Talk:Famine in India

This article was nominated for deletion on November 23, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Recent RFC

Is dealt with at the bottom of the page under General POV RfC--Carwil (talk) 21:13, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Update needed...

Am writing a undergraduate essay on this topic. Should provide significant material for updating this article in the near future. In particular I think more is needed on the demographic impact of famine, its relation to disease, and the role of colonial famine relief measures in alleviating or exacerbating famine at different points.

--Benwilson528 09:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Mike Davis' book "Late Victorian Holocausts" discusses Indian famines in great deal and would be a good source. -- TheMightyQuill 10:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

But one which doesn't sound like it makes the slightest attempt to be neutral. Hawkestone 21:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Hawkestone, I hope the extensive references I have supplied will alleviate the justifiable concern that you raised. I have included primary sources from the turn of the century here that are considered classics (Dutt), a somewhat dry but even-handed and well-documented scholarly economic reference (Srivastava), and of course Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize-winning work on this very topic. This is now one of the better-documented articles in Wikipedia. Any question of this article's neutrality should be removed.

Nobody here is making any highly opinionated claims about genocide or an intentional Holocaust on the part of the British-- the job of Wikipedia is just to present the facts of the topic at hand in a neutral fashion and with referencing, and on this topic, the basic facts really are indisputable and extremely well-documented by a number of independent analysts. There were incredibly severe famines in India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the Second World War, and they were undoubtedly in part a result of the policies of the ruling government at the time, in this case the British. This is a perfectly neutral and accurate statement and entirely in line with similar, well-understood observations with other famines, e.g. the deadly famines in Maoist China that killed tens of millions of Chinese (in part a result of the Great Leap Forward and other Maoist policies), the famine during WWII in the Netherlands that occurred under German occupation, and of course the Irish Potato Famine itself. In all of these cases, there were devastating famines that resulted from factors that had an obvious causal link to specific policies instituted by the ruling government, with these factors documented as such.

Ramachan 19:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

POV notice

I have removed this from a pov category, but looking at the article, it seems to be based solely on anti-British rule sources. It needs an expert rewrite. Hawkestone 21:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see my comment above. Extensive references including primary sources have been provided to confront any questions about the neutrality and factual quality of the article. I have researched this topic in thorough detail including a broad and profound study of the academic and professional literature as well as consultation of primary references, and therefore the article in its current form with the extensive documentation should meet criteria for an expert rewrite. I have addressed any lingering specific concerns in my prior comment. The questionable neutrality tag should now be removed. Ramachan 19:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Can't see any argued and unanswered reason now for the PoV notice. So I'm removing it. Imc 17:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Whaddamess

This actualy needs an expert on the matter, the whole article is written very... originally, and needs desperatley to be salvaged or removed. Some claim the famines were a product both of uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies. This is weasel words and POV against British rule. •Elomis• 00:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the whole article is written from a blatantly anti-British POV. I'm open to the possibility that British policies contributed to these famines, but to directly tie the two as if the British were as bad as Stalin is an amazingly strong claim that needs to be backed by amazingly strong sources. - Merzbow 06:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree on your standards, let me know when they're met.--Carwil 20:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Good quote. There's a big difference between the British causing famine and not doing as much as they could have to stop one. - Merzbow 01:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The famines and the basic principle of the responsible governing body

I have laboured to re-craft the sentences in this article in as neutral a POV style as possible, but this is likely as far as any dispassionate student of the India famines can go in attaining standards of neutrality and professionalism on a topic that inherently deals with such a dreadful event in history. It is not possible to refer to the famines without simultaneously noting their utter devastation and the hand of the governing authority in said famines. There is much ado here about a prosaic principle taken for granted by historians: In the midst of a famine and particularly in the midst of a series of such famines, the governing body in any country bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the individuals under its authority. This is especially so when the government clearly undertakes specific economic policies that bear upon the course of the famine.

This is why, as has been observed by commenters above and elsewhere, the Stalinist government in the Ukraine and the Maoist government in China are held responsible for the deadly famines that occurred under their purview. It is not claimed that these governments deliberately starved their peoples as a whole, but as they were the governing bodies at the time, as their policies directly affected the production and distribution of food, and as they represented the ultimate ruling authority over the affected peoples, they are held responsible for the famines that occurred under their watch. This applies equally so to colonial governments ruling over imperial domains and a comment above cites good examples: the Nazi government during the Dutch famine of the 1940s, and the British government in Ireland in the 1840s were the ruling authorities over the people in those domains, and so they are held responsible for the famines that took place there. Nobody is "equating the British Raj to Stalin," all of the above-mentioned governments were sui generis and the famines occurring under their watch took place under distinct circumstances, but all of these governments are held responsible due to the same consistently applied principle on the duty of a governing body to the people under its watch.

Some comments have complained about the way this reflects on the British government at the time, but all governments in which such serious famines occur under their watch, particularly under occupation, "look bad." This is unavoidable and it applies equally to other governments: any neutral POV used to discuss such famines will inevitably have to make reference to the responsible government in charge and its policies. Some of the comments even verge on ad hominems to the effect that Indian authors (and that includes cited professional historians) have an inherently anti-British POV. Most of us from India or among the Indian expat community do not harbour an inherent animus toward the British, quite a few of us quite like the country in fact, but it is preposterous to assert that a thorough discussion of the late 19th-century famines and the role of the Raj's policies in them, amounts to an inherent anti-British POV. It is impossible to discuss the British Raj period sans a thorough treatment of the 19th-century famines that had such an impact on India-- this sort of omission would be similar to discussing mid 19th-century Ireland and eliding any discussion about the Potato Famine and its impact on Irish history! It is likewise not possible to address the famines without considering the specific British policies, mercantilist and otherwise, that governed economic activity in the Subcontinent so much. No one here is declaring that the Indian people were deliberately targeted by the British mercantilist policies, but they had a major and well-documented impact on the economic events of the late 19th century in India, including the famines. A dispassionate approach to this topic requires a close look at the policies of the Raj.

As to the role of particular Raj policies in worsening the famines, this has not been under dispute, and has been recognised well before Amartya Sen's work which focused on democratic systems in particular. The British Raj and its predecessors in India were mercantilist in nature and they imposed their systems on the colonies to gain a positive balance of trade, this is not in question. Furthermore, these policies quite clearly had a major impact on food distribution and also on the internal wealth, derived from both exports and internal commerce, used to purchase and distribute food to begin with, and obviously bear upon the course of the India famines. Romesh Dutt documented this at length in his own contemporary accounts, and Amartya Sen did the same in his more thorough treatments later in the century which were awarded with a Nobel Prize in Economics. One comment above expressed the desire for especially strong sources here, and we have in fact, primary sources from a first-hand witness to the famines, and the carefully documented work of no less than a Nobel Laureate and globally respected authority on the topic, supplemented with other detailed academic sources. If references even of this magnitude are deemed insufficient, then no article in any encyclopedia could ever be deemed to have sufficient sourcing.

I have therefore for the time being, removed the NPOV tag here. Naturally it is anyone's prerogative to introduce it again, but I would hope that we could come to some sort of a consensus here based on commonly and consistently applied principles- based on the fundamental responsibility of a governing body to the people under its rule, sans any accusation of deliberate killing of the people under its watch- and also on the quality, depth and even primary nature of the professional sources referenced here.Neeramurthy 05:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Famines before British rule

The article is about famines in India. So why does it not talk about famines in India before British rule? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Led125 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

chances are sources are harder to come by before the british —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.138.77.193 (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

more sources on this topic in literature;

I came accross a persian manuscript by one Mata dayal who was living in the days of natural calamity. His village was anbari, near allahabad. He wrote a work on femine and named it ghaht nama (femine letter). the text is in chaste persian of indian style. in this work he has given the full picturesaque description of the casualties occured due to femine and the bad state of the affairs. but he do add that later on the order from England and due to unpopularily the england got for its mismanagement, evey relief was rushed to the vicitms. but at some places it was too late and could be consumed by the animals who had remained survieved by luck. the text of the manuscripts run into 600 couplets and the ms is lying in delhi university library.

Why not compare the British Raj to Stalin? What, substantially, is the difference? Gerrynobody 15:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Why not compare the Irish to Al-Qaeda? What, substantially, is the difference?Sennen goroshi 15:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Judging 18th. century technology/organisation/resources by 21st. century standards

It does seem unfair that the writers of this article seem to expect 18th. century governments to be run as efficiently and as technologically able as they would be in the 21st. century, or to be as resource- or infrastructure- rich. If you are going to evaluate the government, please try to be aware of the many limitations and difficulties of that time. 62.253.52.156 18:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

But we aren't the ones doing the judging. The judging has been done by reliable sources, this article just records what those sources have had to say. Gatoclass 19:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed POV

I don't agree with the arguments posed by Hawkestone et al. By what criteria do you classify a work as "anti-British rule?" How would introducing works of "pro-British rule" literature make this article more valid? Would they not be just as biased as the so-called "anti-British rule" works you talk about? I think the references provided, including authors such as Sen et al. offer a knowledgable account of famine in India, irrespective of your own political readings and biases toward this aspect of Indian history. 128.189.137.17 (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

what is Indias greatest success in more than 60 yrs of freedom?

developing a nuclear weapon? victory over Pakistan in 71 war? Reforms of 1991?

Its probably avoiding severe famine which british failed to. I agree that even today we have severe problems when there is crop failure, natural disasters, high food prices etc but it wouldn't be as bad as famine.

This is inspite the inefficient govt, program implementation, scams, corruptions, instability, terrorism etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.243.161.52 (talk) 16:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but what exactly are you trying to say here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.63.14 (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

POV Tag

I have added a POV tag. The recent edits by User:Zuggernaut are not written from a neutral point of view (e.g. "Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to prevent them, and a government of a democratic country-facing elections, criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers-cannot but make a serious effort to prevent famines.") The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 17:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, glad you've initiated this discussion. I've taken the liberty of moving the POV tag to specify the section under dispute. The edit you mention does seem to be an example of unencyclopedic writing. Zuggernaut, I would suggest rephrasing (in a more encyclopedic style) and attributing the perspective you inserted in the sentence itself as well as the footnote. And I would invite Red Hat to be bold and do the same. Some version of the text ought to remain, however, since Famine in India is a prominent case study used by a major social scientist (Sen) to advance a theory concerning famine and democracy. Perhaps, however, that theory should not lead the section on famine since Independence, but rather appear later.--Carwil (talk) 22:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Another problem I have is the separation out of the statistics and sections into British and non-British rule. I'm well aware that causal connections are made in some sources between the presence of the British and the occurrence of famines, but that is a matter of one's point of view. Obviously we need to mention when India was under British rule, but we should not be adding an inherent bias to the article by explicitly linking the two. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 22:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC) ps I don't want to make any changes because from my experience, User:Zuggernaut will just come along and immediately revert them, so I'm trying to get consensus first.

I've rephrased the two small paragraphs, made use of footnotes and citations to attribute them to the authors. The article needs to be cleaned up, sections need to be re-arranged and a uniform cite template needs to be used. I will work on all of that over the next few weeks. As far as the tables go, they are simply numbers and they occur in the stated, multiple secondary and tertiary sources. The two tables lie juxtaposed in the cited sources. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I have a problem with juxtaposing the two tables. It gives the impression of comparing and judging (intended or not). I suggest creating a section for "Famines before british rule" and moving the first table into that section. Sources like Davis, Digby, Rajni Palme Dutt, Dadabai Naoroji are polemical - it is better if we just use their data and not their way of presenting it.--Sodabottle (talk) 03:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the goal should be to have one table, with nicely broke down subtotals or averages (famines per century or some such) based on the major historical periods that are relevant to the issue (and colonial rule, as well as the independence era have been identified as the key relevant periods). I'm unconvinced by the idea that presenting these two/three historical periods separately is POV, although failure to produce a common standard for the table seems a bit unencyclopedic. If we can combine the information into a comprehensive list, and still illustrate important periods in an accessible way, that would be ideal.

Sodabottle, "the impression of comparing" is precisely what all tables are meant to facilitate. This is not a POV problem in and of itself (see WP:ASSERT); you seem to be reacting to the POV people might have from reading a verifiable data source, not to the POV of the writing. Now if there is to be analysis (a la Sen and Davis) as to why the quantitative differences in famine exist, we should carefully place all such analysis behind: "X concludes that..." or "Opponents of colonialism argue" or "Historians of famine have concluded...".--Carwil (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Since the central topic of this article is famines in India, I see no problem juxtaposing the tables next to each other (or following each other) as is done by the authors who have clearly analyzed the main topic addressed by this article. If there's a POV problem with the multiple sources I've cited, then I'm sure there's an opposing school of thought/POV. If such sources are presented, we can add a third table, say post-independence famines, to cover the topic comprehensively . I am now concerned if there's an agenda behind this - my attempts to include this material in the India article were also called POV by the same editor. I looked at the Great Irish Famine and Ireland where famines occurred under the same regime in the same period with about a million deaths. Those articles go to the extent of calling this a very deliberate policy of the British administration aimed at destroying the racial/ethnic group called the Irish people. With just a million deaths in a 7 year period, those articles suggest this was genocide. Sources are more of less of the same calibre, yet there's no POV tag there. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The only "agenda" here is yours - first at British Empire, then India, now here. You clearly have a view on the topic - famines were caused by the British - and you want Wikipedia to reflect that view, as reflected by your edits to those articles. My only concern is that Wikipedia adheres to its principles. The argument that "such-and-such article does/does not have the same thing which has been removed/added at this article" is, in my experience, often brought up by inexperienced editors, but it is not an argument for anything at all. My addition of this tag (which no one else disagreed with btw) is a response to your edits. I have not gone round every single article on famines to check whether they also are POV, and the lack of a POV tag at other articles does not justify you adding POV content here. We are discussing this article on this page. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 07:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I will stick to the central point of this discussion - if you have credible sources to balance the alleged POV, please present them otherwise we need remove the POV tag. Thanks. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Per NPOV, "Values or opinions must not be written as if they were in Wikipedia's voice. Factually attribute the opinion in the text to a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons, and state as fact that they have this opinion, citing a reliable source.", your rewording has gone a long way to address my concerns so I'd be OK with removing the tag. However, I still disagree with categorizing famines by whether or not the British were in charge. That's inherently implying something. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 07:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The category he has created "Famines in British Empire" and added to a dozen articles is highly questionable, but its inclusion on this page which is a general article about famine in India, not only during the time of the British Empire seems problematic. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Unless and until Famines under British rule becomes an independent article, it seems like the category belongs here. It would be entirely appropriate for other superordinate categories of famines to appear here, even if they do not apply to all of India's history, such as hypothetical categories like Famines after decolonization or Famines under monarchical rule. is of course superordinate to . Note also that, Famines, epidemics, and public health in the British Raj is not the possible main article for the section since it leaves out pre-Revolt portions of British rule (which are also covered lightly here), although it could well be transformed into Famines, epidemics, and public health under British rule in India.--Carwil (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

"Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to prevent them, and a government of a democratic country-facing elections, criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers-cannot but make a serious effort to prevent famines. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence (the last famine was in 1943, four years before independence), they disappeared suddenly, after independence, with the establishment of a multi-part democracy with a free press. For example in India the priority of of preventing starvation and famine was fully gripped already at the time of independence (as it had been in Ireland as well, with its own experience of famine under British rule "

I can not believe the amount of biased crap User:Zuggernaut is adding to articles. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

This text violates NPOV. However, Zuggernaut himself has revised and replaced it. Please be civil and assume good faith.--Carwil (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Britishwatcher - We probably have starkly differing POVs on some content, hence it's important to stick to the pillars of Wikipedia, particularly those related to civility. Zuggernaut (talk)

His additions are still grossly biased. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you point out the specific addition in the current version of the article that you think is "grossly biased"? Zuggernaut (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You giving a whole paragraph of one mans view in a section with 2 paragraphs? Also wording it in a way that is clearly not neutral. It is POV crap and you have now even added about this one mans view to the introduction. Your edits are clearly biased and problematic. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I have removed that sentence from the introduction. It is not appropriate to place it there. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 22:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

User:BritishWatcher - The edits aren't the problem, it's your repeated flouting of civility that's a problem. A constructive way to move forward would be to provide alternate sources and present content that balance the alleged POV bias. I am removing the POV tag since the article has now been restored to a neutral version by User:The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

All he did was remove the sentence you added to the introduction, your additional paragraph remains in the article and that is certainly disputed. The section clearly gives undue weight to one mans opinions and it presents his views in a way that can easily be read as a statement of fact. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh and the lead has not even been sorted out yet because your POV additions remain in the introduction. The POV tag needs to be readded, you should not have removed it. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Once again - you need to point out the specific words/phrases that you allege to be POV. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

A whole paragraph in a section with just 2 paragraphs is clearly undue weight to this one guys point of view. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The recent edits have addressed all of your concerns - the section has been split, more sources have been provided that show that Amartya Sen is not a "one guy with a point of view". For example co-authored works have been provided. Most importantly he is a mainstream economist honored by the Nobel committee which automatically excludes him from the "one-guy-with-a-point-of-view" label. With the changed situation, we should go ahead and remove the tag. 15:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

You still have a whole paragraph with one POV (with the exception of a single line for a view that disagrees). Surely even you accept that there are other major factors and not just the democracy? Better communications? better transport? International aid? Wealth of nations in general. Most of the population of the United Kingdom were hardly living in luxury 100 years ago. There have been global changes. To have a whole section pushing a single POV that its down to lack of democracy is nonsense. The POV tag should remain until all of this is handled in a far more neutral way. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to respond in way that might seem like a quibble, but it's not. We have in this article a section now called Famines, democracy and economics, which is here because a highly prominent scholar used the case of India as the central case study for a widely discussed theory in economics/development studies/history. That section might one day grow up and became an article, Democracy and famine or some such. It states the theory, perhaps with a bit too much weight, and then states a refutation of the theory and a study with qualified support. For addressing Famines, democracy and economics, it's pretty NPOV. Of course, you're welcome to improve.

In your interpretation, you're treating it as Social science explanations of famine in India, which would be a perfectly viable section to have in this article. We might put Famine, democracy, and economics as a subsection of it. Right now there's plenty of material scattered throughout the article that consists of such explanations including: India's ecological vulnerability, British mercantilist policies (Dutt), British inaction (various), misguided British policies (Drèze), natural event severity (Drèze again), and democracy (Sen and Banik, with Rubin dissenting). I don't think WP:UNDUE weight is attached to any of these, although the Sen section could be a bit shorter. For now, however, we're not claiming to summarize all social scientific explanations, but again, you're invited to make this article do that. I would suggest the section title above & include the current material as a subsection.

What really seems to trouble you, however, is that the quite significant difference between famine performance during the British rule period and the Independence period is attributed to the differences between British colonial policy and Indian democracy. You list a number of potentially confounding variables, but no sources making these arguments. Feel free to look for such RSs and add them. However, you might not find as much as you're looking for. The technical capacity to avert famine seems to have been present before Independence and Drèze reports that per capita foodgrain production was even lower during the 1967-73 "near misses" than in much of the British colonial period. Indian famines were well known to administrators during the colonial period and the railroads were built before the turn-of-the-century famines. Of course, well-researched analyses that prove me wrong are welcome on the page. Until you find them, can we call a truce to the POV dispute?--Carwil (talk) 19:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

" It states the theory, perhaps with a bit too much weight, Well i am glad you accept it may be a bit too much weight to his POV. Whilst there is too much weight given to this view, it seems like the neutrality tag is required. If editors want content in articles, they have to ensure it is balanced. At present i do not believe that section provides the required balance. The section has 14 lines (on my text size). 12 of those lines advance one position, 2 lines counters it. If that is not undue weight i have no idea what is. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

On the issue of transport, here is one example i found from a quick search: "By far the most important service rendered to famine stricken areas has been through the introduction of effective means of transportation. We are not concerned whether the building of roads and railways was due to commercial or philantrhopic considerations; the fact remains that those localities which for natural or artificial causes have escaped the famine, have been able to ship their surplus into the areas where shortage existed, and so have reduced the distress and mortality. Before the introduction of the railways into India, it was impossible to distribute the surplus production over the areas of scarcity, so that it frequently happened that the prices of grain in localities where crops had been abundant were very low, while in an adjoining territory the prices were prohibitive. " Even without sources, everyone here knows transport has a big impact. It is far easier to distribute food when you have roads, railways and aircraft. [1].

I have no problem at all with this article pointing out development of democracy played a role. Ofcourse i accept the fact that local accountability encourages action, i believe that. But what i am concerned about is that one factor is taken out of context and suggested to be the primary reason. It is one of many factors. And whilst that is the only one with its own section, and it has 14 lines with just 2 lines dissenting from the position i think we have a problem. Of course the article should be expanded, however the responsibility of ensuring balance falls on the person adding material. If others are concerned about the inclusion, tags are justified until the situation is resolved. I will have a look for some other sources for some of the points i mentioned. However i do believe it will be wrong to go into that much detail about each issue. There should be a section on analysis of trends/changes. With subsections that look into all the different issues, including democracy etc. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

OMG, what has happened to this article? :o ... Amartya ray2001 (talk) 19:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Intro

I have removed some of the POV wording from the intro, and have also made it read more like an introduction by removing some excessive detail and a quotation. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 11:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally, I appreciate your moves towards a well-styled lead. However, there is no justification for this claim: "no need to state political rulers here." Much of the social science literature is devoted to considering the impact of British rule and of democratic governance after Independence. It's the responsibility of the lead to note the importance of these long-term political events. The following text might not have done so explicitly, but did lay out the basic parameters of historical change:

Famine has been a recurrent feature of life in South Asia, reaching its deadliest peak in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before declining in the final decades of British rule, and further with the arrival of independence.

Now we could accept the shortening of this sentence to...

Famine has been a recurrent feature of life in South Asia, reaching its deadliest peak in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

but only if we insert some summary of the later text. Like this, perhaps?

Historians, social scientists, contemporary critics, and participants have identified British government inaction and adherence to utilitarian, mercantilist, and Malthusian policies as contributing factors to the severity of famine; the post-1880 British Famine Codes, some transportation improvements, and democratic rule after independence have been identified as furthering famine relief.

NPOV does not mean silence on responsibility, just a complete summary of the issue.--Carwil (talk) 13:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

That works for me. I'm just completely opposed to black and white "the British were/were not in charge"-style generalisations. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 14:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I would support something like that, although id split it into two sentences. Also change "some" to "major" transportation improvements. I think we could add a few more things to the list, but at present clearly its not covered in the article so id be ok with that change for the time being. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

We perhaps should also list some of the major causes rather than just going straight into British government actions as if it was the only thing. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The summary provided by User:Carwil covers all relevant areas, it is concise and accurate. I am OK to go ahead with it verbatim. We should not be bothered with black and white issues - we should just stick to what the sources say. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I inserted the admittedly vague "some transportation improvements" (instead of "major transportation improvements") for substantive reasons, but it will take a few days for me to pull together the various references. Numerous sources discuss how transportation is an ambiguous asset during a famine; in a society rigorously abstaining from government intervention and entitlements to food, railways often carry food away from famine-struck regions especially if the suddenly impoverished residents also had limited resources or savings. On the other hand, railways can clearly be used by a decided government to bring food supplies to famished residents. The post-1880 Famine Codes orchestrated some famine relief uses of railways, and perhaps reserved some railroads for the purpose. In the Indian case, much of the current railway system was in place by the 1896-1901 famines, and essentially all of it by independence. I can and will cite everything I've said so far. I would suggest more tentatively: The improved famine relief performance that followed these periods simply can't be explained by the overall improvement in transportation that followed these periods. That said, if RS analysts come to the opposite conclusion, they should be included as competing explanations.--Carwil (talk) 12:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopedia not a dissertation

May I remind people here that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The "famines, independence and economics" section reads like a poorly worded high school student's essay, and comparing and contrasting of individuals' views is itself a form of original research. Why are Sen's views being given such prominence?Who says he is the "mainstream"? The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 23:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Well: a scholarly article calls Sen "South Asia's most celebrated famine expert" (D. Hall-Matthews, "Famines in (South) Asia," History Compass). He's a Nobel prize winner and is listed as one of the world's twenty most influential intellectuals in the Time 100. He's played a central role in debunking the idea that famine is primarily or exclusively caused by Food Availability Decline (although FAD remains relevant and has its defenders), and innovated study of famine through analyzing "entitlements" (a combination of money, resources, and rights to famine relief), which together form the basis of most recent studies in the field (for a summary of Sen on FAD see Stephen Devereux, The new famines: why famines persist in an era of globalization). Rubin, quoted disputing Sen's thesis in part, writes, "Amartya Sen's assertion that democratic institutions together with a free press provide effective protection from famine is one of the most cited and broadly accepted contributions in modern famine theory." The Bengal famine, which Sen witnessed, was central to this shift. Cormac Ó Gráda's Famine: a short history calls it "paradigmatic" for famine studies, and devotes chapter 6 to the case, interspersing Sen's interpretation. In short, Sen's relevance to this article is similar to Einstein's relevance to speed of light: he's a pre-eminent internationally recognized theorist who used this case as a central element in his writing on the broader topic at issue.

I'll leave you to critique and improve the writing style and the word choice. However, Banik and Rubin explicitly frame their works around evaluating the democracy and famine thesis, with partial (Rubin) or total (Banik) emphasis on the Indian case.

I'm neutral on the question of whether Sen's theoretical account should lead the historical material, or come afterwards as an interpretation of it.--Carwil (talk) 03:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

User:The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick - Critique is always welcome.

• Poor wording - the paragraph in question comes out very close to 15.0 US grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. I will try to "dumb it down" a bit so it's easier to understand.
• NPOV & OR allegations - I've posted on the respective boards [2] and [3]

I think the explanations provided User:Carwil should be sufficient to get rid of the NPOV tag and re-sequence the content to have the mainstream view first. Since I've already posted to the boards, let's wait for feedback from those boards as well to be doubly sure. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Famine tables

I believe the section which shows a table of the number of deaths from famine, needs to also highlight the population size during the different periods. Its quite clear that over-population has an impact on famine, it fails to put things into context. Also why does the famines before British rule table not include the number of deaths? Why is it only under British rule the deaths are stated? BritishWatcher (talk) 11:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I've read so far, the population history of India is a bit murky before the 18th century, but there is academic interest in it. I'd love some company writing up the information which is sourced into a historical population of India section of Demography of India, if you have the time and inclination. With regard to famine deaths at the century-by-century scale for the past millennium (the left table), there is a worldwide data problem:

"Until the last century or two, few governments kept reliable and detailed records of vital data. Historians who have attempted to reconstruct famine mortality in the remote past have tried to compensate for this deficiency by using parish records, tax returns, and similar sources. But these records seldom provide a dependable picture of mortality trends over a wider area, and even where there was some form of birth and death registration, famine mortality was often grossly underreported. Local officials themselves fell ill, died, or deserted their posts. The deaths of villagers who wandered off elsewhere in search of food passed unrecorded.Thus, it is not surprising that our understanding of the relationships between demographic processes and famine is extremely limited." Quote from "Famine" in the Cambridge History of Food, now in the bibliography, I think.

Due to the work of historians doing this kind of reconstruction, we might have better luck filling in the chronology with estimates of mortality per individual famine instead of per century as needed to complete the left table. As far as India's population in particular, continent wide census data begins with 1857-62. The "Population (1757-1947)" chapter of the Cambridge History of India compiles reconstructed estimates since 1600, but has these limitations:

Estimates for 1600 and 1650 are relatively few in number but those for 1750-1850 have a wide range, depending upon the assumptions and the techniques adopted by their authors. However, the estimates made before 1950 (by Willcox, Carr-Saunders, Shirras and Swaroop and Lai) for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tend to be consistently low, because their authors assumed a more or less continuous growth of the population of the sub-continent over the period 1650-1870 and interpolated it between Moreland's estimate and the 1872 census figures. These authors seem to make little attempt to assess the plausibility of their assumptions in the context of the history of the period. Of course, because of peace, stability and improvement in the administration brought about by the British Raj, many economic historians also assume that the population experienced a modest but sustained growth during at least the nineteenth century. Some presume that the rate of population growth before 1872 was the same as after 1872. According to others, the post-1872 rate was the result of a process of acceleration, implying that the pre-1872 growth rate was even lower. If the latter presumption is true, the acceleration of the rate of population growth can be attributed to a rise in per capita income.

However, the socio-economic history of the British period and the inter-relationships between population and changes in the environment indicate that population could not have grown much, if at all, during the eighteenth century. War casualties were probably reduced substantially after the British Raj was consolidated, but the other factors causing high mortality, such as widespread famines and epidemics, were not brought under control. Also without protection against diseases, the growth of the population during the nineteenth century must have been very slow due to the 'wasteful' process of high birth and death rates. If one accepts the view that population grew very little during 1750—1850, it follows that the size of the population around 1750 was already quite large. Following this reasoning, Durand, Sen Gupta et al., Bhattacharya and Gujral estimate the population at the start of and throughout the nineteenth century to be much larger than was believed by the earlier authors.

It is frequently asserted that even before the advent of the British rule, the level of technological development in the field of agriculture and manufacturing in India was high enough to support a large population. While it is difficult to assess such claims, a population of 200 million in 1750 appears a distinct possibility. During the next fifty years, however, as Durand has argued, there was presumably little or no growth of population not only because of the deadly famines and epidemics discussed below but also because of the dislocation of life and economy resulting from political turmoil and internal conflicts. During periods of hostilities or internal warfare, cultivation was sometimes suspended and crops were burnt, thus leading to famine conditions. The next fifty years (1800-50) were slightly more favourable to population growth, partly because of some political stability under the British rule and also because, despite periodical setbacks, famine relief operations were undertaken to ameliorate acute distress. (pages 464-65)

As for the combination of ("over")population and famine mortality, the Malthusian thesis is not in fact "quite clear," but instead is one of the more controversial theories within the Food Availability Decline side of famine theorizing. It is documented that colonial officials learned Malthusian doctrines and were encouraged to believe that famines were some kind of natural correction. Even with a billion people, India remains a big place with one of the highest levels of arable land (54% of the national territory) in the world; when the population was below 200 million (which is cited above as a 1750-1800 estimate), more people meant more land was cultivated, and less people meant less.--Carwil (talk) 12:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

As mentioned, data collection was a worldwide problem prior to the peirod you are talking about. Post independence data should be available, I will look for that and add it as a third table so we can give a balanced view and let the reader form his or her own opinion. At worst, reasons such as overpopulation, lack of rain, crop failures have been called British propaganda by several authors. I will just present some population related data from that period. The population of India in 1911 was 315,000,000 but India was not overpopulated. Population density statistics (Bose, 1918):

Country	Population Density per square mile
Austria	246
Poland	247.4
Germany	310.4
Italy	313.7
Holland	470
Belgium	589
England and Wales	691
India	244.27

Zuggernaut (talk) 23:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Population density was not what i had in mind, What i meant was with a rapidly expanding population obviously that has an impact on the numbers of people impacted by a famine. If 10000 lived in an area in 1 century and 1 million live in the area in another century.. it has an impact on the number of people effected by the famine, even if it happens in the same place. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the heaviest period of famine, 1770-1910, followed a substantial expansion 150 million to 200 million (through around 1750) but with a two decade delay, and persisted during a 150 years, the first century of which saw very little population expansion. I haven't seen any mention of the rapid population increase causes famine thesis either in the famine literature or surrounding South Asian famines in particular.

Also, um, this is getting a little awkward for me, because you seem to be just making up explanations, and the explanations don't correlate well with Indian history. Also, I keep reading words like "quite clear" or "obviously" about things that aren't consistently associated with famines by people who study them. In any case, we can't put in our own hypothetical explanations, just those of reliable sources. So, if you could research what explanations researchers have suggested for the famines in India, we can discuss how to provide a balanced summary of them.--Carwil (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Need to have analysis of famine in India first

This article is not merely a list of famines in India. It's about the subject of famine in India, hence the analysis needs to come first so a proper context is set for the later sections. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The article says hundreds of thousands died in the 1972 Maharashtra famine. A reference is cited which says "probably" 130,000 excess deaths. I lived in the affected area during this period and would like to challenge the validity of these numbers even in the cited reference. The government of the day managed the famine relief operation well with guaranteed jobs scheme for the affected farming communities. A lot of the rural public work involved building lentic water lakes. See Man-made lentic water bodies of Maharashtra for the list, although this list doesn't say when they were dug. 74.9.96.122 (talk) 20:38, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't gotten to the lower sections of the article yet but I surely plan to expand and provide details of famines in independent India (if any). I will confirm those claims when I get there. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The Maharashtra number is coming from the Olivier Rubin reference - [4] Zuggernaut (talk) 04:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Table of Famines

The table of famines appears to be based on Mr Bose's paper of 1918, but does not seem to tie in with the list of famines at the bottom of the article. Do we have any corroborating estimates, particularly for the quoted 18 famines and very large death toll given for 1875-1900?Outofsinc (talk) 11:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that. totalling the upper estimates of the known famines in 1875-1900 still falls short of the number given and i believe 18 number is arrived at by counting the same famine multiple times by year and area. Can this be clarified.--Sodabottle (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the 1875-100 period - currently the article only lists the major famines (and this list is probably inaccurate right now). A detailed list can be found by looking at the "See also" link in that section. Totals in that list/article should roughly add up to what Bose and others claim. No death toll numbers are given for the 18 famines because of a lack of data from that period. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Davis tabulates number from various sources - [5] Zuggernaut (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

ha the davis table :-) (i thought it looked familiar). I have no quibble with adding up the upper estimates from there, but i would like to point out Digby (10.3 mill) and lancet (19 mill) have been contested as excessive. The 1901 lancet study was an anonymous one by a british physician who arrived at the estimate from rate of population change i think. If you are going to use the 10+19 estimate, please point out that these are upper limits. cambridge economic history estimates are repeats of govt numbers (and hence they are lower estimates). So it would be better if we can clarify it in a footnote.--Sodabottle (talk) 08:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I will look for more data on this and post it here in the next few days. Zuggernaut (talk) 20:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Visibility of tables

Just wanted to check if the three tables are visible appropriately on screens of different resolutions. If they are too inconvenient on somebody's screen, please let us know so we can come up with a different way to present the data. Thanks. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Images

I'm looking for images we can add to the article and one picture keeps on popping up over and over in Google searches is from the Bengal famine - [6] I've not uploaded any images to Wikipedia ever and wanted to check if the second image on that page is copyright free and if we can add it to the article. Just posting here in case someone is experienced with images. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

thats not a bengal famine pic. It is a 1876-78 madras famine pic. I forgot where i saw this. But it was taken from the collection of British citizen in india and originally published in a 1978 book (i think i found the info in flickr - search for india+famine in flickr and you will find the source). it is reproduced in later victorian holocausts (appears in the front cover) but davis gives no source. So i guess it is still copyrighted (copyright counts from year of publication, i am unclear if year of publication is the year the film negative was exposed or the year it appeared in print. You can ask use moonriddengirl for clarification). And also in the madras famine article, there is a featured picture - illustration from london gazeteer- that can be used.--Sodabottle (talk) 07:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Will check with her and also add the Madras famine illustration if we can't get that one (though my preference is for a real picture than an illustration). Zuggernaut (talk) 21:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Image of 1972 famine v. Image of Gandhi and recent deletions by User:Snowded

The image of the 1972 famine belongs in the section that addresses the 1972 famine. If you have reasons why that image should be moved out of that section, please explain here. Regarding the other recent deletions, please use {{fact}} or {{clarification}} or other similar tags rather than just deleting material. Clearly many of the changes made by User:Snowded are helpful in presenting material in a concise and focused way but discussing major deletion in this section of the talk page will help speeding up the article improvement process. Thanks. Zuggernaut (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Very happy to see the image change, but it needs to be one of famine in India, not of an Indian politician no matter how venerable. As to your "nowiki" request - please, you have made bold additions and you can't expect them to have some form of special treatment. --Snowded ^TALK 06:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Maharashtra and Bihar terminology?

There are several accounts that state that the situations in these states were well handled and there seems to be a reluctance to call them famines. Should we refer to Maharashtra (1972) and Bihar (1966) as famines or "near misses" or droughts? Literature uses all three. All comments welcome. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we would need some fairly compelling source to state that hundreds of thousands of deaths (1.5 million in the case of Bihar) due to shortage of food are not famines. Of course a drought may cause a famine, is there a source that defies what a "near miss" is? two million deaths? The in line citations all use the term famine, and the quote from the "deletion of the term famine" that was passed into law, refers to the use of the term in laws and codes, it doesn't abolish the reality of famine in India. Outofsinc (talk) 06:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Inability to learn from the Great Irish Famine

This section contains a number of problem statements that are very different to those at the actual article Great Irish Famine. The section title itself, "Inability to learn from the Great Irish Famine" is rather childlike - something like "Comparisons with the Great Irish Famine" would be better. The section then immediately goes on to accuse the British of genocide. The main article, Great Famine (Ireland), says "...the proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight.[5] Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland—where a third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food—was exacerbated by a host of political, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate.[6][7]..." Hardly the same. I suggest a major rewrite of this section is needed. With this and other exceptionally intense POVs creeping into this article, we also need to re-introduce the POV header tag. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Changing the title of the section is fine. I think the rest of the material is well sourced and fits WP:NPOV but you could ask a neutral outsider to look at the article rather than adding a POV tag. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Any editor who looks at this can comment - or are you saying that I am in some way "not neutral"? As for sourcing, if it's so well sourced, how come it says something wildly different to the main (very heavily discussed and fought over judging from the archives) article on the Irish Famine? At the moment it reflects a highly selective POV that the British were wholly responsible for the Great Irish Famine and secondly that they then repeated the same thing in India. These are not assertions that serious historians would accept in that POV way - a small group of sources might, but that's not the same thing at all. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you could counter it by providing sourced statements that present the other view then? Regarding the Irish famine, the phrasing is identical to what you find in that article but feel free to add the proximate cause to balance the view further. Zuggernaut (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

How can you say it's identical when I've just shown clearly at the top of this section that it manifestly isn't?? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 22:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've added the fact that the proximate cause was potato blight. Zuggernaut (talk) 01:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

You need to read WP:BRD. The material was boldly inserted and reverted on the grounds it was not relevant. You should then discuss it. I see no need for it here, unless there is a case for discussing multiple famines. I should make it clear that I think it is clear (and referenced) that political ideology and indifference made the Irish Famine worse, and that colonial agricultural factors were at least a part cause in the case of Ireland and India. But that does not make a long section on the Irish famine here, the same applies to many colonial powers in many countries. --Snowded ^TALK 06:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Mortality was the highest in the 1875-1900 period

Editor Jamesinderbyshire undid my change stating that the mortality due to famines was the highest in the 1875-1900 period. [7] This statement was well sourced.[8] Your edit summary says "others don't". Can you provide sources that disagree with those statistics? The text should stay in the article unless a counter claim is provided. Zuggernaut (talk) 22:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I will be, but the point is more complicated than that; before my edit there was a direct clash between different statements in the article, one claiming that the last 25 years of the 19th C were the worst and another claiming that the Bengal Famine was the worst with 6.5m deaths - this latter figure is also not reliably sourced. The whole article is descending into a one-track farce of contemporary Indian nationalist views, frankly. A country that chooses to develop nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers whilst allowing 50% of a massive death rate amongst children to be due to malnutrition deserves better and more objective coverage from Wikipedia than this. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 22:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Until you provide those sources, longer standing content should stay in the article. Please be rational and do no revert content until the opposite can be proved, especially since these are numbers and should be easy to prove or disprove. Zuggernaut (talk) 22:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully agree with James here, including the POV point --Snowded ^TALK 06:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree too. Content added by you Zuggernaut a few days ago is not "long standing" and anything that was around before you got here is equally subject to change because this is such a poorly worded and rarely visited article. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick ^t 08:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no interest in discussing contemporary Indian nationalism and it's absolutely irrelevant to the topic of Famine in India. If you want have an interest in that subject, feel free to edit the relevant. Wikipedia page, if there is one. 100% of the content I've added is sourced and the sources are not related to or endorse Indian nationalism per my knowledge. I've further taken care to chose sources that treat the subject of famines academically. So Jamesfromderbyshire's bluster about nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers was really uncalled for and irrelevant to the topic. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:37, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Process

I have been through the various re-insertions of material that had been challenged and made a series of alternations. I am pretty sure that all of these relate to material inserted by Zuggernaut over the last day or so. In the main I am very concerned that too many of those insertions are reliant on one or two sources and are not balanced, and more specifically represent an Indian Nationalist perspective. Please discuss any more insertions per WP:BRD --Snowded ^TALK 06:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, let's discuss the removed content one by one. Sorry but I have no interest in discussing contemporary Indian nationalism. 100% of the content I've added is sourced and per my knowledge none of them are related to Indian nationalism. I've further taken care to chose sources that treat the subject of famines academically. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Comparison with other famines

The following content was removed from the article.

“ Author of "The Great Irish Famine", James Donnelly states that the British government did not learn much from the Great Irish Potato of 1840 and they applied the same policies in India causing the deaths of between six to ten million in 1876–79 and and even higher number between 1896 and 1902 (the estimates range from six to nineteen million). Approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated under similar British policies in The Great Irish Famine. While the proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight, Irish nationalists such as John Mitchell accused the British government of genocide for exporting food from Ireland to England even during the famine. They stated that Ireland died because of political economy rather than from food shortage. In 1996 Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote a report commissioned by the New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee, which concluded that the British government deliberately pursued a race and ethnicity based policy aimed at destroying the group commonly known as the Irish people and that the policy of mass starvation amounted to genocide per the Hague convention of 1948. On the strength of Boyle's report, the U.S. state of New Jersey included the famine in the "Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum" at the secondary tier. Davis states that India was mostly free from famines under the Mughal Empire but British colonial administrators refused to follow the Mughal example of storing sufficient grain for emergencies. He states further that even when famine struck, the British imposed free-market policies and this was nothing but masked colonial genocide. ”

Estimated death tolls from relevant famines

Year	Country	Excess mortality (millions)	% Death rate	Observations
1846-52	Ireland	1	12	Potato blight, policy failure
1876-79	India (under British rule)	7	3	Drought, policy failure
1942-44	India (under British rule)	2	3	War, policy failure, supply shortfall
1972-73	Independent India	0.1	0.03	Drought

Per Snowded's suggestion, let's discuss this content.

It is a common practice in academia to compare famines that occurred in different geographies and at different times so I think this table is vital to enhance the article. The table is sourced form Cormac O' Grada's work who is an academic and has researched famines in-depth.

• Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009), Famine: a short history, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691122373, retrieved October 5, 2010

I feel we need to introduce the table back in the article as it is. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:00, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I oppose your POV material being readded. The article is still a mess thanks to some of your additions. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm wondering if it might not be better to revert the whole article to it's last best copy as it's not come out of the edit war too well. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Britishwatcher and Jamesinderbyshire - can you point out the specific sentences in the above paragraph and the table that you think is POV? Zuggernaut (talk) 21:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is POV, its just inappropriate. You would have to create something (on another article I would suggest) that compares all famines and could be referenced and or be part of a narrative here. Just doing a comparison of India and Ireland has no logic behind it. I don't really see the point of reverting either. It was a poor article in the first place, those changes by Z which have survived improve it but it really needs a rewrite. Not sure it was an edit war either--Snowded ^TALK 06:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The table and the paragraph above are needed for the narrative to make sense as several authors are cited in the article comparing Indian famines of that era with the Irish famine. Many scholars compare these famines due to the similar policies ("policy failure" is the term O' Grada uses) between parts of the Empire. Please take a look at page 23 of the source [9]. I intend to add the Chinese famine to the table at a later stage to make the comparison complete. That comparison is vital too because despite the progress made in China (in comparison to India), the death toll was very high (highest ever in any famine actually) due to a lack of democracy and it goes well with the Dreze and Sen claims to balance other sources. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Updated version

Based on the feedback from objecting editors, I've improved the content to included the Chinese and North Korean famines (amongst others). These famines provide supporting evidence to the the entitlement theory propounded by several authors. Please provide feedback on the new version of the content so I can go ahead and add it back. Thanks.

“ Sen finds no exceptions to the rule that no substantial famine has ever occured in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. To bolster this theory, Sen cites examples of earlier famines like the famines in Ireland, the Chinese famine of the late 1950s and the Indian famines under alien rule. Examples of recent famies such as the ones in Ethiopia, Somalia and North Korea are also cited to support the theory. Author of "The Great Irish Famine", James Donnelly states that the British government did not learn much from the Great Irish Potato of 1840 and they applied the same policies in India causing the deaths of between six to ten million in 1876–79 and and even higher number between 1896 and 1902 (the estimates range from six to nineteen million). Approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated under similar British policies in The Great Irish Famine. While the proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight, Irish nationalists such as John Mitchell accused the British government of genocide for exporting food from Ireland to England even during the famine. They stated that Ireland died because of political economy rather than from food shortage. In 1996 Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote a report commissioned by the New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee, which concluded that the British government deliberately pursued a race and ethnicity based policy aimed at destroying the group commonly known as the Irish people and that the policy of mass starvation amounted to genocide per the Hague convention of 1948. On the strength of Boyle's report, the U.S. state of New Jersey included the famine in the "Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum" at the secondary tier. Davis states that India was mostly free from famines under the Mughal Empire but British colonial administrators refused to follow the Mughal example of storing sufficient grain for emergencies. He states further that even when famine struck, the British imposed free-market policies and this was nothing but masked colonial genocide. ”

Estimated death tolls from relevant famines

Year	Country	Excess mortality (millions)	% Death rate	Observations
1846-52	Ireland	1	12	Potato blight, policy failure
1876-79	India (under British rule)	7	3	Drought, policy failure
1942-44	India (under British rule)	2	3	War, policy failure, supply shortfall
1959-61	China	15 to 25	2 to 4	Drought, floods, Great leap forward
1972-73	Independent India	0.1	0.03	Drought
1995-96	North Korea	0.6 to 1	3 to 4	Poor harvests, policy failure

Sources:

• Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009), Famine: a short history, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691122373, retrieved October 5, 2010 (See page 23)
• Iqbal, F; You, J.I (2001), Democracy, market economics, and development: an Asian perspective, Other World Bank Bks, World Bank, ISBN 9780821348628, LCCN 01017950 (See page 13)
• Davis, Mike (2001), Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famine and the Making of the Third World, Verso, ISBN 1859847390 (See page 37)
• Donnelly, Jim (2005), The Irish Famine, BBC, retrieved October 5, 2010
• Edgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn (2008), Tears from iron: cultural responses to famine in nineteenth-century China, University of California Press, ISBN 9780520253025, retrieved October 5, 2010 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |volum= ignored (help) (See page 7)
• Ritschel, Dan (1996), The Irish Famine: Interpretive & Historiographical Issues, Department of History, University of Maryland, retrieved October 5, 2010
• Ross, David (2002), Ireland: History of a Nation, New Lanark: Geddes & Grosset, ISBN 1842051644 (See page 226)

Zuggernaut (talk) 20:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC

Rfc tag added to the article at the top of this page. Zuggernaut (talk) 18:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

It says "Place one of the templates shown in the table on the right at the top of the talk page section which you would like to promote." The key in that sentence is "section". Take a look at some of the other RFCs, they dont all get put at the top. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that you are alleging that the entire article is POV, moving to the very top of the talk page makes sense. Zuggernaut (talk) 18:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Most people scroll down and ignore stuff right at the top of a talkpage because it is usually out of date. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The RfC request is transcluded to the relevant boards so there's no real worry about the participation of uninvolved editors. Zuggernaut (talk) 18:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

BritishWatcher is right about placing new material at the bottom of the page. If we need to navigate people here, they can see the note I left at the top, and for good measure links to this page could now say Talk:Famine in India#General POV RfC. Now, go discuss the issues.--Carwil (talk) 21:13, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

General POV RfC

• User:The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick added a POV tag to this article on September 19, 2010.[10]
• I took the matter to the NPOV noticeboard on September 27, 2010 which said this wasn't a matter of POV. [11]
• In response to the NPOV noticeboard responses, I took off the POV tag on September 28, 2010.[[12]
• The same user added back the POV tag on October 8, 2010. [13]
• Diff between the very 1st wrongly alleged POV and the currently allged POV is here.[14] No specific reasons have been provied by the user on the talk page about why the POV tag was added back.Zuggernaut (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Side discussion about placement of this section

This RFC is in the wrong place (moved to bottom of page now). RFCs are also meant to be neutral, something yours clearly is not. You failed to mention here what has taken place in recent weeks with all your "improvements" which are clearly biased and give undue weight. This is a pattern sadly, and not just limited to this article. It would be helpful if someone could write a more neutral summary about what has taken place here. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Moved back to the top because the entire article is being called "POV". Zuggernaut (talk) 18:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

So if i have a concern about the whole article i should raise it at the top of the talk page, if i have concern about a section of the article i should raise it at the bottom? lol BritishWatcher (talk) 19:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

RFCs are also meant to be neutral, something yours clearly is not. You failed to mention here what has taken place in recent weeks with all your "improvements" which are clearly biased and give undue weight. This is a pattern sadly, and not just limited to this article. It would be helpful if someone could write a more neutral summary about what has taken place here. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC I'm a little confused as to what you are requesting. Opinions on POV in both versions? Sol (talk) 02:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The RfC request is aimed at evaluating the POV allegations against the current version of the article. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick re-added the POV tag with the edit summary "Add back template Still lots of problem" and that was the main reason for the RfC. After the RfC was made, users Britishwatcher and Jamesfromderbyshire have suggested that the entire article "is a mess" and that it should be reverted back "to it's last best copy". If that can be addressed in the RfC, that'll be great too. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Easy solution: The current tag can be removed as you can't put one up without starting a talk page discussion on the tag. It leads to silly situations in which people have to guess what you didn't like. A bit like this :P

POV opinion for a long term solution: The graphs could be merged into one; separating them by non-/colonial gives the very immediate impression that Britain is solely responsible for the huge increase in famines. Which might be true but that's what the article is for. Other than some tiny bits of language nothing is jumping out at me. I'm not very well versed in the subject and need the objecting user to specify the offensive parts. Sol (talk) 04:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I would also make the general comment that raising this at the NPOV notice board without notifying other editors on this page smacks of gaming and it is cannot be argued that having two other editors agree with you without such notification constitutes a decision that it is NPOV. Doing that in parallel with an RfC is Forum Shopping, with goes in with a previous attempt to Canvass editors that Z thought would support his opinion. Personally I think we have knocked out the main problem areas inserted and the POV tag is inappropriate, but an IMPROVE one would be. That said the behaviour problems need addressing Zuggernaut --Snowded ^TALK 06:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I did notify everyone on the very same day about posting to the NPOV noticeboard. Perhaps you had not yet arrived to this article back then. This article is a work in progress so it will continue to improve. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:21, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Found it - for future reference it might be an idea to make such a posting a subhead. You should also try and resolve issues on the talk page before going to notice boards. --Snowded ^TALK 08:39, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

We tried resolving this issue on the talk page for more than a week between September 19 and September 27 and then took it to noticeboard once we reached an impasse. I appreciate the feedback and I take it in a positive spirit. Thanks. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Who are the "we" you refer to in this last comment Zuggernaut? Are you co-ordinating this effort with other editors? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

We still have a whole section "Theories of Indian famines" This gives undue weight to one view point which seeks to place large amount of the blame on "lack of democracy". It goes into detail about one mans view, it then provides a counter to the mans view but also includes the sentence "Rubin does not address colonial period famines, so the position is not actually countered at all, and then goes on to mention another person affirming Amartya Sen thesis. It is questionable how notable this one theory is, but it is totally unacceptable when it is the only "theory" or issue covered in detail. For example there is just one brief mention in the introduction saying "some transportation improvements", and it is not mentioned elsewhere in the article from what i can see. Are people honestly telling me that developments of railways, cars, trucks and aircraft have very little impact on famine relief? I dont think there is any mention of communications. Do people honestly think a period when it would take days, weeks or potentially longer to get messages from one part of the country to another has no impact on famine relief, compared to recent times when there is instant communication not just within the country but internationally? What about ability to forecast weather, surely as famines are caused by the weather this must have an impact? Does it cover the general increase in food supplies around the world? For example, do people in India today have more food than they did in 1800 and is this a general trend that is shared around the world, including in the west like Britain and America? Undue weight is given to the "democracy theory" at the expense of major factors which have an impact in reducing famine. Whilst that is the case, i believe the neutrality tag is perfectly justifiable. And whilst Zuggernaut is seeking to add even more POV material to the article, the tag is certainly needed. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thats not the only problem either. This article thanks to Zuggernauts help goes out of its way to put things in a "before British rule/during British rule/After independence" viewpoint. Yet it does not treat these issues fairly. So for example the tables on major famines in India. There are two. 1 before British rule which simply lists century/location/number of famines. Then the British rule one which does Years / number of famines / death estimates. Why are only death estimates shown for the British rule table? Where are the details of death estimates for the others? Are we confident that there were just 2 famines in the 11th century? That is very precise, if its possible to know its just two surely a death toll figure is available too? Another issue is the population growth and Indias borders. For example If 100,000 people live in one area that is effected by a famine in the 11th century, but then the same area is effected by a famine in the 19th century when the population is 1 million? would that have an impact on the number of people impacted by the famine and the number who die? Would it not actually have an impact on the famine itself, by creating more people in need of food in the same area? Im sure sources exist to cover these sorts of issues, i dont have the time to search for lots of material, but the burden is on those who add stuff to articles to ensure the article contents remains neutral, you can not add wonderful one sided information. Whilst these issues are not dealt with, the article lacks neutrality and should continue to display the warning tag. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:17, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello again, BW. Due to a recent conflict with you in another article I'll be recusing myself from this RFC after this post. In regards to your first statement, Amartya Sen's theories, befitting a Nobel laureate economist, are probably notable. I don't see where you are going with communications, transportation and weather prediction or the POV ramifications. If you have information to add, go for it, but I don't think you can reasonably object to well sourced information because it's not balanced with information you hypothesize is available. I'm not even sure who's POV is being overly represented here. Sol (talk) 15:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Ive no objection to his point of view being mentioned or the "democracy" issue being mentioned. My concern is that at present, by giving a whole section to that one issue and not covering other factors at all or in less detail that have had a significant impact on famine, we are giving the issue Undue weight. At present there is a theory section in this article, saying lack of democracy was a core factor in the history of famines. There is no section talking about advances in technology or other factors that impact on famine/reducing famine. Surely it is obvious that when you compare transportation in the 18th century with transportation in the 20th century, after the development of rail and air travel it would have an impact? Yet the article gives greater weight to an opinion/theory on democracy. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Im sure sources exist to cover these sorts of issues, i dont have the time to search for lots of material, but the burden is on those who add stuff to articles no BW, the burden is on the objector to prove such sources exist and then introduce them. Here you are, not even certain if such sources exist complaining about Sen and his theories. As Carwil points out above Sen and his views are as relevant to this article as Einstein's views are to the Speed of Light article. --Sodabottle (talk) 16:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

If material is added to an article it should comply with WP:NPOV. I have stated reasons why i believe it does not comply with NPOV and it was someone else that readded the tag anyway. I dont have a huge amount of time to dedicate to this article, but that does not justify an article violating WP:NPOV without the tags remaining to atleast warn people there is a problem and encourage others to contribute to the ongoing debate here. I am certain sources exist, because it is so blatantly obvious it is the case. Transportation makes distribution of food easier, yet the only mention it gets is one line in the introduction " The post-1880 Indian Famine Codes, some transportation improvements, and democratic rule after independence have been identified as furthering famine relief." Ive no problem with Amartya Sen's opinion or theory being stated, provided it is not given undue weight. And whilst other factors i have stated are ignored then it is giving his opinion and theory undue weight. As for comparing him to Albert Einstein and the Speed of light, somehow i think there is a slight difference. Albert had an impact on the development of the theory. This is an article about Famine in India not peoples opinion on famine or the causes of Famine. Even if this was purely about causes of Famine, it would still be undue weight just to mention his theory and ignore obvious other ones. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:37, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I did provide one source awhile go on the transport issue.. "By far the most important service rendered to famine stricken areas has been through the introduction of effective means of transportation. We are not concerned whether the building of roads and railways was due to commercial or philantrhopic considerations; the fact remains that those localities which for natural or artificial causes have escaped the famine, have been able to ship their surplus into the areas where shortage existed, and so have reduced the distress and mortality. Before the introduction of the railways into India, it was impossible to distribute the surplus production over the areas of scarcity, so that it frequently happened that the prices of grain in localities where crops had been abundant were very low, while in an adjoining territory the prices were prohibitive." [15] BritishWatcher (talk) 17:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

And "Early analyses of Inian famine matched quite closely many of the trends in current literature on Africa. Famines in the nineteenth-century were seen to result from the economic drain from India to Britain, and the heavy burden of taxation imposed on Indian peasants. Agriculturalists sold food grains in order to raise cash to pay their land revenue. Meanwhile, there was an increasing economic differentiation amongst the peasantry themselves, resulting in the breakdown of communal responsibility.

Criticisms of this analysis have taken two directions. The first is to subject to scrutiny the 'dependency theory' embodied here; and the second is to question the assumed pivotal relationship between subsistence production and famine. Michelle McAlpin (1983) argues that India became more able to withstand harvest shortfalls in the late nineteenth century, through improved transportation networks and greater penetration of the market into rural areas. " [16] BritishWatcher (talk) 19:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

A shiny, new rail transport section has been added to the article. It comes complete with the only assessment I've seen so far of the question that you started asking: to what degree does the 20th century avoidance of famines result from transport improvements (the opinion belongs to Jean Drèze, Sen's collaborator). Your note on taxation also deserves mention, as does the opium (and other cash crop) economy (although McAlpin suggests its impact on grain production is minor). The effect of pre-1870 railways is missing, but I don't think NPOV is violated by the new section. Check it out.--Carwil (talk) 20:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Famine codes

I am proposing the re-introduction of the following content to the "Famine codes" section:

“ Despite the codes, mortality from famine was the highest in last 25 years of the 19th century under British rule. Never in entire history of India had so many people died in any other 25 year span. ”

Source:

• Thakur, Baleshwar; Sinha, V.N.P; Prasad, M; Pratap, Rana (2005), Thakur, Baleshwar (ed.), Urban and regional development in India: essays in honour of Prof. L.N. Ram, Concept Publishing Company, ISBN 9788180691997, retrieved October 5, 2010

Direct link to the page [17]

Comments/feedback is welcome. Zuggernaut (talk) 21:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the main reason that there have been fewer deaths due to famine since the end of British rule, the development of international aid, to which the British governemet and people make quite a contribution. And the invention of aircraft which have enabled food to be moved quickly to where it is needed. Improvements in the infrastructure have made areas accessible which weren't accessible under British rule. By the way, I don't understand this obsession with comparing everything to before, during and after British rule. How is it relevant to the article? If you think it is relevant fine but at least present a balanced point of view, for example the article mentions British response to famines under British rule but not British response to those after.--Ykraps (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I see some of these points have already been made so apologies for that.--Ykraps (talk) 17:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the main reason that there have been fewer deaths due to famine since the end of British rule, the development of international aid? No. The famine relief provided by the colonial government and the post-independence government is largely domestically produced food and the funds to buy them, raised from domestic taxes and customs duties (see clarification below about the 1950s and 60s). Railways are plenty fast for moving around food when there's scarcity and starving Indians can't afford air freight. All of this is described in the article by RS, who also comment on "the main reasons" for improved outcomes.

I know you come with the best of intentions, and given how elemental famine is, it probably seems to most people that they understand why and how it happens, and what prevents it. That said, idle speculation on alternative causes of changes in famine outcomes is not a basis for seeing a POV in what the cited reliable sources say. Please, don't come to this page and state what "the main reason" for long-term changes is without bringing reliable sources along with you.

Comparisons over time are pretty much the basics for telling a history. As it turns out, the focus of the sources is as much on before and after the 1880 Famine Codes as it is before and after independence. Almost no attention comes to before and after 1770. And quite frankly, the ability to competently address famines in India is a major historical success, just as the famines of the late 19th century and early 20th century are epochal historical tragedies deserving of complete and complex explanations. Insofar as RSs involve British colonial rule in those explanations, we must describe them here.

Please feel free to research the role of international donors during the 1967 and 1973 food crises (and the late 1990s crisis in Orissa). My quick search didn't turn anything up.--Carwil (talk) 23:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S., India did received emergency food aid from the United States in 1951 (when it made an emergency request but faced a five-month delay in approval), and subsidized grain in 1957, 1967. See Indo-US Relations, 1947-71: Fractured friendship, Shri Ram Sharma, at p. 74. The overall situation, according to a World Bank study is this: substantial subsidized grain imports from the United States were used in the 1950s and 1960s. The country embarked on a political commitment to become self-sufficient in 1965, sparking huge investment and displacing the need for imports by 1976. Throughout, a Public Distribution System was charged with addressing food security, which was successful in avoiding famine and unfocused on ending undernutrition, which continues. From Food Aid and Food Security in the Short- and Long Run [18]--Carwil (talk) 23:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

We need to have wider sourcing and commentary in the article for such an important point. The source is a fairly obscure set of essays. A more comprehensive technical source is available in the Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume 2, page 501. [19] This gives a table of death rates according to a range of academic sources for India between 1871 and 1950. These tables show pretty conclusively that India's death rates peaked between 1901 and 1920, which is also what I have read elsewhere. I think we need more evidence for this. I am going to look up some other texts on the subject and see what they say - I doubt that the snippet from the book of essays on Indian Regional Development is correct, as the Bengal Famine had a much higher death rate than any of the 19th Century famines - at least, if we use total mortality as the indicator. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 22:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Inadequately sourced and another example of selective use of material to make a political point. Agree with James point as well --Snowded ^TALK 23:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Jamesinderbyshire, I have that chapter. It says this about mortality:

The causes of high mortality were primarily related to waves of epidemics. During years or decades which were relatively free from any major widespread epidemics, death rates were low and there was some population increase. The same was true for regions and segments of population which escaped the impact of epidemics like malaria, bubonic plague and influenza. The indirect impact of these epidemics on population growth was as important as their direct effect causing slow or negative rates of population increase. Except during 1876-7 and 1896—1900, mortality caused directly by famine was extremely small during this period, partly because the canal-building activities had provided irrigation facilities to certain drought-prone areas. However, the developmental works, including railway- and road-building, also had certain adverse effects on mortality because they spread certain diseases in areas which were once relatively isolated.

It's not advisable to use death rates as a proxy for absence of famine.--Carwil (talk) 23:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Jamesinderbyshire & Snowded - The tables on page 501 of the source pointed by James are overall death rates and not deaths from famine alone. We are focused on famine alone in this article. Page 504 of the same book can be used to further substantiate the proposed inclusion. It says this regarding the time period in question:

Both in western and central India, the severe famine conditions coupled with plague epidemics caused such havoc in terms of mortality that the estimates of death rate were higher than the higest implied by the model life tables.

I hope you are OK with this content from page 504 as a second source. If not, I can substantiate the content with more sources. I think 1-2 sources should be good enough for what is a well recognized statistic in this area. Thanks. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not happy with your proposed insert for the reasons stated. You need to move away from this use of statistics to make a political point. --Snowded ^TALK 05:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Identifying the period when famine in India caused the most loss of life lies at the heart of the narrative of this article. There isn't any political point being made here. Nonetheless, here's a rephrased version to eliminate any perception that this is a political statement:

“ Despite the codes, mortality from famine was the highest in last 25 years of the 19th century. Never in entire history of India had so many people died in any other 25 year span. ”

Zuggernaut (talk) 07:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware (and said) that the table on page 501 of the Cambridge Economic History is about total mortality - I just raised it as indicative, since it seems likely that if famine death rates had been so devastating in the last quarter of the 19th Century that would show a marked effect in the death rate tables. I think Carwil you make good arguments above, I am just a bit anxious about this going on as-is without better sourcing. As you say, we lack accurate information about many periods in Indian history and it's quite a statement that Zuggernaut proposes to add on a rather slender source. The other source from the Cambridge book that Zuggernaut quotes is about Western and Central India and does not relate to the 25 worst years claim, so it doesn't advance us. As I said, we need more sourcing. I like the other material Carvil has raised about transportation issues and so on and would be happier with a more broadly written perspective and accurate statements - it's the "worst 25 years of famine death rates" bit I am challenging at the moment. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 08:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

For what's its worth, Zuggernaut, I would be happy with just a second source to justify the position. We already state in the introduction that the late 18th century and 19th century (squeezing in 1896-1901 in the latter, I suppose) are the worst era of famines in Indian history; the Citation is the "Famine" section of the Cambrdige History of Food. Snowded, since this longer period is all during the British colonial period (although not all during the more direct rule after 1857) and the early 20th century of diminished famine frequency is as well, it's not clear to me why the specific fact of the worst 25 years is necessarily political.

Another approach to this whole issue would be to speak more holistically about famine, disease and population. The impact during the period in question, according to "Population" in the Cambridge History of India was this:

While population increased by 52 per cent during the seventy years between 1871 and 1941, it increased by only 20 per cent during the first five decades. In fact, during 1871-1921, there was some significant population growth only during 1881-91 and, to a certain extent during 1901-11, the two decades which were free from any major calamity of famine or epidemic. (489)

Backtracking through the rest of the period of British presence (I'm not obsessing about British rule, but our Cambridge source focuses on the British period), we see that famine played a key role in limiting population growth then as well:

While it is difficult to assess such claims, a population of 200 million in 1750 appears a distinct possibility. During the next fifty years, however, as Durand has argued, there was presumably little or no growth of population not only because of the deadly famines and epidemics discussed below but also because of the dislocation of life and economy resulting from political turmoil and internal conflicts. During periods of hostilities or internal warfare, cultivation was sometimes suspended and crops were burnt, thus leading to famine conditions. The next fifty years (1800-50) were slightly more favourable to population growth, partly because of some political stability under the British rule and also because, despite periodical setbacks, famine relief operations were undertaken to ameliorate acute distress. (465)

Summary: 1) "worst 25 years" claim is legit with one more source. 2) a famine and population section would be lovely, and would say that epidemic (#1) and famine (#2) and early on warfare (#3) limited population growth severely during the periods mentioned above.--Carwil (talk) 11:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I found some useful relevant material in John Keay's "India, A History" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0002557177) - page 504. He quotes Moon, P, "The British Conquest" [20], which says that the Bengal Famine "killed more Indians than did two world wars, the entire Independence struggle, Partition and the worst famines of the 19th Century". So it sounds as if, as I suspected, the Bengal Famine was much worse than the late-19th Century famines in total numbers of deaths. Keay also says that the Bengal Famine could have been averted "with foresight, rationing, better distribution and vigorous action against black market hoarding" and that "it was as much a failure of personnel as anything". Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)