Why was there a sudden spurt in famines in colonial India since the mid-eighteenth century? Give reasons.

The mid-eighteenth century marked the advent of British colonial rule in India, following the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764). This transition of power coincided with a drastic increase in the frequency and severity of famines. While pre-colonial India experienced periodic climatic droughts, the famines under British rule—beginning with the catastrophic Great Bengal Famine of 1770—were predominantly man-made, structural crises.

The sudden spurt in these famines can be attributed to the following colonial policies and structural changes:

1. Oppressive Land Revenue Policies

• Exorbitant Demands: The introduction of rigid land revenue systems, such as the Permanent Settlement (Zamindari), Ryotwari, and Mahalwari systems, maximized resource extraction. The revenue was fixed at artificially high rates.
• Inflexibility: Unlike pre-colonial rulers who often waived taxes during droughts, the British demanded revenue strictly in cash, regardless of monsoon failures or crop yields. This left the peasantry with no surplus grain for crisis years.

2. Forced Commercialization of Agriculture

• Colonial economic policies compelled Indian farmers to shift from subsistence food crops (rice, wheat, millets) to cash crops (indigo, cotton, jute, opium, and tea) to feed European industries and trade.
• This structural shift drastically reduced the domestic production of food grains, dismantling the traditional food security net of rural communities.

3. Deindustrialization and Overburdening of Agriculture

• The influx of cheap, machine-made British goods and discriminatory tariff policies led to the systematic destruction of indigenous Indian handicrafts and artisanal industries.
• Millions of ruined artisans were forced to migrate back to their villages, leading to the "ruralization" of India. This caused massive overcrowding in agriculture, rampant land fragmentation, and an increase in the number of highly vulnerable landless agricultural laborers.

4. The 'Laissez-Faire' Policy and Export of Food

• The colonial administration strictly adhered to free-market ('laissez-faire') principles, refusing to intervene in food markets, regulate prices, or prevent hoarding during acute shortages.
• Even during severe famines, food was exported to Britain. For instance, during the Madras Famine (1876-1878) and the Orissa Famine (1866), millions of tonnes of wheat and rice were exported to Europe while millions of Indians starved to death.

5. Neglect of Traditional Irrigation and Infrastructure

• Pre-colonial rulers actively invested in and maintained traditional water harvesting systems, tanks, and canals. The East India Company and the subsequent British Crown largely neglected these indigenous systems.
• While the British built railways, they were primarily designed to penetrate the hinterland for resource extraction and troop movement, rather than for agricultural development. Ironically, railways exacerbated famines by quickly transporting grain out of drought-hit areas to ports for export.

6. Rise of Moneylenders and Absentee Landlordism

• The necessity to pay high land revenue in cash forced peasants to borrow heavily from village moneylenders (sahukars).
• High interest rates trapped peasants in vicious cycles of debt, leading to massive land alienation. The resulting absentee landlordism and exploitative tenancy systems completely stripped the peasantry of the economic resilience needed to survive poor monsoons.

7. Punitive and Inadequate Famine Relief

• Early colonial rule saw almost no famine relief. Later, when Famine Commissions were established, the relief was grossly inadequate and punitive.
• The relief camps operated on the "Temple Wage" system (named after Richard Temple), which required starving peasants to perform hard labor for a food ration that provided fewer calories than what was later given to inmates in Nazi concentration camps.

The sudden spurt in famines from the mid-18th century was not an ecological historical accident, but the direct consequence of India's integration into the global capitalist economy as a subservient colony. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen noted in his theory of "entitlement failure," famines in colonial India were rarely about an absolute lack of food; rather, they were caused by the systematic destruction of the purchasing power and economic entitlements of the Indian masses due to the colonial "Drain of Wealth."