Hostname: page-component-6b989bf9dc-g5k2d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-14T20:08:33.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inaccurate Conceptions: Disputed Measures of Nutritional Needs and Famine Deaths in Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

DAVID HALL-MATTHEWS
DAVID HALL-MATTHEWS*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Studies, Leeds University Email: d.n.j.hall-matthews@leeds.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

From the 1870s onwards, debates about famine policy were central to both colonial and nationalist conceptions of the role, effectiveness and legitimacy of the state in India. Although opinions on how best to relieve famines varied, ideological opposition to a narrow laissez-faire paradigm was given short shrift in the years preceding the formulation of the Indian Famine Codes. However, specific empirical critiques of the making and implementing of famine policy were more effective. This article explores the ways in which such challenges put scientific and statistical experts within the colonial edifice at odds with those at the top of the political hierarchy, focusing on disputes over relief wages and famine mortality calculations between Sir Richard Temple and Surgeon-Major W. R. Cornish. It further examines how proto-nationalist groups and newspapers seized on the value given to statistics by the state to hold it to account for its failure to relieve famine.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 6 , November 2008 , pp. 1189 - 1212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Ambirajan, S., ‘Political economy and Indian famines’, South Asia, 1 (2), (1971), pp. 20–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See Hall-Matthews, D., ‘Historical roots of famine relief paradigms: Ideas on dependency and free trade in India in the 1870s’, Disasters, 20 (3), (1996) pp. 216–230CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, and Roy, T., Rethinking Economic Change in India: Labour and Livelihood (Routledge, London, UK, 2005)Google Scholar.

3 Appadurai, A., ‘Number in the colonial imagination’ in Van der Veer, P. and Breckenridge, C. (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1993) pp. 314–340Google Scholar. See also Hacking, I., The Taming of Chance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 C. A. Bayly, ‘Liberalism at large: Mazzini and nineteenth century Indian thought’ in C. A. Bayly and E. F. Biagini (eds), Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism (British Academy, London, forthcoming).

5 See Mitchell, T., Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-politics, Modernity (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2002)Google Scholar.

6 Temple, R., Lord Lawrence (Macmillan, London, UK, 1889), p. 1Google Scholar.

7 D. Hall-Matthews, ‘Historical roots’, pp. 218–219.

8 Cornish is often referred to by his first name, William, but he invariably signed himself only as ‘W. R. Cornish’, and letters accompanying his original application form for entry into the Madras Medical Service suggest that he was known as Robert. British Library, India Office Records (henceforth BLIOR), Military Department, Assistant Surgeon's Papers, 1853–1854, pt. II, pp. 224–229.

9 Cornish, W. R., Observations on the Nature of Food of the Inhabitants of Southern India and on Prison Dietaries in the Madras Presidency (Madras, India, 1864)Google Scholar.

10 W. R. Cornish, Report on the Census of the Madras Presidency, 1871 (Madras, India, 1874), 2 vols.

11 W. R. Cornish to the Secretary, Madras Board of Revenue, No. 381, 18 December 1873, reprinted Ibid., Vol. 1.

12 Among other places, see R. Temple to Lord Salisbury, 1 October 1874, BLIOR, Temple Collection, and SirTemple, R., India in 1880 (John Murray, London, UK, 1881), p. 340Google Scholar.

13 W. R. Cornish reviewed this whole debate with R. Temple in a letter to Hon. D. F. Carmichael, Officiating Secretary to the Government of Madras, No. 243, 6 April 1877. The deliberations of the Madras Revenue Department on the question of relief wages, including all letters from Cornish and many other statements of opinion, are reprinted in the Compilation of Replies to Questions Circulated by the Famine Commission for the Madras Presidency (Madras, India, 1879), Appendix B.

14 See Famine Commission Report, 1880 (London, 1880–85) (henceforth FCR 1880), Appendix II (Proceedings and Selected Evidence), Evidence of Sir R. Temple, p. 57.

15 W. R. Cornish, Observations, p. 23.

16 W. R. Cornish to D. F. Carmichael, 6 April 1877.

17 Ibid.

18 Among many examples, on 30 April 1877 the Anglo–Marathi newspaper Dnyan Prakash praised Cornish for publishing his opinions, which would be ‘sure to create a sensation in England’ by validating otherwise unprovable charges of inadequate state relief. See Compilations of Native Newspaper Reports, BLIOR (henceforth NNR).

19 Compilation of Madras Replies, Vol. II, p. 119.

20 FCR 1880, ‘Dissent on Certain Points from the Report of the Indian Famine Commission’, by H. E. Sullivan and J. Caird, Part I (Famine Relief), pp. 64–69, and Part II (Measures of Protection and Prevention), pp. 183–185.

21 Temple, R., Minutes on the Famine in Bengal and Behar (Calcutta, India, 1874)Google Scholar.

22 Hall-Matthews, D., Peasants, Famine and the State in Colonial Western India (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2005), pp. 186–193CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 FCR 1880, Part III (Famine Histories), pp. 240–243.

24 FCR 1880, Appendix II, p. 57.

25 Compilation of Madras Replies, Vol. II, p. 120.

26 R. Temple, ‘The Famine of 1876 and 1877 in the Bombay Presidency’, 24 December 1877, in Minutes by Governor Sir Richard Temple, Bombay Presidency (Bombay, India, 1878 and 1879) (henceforth Temple Minutes), Vol. 1, No. 45, pp. 101–102.

27 R. Temple, ‘The Famine’, pp. 94–95.

28 Ibid., p. 107 and Temple Minutes, Vol. 2, ‘Mortality from the Famine of 1877 in the Bombay Presidency’, p. 91.

29 R. Temple, ‘The Famine’, p. 108 and see Temple, ‘Mortality’, pp. 88–90, for a lengthy citation and review of Hewlett's report.

30 See, for example, Dyson, T., ‘On the demography of South Asian famines: Part I’, Population Studies, 45 (1991), pp. 5–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lardinois, R., ‘Famine, epidemics and mortality in South India: A reappraisal of the demographic crisis of 1876–1878’ Economic and Political Weekly, XX (11) (1985), pp. 454–465Google Scholar. For the contrary view that most epidemic deaths relate to the circumstances of famine more than to hunger, see Whitcombe, E., ‘Famine mortality’, Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (1993), pp. 1169–1179Google Scholar.

31 FCR 1880, Appendix I (Miscellaneous Papers Bearing Upon the Condition of the Country and People of India), p. 223.

32 Compilation of Madras Replies, Vol. I, p. 23.

33 FCR 1880, Appendix II, Evidence of W. R. Cornish, p. 80.

34 NNR, Jame Jamsed, 18 October 1876.

35 FCR 1880, Part I, p. 28.

36 FCR 1880, Part I, Dissent by H. E. Sullivan and J. Caird, p. 64.

37 FCR 1880, Appendix I, Section V, p. 110.

38 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 4 February 1877.

39 NNR, The Native Opinion, 28 January 1877.

40 Stokes, E., The English Utilitarians and India (Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 1959), p. 285Google Scholar.

41 NNR, The Native Opinion, 4 February 1877.

42 Geddes, J. C., Administrative Experience Recorded in Former Famines (Calcutta, India, 1874), pp. 14–17Google Scholar.

43 SirStrachey, J. and Strachey, R., The Finances and Public Works of India from 1869 to 1881 (Kegan Paul, London, UK, 1882), pp. viii–xiGoogle Scholar.

44 Lytton to J. Strachey, undated letter from Simla, BLIOR, Strachey Collection. M. Davis is mistaken in ascribing famine policy to Lytton in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso, London, UK, 2001), pp. 28–33.

45 Digby, W., The Famine Campaign in South India (Longman, Green, London, UK, 1878), 2 volsGoogle Scholar. See Brennan, L., ‘The development of the Indian Famine Code’ in Currey, B. and Hugo, G. (eds.), Famine as a Geographical Phenomenon (Reidel, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 1984), pp. 91–111Google Scholar, for an account of the process of composition of the Famine Commission.

46 R. Temple to Salisbury, 18 March 1877.

47 Ibid., 18 March 1877.

48 R. Temple to Lytton, 3 August 1877, BLIOR, Temple Collection.

49 Proceedings of the Government of India, Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce, No. 212, 23 February 1877, and No. 418, 5 May 1877, published in the Gazette of India, Extra Supplement, 1877, Part 4.

50 FCR 1880, Part III, p. 208.

51 Bombay Government Resolution No. 208, 20 January 1871, in Maharashtra State Archives, General Department, Vol. 23, No. 70 of 1871. For a discussion of restrictions on relief spending in Bombay in 1876–1878, see D. Hall-Matthews, Peasants, pp. 174–179.

52 Temple, R., Men and Events of My Time in India (John Murray, London, UK, 1882), p. 397Google Scholar.

53 Strachey, J., India: Its Administration and Progress (Kegan Paul, London, UK, 1888), Chapter XVGoogle Scholar.

54 Salisbury to J. Strachey, cited in L. Brennan, ‘Development’, p. 98.

55 R. Temple to J. Strachey, 7 June 1878, BLIOR, Strachey Collection.

56 R. Temple to Salisbury, 18 April 1877.

57 R. Temple to J. Strachey, 7 June 1878.

58 See Famine Commission Report 1901, Part I (Preliminary), p. 2.

59 R. Temple to Salisbury, 22 March 1877.

60 Compilation of Madras Replies and Information and Evidence Collected in Bombay Presidency to Answer the Questions Issued by the Famine Commission, Chapter 3, Question 6.

61 Norman of Poona, for example, was chastised by the press for denying the seriousness of the famine without having ventured from his bungalow. NNR, Kalpataru, 26 November 1876.

62 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 13 August 1877.

63 See W. Digby, Famine, Vol. I, pp. 245–366.

64 NNR, Indu Prakash, 13 November 1876.

65 NNR, Shubha Suchak, 2 February 1877.

66 NNR, Arunodaya, 11 February 1877.

67 NNR, Rast Goftar, 6 May 1877.

68 NNR, Native Opinion, 1 July 1877.

69 Ram, N., ‘An independent press and anti-hunger strategies: The Indian experience’ in Dreze, J. and Sen, A. (eds), The Political Economy of Hunger, Vol. 1: Entitlement and Well-Being (Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 1990), pp. 152–153Google Scholar.

70 NNR, Indu Prakash, 30 April 1877.

71 Dutt, R., Famine in India (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, UK, 1900)Google Scholar; Naoroji, D., Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (Swan Sonnenschein, London, UK, 1901)Google Scholar.

72 R. Temple, Men, p. 397.

73 R. Temple to Salisbury, 30 March and 6 April 1877.

74 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 3 May 1877.

75 Cited in W. Digby, Famine, Vol II, p. 175.

76 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 9 July 1877.

77 W. R. Cornish, 1871 Madras Census, p. 365.

78 W. R. Cornish, Observations, p. 31.

79 W. R. Cornish, Observations, pp. 30–31.

80 Rangasami, A., ‘The masking of famine: the role of the bureaucracy’ in Floud, J. and Rangasami, A. (eds), Famine and Society (Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, India, 1993), pp. 60–61Google Scholar.

81 Who Was Who (London, UK, 1920), Vol. 1 (1897–1915).

82 FCR 1880, Appendix I.

83 See, for example, J. Strachey, India, p. 230.

84 A. P. MacDonnell, Report on the Food-Grain Supply and Statistical Review of the Relief Operations in the Distressed Districts of Behar and Bengal During the Famine of 1873–4 (Calcutta, India, 1876).

85 Ibid., p. xiv.

86 Gazette of India, Extra Supplement, 1877, Part 4, p. 2.

87 R. Temple, India, p. 333.

88 R. Temple to Salisbury, 1 January 1874.

89 A. P. MacDonnell, Report, p. xii.

90 R. Temple to Salisbury, 22 May 1874.

91 FCR 1880, Appendix II, Evidence of Temple, p. 29.

92 Temple Minutes, Vol. 1, No. 23, ‘Check and Supervision over Gratuitous Relief in Distressed Districts’, 17 September 1877, p. 50.

93 Temple Minutes, Vol. 1, ‘The Famine’, pp. 100–101.

94 Ibid., p. 108. Emphasis added.

95 Temple Minutes, Vol. 1, No. 20, ‘Relief Inspection at and near Sholapur’, 10 September 1877, p. 46. Emphasis added.

96 Temple Minutes, Vol. 1, ‘The Famine’, p. 95. Emphasis added.

97 See D. Hall-Matthews, ‘Historical roots’, pp. 221–223.

98 W. R. Cornish, Observations, pp. 67–70.

99 W. R. Cornish to D. F. Carmichael, 6 April 1877.

100 M. Davis, Late Victorian, and D. Hall-Matthews, Peasants, have started to redress the balance.

101 D. Hall-Matthews, ‘Historical roots’.