed on themselves, creating good Indian music and movies.

They also do not know any history. One of the consequences of Congress rule is that instances of Muslim massacres of Indians are not mentioned in the text books. If at all they are mentioned, they are toned down or glossed over. This is because Congress survives on a Muslim vote bank of some 200 million people. So if the British massacre of Jalianwala massacre is mentioned but Aurangazeb's destruction of the Mathura temple is not mentioned in school text books, who will the Children grow up hating?

The results are evident on the thread posts.

The third group who are illiterate or semiliterate and for 1 billion people simply dont have any concern except daily survival. If they see a blonde tourist, they will think he is very rich and try to sell something worth 10 Rs for 100 Rs. to them. Most of the people met by tourists into India would be group 3 and a few of group 2. But the people living in UK or USA would be group 1 and so would a lot of college professors and the like.

Another thing - in class 6 when ancient Indian history is taught, children are too small. Inclass 7 when mideaval history is taught, they see the beautiful Muslim architecture and like what they see. They dont know any better about Muslim history of India and the text books gloss over the bad parts. So they think Mughals were great, Akbar was secular and similar propaganda written in the text books.

Most of the Hindu Nationalists who want to revise the history text books (which need revision) are too extremist and fall into the ludicrous trap of stating what is blatantly wrong. Whereas the Socialist historians with longer history of academics are more polished in their biases. They omit and exagerate rather than invent nonsense (as the Hindu nationalist historians do).

It is in class 8 that the child reads modern Indian history. He is older, studying more, school work is more important now and he reads from a biased text book where the British were the villains. He memorises more details being older. Why wouldnt he hate British rule?

In 9th and 10th classes they study world history. Almost all good students do not study history after 10th class.

And the bad students who take up history dont read much, or if they do study a lot, become bad historians. History is not seen as a good subject by the Indian middle class.

The only other time Indians read history (regardless of their specialization) is for the entrance exam for the civil services. Here again, the exam is perceived as a license for lifelong corruption on a massive scale and most decent people dont even want to go near it. 

So the people studying history are not really interested in it and are happy perpetuating the prejudices built into our text books (which are written by socialists and badly need revision.

(Later)

To some extent, the British welcomed the new Indian political elite and were more interested in having a dominion status for India under their rule. From 1930s we even had such a status with our own parliament and elections.

Yes, no school text book should breed hatred. So my approach would be - just like the Muslim atrocities were toned down, the anti British rhetoric should also be toned down.

History for school children should be about taking pride is their nation - no matter what happened in history.

The need for hatred of British is probably not necessary any more - except for glorification of the role of one family who is continuing to rule India - and the text books should focus on economic forces which are more important anyway.

A text book should not serve as free propaganda for one party

Vikramaditya Hemu - Napoleon of India

To me the best general from India is Vikramaditya Hemu. 

As Sher Shah's general he won 22 battles straight with his military brilliance against Afghan commanders. After the death of Sher Shah and his successors, he siezed power being the best leader and outmanouvering all the other Afghan commanders. Mughals were in Delhi, Afghans were in UP And Hemu was in Bihar.

He won the whole of north India and marched from Bengal to Delhi in victory after victory until he took Delhi against the Mughals (who had tried to sieze power after the death of Sher Shah) . The defeat of the Agra garrison was a rout with the Mughal commander fleeing to Delhi. 

The Battle of Delhi in 1556 (October) at Tughlakkabad was brilliant. General Tardi Baig Khan of Akbar's army finally met Hemu after Mughal army had been fleeing continuously from Gwalior and Agra. The right flank of Hemu retreated towards Palwal and the main force of the Mughal Army gave chase against Hemu's Afghan commander towards Palwal.

But Hemu stayed put in the center and waited for reinforcements from Alwar. When they came, he fell upon the Mughals with his elephants and cavalry and routed General Tardi Baig Khan. After that he routed the Mughal forces which had gone towards Palwal as well and became the emperor at Delhi.

In the second battle of Panipat, just one month later in november of 1556, his army was already exhausted after the battle of Delhi. He had the stronger army and was better positioned than the Akbar army. 

Akbar and Bairam Khan were poised for retreat to Kabul and were waiting far away from Panipat with bodygaurd and cavalrymen to beat a hasty retreat. They had no hope and they should have lost.

Hemu decided to use his war elephants against the cavalrymen of Bairam Khan, keeping his own cavalrymen in reserve. It was a winning tactic and almost routed the Mughal Army. He almost won.

The only reason the battle was lost is because he led the attack himself and a chance arrow hit him in the eye and killed him.Just like King Harold in 1066 at Hastings - when after winning against the Vikings, Harold's men force marched to meet the treacherous Normans - against whom initially the House Carl axe men were winning until a chance arrow struck Harold in the eye.

After that Hemu's army was obviously routed, Hindus and muslims alike were all massacred by Bairam Khan killing some 100,000 people. The genocide continued after the battle was won and the massacres across north India continued for 4 years after that. And it changed the course of history and we ended up with Mughal rule instead of a Hindu empire which seemed likely under Hemu. Just as the 1066 battle changed the course of English history and ended up with foreign Norman rule and brutal suppression of the Saxons (though not massacred wholesale as the Hindus were by Bairam Khan).

If anyone deserves to be called the Napoleon of India, it has to be Hemu.

While Babur and Ahmed Shah Durrani in the 1st and 3rd battle of Panipat were brilliant generals, Bairam Khan in second battle was not brilliant. He won by chance. And our country lost, ending up with the Mughal empire, destruction of temples, forced conversions, massive famines that beggar description and looting of all wealth