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| Bihar Famine | |
|---|---|
| Name | Bihar Famine |
| Location | Bihar, Indian subcontinent |
| Date | 1769–1770 |
| Deaths | Estimates vary widely |
Bihar Famine
The Bihar Famine was a catastrophic food shortage affecting Bihar, Bengal Presidency, and adjacent regions during 1769–1770, precipitating widespread mortality, social disruption, and administrative crisis. The crisis intersected with actors and institutions such as the East India Company, the Mughal Empire, the Maratha Empire, Robert Clive, and contemporaneous commercial networks including Gujarat and Calcutta. Its causes, progression, relief responses, and memory are linked to broader phenomena including the Little Ice Age, the Mughal revenue system, and the emergence of colonial fiscal policy exemplified by the Regulating Act 1773.
The famine's origins lay in climatic, political, and institutional factors involving monsoon failure, agrarian extraction, and market disruption tied to the Little Ice Age, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Ganges River hydrology, and regional droughts documented alongside crises in Oudh and Bengal. Revenue demands from the East India Company after victories such as the Battle of Plassey and treaties with local rulers like the Nawab of Bengal intensified pressure on zamindars and peasant cultivators connected to the Mughal land revenue system and practices akin to the Permanent Settlement. Trade patterns involving ports such as Calcutta and Chittagong and merchant houses from Persia, Oman, and Bengal further altered grain flows while the decline of traditional relief institutions—dargahs, akhara networks, and patrimonial charity tied to the Mughal court—reduced safety nets. Military movements by forces associated with the Maratha Empire and logistical requisitions by Company detachments aggravated shortages, while inflationary pressures mirrored episodes seen during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 and earlier famines in Deccan history.
The crisis unfolded with early drought reports in 1768, crop failures in 1769, and peak mortality in 1770, as recorded in correspondence between Warren Hastings, Robert Clive, and Company officials in Calcutta and London. Grain exports from Bengal Presidency continued despite scarcity, with merchant testimony from houses operating in Gujarat, Madras, and Hooghly indicating speculative hoarding reminiscent of practices later scrutinized after the Irish Potato Famine. Military campaigns, including actions by contingents related to the Maratha Empire and Company detachments garrisoned in Patna and Mithila, disrupted transport on the Ganges River and impeded relief convoys. Epidemics such as cholera and smallpox, paralleling outbreaks in Pune and Lucknow, compounded mortality during the famine's acute phase.
Mortality estimates varied widely among observers including Warren Hastings, William Fullarton, and later scholars comparing figures to the Great Bengal Famine of 1770 and demographic losses during the Black Death or the Irish Potato Famine. Contemporary accounts from missionaries, traders, and Company clerks in Calcutta, Patna, and Bhagalpur described mass migration, child abandonment, and social collapse reminiscent of narratives about famine in Orissa and Madras Presidency. The crisis disrupted caste and community structures such as those in Maithil society, affected artisan guilds in Patna and Gaya, and triggered refugee movements toward river ports including Kolkata and Haldia.
Relief measures involved Company administration in Calcutta, directives from officials like Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, and local zamindars operating within the framework of the Mughal revenue system. Responses ranged from limited public works and grain distribution to controversial market interventions influenced by commercial actors in Gujarat and banking houses in Bombay. Debates in London and among directors of the East India Company over responsibility, procurement, and fiscal burden paralleled policy controversies later addressed by the Regulating Act 1773 and administrative reforms in Bengal Presidency. Missionary and charitable actors from networks linked to Jesuits, Armenian merchants, and local Sufi institutions attempted ad hoc relief analogous to civil society responses seen in other historical famines.
The famine precipitated long-term demographic changes across Bihar, Bengal Presidency, and adjoining territories, altering labor markets in agrarian districts such as Begusarai and shifting landholding patterns among zamindars and cultivators similar to transformations observed after the Permanent Settlement and later colonial land policies. Commercial networks through Calcutta, Gujarat, and Bombay experienced price shocks, while artisan and craft centers in Patna, Munger, and Darbhanga saw declines in production comparable to disruptions during the Deccan Famine of 1876–78. Socially, caste and kinship structures in Maithili and Bihari communities were strained, migration fostered urban growth in port towns like Kolkata, and patterns of indebtedness mirrored fiscal trends addressed in subsequent legal reforms.
Contemporary inquiries into the famine involved Company correspondence, reports by officials stationed in Calcutta and Patna, and critiques in parliamentary discussions in London that fed into legislative responses such as the Regulating Act 1773 and administrative scrutiny similar to later inquiries after the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. Figures including Warren Hastings and Robert Clive faced public and private criticism over revenue extraction and relief failures, while scholarly reassessments in the historiography of British India and studies comparing the famine to crises in Ireland and China shaped debates on colonial accountability and famine policy.
The famine's memory persists in regional histories of Bihar and Bengal Presidency, oral traditions in Maithili and Bihari languages, and references in colonial records archived in repositories in Kolkata and London. Cultural representations appear in later literature concerned with famine and colonialism, paralleling works that address the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 and artistic responses to crises in South Asia, while memorialization remains limited compared to monuments for other catastrophes recorded in British and Indian public histories. Scholarship in postcolonial studies, social history, and economic history continues to reassess the famine alongside comparative studies involving Ireland, China, and African famines.
Category:Famines in British India Category:History of Bihar Category:1769 in India Category:1770 in India