Why was there a sudden spurt in famines in colonial India since the mid-eighteenth century? Give reasons.
1. Frame the answer
Famines grew sharply more frequent and severe under colonial rule, driven by policy choices layered on top of natural weather risk.
2. High, inflexible land revenue
Colonial land-revenue demands stayed fixed and had to be paid regardless of harvest failure, leaving peasants with no cushion in bad years.
3. Commercialisation of agriculture
Farmers were pushed toward cash crops like indigo and cotton for export, reducing land devoted to food grain for local consumption.
4. Grain exports during shortage
Food grain was sometimes still exported during shortages, prioritising trade revenue over local food security.
5. Deindustrialisation adds pressure
The decline of artisanal industry pushed more people onto agriculture, increasing vulnerability when harvests failed.
6. Slow, inadequate relief
Early colonial famine relief was often slow, inadequate, or shaped by laissez-faire economic thinking that resisted state intervention.
7. The Deccan Riots and reform
Recurring agrarian distress, including the Deccan Riots, eventually forced the colonial government to appoint Famine Commissions and reform some policy.
8. A colonial, not just natural, cause
Drought triggered famines, but colonial economic policy turned droughts into mass famines far more often and more severely than before.
9. Answer structure
List the policy causes — rigid revenue demands, commercial cropping, grain exports, deindustrialisation, weak relief — then conclude that colonial policy converted natural weather risk into recurring, severe famine.
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