page_title: Famine in India
section_title: British response
hierarchical_section_title: Famine in India / British rule / British response
caption_attribution_description: English: Distribution of famine relief in the Madras Presidency. From the Illustrated London News (May 26,1877) Español: Distribución de ayuda humanitaria para aliviar la hambruna que se sufría en 1877 en Bellary, India; dibujo de la publicación 'The Illustrated London News' del 26 de mayo de 1877.
context_page_description: Famine had been a recurrent feature of life the Indian sub-continental countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, most notoriously during British rule. Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long-term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
  Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on climate: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical in securing water for irrigating crops. Droughts, combined with policy failures, have periodically led to major Indian famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770, the Chalisa famine, the Doji bara famine, the Great Famine of 1876–1878, and the 1943 Bengal famine. Some commentators have identified British government inaction as a contributing factor to the severity of famines during the time India was under British rule. Famine largely ended by the start of 20th century with the 1943 Bengal famine being an exception related to complications during World War II.
context_section_description: The first major famine that took place under British rule was the Bengal Famine of 1770. About a quarter to a third of the population of Bengal starved to death in about a ten-month period. East India Company's raising of taxes disastrously coincided with this famine and exacerbated it, even if the famine was not caused by the British colonial government. Following this famine, "Successive British governments were anxious not to add to the burden of taxation." The rains failed again in Bengal and Odisha in 1866. Policies of laissez faire were employed, which resulted in partial alleviation of the famine in Bengal. However, the southwest Monsoon made the harbour in Odisha inaccessible. As a result, food could not be imported into Odisha as easily as Bengal. In 1865–66, severe drought struck Odisha and was met by British official inaction. The British Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, did nothing for two months, by which time a million people had died. The lack of attention to the problem caused Salisbury to never feel free from blame. Some British citizens such as William Digby agitated for policy reforms and famine relief, but Lord Lytton, the governing British viceroy in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."
  The Lt.-Governor of Bengal, Sir Richard Temple, successfully intervened in the Bihar famine of 1874 with little to no mortality; this is the only known example of adequate measures meeting a food crisis by the British.  Temple was criticized by many British officials for spending too much on famine relief.
  Then in 1876 a huge famine broke out in Madras. Lord Lytton's administration believed that 'market forces alone would suffice to feed the starving Indians.' The results of such thinking proved fatal (some 5.5 million starved), so this policy was abandoned. Lord Lytton established the Famine Insurance Grant, a system in which, in times of financial surplus, INR 1,500,000 would be applied to famine relief works. The result was that the British prematurely assumed that the problem of famine had been solved forever. Future British viceroys became complacent, and this proved disastrous in 1896. About 4.5 million people were on famine relief at the peak of the famine.
  Curzon stated that such philanthropy would be criticised, but not doing so would be a crime. He also cut back rations that he characterised as "dangerously high," and stiffened relief eligibility by reinstating the Temple tests. Between 1.25 and 10 million people died in the famine. The famine during World War II lead to the development of the Bengal Famine Mixture (based on rice with sugar). This would later save tens of thousands of lives at liberated concentration camps such as Belsen.
caption: A contemporary print of the Madras famine of 1877 showing the distribution of relief in Bellary, Madras Presidency.  From the Illustrated London News, (1877)
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