Thinking through the Indian Famine Commission Reports as the foundation of
contemporary Indian food policy – 1880-1901.1
James Tiburcio
There are so many hungry people that God cannot appear to them except in
the form of bread.
M. Gandhi.
The Famine Commission Reports (1880-1901) are treasures for public policy
scholars in general and essential literature for those interested in food policy.
They are examples of vanguard thinking and some practice in public policy in
India in the late 1800s, early 1900s. This work-in-progress paper builds on
previous work examining the reports of the Indian Famine Commission (IFC)
from 1878 to 1901 (Romesh Dutt, 1901); Loveday, 1914; Bhatia, 1967;
Srivastava, 1968; Brennan, 1984; and Drèze, 1988). The aim here is to
investigate governance and food policy directions present in the different
Famine Commission Reports between 1880 and 1901, under the influence of
the classical political economy thinking of the time. It is a review of the
documents as a representation of the understanding of the colonial elite of
the situation and needs for famine prevention and relief work in India at the
time and how it translated into public policy.
Famine
A famine is a community crisis (Currey and Hugo, 1985), conflagrated by a
widespread scarcity of food (Kelly, 1992). It is defined in terms of mortality,
malnutrition and hunger which are materialized through a set of social,
nutritional and economic signs and symptoms with complex circular and
correlated nets of causation that lead to a loss of community capability to
support marginal members who either migrate due to the scarcity of food, or
1
Or “A document analysis / exploratory analysis of the Reports of the Indian Famine
Commissions. Investigating principles of public policy and governance in the Reports
of the Indian Famine Commissions.
2
Malnutrition reduces the body’s resistance to infection by impairing the immune
1
starve to death or die of starvation related diseases (Hill, 1991; Hugo, 2013;
Currey and Hugo, 1985). Famines involve droughts and ecological decline,
which interact with socio-economic realities and public policies of food supply
and demand, distribution and failure of exchange entitlements (Alamgir,
1978; Sen, 1976; Ezra, 2001; Hugo, 2013; Dyson, 1991).
An intrinsic feature of a famine is that it is a regional scale phenomenon,
resulting from “complex concatenation of spatial processes”, such as
deforestation, drought, war, flood, crop failure, population imbalance and
government policies (Arnold, 1993; Currey and Hugo, 1985; Devereux, 2000).
Famines are simultaneously or subsequently followed by widespread
occurrence of infectious diseases, such as cholera, dysentery and others such
as, malaria, gum disease, anemia, beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy and many
others as individuals are generally weak due to hunger and their immune
systems incapable of keeping out commonly present pathogens (Rosen, 2014;
Sami, 2011).2
A famine has long-term effects on a community, forcing, oftentimes,
structural socio-economic transformations, leading to changes in political
power, affecting, for example, immigration policies, rural development and
public health norms. (Currey and Hugo, 1985:1). Due to abnormal social and
environmental conditions produced, a breakdown in normal social relations
takes place and highly dysfunctional behavioral responses are produced
(Arnold, 1993).
2
Malnutrition reduces the body’s resistance to infection by impairing the immune
response […]. Famine victims died in the tens of thousands from opportunistic
diseases, after their immune systems had been weakened to the point that a simple
rhinovirus – the common cold – can become a killer. But the relationship between
infectious disease and malnutrition is complicated, and two-way. Infections shrink
the appetite, and – when the gastrointestinal tract is targeted – reduce the
Metabolism of nutrients, at the precise moment when more nutrients are needed to
fight the infection. But while all infections affect nutrition, not all infections are
affected by malnutrition (or, for that matter, good nutrition). A number of studies of
modern famines have demonstrated that malnutrition has a progressive increase on
the likelihood of infection. However, it’s just as common for malnutrition to actually
inhibit the growth of pathogens, by denying them vital compounds. Rosen, 2014.
2
By present United Nations standards, a famine can be declared in a country
or region when three conditions of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are
met: (a) at least 20% of households are facing extreme food shortages; (b)
Over 30% of the population experience acute malnutrition; (c) in the given
time period, every day, hunger is declared as the cause of two out of every
10,000 deaths (World Food Program, n.d.).
Famine was a pervasive phenomenon in India between 1707 and 1943 as 23
severe famines and many more episodes of shortages of food occurred
(Murton, 2000). Some researchers have argued that during the British period,
famines were more frequent, claimed more lives and affected larger areas
(Paul, 2102; Davis, 2000; Sen, 1999). But their arguments do not seem to
hold, as statistical evidence is scant prior to the British invasion, and most rely
on unverifiable historical sources. Most evidence does account for the events,
that is, the famines did occur, however there is an absence of historical
statistical estimates accounting for famine victims and their pervasiveness
that take into consideration variables such as estimated total population,
general growth rates, mortality rates and crucial demographic data (Jha,
2004; Thapar, 2002; Hall-Matthews, 2008). Therefore, so far, much, if not, all
estimates are mere speculations. It is reasonable to affirm, peremptorily, that
any claims as to the worsening of famine conditions during the British period
in relation to previous periods are not robust.
The causes of famines in India varied according to location as well as period;
nonetheless, there were some regular patterns common to all of them.
Droughts led to extreme deviations in monsoonal weather systems as a result
of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon (ENSO), which caused crop
failure in a specific region or in multiples regions (Ghose, 1982; Paul, 2012).
Inevitably, crop failures resulted in generalized food scarcity in the regions
affected by the phenomenon. As the scarcity deepened famine followed and,
in each occasion millions succumbed to inanition, related diseases and
opportunistic infections (Bhatia, 1991; McAlpin, 1983).
3
Prominent contemporary researchers ascertain that famines and resulting
deaths were largely preventable during the British period through effective
public policy. Although severe droughts could not have been prevented, crop
failures could have been remedied by providing the population with the
means to survive. Some have suggested that the export of the most
important cereals could have been banned in starving regions, relief provided
more readily, taxes suspended and the creation of state held food reserves
speeded (Paul, 2012:39).3
Using the selectorate theory by Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2002, 2003),
Plümper and Neumayer (2008), argue that, “governmental inaction in the
face of a severe famine threat can be the rational outcome of a political
support maximization calculus.4 Governments may rationally fail to act against
famines when the political costs of action are higher than the political costs of
inaction (Plümper and Neumayer, 2008:3).
Amartya Sen (1999) has argued that most famines during the British era can
be blamed on the colonizers inaction due to a lack of political will to prevent
such calamities. According to Sen (1999), the authoritarian nature of the
British Raj, that is, the absence of democracy was the main causal factor for
the endemic nature of famines in British India. Having to win elections and
face public criticism, democratic governments are strongly incentivized to
work towards avoiding disasters such as famines. His famous proposition that
“No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning
democracy,” has been disputed and discussed by many and as often happen
3
The previous Viceroy, Northbrook (Thomas George Baring), 1872-1876, a liberal,
reduced taxes and simplified legislation, cut back military spending, but rejected the
most expensive irrigation projects (The Spectator, 1873). At the same time,
Northbrook tried to avoid a second famine in Orissa by ordering 450,000 tons of rice
to be procured in Bihar and northern Bengal.
4
The selectorate theory by Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson and Morrow (2002;
2003) is based on the preposition that the primary objective of a political leader is to
perpetuate his/herself in power by maintaining their winning coalition. If the coalition
is small, as in the case of autocracies, a leader will rely on the use of private goods
to secure a coalition. In the case of large winning coalitions, such as in the case of
democracies, leaders will rely on the use of public goods to build loyalty in the
coalition.
4
with general propositions, the odd black swan does not seem to have shaken
those that stand by it (Banik, 2007; 2011).5
It is, however, important to note that there is no inconclusive historical
evidence to affirm that the colonial government calculatingly prompted or
allowed famines, despite the almost fascist rhetoric that some members of
the government and opinions vented by the press that served the British in
India advocated (Steele, 1999).6 Moreover, not all factors pertaining to the
population’s well being were directly related to the British Raj’s policies.
Nonetheless, the state seemingly could have used more of its resources to
remedy the famine progression. As pointed by Sen (1999), illustrated in
Plümper and Neumayer (2008), in an authoritarian state, issues of
governance and accountability in famine prevention are commonly ignored
(Hall-Matthews, 2002:9; De Waal, 2000).7
Historical Circumstances
The majority report of the Famine Commission of 1880 was later codified into
the Famine Codes which were developed in the 1880s by civil servants of the
British Raj, establishing the first modern times famine scales, and
subsequently becoming the basis for famine codes and scales that
endeavored to predict and in so doing, prevent famines throughout India and
the world.8 Set in the broader British historical backdrop of the Irish Potato
Famine that had taken place roughly just two decades before (1845-1852), to
5
For example, Vandana Shiva (2002) affirmed that starvation was “making a
comeback” in India, in “Why Half the Planet is Hungry, the Observer of London, June
16, 2002. See also, Dan Banik (2011; 2007).
6
“Salisbury was shocked at the tone of the newspapers in India that catered for the
British official and business communities; they described famine as a salutary cure
for over-population.” Steele, 1999:97.
7
De Waal (2000:1), hypothesizes that “Democratic political institutions and
processes can play a role in the struggle against famine, but this depends upon the
development of political coalitions in the countries concerned, and the strategies
they use.”
8
Process-tracing the Commission formation can shine light on the end product and
contribute to the literature dedicated to understanding India’s food security
traditions, laws, programs and general practices.
5
almost complete English Government inaction, the ensuing relief activities
carried out under the recommendations of the Commissions are noteworthy.
The very existence of the Famine Commissions (FCs) was a reaction of the
India Office through the Government of India to a sequence of famines from
the early 1860s to 1877, which resulted in great loss of life, diminished profits
to traders, revenue loss to the Government of India and much political
upheaval and some revolt. The initial 1878-80 Commission was formed
reflecting the interests and political influences of the India Office, and central
and provincial governments (Brennan, 1984). Despite having an unwritten
mandate to justify the Raj’s policy towards food policy and disaster response,
the Commissions defied that.
The arrival of the newly appointed Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton (1876-1880),
coincided with the Great Famine of 1876-78. The Viceroy travelled between
Madras and Mysore from August 17 to September 27, 1877 to verify for
himself the effects of the famine and also to confer with the Governor of the
Madras Presidency, Richard Chandos-Grenville. 9 As the Famine showed no
signs of abating, almost 8 months later, in May 1878, Lytton created a
Famine Commission responsible for investigating the causes and effects of
the famine, recommend ways to predict and prevent future ones, and suggest
how the Government should intervene. With the Commission, a one million
pounds a year Famine Insurance Fund was set up and a budget of 500
thousand pounds allocated to railway construction and general public works.
A further 250 thousand pounds were set aside for irrigational projects, which
were advocated as one of the ways to mitigate the desolation caused by the
droughts (Great Britain, 1899).10
9
3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.
Interestingly, in a clear evidence of the ecological deterioration India was already
suffering in the 19th century, during the works of the Famine Commission, in 1879, in
certain regions, irrigation works were refuted as a “universal famine preventative”,
as “[t]he Commission of 1879 had taken the view that the localities in which largescale irrigation could be undertaken with significant advantage were becoming
exhausted.” (Whitcombe, 2005 [1983]:717
10
6
Lytton acted under pressure from the India Office in London and from his
Conservative government, led by Benjamin Disraeli, at the same time as he
was strongly criticized by British and Indian civil society groups and
individuals (Digby, 1878; De Waal, 1997). Previous viceroys had grappled
with the issue of famine relief due to the multilayered complexities
surrounding
the
phenomenon,
restrained
by
ideological
and
budget
constraints. Intermittent droughts, incentives for grain arbitrage as wheat was
on average cheaper in India than in England in the second half of the 1800s,
coupled with a devaluing rupee and cheapening freight costs, in a laissez-faire
economic environment, confounded even the most well-meaning, benevolent
government (Brennan, 1984; Bhatia, 1991; Roy, 2011).
Despite Lytton’s apparent concern with the issue, he became a stumbling
block to further work, as he was more concerned with saving the exchequer
for British expansion towards Afghanistan, which he had inherited from the
previous viceroyalty (Steele, 1999).11 In reaction to pleas for relief in 1877,
Lytton wrote, “Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment’, if it
wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India” and “there is to be no
interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of
reducing the price of food," and he instructed his district officers to
"discourage relief works in every possible way,” as, “Mere distress is not a
sufficient reason for opening a relief work" […], as he believed that any kind
of famine relief would encourage shirking (Osborn, 1880: 244; Balfour,
1899).12
Rains returned in the autumn of 1877 and relief works were gradually phased
out but the Great Famine had lasting social impacts that reverberated
11
“During the worst part of the famine in 1877 the Parliament obliviously removed
the five-percent import duty on manufactured cotton goods which Northbrook and
the Council had opposed doing. The Government of India was thus short of money
while it was also spending much on the war in Afghanistan.” Beck, 2008.
12
Social Darwinism was the vogue of the British establishment of the time and
Lytton subscribed to it and that considerably delayed his response to the issue.
Concomitantly, his office had been delegated the responsibility of implementing the
Crown’s trading policy which has been held partially responsible for the worsening of
the conditions which led to the extension of the Famine (Davis, 2000).
7
economically and politically, setting the stage for historically significant
movements (The Spectator, 1877). For example, following it, increasing
numbers of farmhands and handloom weavers in South India were, for the
most part, if not forcefully, deceitfully relocated to British plantation colonies
– Fiji, Natal (South Africa), Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malaya
(Peninsular Malaysia), British Guiana, Mauritius, Jamaica and Trinidad as
indentured laborers (Laurence, 1994; Kale, 1998).
Additionally, the political impact was probably the most relevant as the
millions of deaths and the tardy and inept reaction of the Government so
deeply
unsettled
some
British
administrators,
among
them,
William
Wedderburn and A. O. Hume, that a strengthened moderate nationalist
thniking emerged, partially as a reaction to the handling of the famine reliefs.
Also, a budding generation of nationalists, among them, Dadabhai Naoroji
and Romesh Chunder Dutt, were to shore up their economic critique against
the British Government in India (Paul, 2012).
Influences on Famine Policy in the 1870s-80s
Brennan (1984) advances two traceable influences of British famine relief
policy in the 1870s onwards. The first major influence was the mainstream
classical economic thinking of the time. Most in the India Office and in the
Government of India were adherents to the laissez-faire interpretation of
Adam Smith`s and related thinkers worldview. Non-intervention was the key
term, though interestingly, the very formation of a famine commission was a
clear sign of dissent against laissez-faire and in favor of greater responsibility
of the state in guaranteeing the minimum requirements in food supply,
notwithstanding the fact that it was not a democratic government but rather
a colonial occupying power. At least, in principle, Queen Victoria’s message to
the Imperial Assemblage to her newly incorporated Indian subjects that their
8
“happiness, prosperity and welfare” were the “present aims and objects of
Our Empire”, seemed to be translated into policy objectives.13
The second explanation, correlated to the first, was the British fiscal policy in
India. In the almost 100 years of the British Raj, the Indian economy was
stagnant, growing one percent a year at the same rate as the population
(Roy, 2011). The Government desired to keep famine relief to a minimum in
order to cut expenses as much as possible and delay tax hikes and new taxes.
Corroborating this notion, Bhatia (1967) claims that the main reason behind
British reluctance regarding taxes was the need to appease the landowning
and trading classes whose continued acquiescence was vital to their
permanence.
A third explanation of British famine relief policy can be found in the reaction
of British colonial officers to earlier. The then administrators had been
penalized for “indulging” the poor with “valedictory dole”, Quinine for fever
and relief works in the Bihar Famine of 1873-74, which was one of the most
effective British disaster aversion efforts in colonial times (Imperial Gazetteer
of India, 1908:482; Davis, 2000). Richard Temple, at the time of the Bihar
Famine lieutenant governor of Bengal Presidency, was one of hem and seems
to have vowed to redeem himself when occasion arose. (Hall-Matthews,
2008; Davis, 2000). In the following famine (Great Famine of 1876–78,
Northwest India) the same officials reverted their actions, and outdid one
another in a thrifty implementation of relief policies, which failed in their
13
The Queen, represented by the Viceroy Lord Lytton, sent a telegram on 1st
January 1877, which read:
We, Victoria, by the grace of God, Empress of India, and through our Viceroy, to all
our officers, civil and military, and to all princes, chiefs, and peoples now at Delhi
assembled, send our Royal and Imperial greeting, and assure them of the deep
interest and earnest affection with which we regard the people of our Indian Empire.
We have witnessed with heartfelt satisfaction the reception they have accorded to
our beloved son, and have been touched by their loyalty and attachment to our
House and Throne.
We trust the present occasion may tend to unite in bonds of yet closer affection
ourselves and our subjects, that from the highest to the humblest all may feel that
under our rule the great principles of liberty, equity and justice are secured to them,
and that to promote their happiness, to add to their prosperity, and advance their
welfare, are the ever-present aims and objects of our Empire.
9
purpose (Hall-Matthews, 2008). The Colonial government under Lytton would
not accept any suggestions to forego taxation of the most affected areas and
miserly fed those that were able-bodied to participate in relief works.14
A forth influence would be the English Poor Laws of 1834, which is patent in
statements such as this in the Report of the Commission of 1880, “The
doctrine that in time of famine the poor are entitled to demand relief […]
would probably lead to the doctrine that they are entitled to such relief at all
times, and thus the foundation would be laid of a system of general poor
relief, which we cannot contemplate without serious apprehension.” (FC,
1880). The biggest difference, Murton (1984) points out, is that the English
law for the English was designed to support the poor in ordinary times,
whereas the Hunger Codes which were derived from the majority report of
the 1880 Commission, provisioned for government entitlements only in the
presence of a declared famine.
The First Commission and Report – an overview
The Commission of 1880 had two objectives: formulate general principles for
countering future famines; and, recommend specific measures to prevent
material losses and starvation related deaths. In principle, “the Commission of
1880 recognized to the full the obligation imposed on the State to offer to the
necessitous the means of relief in times of famine” (Famine Commission of
1901:2). And, as a result, the Report of 1878-1880 (henceforth, FC 1880) had
to wait until Lytton left India in 1880 before it was officially published. The
14
Osborn (1880), summarized the acts of the government in the following excerpt:
“The appalling mortality which marked this famine [1876-78] I attributed to two
causes. Firstly, the rapacity of the Indian Government in insisting upon an immediate
collection of the Land Revenue during a season of unparalleled distress and
destitution; and, secondly, its inhuman niggardliness in providing labour and food for
a starving populace.” […] “There is no satisfaction to be obtained from the belief that
a million of Her Majesty’s subjects perished of hunger, owing to the heedless cruelty
and neglect of Lord Lytton, Sir John Strachey, and Sir George Couper.” (Osborn,
1880: 227).
10
findings of the Famine Commission were to be instrumental for the principles
and practices of the Famine Codes that were to become the basis for relief
works in the following Famine, that of 1896.
The hypothesis advocated by the Famine Commission of 1880 was that
agricultural laborers and artisans loss of employment and wages due to
droughts was the main cause of preceding famines and that national supply
was not the issue. The resulting Famine Code of 1883, and subsequent codes
of 1897 and 1900, set out a public policy for: (1) the transportation of grain
to areas under famine conditions, provision of food in exchange for work
relief to the able-bodied; (2) Guidelines for famine relief; (3) The construction
of protective railways, and (4) the further expansion of irrigation works (FC,
1880).
The first Commission was a political and technical one. The president was
Richard Strachey, a lieutenant General of the British Indian Army,
representative of one of the most influential families in the colonial
government at the time (Caine, 2005). Its secretary, Charles Alfred Elliott, a
seasoned career official who eventually became the lieutenant governor of
Bengal (1890-1895), not only directed the works of the Commission but also
organized and directed relief operations (Lee, 1912).
11
Fig 1 The composition of the Famine Commission of 1880
Source: Brennan, 1984:100
James Caird, the third member of the Commission, was an agricultural expert
who had worked in the latter stages of the Great Irish Famine. He was to be
one of the authors of the dissenting minute in the Commission report of 1880.
The other dissenting member was a civil servant from Madras, H. E. Sullivan
(Gray, 2006). In their official dissent, commissioners H. E. Sullivan and Sir
James Caird defended that the government should store grain itself, as they
believed that private traders could not be expected to supply emergency food
relief in sudden regional emergencies (FC 1880, Part I, pp. 66-9.). They were
overruled and the Famine Commission’s secretary prepared a draft code
12
based on the findings of the majority of the Commission. A model code was
then distributed to provincial governments prior to the approval of the
Government of India and the India Office. Later these codes were adapted to
local circumstances and were in continued use with eventual updates until the
1970s (Brennan, 1984:91). Two Indians were included, Mahadev Vasudev
Barve, chief minister (C.I.E., Diwan) of the princely state of Kolhapur
(Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 1886), and C. V. Rungacharlu, who
later was appointed Diwan of Mysore (1881-1883).15
The documents: Reports of the Indian Famine Commission (1880),
(1898), (1901)16
This section is dedicated to an in-depth analysis of one of the Reports, the
one elaborated by the 1898 Commission (IFC 1898). The Commission of 1898
was appointed to “formulate for future guidance the lessons which the
Famine experience of 1897 has to teach.” (IFC 1898:i).
As much as the Famine Codes derived from the majority Report of 1880 had
been introduced by the government to prevent further famines, severe
shortages of food occurred afterwards and by 1896, a famine was castigating
the land. Starting in the Bundelkhand region (parts of Uttar Pradesh and
Madhya Pradesh), and later spreading to the United Provinces, the Central
Provinces and Berar, Bihar, parts of Bombay and Madras presidencies, the
Hissar district in the Punjab (and to a lesser extent, the princely states of
Rajputana, Central India Agency and Hyderabad) a drought in the autumn of
1895 was followed by acute scarcity, and eventually a famine set in (Imperial
15
So far, I have not been able to locate documents that narrate their participation in
the Commission’s work.
16
Three reports are regarded as foundational, namely, the Report of the Indian
Famine Commission, 1880 (London, 1880); the Report of the Indian Famine
Commission, 1898 (Simla, 1898); and the Report of the Indian Famine Commission,
1901 (Calcutta, 1901). Due to time and space constraints, only the Report of 1898 is
analyzed in depth. This decision is also influenced not only by the historical value of
the report, but also by what it represents in terms of policy and governance
evolution, apart from lessons learnt that were incorporated to the text by 1898.
13
Gazetteer of India, 1907).
The Commission desired to improve the
“Provisional Famine Code of 1883”, - used as the guideline for famine relief in
1896-97, but which failed to predict and prevent starvation deaths. The
Imperial Gazetteer (1907), registered that, “The famine ended, generally,
when the autumn harvest of 1897 was ripe; but it was followed by heavy
mortality from fever in the autumn, and by a plague of rats. The actual
famine mortality in British Districts may be roughly estimated at about
750,000.” (Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1907:491).
The permanent members of the Commission were J. B. Lyall (president), J.
Richardson, T. W. Holderness, T. Higham, Rai Bahadur B. K. Bose and H. J.
McIntosh (secretary). 17 Apart from the permanent members, 8 temporary
members were appointed to assist “[the Commission] in our inquiries and to
see that local points or questions were not overlooked or misunderstood[.]
[E]ach local Government was directed to attach to the Commission as a
temporary member, while we were actually making inquiries within its
province, a selected officer who was personally acquainted with the practical
working of the system of relief adopted.” (IFC 1898:2).
The 371 pages Report comprises of seven chapters, subdivided in sections.
[In progress.]
Second Part
Foundations of the Right to Food Act (2014) in the Reports of the
1898 and 1901 Commission
[Upcoming]
17
There is a register of Rai Bahadur B. K. Bose as the official representative of the
Central Provinces in the Indian financial statement and proceedings for the years
1900-1 and 1901-2. Cited in Bagchi, 2000:41.
14
References
Alamgir, M. (1978). Bangladesh: A Case of Below Poverty Level Equilibrium
Trap. Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies: Dhaka.
Ambirajan, Srinivasa (1978): Classical political economy and British policy in
India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arnold, D. (1993). Social crisis and epidemic disease in the famines of
nineteenth-century India. Social History of Medicine, 1993, 6(3):385-404.
Balfour, Lady Beatty (1899), The History of Lord Lytton's Indian
Administration, 1876 to 1880: Compiled From Letters and Official Papers,
London: Longmans.
Banik, Dan. (2007). Starvation and India’s Democracy. New York: Routledge.
Banik, Dan. (2011). Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: Growth and Hunger
in India. Journal of Democracy, Volume 22 (July 2011), Issue 3, pp. 90-104.
Bhatia, B. M. (1967): Famines in India 1860-1965. London, Asia Publishing
House.
Beck, Sanderson. (2008). South Asia, 1800-1950, Volume 20 of Ethics of
civilization. Santa Barbara, CA: World Peace Communications.
Bhatia, B. M. (1991). Famines in India: a study in some aspects of the
economic history of India with special reference to food problem, 1860-1990.
Konark Publishers.
Brennan, L (1984), "The development of the India Famine Codes:
personalities, policies and politics", in Currey, Bruce; Hugo, Graeme, Famine
as a geographical phenomenon, GeoJournal library, Volume 1 (Illustrated
ed.), Springer, pp. 91–110.
Bueno de Mesquita, B. B., Morrow, J.M., Siverson, R.M., & Smith, A. (2002).
Political Institutions, Policy Choice and the Survival of Leaders. British Journal
of Political Science, 32 (4), 559-590.
Bueno de Mesquita, B.B., Smith, A., Siverson, R.M., & Morrow J.M. (2003).
The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
15
Caine, Barbara. (2005). Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey
Family. Oxford University Press.
Currey, Bruce; Hugo, Graeme, eds. (1984), Famine as a geographical
phenomenon, GeoJournal library, Volume 1 (Illustrated ed.), Springer.
Davis, Mike (2000), Late Victorian Holocausts. New York, Verso.
Devereux, Stephen. (2000). Famine in the Twentieth Century. Brighton,
Institute of Development Studies.
De Waal, Alex. (1997). Famine: Politics & Disaster Relief Industry in Africa.
Oxford, Bloomington: Africa Rights, The International Africa Institute, James
Currey, Indiana University Press.
Digby, William (1878): The famine campaign in southern India 1876-1878.
London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Drèze, J. D. (1988): Famine Prevention in Índia. WIDER Working Paper Series
45.
Drèze, Jean; Amartya Sen Clarendon Press, 21-Feb-1991.
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. (1901). Indian famines, their causes and prevention.
London, P.S. King & Sons.
Dyson, Tim. (1991). On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part I,
Population Studies 45 (1. (March 1991)), Taylor & Francis, pp. 5–25.
Ezra, M. (2001). Ecological degradation, rural poverty, and migration in
Ethiopia: a contextual analysis. New York, New York, Population Council,
2001. 31 p. (Policy Research Division Working Papers No. 149).
Famine Commission. (1880). Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1880
(London, 1880).
Famine Commission. (1898). Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1898
(Simla, 1898).
Famine Commission. (1901). Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1901
(Calcutta, 1901).
16
Famine Correspondence (FC) (1878): Correspondence between the Secretary
of State for India and the Government of India. Part IV. Accessed from
http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk.
Ghose, Ajit Kumar (1982), "Food Supply and Starvation: A Study of Famines
with Reference to the Indian Subcontinent", Oxford Economic Papers, New
Series 34 (2): 368–389.
Government of India (1880). Report of the Famine Commission. Calcutta.
Government Printer.
Gray, P.. (2006). Famine and Land in Ireland and India, 1845-1880: James
Caird and the Political Economy of Hunger. The Historical Journal, 49(1), 193–
215. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091745.
Great Britain. Parliamentary Papers: 1850-1908, Volume 31. (1899). Great
Britain, Parliament, House of Commons. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Hall-Matthews. (2008). Inaccurate Conceptions: Disputed Measures of
Nutritional Needs and Famine Deaths in Colonial India. Modern Asian Studies
/ Volume 42 / Issue 06 / November 2008, pp 1189-1212.
Hill, Christopher V. (1991), "Philosophy and Reality in Riparian South Asia:
British Famine Policy and Migration in Colonial North India", Modern Asian
Studies 25 (2): 263–279.
Hugo, G. (2013). Famine and migration. The Encyclopedia of Global Human
Migration. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Jha, Dwijendra Narayan. (2004). Early India: A Concise History. Manohar
Publishers & Distributors.
Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III. (1907). The Indian Empire, Economic
(Chapter X: Famine, pp. 475–502), Published under the authority of His
Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon
Press. Accessed from
17
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/text.html?objectid=DS405.1.I34
_V03_511.gif
Imperial Gazetteer of India. (1909). Meyer, W. S.ç Burn, Rç Cotton, J. S.ç
Risley, H. H. (editors). New edition, published under the authority of His
Majesty's secretary of state for India in council. Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1908-1931 [v. 1, 1909]. Accessed from
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/
Kale, Madhavi. (1998). Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian
Indentured Labor Migration in the British Caribbean. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
Kelly, James. (1992). Scarcity and Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Ireland:
The Subsistence Crisis of 1782-4. Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 109
(May, 1992), pp. 38-62.
Laurence, K. O. (1994). A Question of Labour: Indentured Immigration into
Trinidad and British Guiana. New York.
Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Elliott, Charles Alfred". Dictionary of National
Biography, 1912 supplement. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Loveday, A. (1914): The History and Economics of Indian Famines, (London:
A.G. Bell and Sons), reprinted by Usha Publications, New Delhi, 1985.
McAlpin, Michelle B. (1983). Famines, Epidemics, and Population Growth: The
Case of India. Vol. 14, No. 2, Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing
Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society (Autumn, 1983), pp.
351-366.
Murton, B. (1984). Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Famine in Southern India
before the Famine Codes. In, in Currey, Bruce; Hugo, Graeme, Famine as a
geographical phenomenon, GeoJournal library, Volume 1 (Illustrated ed.),
Springer, pp. 71–90.
Murton, Brian. (2000). "VI.4: Famine", The Cambridge World History of Food
2, Cambridge; New York, pp. 1411–27.
18
Osborn, Robert D. (1879). "India Under Lord Lytton," Contemporary Review,
XXXVI, (December 1879), London, Strahan and Company Limited, pp. 552573. Accessed from http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/19th-june1886/13/the-contemporary-review
Osborn, Robert D. (1880). The Truth about the Indian Famine of 1877-78,
Contemporary Review,
Paul, Bimal Kanti. ( ). Indian Famines: 1707-1943. In
Plümper, Thomas and Eric Neumayer. (2009). Famine mortality, rational
political inactivity, and international food aid. World Development, 37 (1), 5061.
Rosen, William. (2014). The Third Horseman: Climate change and the great
famine of the 14th century. New York, Penguin Group.
Roy, Tirthankar. (2011). The Economic History of India, 1857-1947. Oxford
University Press.
Sami, Leela. (2011). “Starvation, Disease and Death: Explaining Famine
Mortality in Madras 1876–1878,” Social History of Medicine, (December
2011), v. 24, n. 3, pp. 700-719.
Sen, Amartya. (1976). Famines as failures of exchange entitlements.
Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 11, n. 31-33, pp. 1273-1280.
Sen, Amartya. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York, Anchor.
Shiva, Vandana. (2002). The real reasons for hunger. The Guardian, June 23
2002. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/23/1.
Accessed January 18 2016.
Spectator, The. (1873). There is evidently much danger of famine in Bengal.
The Spectator, 1 November 1873, p. 1. Accessed from
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/1st-november-1873/1/there-is-evidentlymuch-danger-of-famine-in-bengal
Spectator, The. (1877). The Indian famine is officially pronounced at an end..
The Spectator, 10 November 1877, p. 2. Accessed from
19
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/10th-november-1877/2/the-indianfamine-is-officially-pronounced-at-an-e
Steele, E. David. (1999). Lord Salisbury. Routledge.
Strahan, A. (1880). The Contemporary Review, Volume 37, January-June,
1880. London, Strahan and Company Limited.
Srivastava, H.S. (1968): History of Indian Famines and Development of
Famine Policy 1858-1918 (Agra: Sri Ram Mehra and Co.).
Thapar, Romila. (2002). The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins
to AD 1300. London, Penguin Books.
Whitcombe, Elizabeth. (2005). Irrigation and Railways, In Raychaudhuri ,
Tapan and Irfan Habib, The Cambridge Economic History of India: c. 17571970. New Delhi, Orient Longman Private Ltd, pp. 677-736.
World Food Program. (n.d.). How is hunger defined? Retrieved from
https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs.
20