One of the reasons for the high death rate and low life expectancy at the time of Independence was the frequent outbreak of famines. What were the causes of the outbreak of famines? Do you think that the Britishers were sensitive towards the plight of the starving Indians?

Question

Accepted Answer

Famines were a recurrent feature of the Indian economy in the pre-independence period. Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The last major famine was the Bengal famine of 1943.

**Causes of the outbreak of famines:**

1. In the pre-independence period, Indian agriculture was heavily dependent on the monsoon. There were no proper irrigation facilities, and a bad monsoon directly led to the failure of crops and the outbreak of famine.

2. Amartya Sen found that the famines during British rule were not due to a lack of food but due to inequalities in the distribution of food. The colonial policies that promoted the commercialisation of agriculture and the export of food grains from India to Britain reduced the availability of food for the masses.

3. Tirthankar Roy suggests that the famines in the British era were due to environmental factors inherent in Indian ecology.

The destruction of traditional handicrafts, the forced shift from food crops to cash crops like indigo and the drain of food grains to Britain further aggravated the food crisis in the country.

**Were the Britishers sensitive towards the plight of the starving Indians?**

No, I do not think that the Britishers were sensitive to the plight of the starving Indians. No policies or programmes were initiated by the government to reduce the prices of food products or to provide relief of any kind. The famines continued to claim millions of lives, and the colonial government remained largely indifferent.

Thus, the frequent famines, caused by a combination of natural factors and exploitative colonial policies, remained a major cause of the high death rate and low life expectancy in India at the time of independence.