Talk:Great Bengal famine of 1770

Untitled

there are some images on the bengal famine at [1]. but copyright status is uncertain. barma 14:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The following points are missing: a) The characterization of the Company's behavior as"Free Trade" - characterizing the relationship as 'trade' is a whitewashing of the behavior of the Company, which included mass hangings, systematic rapings, and violent tax collection. b) References and impact of famine on Bengali literature Wiki article on [2] can be a model for this article. In 1765 Reja Khan was appointed as the tax collector by East India company. He immediately increased the tax by 20% for the Jamindars. Bamkim Chandra's [3] novel Anandamath highlighted the tragedy. Later Anandamath became a source of inspiration for Indian freedom movement.

Neutrality issues

It is critical that scholarship not mitigate the shocking crimes of the British in India. There was not a weather pattern that lasted only during British colonialism and improved upon their removal. Aggressive attempts to shift blame for these atrocities to nature or to Indians themselves (see comments above) are nothing short of holocaust denial. Critical review of the facts makes such attempts obvious, as in the quote below, where the writer tries to describe a strange weather phenomena that existed for only 60 years and then resolved: 'Although all scholars will admit that the famine was exacerbated by British policy using words like "fault" implies that the famine was man-made when there are multiple sources that indicate that shortages in rainfall led to food shortages for as long as 60 years (starting from 1752 in Murshidabad, when the East India Company was not in power). Also the fact that the rains failed in 1769 needs to be reiterated instead of putting absolute blame on the Company.'

c.f. The New Cambridge History of India, Bengal:The British Bridgehead (Eastern India 1740-1828). Marshall, P.J. 1988. Cambridge University Press pp 18-19. --Antorjal 15:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, there was not a weather pattern that lasted only during the colonial period, hence India suffering famines before the colonial period as well as after it. Avoid using terms such as "holocaust denial", nobody denied that a famine took place. I have checked Antorjal's source, and he/she is correct, there was a serious famine in 1752, and after 1770 there wasn't a serious famine for several decades. Although taxation and non-intervention by the company undeniable exacerabted the famine, it did not cause it.Led125 (talk) 14:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is absolutely, unequivolcally, is holocaust denial - a heinous crime committed by the British, by people still heroes to the British (Clive, Macaulay, Hastings, etc.), and now vigorously denied by British scholars who have developed a deep complex about their own history. A crime by which, and its prior and subsequent crimes, led to the rise of a previously backward and impoverished nation (England), and the dramatic decline of what was historically the most wealthy and advanced of nations (India). Even in the impeachment trial of Hastings in 1787 the British parliament acknowledged the famine as a direct result of the excesses, greed, and cruelty of the British presence in India, though now British scholars vehemently deny it. Nonintervention is a ridiculous characterization of the company’s role in the famine – taxes were dramatically hiked and forced out of the Indian artisan and farmer by the most cruel and despotic of means: public raping of their virgin daughters, followed by tearing of their nipples or cutting off of their breasts, forcing children to shoot their parents, hanging of innocent men in figure eights, etc. Clives own assessment of Bengal prior to his conquest of it was that it was the most highly developed and productive economy in the world (though it was by no means wealthy per India’s standards) – what followed after his conquest was misery, famine, disease and mass abject poverty, that hasn’t yet resolved. It is no coincidence that Bengal and Bangladesh were the poorest part of India at independence, as it was the longest occupied by a demonic and greedy British rule. It is no coincidence that there was such dramatic extraction of Bengals wealth in the years prior to the famine (by one estimate the region controlled by the Company exceed the combined economies of the British’s rivals France and Spain), that the newfound wealth in England transformed its society and economy and fostered what the British scholar likes to wholly claim their own – the Industrial Revolution.

In regards to the above: India, like all other regions of the world, suffered famines before the colonial period, but at a starkly lower rate than during colonialism. Bhatia is the oft cited source, though arguably pro-Anglo source, says there were 14 famines in the 600 years preceeding British occupation. Sen says there were 32 in the 90 years after the First War of Independence - from roughly 2 per century to 1 every 2-3 years. An economically exploited civilization will not be able to handle the typical variations in weather - in effect oscillating from the brink of famine to famine. After independence there was one event, largely deemed a 'near miss' in Bihar in 1967. So, 1-2 famines per century before the British, 1 famine every few years during the British, and none in the 60+ years since the British. Is it not obviouse that British colonialization was wholly responsible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.146.139 (talk) 13:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually there is no way of comparing the famines in pre-colonial India to the nineteenth century famines because good data only began to be gathered from 1878 onwards. "One cannot compare, for instance, the absence of complaints or solicitations for relief rice in Mughal India with their replete presence in colonial records and assume this means Mughal kings took care of their populations during famines and British colonial officals did not. It MIGHT mean this, although the historical evidence is certainly weighed against such a conclusion. But it is also possible, and perhaps probable, that the absence of solicitations in Mughal documents means that no one expected the Mughal officials to supply any relief, so it was pointless to ask" Darren C. Zook in Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representations, and Rule in India, page 112. On Bhatia I will cite [url]http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507(197903)39%3A1%3C143%3ADFARTC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M]this article[/url] by Michelle Burge McAlpin as well as her book Subject to Famine. Deficient rainfall caused crop failures and improved communications actually mitigated the severity of famines. This view is support by Neil Charlesworth in his book "Pesants and Imperial Rule" and Tirthankar Roy in his "Rethinking Economic Change in India". Finally INdia did suffer a famine in 1972-73 which claimed 130,000 lives. See Cormac O'Grada's article "Making Famine History" (you can find ti by googleing it)Led125 (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It is utter nonsense that there were no records of famines prior to 1878, There are records of famines at least as early at the 8th century – famines which were, like the Bengal famine of 1770, political and economic events more so than they were about crop yield and weather variations (see above comment about low rainfall).

Arguments that one cannot compare the incidence of famines during Mughal rule to that during British rule are without merit. India has amongst the most ancient written histories in the world, not held entirely by monarchs or foreign rulers. Even better evidence than documentation of the famines is that India remained a land of great wealth and advancement throughout history and despite foreign rule until the arrival of the British. A famine of 130,000, while tragic, is hardly worth mentioning when discussing a famine of 10 million, especially when the land remained economically developed after that relatively small event. Regardless, the British arrived to the most complex and productive economy in the world, an economy which was in direct competition to its own, in ships, artisan goods, grains, spices, and most importantly - cotton. Many European wool and linen laborers/farmers were displaced by the flood of Indian goods, so much that there were protests in London and and prohibition of Indian cotton goods in France. This was a major motivation for the invasion, (as discussed in the British Parliament) with the ultimate goal eliminating a competitor and of making profit. These profits were realized, and were transformational, though in dramatically different ways, for England and India both. A mature UK, like its cousin America, will eventually come to grips with its history and particularly its crimes, discuss them openly, without mitigation, and acknowledge both the devastation they wreaked on the subjugated and the tremendous benefit they brought to their own society. As it stands now, western Europeans and particularly the British, are perplexingly unable to talk about the crimes of their ancestors, and they maintain a perversely distorted self image. I would modify the comment at the start of this discussion page about holocaust denial and call this wiki topic 'fascist genocide denial'.

The claim that England was "backward" in 1770, contrasted with India as "advanced", is absurd. England was and is a model for forward-thinking and egalitarian domestic policy, not to mention the home of many of the greatest scientists, writers, and politicians the world has ever seen.

Incorrect calculation?

The lead paragraph says "... the deaths of 10 million people (one out of three, reducing the population to thirty million in Bengal..." Something's wrong — reducing from 40 million to 30 million is one out of four not three. Or is the thirty million figure incorrect? I don't know enough about the subject work out which needs correcting.--A bit iffy (talk) 13:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right. 172.10.53.154 (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Came to this page because I saw the same issue. Glad it's not just me.