The social ecology of famine in British India: Lessons for Africa in the 1980s?

During the nineteenth century India experienced major famines that killed tens of millions of people. Evidence is presented that shows that these famines were more closely associated with disruptions in traditional land/cultivator relationships and changes in support for indigenous crafts than with overpopulation and/or drought.

The discussion focuses first on the situation in India before the arrival of the British, the ways in which the British changed the relationships between farmers and their land, and the genesis of famine on the subcontinent. The issue of Indian famines provides background to the issue of famines more generally. Drought and overpopulation are often cited as problems of Sub‐Saharan Africa, the region of the major famines of the late twentieth century. The relative unimportance of those factors in the genesis of Indian famine may be relevant to the problems of Africa.

Key words:

• famine
• vulnerability
• land tenure
• India
• Africa
• drought
• overpopulation