Famine, Disease, Medicine and The State in MADRAS PRESIDENCY (1876-78)
Famine, Disease, Medicine and The State in MADRAS PRESIDENCY (1876-78)
Famine, Disease, Medicine and The State in MADRAS PRESIDENCY (1876-78)
LEELA SAMI
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DECLARATION OF NUMBER OF WORDS FOR MPHIL AND PHD THESES
This form should be signed by the candidate’s Supervisor and returned to the
University with the theses.
Name of Candidate:
Leela Sami
ThesisTitle:
Famine, Disease, Medicine and the State in Madras Presidency (1876-78)
I confirm that the following thesis does not exceed*: 100,000 words (PhD thesis)
The maximum length of a thesis shall be for an MPhil degree 60,000 and for a PhD
degree 100,000 words inclusive of footnotes, tables and figures, but exclusive of
bibliography and appendices.
Please note that supporting data may be placed in an appendix but this data must
not be essential to the argument of the thesis. In other words, examiners are not
necessarily required to read beyond the 100,000/60,000 word limit.*
The thesis is a critical examination of the relationship between different levels of the
colonial state and its medical services in the relief of famine in Madras Presidency
during 1876-78. The state was irrevocably divided in moral, administrative and
financial terms in its responses to famine and the provision of famine relief during this
episode These divisions made for inconsistencies in the relief of distress, and resulted
in widespread suffering and starvation. However, they also allowed for considerable
latitude by the Provincial Government in the implementation of Imperial famine
policy, and for the medical profession to gain administrative authority by claiming
expertise in the scientific determination of standards of state support for the famine
stricken.
This famine heralded the beginning of organized all-India state intervention in famine
processes through the institution of famine codes and organized bureaucratic
machinery for the early prevention of agrarian distress through prompt state
intervention. To this extent, this particular episode was a ‘prime mover’ in the history
of the medical profession and the history of state intervention in famine relief in India.
The thesis seeks to address critically several problems in the historiography of famine,
colonial medicine, disease and the state in modem South Asia through this case study.
It attempts to do so through a critical re-examination of material used by previous
authors and the use of some hitherto unused sources from the Provincial archives.
4
Table of Contents
Pages
Title Page 1
Declaration of Originality 2
Thesis Abstract 4
Table of Contents 5
Acknowledgements 7
List of Abbreviations 8
Transliterations P. 9-11
Introduction: Famine, Disease, Medicine and the State in Madras Presidency P. 12-81
Chapter 2: William Robert Cornish and State Intervention during the Madras Famine 148-196
Chapter 3: Vital Statistics, Famine Policy, Colonial Medicine and the State 197-243
Conclusions 347-353
6
Acknowledgements
The writing of this thesis has owed an immeasurable amount to several individuals
and institutions.
Professor Anne Hardy has been a source of moral, intellectual and emotional strength.
I owe to her the very chance to carry on and complete my doctoral degree. Had it not
been for her forthright support and deep sensitivity at a very difficult personal and
academic juncture in my life and thereafter, this thesis might never have seen the light
of day. Dr. Alex McKay encouraged me through several clumsy drafts of my
chapters. I am grateful for his detailed and incisive comments on my work, for his
insightful yet gentle criticism, and for his professional advice. Professors Janet
Browne and Hal Cook have provided generous academic support, and Dr. Michael
Neve was extremely helpful at a critical moment.
A doctoral grant from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
provided me with the financial, logistic and administrative assistance to carry out my
research in London and India. The administrative staff at the Wellcome Trust Centre
have been wonderful. I particularly thank Alan Shiel, who has been a brick in helping
me to sustain myself financially through four long, hard years.
I am deeply grateful for the cheerful generosity of the staff at the various archives and
libraries I have accessed. These include the staff o f the Oriental and India Office
Collections and the British Library, the Wellcome Library, the Tamil Nadu State
Archives (particularly Sivakumar and Neelavannan), the Roja Muthaiah Library, the
Connemara Library, and the Maharashtra State Archives in Mumbai. Drs. Sanjay
Sharma and Biswamoy Pati offered me valuable suggestions and advice when I
visited New Delhi in 2004, and I have benefited from conversations with David Hall-
Matthews, Sarah Hodges, Raj Chandavarkar,Chris Hamlin, Sujata Patel and Mohan
Rao. I also thank numerous unnamed attendees at conferences where I presented my
work, for their comments and suggestions.
Family, well-wishers and friends across the world, contributed to make my research
possible, tolerable and enjoyable in a variety of ways. Sumi, Rochelle, Bhavana,
Pradeep, Geetha Aunty, Samiksha, Nahida, Nandini and Pratik kept me sane in
London during my first year. Papuma, Chander Mama, Ambi Mama and Thuthi
looked after me while I was in Chennai in 2004, and Apama and Bhavani were
amiable company in the Tamil Nadu State Archives and at Chennai’s many eating
places and cinemas. Rahul has always been there for me in his quiet way. Veronica,
Anitha, Asha, Shanti, Deepa, Pragnya, Shambhavi and Dhivya have all been
incredibly generous with their time and affection at various stages. Helga, Stephen,
Candice, Laurence, Theresia and Lois were bright spots in the Wellcome. Barry
Keane and Matthew Hughes made an important difference to my life.
Ruby and Amma, thank you for everything. I would not have been here if it had not
been for you.
7
List of Abbreviations used in the Thesis
Note: Several of these transliterations have been taken from N. Mukerji, The
Ryotwari System in Madras, Calcutta, 1962. The remainder are adapted from
Vol. Ill of the Manual o f Administration o f the Madras Presidency, Madras 1893.
Choultry: A hall or public building used by travellers as a resting place, and also
Chhuttrum: A house or building where pilgrims and members of the higher castes
were sheltered and fed gratuitously for a day or two, mostly while on pilgrimage.
They were usually run by charitable foundations, and sometimes benefited from state
support.
Conjee: Starch, slop or gruel consisting of water in which rice or other grain has been
Dali a preparation of lentils and spices, usually poured as gravy on rice or other
grains.
9
Karnam/ Curnant/ Kanakapillai: Accountant or clerk of the village who registered
everything connected with its cultivation and produce, the shares of the ryot, and the
contradistinction to the sudder or seat of the local or district level Government. So,
Munsiff: Village watchman, minor native judge, sometimes also designated the
Ragi/Ragee: Eleusine coracana, dry grain staple of the Mysore country and much of
individually.
Sudra: In the ‘varna ’ conception of the caste system, the lowest of the four groups in
the hierarchy. However, in Madras, the Sudras composed a large and heterogeneous
10
Tahsil: Revenue sub-division of a district.
Vaisya: In the ‘varna ’ conception of the caste system, the third of the four groups in
Varagu: Panicum miliaceum, dry cereal grain eaten extensively by the poor in the
Tamil districts.
Zamindar/Zemindar: Proprietor of land with whose rights and recognition it was not
intended to interfere interposed between the Government and the people in the
revenue system.
11
Introduction: Famine, Disease, Medicine and the State in Madras
Presidency (1876-78)
This study examines the relationship between different levels of the colonial state and
its medical services in the provision of official famine relief during 1876-78 in
Madras Presidency. My main aim in writing this thesis has been to show the great
complexity of official responses to famine in colonial India, both medical and non
medical, and to look at the consequences of these responses for famine relief and
famine mortality.
My thesis focuses on a specific historical event, through the study of which I hope to
century India. The ‘Great Famine’ of 1876-78 is one of the best-documented famines
of the late nineteenth century. Affecting an area of 20,000 square miles and a
population of 36 million people in three provinces of British India, this famine led to
the formation of the Famine Commission _ The latter’s Report of 1880 has
widely been seen by modem historians as one of the first statements of an all-India
famine policy which stressed the need for early detection and prevention of agrarian
distress through the agency of local and Provincial officials.1 The Commission’s
Report was a statement of the need for a preventive program of extensive state
intervention in agriculture and in agrarian society in order to stall the process whereby
1 See K. S. Singh, ‘The Famine Code: Context and Continuity’ in J. Floud and A. Rangasami, Famine
and Society, New Delhi, 1993; P. Robb, ‘The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An
Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s’, MAS, 31, 2 (1997): 245-83; L. Brennan , ‘The
Development of the Indian Famine Codes: Personalities, Policies and Politics’ in B. Currey and G.
Hugo, Famine as a Geographical Phenomenon, Dordrecht, 1984 and D. Hall- Matthews, ‘The
Historical Roots of Famine Relief Paradigms’ in H. O’Neill and J. Toye (eds.), A World Without
Famine? New Approaches to Aid and Development, 1998.
12
distress led to starvation and mortality on a wide scale. However, as a document, the
Report also stressed the limits to state intervention.2 Both the Report as well as the
Famine Codes of the 1880s reflected the debates that had marked the official
provision of relief during 1876-78. This episode, therefore, had direct consequences
Further, the Famine Codes issued by each Province at various points in the 1880’s
Commission’s Report itself. Thus, famine policy as it developed after 1880 was
predicated essentially upon two sets of tensions which had occurred during the course
of the famine of 1876-78. These were firstly, the tension between different layers of
the state over the moral and ideological basis of intervention in famine relief; and
secondly, the tension between different agencies of the state over the financial and
responses during the Great Famine and were then carried forward into the Famine
Codes.
The Great Famine generated enormous amounts of official data, which have been
famine and popular responses to state intervention in famine relief. Judging by this, it
2 Thus, although the Commission’s Report stated the responsibility of the state to prevent mortality, a
major concern was also to prevent the ‘demoralization’ of the peasantry through the institution of strict
tests of need for applicants for relief. (Report o f the Indian Famine Commission, Part 1 Famine Relief,
p. 35, IOR/V/4/Session 1880/Vol. 71). See also A. Rangasami, ‘Systems of Limited Intervention: An
Evaluation of the Principles and Practice of Relief Administration in India’, in Floud and Rangasami,
Famine and Society, op. cit.; Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’ op. cit, and
Hall-Matthews, ‘The Historical Roots of Famine Relief Paradigms’, op. cit.
3 B. M. Bhatia, Famines in India: A Study in Some Aspects o f the Economic History of India, Delhi,
1968, see especially pp. 93-96; S. Ambirajan ,Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India,
13
would appear that this famine has been adequately dealt with by modem Indian
historians. The need for yet another account of this famine, therefore, might be
questioned. However my study explicitly focuses on the following issues which have
The first relates to the idea of the colonial state as a layered and heterogeneous
always harmonious and where official political authority was largely determined by
proximity to local elites and influential indigenous people, rather than residing in the
military force or political dominance of the European official and his allegiance to the
issues in depth, it is enough to state that earlier historiography tended to assume that
state responses to famine were unitary or homogenous, and that political authority
flowed from ‘the colonial state’ (as embodied by the Government of India, backed up
by the political force of the India Office in London). The ‘colonial state’ pushed forth
Cambridge, 1976, pp. 93-97; Idem, ‘Malthusian Population Theory and Indian Famine Policy in the
Nineteenth Century’, Population Studies 30, 1(1976): 5-14, especially pp. 6-8; I Klein ‘When the
Rains Failed: Famine, Relief and Mortality in British India’, IESHR. 21, 2 (1984): 185-214 (see
especially pp. 195-200); R Lardinois, ‘Famine, Epidemics and Mortality in South India: A Reappraisal
of the Demographic Crisis of 1876-78’, Economic and Political Weekly, XX, 11 (1985): 454-465 ; M.
Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World, New York ,
2001, Ch. 1, ‘Victoria’s Ghosts’; T. Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part 1’,
Population Studies 45 (1991):5-25; D. Rajashekhar , ‘Famines and Peasant Mobility: Changing
Agrarian Structure in Kumool District’, IESHR 28, 2 (1991): 121-150.
4 For the purposes of this thesis, it seems appropriate to define famines as crises of subsistence and
mortality, although an appropriate definition of famine has been the subject of academic as well as
policy debates between scholars of a variety of disciplines. For a review of definitions of famine, see
M.K. Bennett, ‘Famine’, in D.L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 5,
New York, 1968. See also A.K. Sen, Poverty and Famines, Oxford, 1984, Ch. 4; A. Maharatna, The
Demography o f Famines, Delhi, 1996, p. 1; and S. Devereaux, Theories of Famine, Hertfordshire,
1993, Ch. 2.
14
programmes of famine relief which did little to prevent the mass mortality caused by
subsistence crises.5
In a sense, this historiography took off from nationalist accounts, which saw famines
as the direct result of adverse economic and social changes wrought by British
colonialism, particularly its land revenue and trade policies.6 While not primarily
concerned with debates around causation, our account suggests that official responses
to famine were more subtle and variegated than this historiography suggests, and
often in conflict with each other. In addition, ‘state’ policy was not always determined
by officials in the India office or the Government of India. Provincial and district
level officials played a more significant role than has been hitherto recognized in the
formation of policy.
decision making might be said to have derived from a focus on Northern and Eastern
India. Historians of south India have long been aware that there were significant gaps
between Imperial and Provincial injunctions and local and regional political and
administrative practices. The Government of India had much less to do with goings-
on in the south than it did in the north. Further, within the Province, decision making
processes relied far more on local and indirect influence, rather than on the direct
5 A classic account of this view of famine policy is to be found in Bhatia, Famines in India, op. cit;
Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy, op. cit., and Klein,’ When the Rains Failed’, op. cit.
6 Classics in nationalist economic historiography include R. Dutt, India in the Victorian Age: An
Economic History o f the People, 1904; idem, Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land
Assessments in India, 1900; and W. Digby, ‘Prosperous" British India A Revelation from Official
Records, 1901.
15
The concept of a ‘segmentary’ state was coined by Burton Stein to describe the
resonance for a later period and for understanding how a layered political structure
influenced the formation of policy and its administration in South India.8 Authors who
have studied nineteenth century south India have made similar points regarding the
administrative practice.9 For example, both David Washbrook and R.E .Frykenberg
describe the enormous bureaucratic maze that Fort St. George’s governance rested on,
and its implications for control and authority in the mofussil. While Fort St. George
exercised a strict watch over the interior through its European civil servants, these
Indians for information, which was crucial for working the state machinery.10 These
unitary colonial ‘state’, and its relationship with politics and policy formation. Yet,
very few works have examined the divisions and interrelationships within the state in
‘the colonial state’ in existing accounts of official responses to famine in India, and
7 B. Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, Delhi, 1980.
8 Here, it must be mentioned that Eugene Irshick argues that the state ceased to be ‘segmentary’ after
1795 in that the government tried to introduce a bureaucratic society and institutions based on an idea
of a fixed hierarchy. (E. Irschick, Dialogue and History: Constructing South India 1795-1895,
Berkeley, 1994, pp. 69-70).
9 D. Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presidency 1870-1920,
Cambridge, 1976. Chris Bayly’s work is a good reference point for the North Indian context, albeit for
an earlier period than ours; see for example Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in
the Age o f Expansion 1770-1870, Delhi, 1983. On south India, see also R. E. Frykenberg, Guntur
District 1788-1848: A History o f Local Influence and Central Authority in South India, Oxford, 1965.
10 Washbrook, The Emergence o f Provincial Politics, op. cit.
16
Influences on Famine Policy
Further, we also seek to critically examine the range of historical influences on famine
policy. Existing accounts of the formation of famine policy have tended to emphasize
and espoused by other influential political thinkers in late eighteenth and nineteenth
famine policy. According to the accounts put forth by scholars like S. Ambirajan, Ira
Klein and David Arnold, laissezfaire ideas- derived from classical political economic
theories enunciated by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and J.S. Mill and taught to ICS
officers- shaped the intellectual world of British civil servants. These ideas were
However, there are other factors- financial expediency, political strategy, and what
Lance Brennan has termed ‘personalities and politics’- which have also been held to
account for the way in which famine policy evolved. 1^~ We seek to explore the
interaction between these various factors. In the first chapter, therefore, we trace out
the way in which the different levels and agencies of the state responded to this
famine, and attempt to assess how ideological, administrative, moral and logistic
The nature of political governance in Madras was a crucial factor determining systems
of official famine relief. The administration of the ryotwari system and the nature of
11 Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy, op. cit; idem, ‘Malthusian Population Theory and Indian
Famine Policy in the Nineteenth Century’, op. cit; Klein, ‘When the Rains Failed: Famine, Relief and
Mortality in British India’, op. cit, D. Arnold, Famine: Social Crisis and Historical Change, Oxford,
1988, p. pp. 105-112.
12 Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’, op. cit.
17
land tenures made the district officials and the Madras Board of Revenue important
players in the debates between the Provincial Government and the Imperial
land revenue was paid directly by the cultivator to the agents of the Provincial
1^
Government). Further, Madras itself was remote from the seat of Imperial rule, and
this often made it easier for the Provincial Government to flout rules- seemingly
the Government of India. The Provincial Government, however, dependent upon the
Board of Revenue and a variety of district and local officials for information
regarding the state of the crops and the condition of people and cattle, often was
hopelessly misguided in its knowledge about processes in the interior. This proved a
We argue that this episode was the first where famine came to be seen as a
The third theme that this thesis addresses is at the role played by one individual, W.R.
debates on famine policy in 1876-78, and was also directly involved in the creation of
the first Provincial famine code in the 1880s. A study of his professional and personal
attributes enables us to address the interaction between the ‘state’ and its medical
13 On the ryotwari system, see N. Mukherjee, The Ryotwari System in Madras 1792-1827, Calcutta,
1962; and K.G. Sivaswamy, The Madras Ryotwari Tenant, Part I: An Economic Survey, Madras, 1948.
18
services in a nuanced and detailed manner, addressing a set of debates in the literature
on ‘colonial medicine’.
European colonial medicine was a ‘tool of empire’.14 Earlier studies saw colonial
sanitary and medical services as working primarily to make the tropics a more
habitable place for European civilians and troops through sanitary and medical
improvements and control of epidemic diseases, and thereby serving the interests of
the Imperial state.15 Some sites, which were strategic to the maintenance of colonial
economic and military power- notably the army, the prisons and the plantations- were
provided for in medical and sanitary terms by the state, while the health and medical
needs of the general population was neglected completely. However, the outbreak of
epidemic diseases and sanitary theories of disease causation from the 1860s focused
the attention of the colonial state on the health needs of the general population. From
this period onwards, therefore, attempts by state medicine to intervene in the health of
the general population through preventive sanitary science was spurred by attempts to
control the outbreak of epidemic disease in the cantonments and prisons. While
sanitary science served the needs of an expansionist state, the medical profession had
14 The term ‘tool of empire’ derives from D. Headrick, The Tools of Empire, and Technology Transfer
in the Age o f Imperialism, Oxford, 1981. See also D. Arnold, Colonizing the Body: Epidemic Disease
and State Medicine in Nineteenth Century India, Princeton, 1993; Idem, Imperial Medicine and
Indigenous Societies, Manchester, 1988 and M. Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian
Preventive Medicine 1859-1914, Cambridge, 1994; B. Pati and M. Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine
and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India, New Delhi, 2001.
15 Arnold, Colonizing the Body, op. cit; Idem, Imperial Medicine, op. cit; Harrison, Public Health in
British India, op. cit; Idem., Climates and Constitutions: Health, Race, Environment and British
Imperialism in India, New Delhi, 1999. See also R. Headrick, Colonialism, Health and Illness in
French Equatorial Africa 1885-1935, Atlanta, 1994.
16 Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 291.
19
17
profession was a ‘handmaiden to the Imperial state’ , and ‘doctors and surgeons
India as a land of dirt and disease, of lethargy and superstition, of backwardness and
barbarity- and to contrast this Orientalized India with the cool-headed rationality and
association with the military and political force of the colonial state. In the end,
however, medicine helped consolidate that power through its cultural dominance and
claims to ‘scientific status’, although this status was contested both from within the
state power and the European medical profession, a problem also inherent in Mridula
Other studies have suggested a different view of the medical profession’s relationship
with the colonial state and Indian society. For example, Mark Harrison argues that
colonial medicine was more limited than Arnold and Ramasubban assume in its
ability to intervene and shape Indian society. In fact, medicine itself was moulded by
its social and political context, and its links with imperial power far more tenuous
than Arnold and Ramasubban assumed. The depth of medical intervention was limited
by contests within the Imperial order itself; between different conceptions of Empire,
20
administrations.21 Harrison’s study argues that the medical profession in India
suffered from low professional status as well as indifference from the colonial
causation and medical theory. To this extent, the ability of ‘colonial medicine’ to be
cultural practices of the indigenous population limited the ability of colonial medical
officials to push forth programmes of sanitary reform; while their limited curative
ability did little for the administrative or professional status of European medical
the process whereby public health schemes were implemented. Our study resonates
famine and famine policy from the point of view of personal, professional and
administrative factors. We argue that medicine was not so much a tool of Imperialism
interventionist famine policy was his use of vital statistics as indices of the efficacy of
21 Harrison, Public Health in British India, op. cit. See also S. Bhattacharya, ‘Re-devising Jennerian
Vaccines? European Technologies, Indian Innovation and the Control of Smallpox in South Asia,
1850-1950’, in Pati and Harrison, Health, Medicine and Empire, op. cit.
22 Ibid, pp. 9-10.
21
state famine relief. Vital statistics were intended as Imperialist tools in the sense that
registration was initially the basis of efforts to improve European military health in
India. However, not only were vital statistics a fiction of officialdom in many cases,
but they were also used to bring ignominy on Imperial famine policy by Cornish.23
famine mortality, and thus follow upon each other. Chapter 3 examines debates
between different levels and agencies of the state over the accuracy of vital statistics
Chapter 3 of the thesis attempts to address historiographical debates around the links
between knowledge, power and Imperialism in colonial India. While vital statistics
were flawed tools of sanitary medicine, they nevertheless were important political
Chapter 4 investigates the relationship between famine and disease, using the vital
statistics for the famine years. In doing so, it examines critically the ways in which
previous scholars have dealt with the mortality statistics for this famine. We argue
that the evidence tends to support a ‘starvation’ model of famine mortality as against a
23 Debates around colonial statistics have tended to divide scholars who saw them as forms of
knowledge which were intrinsic to the knowledge/ power Imperialist project, against those who viewed
them as weak and ineffectual tools of governance, and those who saw them as positive outcomes of
colonial rule. See Chapter 3 for further details.
22
Finally, in Chapter 5 ,1 examine social, administrative and medical responses to
effects of population movements on famine mortality, and the role played by colonial
carefully investigated than has hitherto been done. Further, medical responses to this
of famine and of colonial medicine, using this episode of famine as a case study.
Ultimately the aim is to investigate the interactions between the colonial medical
relevance of this particular crisis in a longer-term history of colonial medicine and the
state in Madras. This interaction, it is argued, had important consequences for famine
A brief review of literature on the economic trends in Madras sets the stage for our
analysis. The period between 1855 and 1875 has been seen as a period of agricultural
prosperity by historians of southern India.24 Yet, this prosperity does not seem to have
been generalized and there were large divides of wealth, income and status in most
24 See D. Kumar and T. Raychaudhuri (eds.) The Cambridge Economic History of India Vol. 2, c.1757-
c.1970, Cambridge, 1983 (henceforth CEHI), p. 230 and Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial
Politics, op. cit.
23
areas. The distribution of water supplies was a particularly important factor in
understanding the agrarian economy. While the great irrigation works built in the
1850’s transformed the northern districts of Kistna and Godavari into richly watered
and prosperous areas, and Tanjore benefited from the perennial water supply of the
Kaveri river, the ‘dry’ districts remained poor and marked by great inequalities. The
worst off were the Ceded districts of Bellary, Cuddapah and Kumool, as also Nellore
and North Arcot. 25 These were the districts which suffered the most in the famines of
In terms of landownership, Dharma Kumar has indicated that between 1862 and 1880,
labour castes, in positions of hereditary slavery. In 1900, they formed almost a quarter
97
of the population of the Presidency. Although wage series are available only from
1873 onwards, Kumar also finds that the real wages received by these labourers
declined in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. (Kumar attributes this decline to
castes. Her arguments are convincing, but lack direct evidence regarding trends in
fertility).
25 Bellary became a cotton exporting district in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but the
concentration of economic resources in the hands of commercial farmers meant that cropping decisions
were dictated by commercial rather than subsistence agriculture. This thesis, propounded by
Washbrook, has been questioned by Dharma Kumar who argues that there is little evidence for the
view that land was increasingly passing into the hands of rich farmers and moneylenders and that in
fact land was increasingly becoming fragmented rather than consolidated, through population growth.
26 CEHI, p. 237.
27 D. Kumar, Land and Caste in South India: Agricultural labour in the Madras Presidency during the
Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, 1965, p. 173.
24
Kumar’s arguments regarding a decline in wages are corroborated by David
Washbrook, who also finds that if wages were moving at all, they were moving
existing divides in Indian society. Finally, there was a steady rise in food prices
from 1862-63 onwards.29 This would indicate that the 1860s and 1870s were periods
data tends to indicate that there was upward mobility amongst some groups. David
Washbrook’s thesis- that the severe impact of the famine on the population of Madras
was largely due to the structure of agrarian political-economic relations which was
considerable weight. Cornish’s study of the links between the food supply system,
rural social relations and vulnerability to famine also indicates a sharply unequal
social structure, in which the entitlements to food amongst the poorest sections were
always precarious.31
25
In these circumstances, a strong welfare state or a comprehensive system of private
charity which intervened to protect the rights of the dispossessed or to preserve the
labour force in times of scarcity might have prevented subsistence crises. But neither
existed in colonial Madras, and famine ‘policy’ throughout the nineteenth century was
As for most other Provinces, the colonial archive contains few references to
Sharma remarks in the North Indian context, the paucity of information was often
colonial rulers and the state.32 For example, the Godavari district gazetteer
remarks that ‘There are no references to early famines except vague ones by
to famines which occurred in 1633, 1648, 1659-62, 1677 and 1709.34 The Tanjore
district gazetteer also mentions the existence of a scarcity during the Chola period
At Koviladi, also in Tanjore district, in the eleventh century, ‘times became bad,
the village was ruined and the ryots fled’, but there was no mention of loss of life.
32 S. Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State: North India in the Early Nineteenth
Century, New Delhi, 2001, p. 3.
33 F. R. Hemingway, Godavari District Gazetteer, Madras, 1907, p. 137
34 W. Francis, Imperial Gazetteer o f India Provincial Series Madras I, Calcutta, 1908, p. 79.
35 F.R Hemingway, ICS, Tanjore District Gazetteer Vol. 1, Madras, 1906, p. 147.
26
Another famine was mentioned in the Periya Puranam in the seventh century,
whereupon the saints Sambadnar and Appar were helped by Lord Siva to relieve
Bellary and the Deccan in the 15th century.37 Thomas Munro, one of the pioneers
A detailed record of famines and state famine policy in Madras from the late
famine policy was based on a notion of the moral duty of kings and rulers to
provide for their subjects in times of distress. Further, the eighteenth century was
demarcated from the nineteenth century in that prior to 1804, there were no moral
regulating the grain trade or in terms of the provision of work and food for
guides to state policy can be dated to the late eighteenth century. In addition, even
famines as the failure of a previous native ruler to protect the country against
drought or their extractions from the ryots in terms of plunder and land revenue.
Thus a famine in 1733 was described by Dalyell as the result of the neglect of
irrigation works since the agents of the Moghul emperor had taken possession of
36 Ibid, p. 147.
37 W. Francis, Bellary District Gazetteer, 1916, p. 128.
38 Ibid.
39 Robert A. Dalyell was a member of the Indian Civil Service who was one of the steering members of
a private charitable fund for famine relief during 1866. He went on to become the Secretary to the
Government of Madras, which post he held during the 1876-78 famine.
27
the country.40 Further famines took place in the course of the eighteenth century,
The following account is based largely on Dalyell’s account in order to discuss the
economic processes from the end of the eighteenth century.41 However, as will be
evident from the following account, financial expediency, strategic concerns, threats
impulses on the part of local administrators and private charity all limited the extent to
which the state could afford not to intervene in famine relief and in the grain market
in times of crisis. (See Table 0.1) In addition, it is worth remembering that in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the notion was fairly common among
administrators that famines were caused not just by a collapse of the employment
economy but primarily by a scarcity of food and the means to remedy local scarcities,
i.e. that the scope of state action covered the need to provide adequate food supply
and not just the facilitation of the grain trade. This notion changed towards the middle
of the nineteenth century. The arrival of the railways meant that private trade came to
28
State intervention in famine process during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries took a variety of forms. These included the remittance of duties on grain
imports; government control of distribution of grain in select urban areas where the
account for distribution as wages was also permitted. From the late eighteenth
century, the Government of Madras began to provide work for a wage in order to
enable people to buy food, and to distribute cooked food to the poor in towns as the
main measures of relief. It appears from the accounts of early colonial famine relief
measures that these measures were adopted largely according to official perceptions
of threat to the social, political and public orders, particularly in towns. In many cases,
reports of distress by local and district officials were disbelieved initially by either the
these three bodies as well as between local officials and higher authorities. Thus,
distress were often delayed responses to local reports of distress, and within months, a
The structure of governance in Madras was a crucial factor in shaping the way in
which ideological considerations were played out. Three members- a Governor and
two Indian Civil Service members, all of whom were appointed by the Crown-
29
constituted the Local or Provincial Government. The business of the Local
Government, which was headed by these officers, was conducted through a secretariat
connected with revenue administration under the ryotwari system was the Madras
Board of Revenue. The Board of Revenue had considerable influence over daily
administration at the district level. It consisted of four members, of whom two usually
controlled matters connected with land revenue, a third had charge of revenue
settlement and a fourth supervised revenue from salt, akbari (liquor licensing) and
separate revenue. Most letters regarding revenue administration were addressed to the
Board and not to the Government. The Board was the key Provincial body concerned
with the extremely complex matter of revenue settlement and assessment, particularly
the land revenue which constituted the largest source of Governmental income and
varied from year to year under the ryotwari system. It was also the first point of
contact with Provincial Government for district Collectors and their subordinates.42
Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, the relationship of the Madras Board
of Revenue with the Madras Government (and prior to 1858, the Court of Directors)
shaped state intervention in famine relief. In addition, it is worth noting that until
1865, the Madras Government was the sole financial and administrative authority to
30
that governance and management of famine relief in Madras was in practice separate
from the Government of India, and from the other Local Governments.
According to Dalyell, the first serious famine of which detailed accounts exist took
place in 1781 and 1782, consequent to Hyder Ali’s invasion of Madras. In 1781, the
superintend the daily distribution of grain in Madras city and fix the prices at which
measure. This action, notes Ravi Ahuja was not prompted by a neglect of the
in Ellore, Rajahmundry, Masulipatam (the naval base of the Madras Government) and
Condapilly.44 The famine also affected Bellary district and was known as the first
employment on public works for the famine stricken.45 During this famine, Thomas
Munro, then Collector of Bellary, apparently decried the tendency of native revenue
officials to extract land revenue from the ryots despite their suffering.46 From the
action and the threat of a disruption of social and political order. There was some
degree of intervention in the form of suspension of import and transit duties on grain,
43 R. Ahuja, ‘State Formation and ‘Famine Policy” in Early Colonial South India’, in S.
Subrahmanyam (ed.) Land, Politics and Trade in South Asia, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 147-185.
44 Dalyell, Memorandum, p. 17.
45 W. Francis, Gazetteer o f the Bellary District, Madras, 1916, p. 128.
46 Ibid.
31
and later, prohibitions of export of rice from Tanjore except to the distressed districts.
During this famine, the Collector of the Ganjam district was authorized to feed the
poor with cooked food paid for from Government funds and to open relief works
In early 1799, there was ‘considerable distress’ in Dindigul in Madura district (in the
southern part of Madras) and the Collector was permitted by the Government of
Madras to purchase grain on Government account for the purpose of retail sale. If the
famine were to grow more severe, he was to dispose of the grain he had in store at a
loss in order to lower the general price of grain.48 The lack of evidence makes it
the main causal factor behind state intervention during this famine.
Five years later, towards the end of 1804, there was severe distress in Tanjore and
South Arcot districts. Prior to Government sanction, the Collectors of both districts
took it upon themselves to sell grain at low prices to people on Government account,
to prohibit grain export, and to import grain. As will be seen below, this was the first
policy. However, the actual shape of events belied any strict adherence to these
responses to famine in the later years of the nineteenth century. During this famine, it
was also reported that the Collector of South Arcot district in consonance with
32
Brahmin priests performed an abhishekham ceremony ‘for the propitiation of the rain
god’.49
the grain market, unless absolutely necessary, but left the question of prohibiting
exports to the district Collectors. In 1805, as the famine dragged on, the Madras
Board of Revenue laid down a set of principles upon which Government policy
should be conducted. Briefly, these were to prohibit any interference with the grain
account; and to prohibit any embargo on exports. The Board of Revenue advocated
the employment of people on public works, with payment in cash, as the only suitable
means of intervention. (This appears to contradict Sanjay Sharma’s assertion that the
1837-38 famine was the first occasion when relief ‘on modem principles’ was begun
grain payments instead of cash due to the existence of the Government reserve. Two
years later, the Government of Madras under Lord Bentinck ordered that a fixed price
Bentham, had in fact recommended that a bounty (or bonus) be paid instead of a fixed
price as it was less dangerous to Government, but later conceded to his Council on the
49 W. Francis, Gazetteer of the South Arcot District, Madras, 1906, p. 179. Governmental involvement
in such religious ceremonies does not seem to have occurred in the nineteenth century, indicating
perhaps a growing reliance on the notion of ‘scientific’ administration which was increasingly
juxtaposed by Europeans against a ‘superstitious’ and ‘unscientific’ native mind. See also Arnold,
Famine in Peasant Consciousness, p. 73.
50 Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State: North India in the Early Nineteenth Century,
Delhi 2001, p. ix.
33
issue of a fixed price as ensuring a greater security of supply.51 Later that year, a
Committee appointed to inquire into grain riots in Madras city, recommended that
considerable outlays on public works and considered establishing grain depots in the
In 1809, the Government of Madras decreed that interference in the grain trade was
in the southern districts, the Board of Revenue deprecated any state interference in the
store grain on Government account during this period were not approved by the
Government of Madras.54
In 1824, the failure of the monsoons caused the Commercial Resident at Masulipatam
to compel merchants to sell rice at fixed prices in the naval town. The Resident also
wrote to the Bengal Government requesting that a cargo of rice be sent to him on
Government account. The Madras Government however censured the Resident for his
actions, and repealed the request for assistance sent to Bengal. Two months later,
however, in December 1824, the Government realised that its estimation of distress
34
had been woefully wrong, suspended duties on grain imports, and instructed
Collectors of the Ceded districts, Guntoor, Salem, Vizagapatam, North and South
Arcot, Madras, and Nellore to open public works. Later in 1824, the Government also
opened feeding houses for the relief of starving migrants to the large towns. During
this famine, the Government of Madras, and particularly Thomas Munro, recorded
rates, or whether Government would intervene and fix prices, the Collector of the
North Arcot district was told that he was to be ‘guided by the true principles of
The interference o f Government on such occasions as die present is often very prejudicial,
and I know o f no way in which it can be safe or useful, unless in suspending all duties on
grain- giving perfect freedom to its transit by sea and land, and securing the grain dealers
from the violence o f the people.56
The next instance of famine was what Dalyell called ‘the most serious famine’ with
which the Madras Presidency has been afflicted since the British accession.57 This
was what was known as the Guntoor famine of 1832-34. The Guntoor famine
Rajahmundry, Nellore, Bellary and Cuddapah. There were reports of monsoon failure
late in 1832, and the Board of Revenue addressed the Government of Madras to
recommend that import duties on grain be remitted, a request which was acceded to.
The Government of Madras directed that district Collectors should ‘exercise their
influence’ on local merchants to reduce prices, but not use any means of force. 58 As
the famine wore on in Bellary and Guntoor, the Board of Revenue recommended that
55 Ibid, p. 29.
56 Ibid, p. 26.
57 Later writers state that the 1876-78 famine was worse. See Bellary District Gazetteer, p. 135,
Madura District Gazetteer, p. 163.
58
Dalyell, Memorandum, p. 26.
35
‘special inducement should be held out to traders to import grain’.59 Clearly threats to
the property and life of traders and Government officials were significant issues
during this famine: the Government in 1833 authorised an increase to the police force,
and also authorized district officials to authorize the distribution of cooked food and
the employment of able-bodied people on useful public works. Yet, the Government
refused requests by the Collectors of Masulipatam and North Arcot to import rice on
Government account from Bengal. Early in 1833, the Government also issued strict
injunctions against any interference with grain transport or force within the markets.
Masulipatam, Nellore and North Arcot. However through 1833, large numbers of
starvation deaths were reported from Guntoor, Masulipatam, Tanjore and Madras city.
Captain Best, an Officer of the Madras Engineers (the pre-1852 Public Works
500,000 people died during the famine. His account also described the pathos of
famine deaths:
W e are apt not sufficiently to consider, in reading o f 150,000 people killed by famine, how
much individual wretchedness is indicated by those six digits. W e shrink from the six
hundred tales o f broken up village com munities, the uncultivated lands, the uncelebrated
feast, the fierce contest at the well, the thronged burning ground, the unburied dead. W e
like not to contemplate the spectacle presented in thousands and tens o f thousands o f
fam ilies, the herdsman with his uncomplaining cattle dying around him, stripping the
coarse thatch from his roof which for years have been the grateful object o f his care, the
sheep burnt to death with the withered grass, the hungry children and their starving
parents, the famished mother unable to moisten the parched throat o f her dying infant, or
59 Ibid.
36
the hard struggle between the strong ties of kindred and the stronger instinct of self-
preservation.60
In 1854, the next famine of which there is record occurred in the Bellary district. At
the beginning of 1854, prices of food were ‘double the usual rates’. State intervention
influx of starving migrants into Bellary town, and by famine crime.61 However during
this famine, the Government did not take any other steps to intervene in the distress
except to provide employment on public works for a cash wage. The relief works
consisted almost entirely of earth work on new roads and were chiefly controlled by
In 1866, there was a famine in the districts of Ganjam and Bellary, which was the first
instance of famine after the reorganization of the state in 1858. In part the famine was
a domino effect of the Lancashire cotton famine and the outbreak of the American
Civil War in 1861. The demand for Indian cotton had risen to such an extent that
speculating ryots grew cotton wherever they could. In 1865, the American War ended
and the price of cotton fell equally suddenly, leaving the farmers vulnerable to
economic depression. There was a failure of both monsoons (north east and south
west) during 1865, and district officials reported late that year that the price of food
S ')
had increased greatly. The Collectors of these districts set out some measures to
alleviate distress, including buying up local stocks of grain in order to ration the
European and Indian troops and prevent a mutiny. In addition, the occurrence of grain
60 Captain Best, Extract from an article on the effects of the Famine o f 1833, in the Madras Journal of
Literature for 1844-45, quoted in Dalyell, Memorandum on the Madras Famine, p. 40-41.
61 Dalyell, Memorandum, pp. 45-6.
62 Ibid.
37
riots also appears to have been a spur to district level efforts to begin small relief
efforts in Berhampore town, where people were employed in sinking wells. However,
these early district level efforts met with displeasure from the Government of Madras,
who stated that they were ‘open to grave objections on general principles’.63 By the
end of March 1866, the Collector of Ganjam was making desperate attempts to tackle
the crisis, largely through the employment of the poor on relief works set up from
local and private funds, and through the provision of cooked food in kitchens.64
It was only in June 1866 that the Government of Madras began to recognize the
seriousness of the impending disaster and what had been till then been a purely local
crisis now received Provincial attention. On the 1st of June, Rs. 10,000 was placed at
raised.65 On the 11th of June, the Government directed the Marine Superintendent to
The organization of famine relief reflected notions of state charity that combined
ideas about the ‘deserving poor’ that emanated from debates within English Poor
63Proceedings of the Madras Government, Revenue Department, Fort St. George, No. 382, dated 20th
February 1866, Copies of Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency in 1865-66
IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Vol. 52.
64 Proceedings of the Government of Madras, No. 192, dated 12th April 1866, No. 1120, Copies of
Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency, IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Volume 52
65 Letter from Government of Madras to Secretary of State for India, dated 7th July 1866, Copies of
Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency, IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Vol. 52.
66 Ibid.
67 Official famine relief in nineteenth century India was based on the principle that people should work
for a living even in times of crisis, and that the state should not provide food but work, except in the
cases of those too weak to work. In cases where people were too weak to work but whose caste status
prevented them from accepting gratuitous relief in the form of cooked food, raw rice was offered.
38
GoM was used for three main objects: firstly, the feeding of the ‘really poor’ classes-
beggars and labourers - at relief kitchens. There were nine such establishments in
June, and the monthly expenditure on these was Rs. 3,000. Secondly, the poorest
families in ryotwari villages were given raw rice weekly at their residences. These
were small landowners who considered it demeaning to join the beggars and labourers
at the relief houses and would ‘starve in their houses sooner than join the crowd of
paupers who are fed at the relief houses. ’ Thirdly, the 1500 bags of rice and financial
outlay of 1500 rupees (about a hundred and fifty pounds) were to be utilized for
employment of the poorer ryots for three months. These three forms of relief- feeding
what were seen as more respectable classes of the starving poor in order to
poor on famine relief works- continued to be followed during the famine of 1876-78.
In addition, a sum of 20,000 rupees (2000 pounds) was sanctioned by the Government
of India in July 1866 from the surplus of the North Western Famine Relief Fund
which had been collected during the famine of 1861.68 However, the relief provided
seems to have been a classic case of “too little, too late”. There were already reports
that ‘famine and disease, cholera and smallpox, are ravaging the north of the district,
and not only can no sensible relief be afforded until the harvest, some five months
hence, but until that time, the distress must increase and extend to wider limits.’69 The
68 Proceedings of the Madras Government, Revenue Department, July 6th, 1866, read letter from the
Revenue Department, Fort St. George, to the Secretary, Government of India, Home Department,
Copies o f Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency, IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Volume 52.
69 Ibid. The Madras Government forwarded this letter to the Secretary of State for India in London as
well, and this indicates that the Government of Madras had begun to panic.
39
distress had also started extending to the lower paid officials of the Government itself,
and brought home the reality of the famine to the Madras Government.70
During this famine, private charity was extremely active in Madras, and indigenous
businessman and large ryots played a significant role on husbanding funds for famine
substantial cotton merchant, were both active in Bellary district in feeding the starving
poor. In Ganjam district, the Zamindars of Callicote, Chickati and Mundasa opened
71
relief houses within their estates in order to feed the poor. Similarly in Salem town,
private subscriptions were raised and a ‘kanji-house ’ opened where between two and
three hundred people were fed daily.72 The Monegar Choultry, a poor relief house set
up during the famine of 1791-2 in order to feed the starving, continued to provide
gratuitous relief to famine migrants into Madras city though this, and all other
famines.73 In addition, temples across the Presidency provided charitable relief during
the famines.
The migration of the famine stricken poor to Madras city raised public awareness of
the existence of famine among the wealthy of the town. On the 21st of July 1866, a
public meeting was held at Madras where twenty thousand rupees was collected for
the relief of the starving poor in the districts, and also for the relief of the poor in
Madras. This meeting marked the beginning of systematic and joint efforts by local
officials and private charity towards providing relief through a centralized system
The Government of Madras resolved to contribute an equal sum to the relief fund and
70 Thus, the GoM sanctioned an addition of two rupees to the monthly pay of all Government servants
in the principal division of Ganjam district, from July 1st 1866 for a period of 3 months. An increase in
the salaries of Government servants in Bellary was also sanctioned.
71 H.E. Grigg, ‘A Short Account of the Ganjam Famine of 1866, with a Brief Note of Previous Years of
Scarcity, and Appendices, by an Officer of the District’, drawn up by Mr. Grigg, Assistant to the
Collector of Ganjam, Mr. Forbes, Copies o f Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency,
IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Vol. 52.
72 F. J. Richards, Gazetteer of the Salem District, Madras, 1918, p. 364.
73 Dalyell, Memorandum.
40
in future, similar sums to those raised in Madras would be thus contributed from the
public treasury. These grants were to go towards ‘the relief of the old, the infirm and
‘useful public works’, although it is not clear what works these were. They were to be
of irrigation, and at the same time suitable for unskilled labour.75 Both financial and
sanitary considerations influenced the type of works chosen. The Madras Government
held that ‘in the present state of the public health, it is desirable to avoid as much as
possible the collection of large bodies of labourers, and as the rate of wages should
not exceed that required for their maintenance, it is not desirable that they be required
to leave their homes’. Besides these measures of relief in the districts, works were
undertaken in Madras town for improving the water supply of Madras, and for
74 Ibid. The choice of ‘large’ or ‘small’ works was intimately tied up both with notions of disease
causation as well as with the desire of the Government of India to save money. This debate occurred
throughout the famines of the nineteenth century and took place at all levels of Government.
Constructing large works at a distance from the homes of labourers, would satisfy concerns that people
were willing to travel long distances to work, but were seen as running the risk of being conducive to
outbreaks of epidemic disease. On the other hand, the Provincial and district administration favoured
small works which were easier to manage and could also include hospital facilities.
75 The supervision of relief work was a bone of contention not only between the Provincial
Governments and the Government of India, but also between the Public Works Department (PWD) and
the Revenue Department within the Provincial Governments during the late nineteenth century. IN
Madras, the Public Works Department had, from the 1850s, been the main Governmental department in
the Presidency responsible for constructing large irrigation works and railways in non-famine periods,
and labour was recruited according to ability to perform tasks. During famine periods, public works
were divided into ‘PWD works’ and ‘civil works’ intended to provide employment to the famine
stricken poor. Essentially Revenue or ‘civil works’ were to be run on the principle that none who
applied for employment could be refused; wages were also supposed to ensure that people were paid
enough for subsistence but no more; and works were organized and supervised by district Collectors
and other revenue officials who were supposed to ensure that starvation and disease was prevented.
Employment on PWD works during famine periods was offered at rates that assumed that the worker
was maintained in complete health and strength to put in a full day’s work; but at a lower rate than in
non-famine periods. PWD works were generally supervised by the District Engineer of the PWD. In
times of famine, the able bodied poor were sent to PWD works, where all who could perform the task
were employed. For those too weak to perform the full PWD task, employment on ‘civil works’ was
intended to provide a subsistence wage without running the danger of ‘demoralizing’ the famine
stricken poor through the provision of gratuitous relief. Classifying a work as a civil famine relief work
was intended to ensure that even those who were weakened by hunger and disease would be assured
employment.
41
forming a tank in the town. The sources for this famine also indicate that special
medical measures were undertaken to tackle epidemic disease in the wake of this
famine. Hospitals were set up to treat cases of starvation where possible and cholera
and fever medicines were distributed to the well-off. In addition, the Madras
Government pursued a policy of setting up small relief works under the management
of district Collectors. These works were to be close to the homes of people in order to
prevent the outbreak of epidemic disease, which, it was feared, would result from the
This account of state intervention in famines in Madras prior to 1876 makes clear a
intervened in the grain trade only in the first two cases of famine (in 1782 and in
1791). From the beginning of the nineteenth century, therefore, state intervention was
provided only in the form of employment on ‘useful works’ and the distribution of
gratuitous relief. Of these forms of relief, the latter was increasingly seen as
of political economy which had previously shaped the Poor Law in England in the
However, the extent to which these principles were applied in Madras varied greatly.
It appears from this account that there was great uncertainty between different levels
76 Proceedings of the Madras Government, Revenue Department, 25th July 1866, enclosed in GoM to
SoS, dated 11th August 1866, No. 35, Copies o f Papers Relating to the Famine in Madras Presidency,
IOR/V/4/Session 1867/Volume 52.
77 On the principles of reform of the English Poor Law in 1832 and the administrative bodies concerned
with its implementation, see G.E. Royer, An Economic History of the English Poor Law, 1750-1850,
Cambridge, 1990.
42
First, the Government of Madras^the Madras Board of Revenue
account were almost universally frowned upon, other forms of intervention- such as
cooked food- were less likely to be rejected. Second, there seems to have been no
form of relief that was agreed upon by any means. What was viewed as expedient and
factors. These included the initiatives of local officials, the influx of starving and
diseased migrants into the main towns and urban centres, interactions between local
officials and traders, and the actions of Indian and European people in husbanding
private resources.
levels of Government, with district officials often mounting stringent critiques against
financial assistance and sanctions to begin relief measures. Remarkably, during the
famine of 1866, two officials in the Ganjam district published at their own cost
reports of official relief which were severely critical of the Government of Madras’
no
response to famines. These criticisms of Government policy were voiced on three
78 These two were R. A. Dalyell and Mr H.E. Grigg, Assistant to the Collector of Ganjam. Grigg
published a pamphlet entitled A Short Account o f the Ganjam Famine o f 1866 with a Brief Mention of
Previous Years of Scarcity, which was apparently circulated amongst Government officials and sent to
the Government of India. The pamphlet was enclosed in the official correspondence between the
district officials and the Government of India on the subject of the famine, which correspondence was
later sent as a volume of Parliamentary Papers to the Secretary of State for India. Grigg was severely
critical of the fact that the Provincial Government responded to district appeals only in June 1866,
when the pressure of famine had been gauged and communicated to the Provincial Government as
early as January 1866. He published this pamphlet with assistance from the Collector of the Ganjam
district, Mr. Forbes, and copies were printed and circulated to the Government of Madras, the Secretary
of State for India as well as the press. The Government of Madras, understandably, responded with
43
counts: first, notions of state responsibility for life based on ‘Christian charity’;
second, that Indian social conditions were not suitable for the pure application of the
laws of political economy; and finally, that the application of the ‘laws’ of political
statesmen themselves. Such criticism reveals firstly the deep fissures over the
principles to be followed in famine relief; and secondly, the fact that lower
Finally, it is also important to note two aspects of official famine relief which are
significant for the way in which the events of 1876-78 panned out. The first, the
Government of Madras was the final authority for all decisions regarding famine
relief right until 1866. This authority was questioned and criticized at the district level
and slow to respond in times of crisis. Yet, the links between Madras and the
Government of India in managing famine relief were hazy, and despite the tenuous
control of the Provincial Government over district matters, Madras remained the
nominal authority for all matters relating to famine relief. Second, famine relief
officials, on small works close to the homes of the people of affected districts. The
conduct of famine relief was thus intimately linked with the official agency for the
administration of land revenue settlement under the ryotwari system This agency was
much displeasure at the’ irregularity’ of Mr. Forbes to allow ‘the use of official records for the
compilation of a narrative to be printed at his office, and circulated by him without the permission of
Government as an authoritative statement of facts’. (Copies o f Papers Relating to the Famine in
Madras Presidency, IOR/V/4/Session 1867/ Vol. 52.) Dalyell also criticised the non-interventionist
policy of the Government of India as being inconsistent with the expectations of a ‘Christian
Government’.
44
to play a strategic role in the evolution of the structure of preventive medicine within
This section will attempt to describe the evolution of European medicine in Madras
between the 1760’s and 1880. It attempts to discuss the changing structure of the
medical services, from a focus almost entirely dictated by the demands of commerce
and military expansion to one which was the Province of a peace- time Government
Although the Madras Medical Department came into existence only at the end of the
‘European style’ by the Portuguese rulers in Goa and San Thome in Madras in the
middle of the sixteenth century. 79 The Portuguese were the first European nation to
visit and settle in India, although they were soon followed by the Dutch, the French,
on
the Danish and the English.
The first British medical men who set foot in India were the barber and two surgeons
who constituted the medical staff of every ship sent out by the East India Company
from December 1600.81 The first reference to an English surgeon landing on the
79 D.V.S. Reddy, The Beginnings of Modem Medicine in Madras: The Dawn o f Modem Medicine in
Madras, Calcutta, 1947, p. iv.
80 D.G. Crawford, A History of the Indian Medical Service 1600-1913, London, 1914, p. 4.
81 Ibid, p. 1.
45
Coramandel Coast was in 1621.82 At this stage, there were three grades of medical
men available according to the importance of the ship or factory. The highest grade of
official was the trained chirurgeon; in some there was a physician or apothecary who
had trained at an English or Scottish university, and finally, on smaller ships there
were ‘Surgeons mates’ in whose hands were left the life and health of sailors and
factories. These men carried with them chests of drugs and remedies, of which strong
liquors, ‘China root’ (sasparilla) and Bezoar stones were important components.83
It appears that the Mughal aristocracy knew and appreciated the remedies of the
English medical men. During the seventeenth century, a number of European medical
men found employment as Surgeons or physicians at the Courts of Indian and eastern
rulers. 85 Shah Jahan is reported to have written to the English Governor at Surat in
1640 asking for grape wine. In 1636, Governor Methwold sent Asaf Khan and Afzal
Khan two jars of China roots each. This indicates a certain degree of elite
remedies for maladies and rudimentary surgical operations- was not reserved for the
82 Ibid, p. 4.
83 Ibid, p. 10.
84 The account contained in this chapter contains relatively little on the evolution of medical ideas
during the period undo- study, and focuses more on structures. However, this is by no means to deny
the epistemological value of ideas regarding health and disease, or their links with changing
professional and administrative structures.
85 Crawford, A History, p. 7.
86 Reddy, The Beginnings, p. 9.
46
factories and ships alone, but was also extended to Indians. In October 1636, a
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the European settlement on the
Coramandel Coast grew gradually. The earliest settlement was built at Masulipatam in
what was the kingdom of Golconda in 1611.88 Later, the English obtained a piece of
ground at Armegon in Nellore district where they built a fort and factory in 1626.
However, here too they had difficulties and Messrs Francis and Day finally obtained a
site adjoining Madraspatam In 1641, the Garrison of Fort St. George consisted of 35
Englishmen and 35 Native surgeons. By 1644, this English settlement was equipped
with an English Surgeon. In 1653, Fort St. George or Madras was made an
independent Presidency and remained so until placed under Bengal when Warren
Hastings was made Governor General of India and Calcutta became the headquarters
and capital of the entire subcontinent.89 A decade later, in 1664, what is now the
Madras General Hospital was established at Fort St. George in order to care for sick
European traders and sailors.90 However, the hospital, funded from Company
Revenues and charitable donations, was not restricted to the employees of the East
India Company, but was opened to ‘all truly necessitous patients, whether belonging
87 Ibid, p. 10.
88 Ibid, p. 13.
89 Crawford, A History, p. 80.
90 Ibid, p. 23.
91 Ibid, p. 32.
47
During the first half of the eighteenth century, the Company remained a trading
corporation, with factories in the three settlements of Bengal, Bombay and Madras.
Although the work of the medical staff was largely confined to the care of soldiers
and company servants, Indians also received some medical care particularly in the
hospitals of the company. There is mention of epidemics and famines during the
eighteenth century during which ‘both Europeans and Indians suffered greatly’. In
1711, it was noted that the Madras General Hospital was overcrowded due to an
‘unhealthy season’.92 The following year, in 1712, the hospital was said to be under
construction and it was planned by the Englishmen in charge to ‘have a fund for the
hospital to relieve the poor at as little expense to the Company as Egmore building’.93
The Bengal Medical Service was founded in 1763, by which individual medical
officers then serving in the Bengal Presidency were combined into a regular medical
establishment as employees of the East India Company, with fixed grades and definite
rules for promotion from grade to grade.94 The Madras and Bombay Medical services
also appear to have been constituted around the same time. In 1786, the Indian
attached to the East India Company and its surgeons constituting a salaried medical
Presidency was a Medical Board. It is a little difficult to gauge the exact nature of the
activities of the Boards, but it appears that recruitment and indents for drugs and
92 Ibid, p. 35.
93 Ibid, p. 38
94 Crawford, A History, p. 198.
48
The administrative body from 1764 in the Madras Presidency was the Madras
Medical Board. The military orientation of the Medical Boards noted by other
historians for Bengal and North India was also true of the Madras Medical Board in
the eighty years of its existence.95 By this time, the English East India Company itself
had metamorphosed into a territorial and military power rather than merely a trading
company, and for several years in the late eighteenth century IMS surgeons held joint
commissions as army officers in combat and professional medical men.96 The early
military hospitals for the medical and surgical care of European military men, the
collection of a limited amount of medical statistics and inquiries into the causes of
epidemics.
From the 1830’s and 1840’s there was a greater degree of medical intervention for
Indians as a regular part of European state medical activities. From the 1830s, there
and Indian people, these institutions grew slowly and unevenly in number through the
first and second quarters of the nineteenth century. From the 1840’s, preventive
95 See R. Ramasubban, Public Health and Medical Research in India: Their Origins Under the Impact
of British Colonial Policy, 1978; Arnold, Colonizing the Body, Ch. 2, Harrison, Public Health in
British India, Ch. 1.
96 Crawford, A History, p. 223.
97 It is worth noting that famines and epidemics often spurred the growth of charitable medical
institutions in Madras Presidency. This was in part largely due to private charitable movements in the
wake of collective disasters.
49
military medicine took the form of medical topographical studies intended to find
salubrious sites for army stations in consonance with miasmatic theories of disease.98
Madras. (See table 0.2). While nominally a part of the Indian Medical Department,
the medical department of each province retained its distinctive character. Assistant
Surgeons were recruited from English, Scottish and Irish universities through the
attached through their career. Further, it also seems that while nominally a part of the
state, the professional autonomy of medical men was retained: they were not mere
Governmental policy. At the same time, professional rivalries and disputes could mar
a young Assistant Surgeon’s career, if he came too much into conflict with older and
more senior medical men in the Department.99 The health of armies and prisoners
formed an important part of the duties of the young assistant surgeon in general.
However, after the first two years of serving as doctor to an army division, medical
men were free to pursue their own researches and professional interests among the
civil population.
98 On medical topography and its significance as reflecting ideas about and shaping colonial expansion,
see Harrison, Climates and Constitutions Ch. 3. See also idem, ‘Differences of Degree: Representations
of India in British Medical Topography, 1820-c. 1870’, in N.A. Rupke (ed.), Medical Geography in
Historical Perspective (Medical History Supplement No. 20), 2000. Harrison argues that the
topographical studies reflected the insecurity of Europeans regarding their ability to withstand the
Indian climate, which they saw as the main obstacle to imperialism Richard Smith, argues directly in
contradiction to Harrison, that the Madras topographical studies were ‘not just products of (a single)
imperial system but also logically ... .a corollary to the role of knowledge in the exercise of imperial
power.’ (R. Smith, ‘Rule- by- records and rule- by- reports: complementary aspects of the British
Imperial rule of law’, op. tit.)
99 For an example of this, see J.C. Hume on A.C. De Renzy’s career in Punjab: ‘Colonialism and
sanitary medicine: the development of preventive health policy in Punjab, 1860-1900’, MAS, Vol. 20,
1986, pp. 703-724.
50
The Structure of State Medicine 1860-1880
cure of disease. As will be seen from the table below, the divisions were of three
kinds. The most important of these was the division between military and civil
civil duties for military ones in case of emergencies. Between 1858 and 1880, the
division between military and civil medicine continued in the separation of the
departments for European troops from that for native troops and the general
population.100 The department for European troops was called the Army Medical
Department and that for the Native troops and the civil population was called the
Indian Medical Department. The former was headed by a medical officer designated
as the Surgeon-General, Army Medical Department; and the latter by the Surgeon-
General, Indian Medical Department (also called the Surgeon General with the
Government of Madras). Civil medical services before 1880 were looked after by the
Indian Medical Department, which was entrusted with the control and
Police Departments; Medical Store Depots, and Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries.
This Department was most often called the Madras Medical Department in referring
to the functions of the Provincial arm As mentioned earlier, the Provincial Medical
despite the Surgeon General with the Government of Madras nominally being
100 The amalgamation, however, was only administrative. The executive medical duties of European
troops were still entrusted to the Army Medical Department officers; and those of Native Troops with
the IMD.
51
The Madras Civil Medical Department had three tiers. At its head was the Surgeon
General with the Government of Madras; who was subordinate to the Commander-in-
Chief of the Native army, thereby still retaining what was an originally military
character. Under him were four Deputy Surgeons General who were entrusted with
the medical superintendence of a circle. (It is somewhat unclear how a circle was
Major and 100 Surgeons. At the district level, a civil or Zillah surgeon was entrusted
with the responsibility of affording medical aid to all Government servants in the
Revenue, Public Works, Judicial, Police, Forest and other departments. This official
was designated the district medical and sanitary official and was entrusted with the
establishments; dispensaries, jails and lunatic asylums at the district headquarters; the
frequent inspection of minor dispensaries; the checking of all indents for drugs and
for submitting these to the Surgeon general. There also existed a Subordinate Medical
provincial and district hospitals and dispensaries. The Indian Medical Department
also recruited a select number of native practitioners from 1847 onwards, apparently
with a view to ‘extending the benefits of European medical science generally among
101 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated 14th February 1878, Nos.
66-67, TNSA.
52
Preventive and Curative Medicine
The other type of division was between preventive and curative medicine, a
division which came to be personified in the separation of the sanitary and medical
departments after 1864. It also changed the way in which vaccination was
administered. From 1875, vaccination, which had hitherto had a separate sub
department within the Medical Department, came under the Sanitary Commission,
while the management of civil hospitals and dispensaries, indents for drugs,
the Sanitary Commission in 1875 was also accompanied by what was effectively a
demotion of status for its executive head, the Inspector General of Vaccination, to
resented by the incumbent, Dr. John Shortt, who had headed the Vaccination
Department for several years prior to this, and saw it as a devaluation of his
post was abolished, and he was made a direct subordinate of the Sanitary
and the scope of his duties widened to include general sanitary inspection of the
districts he visited. Further, from this year, the selection, appointment and payment
Local Fund Boards that were set up under the Towns Improvement Act of 1865
53
and the Local Fund Boards Act of 1871. What this meant in actual terms was that
department was submerged; and that Shortt’s already tenuous control over the
subordinate staff was diluted by the new bodies. Shortt tersely wrote in his last
management and control of the Vaccine Department. The duties of the Inspector of
Vaccination should be clearly defined and the extent of control (of the Inspector of
prevent misunderstandings.’102
Towards the 1860s and 1870s, we see therefore the growing dominance of the
1863, the Report of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India
with growing support for ideas that high mortality rates among British soldiers were
due to unhealthy climatic and environmental surroundings, and that the proximity of
army cantonments to native civilian settlements meant that measures to address the
health of soldiers could not be undertaken without reference to the health of civilian
The establishment of the Sanitary Commissions at an all-India level in 1864 has been
seen by colonial historians as a turning point for the beginning of serious involvement
102 Annual Report on Vaccination in the Madras Presidency fo r 1875-76, Madras 1877, p. 29.
54
with civil health on the part of the state.103 This has also been seen roughly as the
point at which notions of disease as caused by filth took precedence among medical
men over those of climatic causation. It has however been noted by Mark Harrison
that climatic theories never quite lost their appeal amongst European medical men,
and that filth and climate co-existed in the minds of several European men in order to
Medical officials were already gradually becoming involved with the health of
Indians for several years prior to this, a point made by annoyed IMS officials who saw
the Sanitary Commissions and their great responsibility and recognition within the
medical men and state medical bodies.105 In July 1869, Dr. James Shaw, a former
Measures for the amelioration of the sanitary condition of soldiers, prisoners and the
population generally, are no novelties in India... .many things in past years have been
accomplished, the fruits of which we now trace in the improved health of our troops...106
Shaw went on to state that the role played by measures of sanitation and conservancy
in improving the health of the troops had been overestimated by the Royal Sanitary
Commission of 1859, whose report had spurred the setting up of the Provincial
103 Jeffery, The Politics o f Health in India, p. 93; R Ramasubban, ‘Imperial Health in British India,
1857-1900’ in RM . Macleod and M. Lewis, Disease, Medicine and Empire, 1988, pp.39-42; Arnold,
Colonizing the Body, pp. 96-97; Harrison, Public Health in British India, p. 8.
104 Harrison, Climates and Constitutions, Ch. 3.
105 See Harrison, Public Health in British India, on this point. Harrison dates the beginning of state
involvement in public health to the Report of the Royal Commission in 1859 and the setting up of the
Sanitary Commissions in 1864, but argues that such involvement was limited in its scope by a number
of political and administrative imperatives.
106 ‘Memorandum by James Shaw, F.R.C.S., Late Principal Inspector General, Medical Department,
Madras’ , Measures Adopted fo r Sanitary Improvements in India up to the end o f 1867, together with
Abstracts of the Sanitary Reports Hitherto Forwarded from Bengal, Madras and Bombay,
IOR/V/24/3675.
55
Sanitary Commissions in India. While arguing that the Medical Department had for
several years been involved in more general measures aimed at the improvement of
dress, food, and lighting in barracks, as well as vaccination and the provision of
medical aid through civil hospitals and dispensaries, Shaw also suggested that
the malarious fevers and dysenteries)’ was the main reason for improvements in the
health of the European army’.107 Shaw further argued that vaccination, vital
registration and the provisions of medical aid had long been functions of the Medical
Department, functions which were now being seen as novel functions of the newly
What was seen by the Government as a new concern with the health of the general
population was also viewed by the Medical Department as impractical, given the
extremely small cadre of trained IMS men available in the Presidency. In 1866, upon
a charge by the then ICS Sanitary Commissioner that there was inadequate medical
aid available for the population of Madras during a cholera epidemic, the Principal
Inspector General of the Madras Medical Department wrote to the Secretary of the
Board of Revenue, stating that he did not see how there could be any
.... systematic ‘organization for affording Medical advice and relief during cholera
epidemics’, considering the wide tracts of country involved, the almost constant presence of
cholera in the country, and the very insignificant establishment of the Medical Department. 108
This official went further to question the aims of the Government, which, he believed,
should ascertain
107 Ibid.
108 Proceedings of the Madras Board of Revenue, dated 29th October 1866, No. 8829, IOR/P/440/33.
There were 67 such institutions in 1866, of which 15 were in the Presidency town. The remaining
number included a specialist leper and smallpox hospital in Cochin, a hospital for seamen in Cocanada
(Godavari district), a branch dispensary in Nellore, an asylum in Ootacamund (a hill station in
Coimbatore district), and two lunatic asylums in Trichinopoly and Vizagapatam district respectively.
56
whether it is to be expected that Medical aid is to be afforded under direction of the
Government Medical establishment to the entire population, or whether the efforts of the
Medical establishment are to be mainly directed in the future, as in the past, to providing
aid for the Military and Civil Establishments, and finding subordinates for duty in the
Civil Dispensaries already or hereafter to be established.109
relief for the general population. He argued that the Medical Department was
woefully inadequate in terms of staff and logistics; and that extending medical aid to
The population of Madras Presidency may be reckoned at about 24 million, and that of
Great Britain 28 millions. In the former, we have a Medical Establishment of all ranks
numbering 736; in the latter, it is calculated that 20,000 educated and legally qualified
medical men find employment in ministering to the health of the population. The contrast
just made is in point of fact not quite a fair one, for the Madras Medical Establishment
furnishes officers and subordinates to the Provinces of Mysore, Coorg, Travancore,
Hyderabad Assigned Districts, a portion of the Central Provinces, Burmah and the Straits
Settlements; and if the population of these districts are taken into account, it will be found
that the Government Establishment of 736 individuals are the only persons available for
the Medical Relief of a population... .(almost) as large as that of Great Britain. A
considerable number of the ‘Hospital Assistant’ Class, moreover, are not fitted, by
experience or by training, for anything more than carrying out of orders for the preparation
and exhibition of medicines, so that practically the numbers given are not really available
for giving medical Assistance to the civil population.110
The institution of the Sanitary Commissions in 1864 was thus not the novelty that
some medical historians have made it out to be, and definitely was not so in the eyes
of the Madras Medical Department. However, it did mark the beginning of non
subject population, a phenomenon that was spurred by military and civil European
anxiety over cholera- the most politically prominent disease of the 1860s, if not the
epidemiologically most significant. (See Chapter 4 for more details). The newly
57
Civil Service officer in the first two years of its existence before, in 1866, being
entrusted to an IMS man because the previous system (whereby an ICS officer headed
the Sanitary Commission) had resulted in great friction between the Medical and
Sanitary Departments.
The main functions of the Sanitary Commissioner were to inspect the general
condition of cantonments and prisons, supervise the work of district sanitary and
medical officials and to compile vital statistics obtained from town and district
mortuary officials into a comprehensive annual report for the guidance of the
legislative power, were nevertheless the first point of contact for the Provincial
Government on legislative and other matters connected with the health of the
European military and civil, and that of the general populations from 1864 onwards.
The third type of division was between different levels of administration, Provincial,
District and Local. During the period under study, the proportion and number of local
and district agencies concerned with the health of civilians gradually increased, while
the health of the two armies remained the responsibility of the British and Indian
army and prison domains after 1865, the involvement of non-IMS personnel in
matters of health, sanitation and medical aid and the necessity of co-ordinating with
local revenue officials increased. This process gained momentum after 1865, when
local bodies were formed under the Towns Improvements and Local Fund Boards
Act. Sanitation and the management of civil hospitals and dispensaries were handed
58
Essentially then, the Province and the district were the main levels at which civil
military and civil divisions at an all-India level came in only in the 1880’s, and the
district medical and sanitary officer was responsible for the supervision of medical
institutions and co-ordination with local bodies such as the municipalities and Local
Fund Boards for the provision of sanitation, conservancy, vaccination and medical aid
services. Similarly, while there was some interaction and communication between the
British and the Indian Medical Departments, the broad racial bifurcation of the
The institutions through which state medicine reached the civil population consisted
of civil hospitals and dispensaries. These institutions, started in the 1820’s and 1830s,
provided medical aid and advice to civil officials of the various Government
departments, but were open to the general public as well. Prior to the passing of the
Town Improvement and Local Fund Boards Act in 1865 and 1871, they were funded
largely through Provincial revenues and charitable donations and subscriptions both
from Indians and Europeans. Between 1865 and 1871, the institutions were on a more
stable financial footing, because the local bodies funded them from a regular system
of taxation based primarily on land cesses. Prior to this, they had been funded partly
which fluctuated from year to year. Secondly, it meant that they began to be managed
to a greater extent by medical subordinates and other non-official medical men, whose
salaries were cheaper than IMS men and were often therefore preferred by the local
59
bodies. This phenomenon was frowned upon by the IMS, but there was little that
institutions. Most of their income was derived from land cesses. Therefore in times of
drought or epidemics, when land lay fallow and labourers migrated, starved or fell ill,
the revenue could not be collected and these institutions sometimes suffered.112 Over
the long run, the number of civil medical institutions in a district was usually
have a perennial supply of water from the Kaveri river, had the largest number of
dispensaries in 1871, while Kumool, Cuddapah and Nellore, all dependent on natural
rainfall, had only 3.113 The spread of a network of civil dispensaries was also
dependent on two other things: firstly, the acceptance of European medical aid among
a significant number of people, and secondly, the efforts of medical officers, native
medical men and subordinates, and revenue officials in supporting these institutions
western medicine. It must be stated at the outset that until the mid-1860’s at least,
111 Although we do not have figures for all the years under review, the following will give an idea of
the grade of medical officer in charge of Government Hospitals and Dispensaries. In 1877, there were
24 First Class Hospital Assistants, 17 Second Class Hospital Assistants, 19 Passed Hospital
Apprentices, 16 Surgeons- Major with 20-27 years service (the most experienced of the range), 14
Surgeons with 5 to 9 years of service, 12 Private Hospital Assistants, 11 Surgeons Major with 10-19
years of service, 10 First Class Apothecaries, 8 Pensioned Hospital Assistants, 6 Native Surgeons, 4
Medical Missionaries and Pensioned and Second Class Apothecaries, and 3 First and Second Class
Apothecaries. The above list shows that by 1877, most of the institutions were run not by IMS officials
but by members of the Subordinate Medical Service.
112 In 1877, when the entire Presidency was engulfed by famine, the Provincial Government stepped in
with extra funds, but these were mostly for institutions in the vicinity of temples and European
settlements, such as Ootacamund, Coonoor, Conjevaram, Madura and Srirangam In this year, although
the amount of money raised by Government and Municipal and Local Funds increased, the amount
realised from all other sources- including interest on capital, private donations and subscriptions and
the sale of medicines decreased greatly. {Annual Report on Civil Dispensaries in Madras Presidency
fo r 1877, Madras 1879).
113 In 1879, Tanjore, a rich district irrigated by the perennial waters of the Kaveri river and growing
surplus rice, had 23 dispensaries, while Kumool and Cuddapah, both in the ‘dry’ zone, had 3 and 6
each. {Annual Report on Civil Dispensaries in Madras Presidency fo r 1879, Madras 1880).
60
civil medicine did appear to struggle against a lack of legitimacy particularly amongst
the elite, although both acceptance and ‘resistance’ to state initiatives varied widely
between districts. Because of the nature of the evidence, it is difficult to come to any
tentative conclusions are possible on this count, with the usual qualifications.
of European medical aid for the general population, a proposal was mooted by the
Medical Department to train native doctors and nurses in European medicine. The
Madras Government opined that such a scheme would be too expensive to fund from
Provincial revenues but agreed to solicit popular responses on whether the scheme
could be funded from local taxation.114 There had been attempts to start similar
schemes in Punjab and parts of Bengal a little earlier.115 However, the scheme was not
reasons. One of these was the inability of district officials to convince people of the
hakeems and vaids. Another obstacle to this plan was that in some districts, attempts
to get people to contribute to the building of a dispensary had incited violent reactions
from the people, who resented the imposition of a further tax. Thirdly, all the district
Revenue officials unanimously agreed that people in the Madras districts would not
consent to pay a ‘voluntary tax’ and that if such a scheme were instituted; it would
114 Proceedings of the Madras Board of Revenue dated September 6th, 1867 No. 5976, Replies to the
Board’s Proceedings dated 15thJuly 1867 No. 4425, IOR/P/440/39.
115 However, even in these areas, the scheme met with varying degrees of success. It was adopted
successfully in Syalkote district of Punjab and ran on public subscriptions till the 1880’s. In Bengal,
however, the scheme was stalled and continuously altered. This was due to disagreements between the
Lt. Govern ex of Bengal, the Sanitary Commissioner, and the Civil Surgeon of Nuddea district
regarding the type, nature and length of training to be provided, the source of funding and the
involvement of non-medical personnel. See Bala, Imperialism and Medicine in Bengal, pp.57-59 and
A. Kumar, ‘The Indian Drug Industry Under the Raj 1860-1920’, in B. Pati and M. Harrison (eds.),
Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India, Hyderabad, 2001.
61
have to be imposed on them through legislation. A major obstacle appeared to be the
ryotwari districts, believed that the mass of people would not pay a special tax for the
education of Native doctors in Western medicine. The Collector and Sub Collector of
North Arcot had just quelled a riot in Vellore, which was sparked off by their attempts
the subject of taxation which would render an appeal of this nature absolutely
unsuccessful’.117 The Sub Collector of North Arcot wrote that ‘although the public
peace has been restored, there still remains a deep rooted aversion in the minds of the
this direction until the public mind... regain(s) its wonted contentment and
serenity’.118
The mass of people care nothing for public charity in our sense of the term .. .the hospitals
and dispensaries established by the British Government, though intended as such, are not
really public charities, for the public will not accept them; and only certain classes who
have no prejudices, or are driven by necessity to conceal them, consent to be benefited by
what we consider to be the noblest form of charity.119
116 The ryotwari system had its supporters and detractors, but a common view in the nineteenth century
was that because it was based on a fluctuating and high assessment and taxed the individual cultivator,
it reduced the cultivator to great poverty. Certainly there was a variety of systems of cultivation across
the Presidency which included a large amount of indentured labour and sharecropping, and the bulk of
the peasantry was poor. The zamindari areas in the Presidency however do not appear to have
experienced any greater levels of prosperity.
117 Proceedings of the Madras Board of Revenue dated September 6th, 1867 No. 5976, Replies to the
Board’s Proceedings dated 15thJuly 1867 No. 4425, IOR/P/440/39.
62
Further, he added that
Special taxes are specially disliked; an increase in the price o f salt or stamps would be
accepted without a murmur, b u t.... direct taxation however small, is felt by all to be a
burden, and I doubt the possibility o f persuading the people to tax them selves for anything
further.120
In the Kistna district, which was largely settled under ryotwari principles, the
Acting Collector claimed that though people were willing to contribute to the
education of Native doctors and nurses, the tax would have to be made compulsory.
tracts, that the widest range of responses was received. The Acting Collector of the
Vizagapatam district, Mr. J.H. Master, concurred in the widespread view among
district officials that a voluntary tax would be as good as none, as ‘the people would
not pay a single fraction voluntarily; and that is anything is required, it would have to
Master enclosed copies of the replies to his inquiries from four Zamindars
within the district, including one female Zamindar. These responses reveal awareness
amongst local elites regarding caste as well as poverty as obstacles to the spread of
letter by stating that caste determined the practice of medicine, and that there was ‘a
1 99
Brahmin physician, a Vaisya physician, and a Sudra physician’. He argued that a
scheme for training native doctors in European medicine, which worked well ‘in the
was small, poor and sparsely populated, unless augmented by wealthy individuals and
by the Government itself.123 He also argued that the cess would be looked upon as a
122 Letter from the Maharaja of Vizianagaram to the Agent to the Governor, dated Vizagapatam, dated
15thAugust 1867 No. 34, Proceedings, MBOR, 12th October 1867, IOR/P/440/40.
63
new tax by the people and it would be difficult to realize the money without
legislative sanction.
The Zamindar of Jeypore wrote that ’in this talook, there live ryots from
Gunipur to Malakangirir who are poor and barbarous, some of whom cultivate land
with advances from the Zamindar, and others already indebted to me for a great deal
of money. ’ He was afraid that if the demand for one and a half annas were made, the
ryots would abandon their land and run away, the money remaining uncollected. He
however suggested that four or five hundred rupees be collected from ‘respectable and
common people’ from Gunipur. He cautioned that the money should not be collected
through a sub- magistrate, as this would cause ‘great disturbance’ in the talook, but
that he personally would collect the tax and deposit it in the Collector’s office.124
‘being uncivilized and having a taste for, and reliance on the treatment of Native
doctors and midwives, which has been in vogue from the time of their ancestors, have
not consented to pay.. .at one and a half annas for a house, or any other rate’.125
Finally the Proprietrix of the Anakapalle Estate, Sri Gode Janakaiya Garu, wrote that
she had organized a meeting of ’all the principal inhabitants of this place, as well as
the Respectable portion of my tenants and Inamdars’. She reported that her tenants
were at first unwilling to ‘the introduction of English medical science amongst them,
as affecting their caste and prejudice’.127 Some had opposed the scheme of training
Native doctors in English medicines, because ‘the use of water in making doses’, they
124
Ibid.
125
Ibid.
126 Inamdars were landlords who were given land free of revenue, or at very low rates in return for
services rendered to the Government. Village servants were often remunerated through the provision of
inam land.
127
Ibid.
64
claimed, went against their caste principles’.128 Others claimed that ‘the Native
European medicine’.129 Still others claimed that native treatment was milder and less
130
dangerous’. Garu reported that although she had succeeded to a great extent in
quelling their fears, it would be advisable to bow to their wishes in the matter of the
They object a great deal to having Pariahs for their Doctors, or Hindus of no caste, and
object to sending patients to a particular Depot for their treatment, as it interferes with
their caste. They are for having doctors under the new system treat them at their own
homes, as also for training up the sons of their present doctors. As to subscribing one or
one and a half anna per family, they are quite willing to do it. I myself think that it is not a
bad plan to give in a little to their prejudice at the commencement, and work the system
upon their own scheme. I should be most happy to collect the fees, but cannot calculate
upon them unless there be an Act passed by the Legislative Council making it
compulsory.131
Under the circumstances, it seems likely that in large parts of the Presidency,
more mundane aspects of medical administration, such as the fact that Government
was unwilling to subsidize a scheme for training native doctors, and expected people
to contribute towards this objective. Yet, it appears likely that government hospitals
and dispensaries were not looked upon very favourably by either medical men or by
patients who visited Government hospitals and dispensaries were overwhelmingly the
128
Ibid.
129 Ibid.
130 Ibid.
131
Letter from Sri Gode Janakaiya Garu, Proprietrix of Anakapalli, to the Acting Collector of
Vizagapatam,
sagapatam, dated 19th
: August 1867, enclosed in MBOR Proceedings dated 12th October 1867, No.
6623, IOR/P/440/40
65
very poor, who could afford neither medical advice nor aid.132 Senior medical
officials were disapproving of the fact that these institutions took in what, to them,
were a very large proportion of cases which were not strictly medical. These
institutions were thus often seen in pejorative terms by medical officials themselves.
For example, Samuel Johnstone, the Inspector General of Hospitals in 1872 wrote,
‘The Municipal Dispensary system narrows the operations (of the Medical
Department) and (municipal dispensaries) are little other than pauper houses’.133
Yet, there were exceptions to this rule. By the end of the 1870s, certain districts such
largely, it seems due to popular acceptance. In 1879, a large hospital was set up in
Tanjore district and called the Raja Mirasidar Hospital. The hospital was built upon
landlords, aided by contributions from the charities of King Sarabhoji, a former ruler
of Tanjore. The land for the hospital was contributed by the Princess of Tanjore and
the foundation stone was laid by the Collector of the district. The hospital ‘was
intended as a thank-offering for the exemption of the district from the famine of 1876-
77 m
132 In 1879, the Madras Medical Department instituted an inquiry into the class of patients who
attended government hospitals and dispensaries in connection with a proposal to levy a fee for medical
advice and medicines. The inquiry stated that the ‘great bulk of the people who visited the hospitals
and dispensaries were really poor and unable to pay for either medical advice or medicines.’
(Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department No. 79 dated 21st January 1879,
G.O. No. 41, TNSA).
133Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency f o r i872, Madras
1874, pp.55-56.
134 W. Francis, Tanjore District Gazetteer, p. 158.
66
Missionaries and the Medical Department: Collaboration, Competition and
Conflict
Another notable exception to the general disfavour with which Government medical
sixteenth century and included both Protestant and Catholic denominations from a
variety of organizations. From the third decade of the nineteenth century, increased
missionary activity was a direct result of the interventionist stance taken by the East
India Company’s Charter Act of 1833.135 Within this broader framework, medicine as
Board of Foreign Missions, which sent out trained medical men from 1836
moment when evangelical and civilizational goals of the missionaries and the
government coalesced and led to the explicit linking of medical work with that of
saving souls. By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, there was a small
missionary involvement in state medicine, both among self- avowed missionary groups
who ran some of the state dispensaries and hospitals, as well as amongst senior IMS
officers who believed that the inclusion of missionaries in state medicine would prove
dispensaries after the reorganization of the Indian Medical Department in 1858. This
was due to several reasons, relating both to the desire of missions to propagate
Christianity; as well as the official view that civil hospitals and dispensaries were a
67
form of state charity. Civil hospitals and dispensaries had a precarious existence
because of the limited Governmental investment in them 137 After 1858, the
Government of Madras expected that while medical personnel and drugs would be
provided by grants from the Provincial Government, other costs such as food, clothing
and nursing would be provided from yearly subscriptions and interest on donations
from the native and civilian European population. In the early years after 1858,
district officials complained about the lack of interest of the wealthier native
people would not follow suit. These institutions suffered greatly from fluctuating
fortunes. They were dependent on erratic donations and subscriptions from the small
civilian European population and from wealthy Indians for their non-medical costs.
Municipalities and Local Fund Boards began to pay the entire cost of medicines and
medical salaries. Yet, to the displeasure of senior officers of the Indian Medical
Medical Service, such as hospital assistants and apothecaries, to run the institutions.
Their salaries were cheaper than full- fledged Assistant Surgeons of the IMD. The
Government of Madras, the IMS and the local bodies therefore welcomed medical
missionaries, trained doctors who ran dispensaries and were paid by their parent
137 This was particularly true for institutions outside of Madras city. While the Presidency town had 12
institutions in 1865, it received Rs. 1, 91,289 from the Government, while the 67 mofussil dispensaries
received a collective Government allotment of Rs. 70, 466. After 1871, Government contributed
overwhelmingly to the city institutions, while local boards, whose collection of taxes was heavily
dependent car rural prosperity, funded the rural dispensaries (Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and
Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1865, Madras 1866).
138 For example, in 1865, the Principal Inspector General complained that ‘until the wealthier Naives
interest themselves more in the local charities, many of them will continue to be on very unstable
foundations’. (Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1865,
Madras 1866, p. 4).
68
bodies. 139 Sometimes, in addition to trained medical personnel, missionary
organizations offered the use of mission buildings at no charge. Therefore, the offer of
dispensaries was gratefully accepted by the Government. While their number was
small, their influence on the state medical structure was quite disproportionate.
Some IMS men admired or even advocated the combination of evangelism with
corporal healing. For example, the Inspector General of Hospitals, Dr. William
(The principle on which) these dispensaries are governed is that, in association with efforts
to diffuse Christianity in India.. .the practice o f medicine and surgery occupies a
prominent place ... medical missionaries work as skilled representatives o f the science and
art o f m odem medicine and surgery.... (and thus contrast it to) the foul product o f
ignorance and superstition which dominates the people o f India.... To proclaim the truth
that the art which they practise, equally with the civilization with which it has been
associated.. .both have had their true source in that Christianity which it is the disinterested
object o f (the m issions) to diffuse.140
Other officials explicitly advocated medicine as a strategy to win over more converts
to Christianity. Two decades prior to Johnstone’s report, George Smith, then a young
IMS officer, had written to Henry Powell, the Archbishop of Madras, to requisition
M edicine carries in its hands a gift, the value o f which the Hindu recognizes. It brings that
gift to him at a time, not when the heart is hardened by health, but when it is softened by
disease and pain and suffering; at a time when man, shrinking into him self, feels that he is
but a child- a child in power at least... .at a tim e... when ( h e ) earnestly looks to external
help and sympathy and when the natural attitude is dependence upon , and confidence in
something external to itself To the heart in this impressionable state, the aid o f the
medical man is peculiarly acceptable, and however bigoted the Hindu mind may be, yet at
such a time these feelings do predominate, and then the Christian is forgiven- is pardoned
for being a Christian, because he is a physician. The heart, acted upon by feelings o f
139 It has to be mentioned that their numerical presence was very small: out of a total of 76 dispensaries,
the number run by missionaries was 4. (Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the
Madras Presidency fo r 1872, Madras 1874.).
140 Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1872, op. cit.
69
gratitude for health restored and life preserved is more likely to listen with patience to the
terms o f that more necessary healing which affects the soul. ‘W hen 1 speak’ said a Chinese
Christian, ‘to the natives in the bazaars and streets o f Jesus Christ, they treat me with scorn
and contempt; when I speak to them in the hospitals; they listen to me with serious
attention’.141
George Smith later went on to become the Surgeon General of the Madras Medical
Department in the mid-1870s, indicating that the practice of ‘colonial medicine’ was
Madras town in the 1840’s, was the prescribed medicine distributed by the
evidence that medical missions seemed to have had a fairly close relationship with the
Government of Madras and its Medical Department from the late 1830s onwards.
Yet, this relationship was also marked by competition. Medical officers were always
aware that Indian elites in general did not respect European medicine for its
therapeutic qualities; and that it was very poor people of the untouchable castes, who
dispensaries and hospitals that were run by local bodies were felt to include a great
For the Madras Government as well as its Medical Department, there were two
reasons to desire the admission of ‘upper caste’ people into government dispensaries.
Firstly, diet costs formed the second largest item of expenditure on hospitals, after
medical salaries, between 1858 and 1880.142 Throughout the period, the Provincial
141 Smith, Medical Missions and Their Applicability to India, op. cit.
142 Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency, various years.
70
Government paid for the salaries, except in the case of medical missionaries who were
paid by their parent bodies. The diet costs were paid by the Government of Madras
until 1863, when it put a ceiling of Rs. 50 on the amount it would contribute towards
the diet of patients in each institution. However, this ceiling remained on paper as
putting these costs under other heads. From 1865 in towns and 1871 in Local Fund
Board Circles, the entire cost of the dispensaries was borne by municipalities and
Upper caste people usually refused to be fed at Municipal or local fund board
hospitals, bringing their own food with them Their presence then meant the limitation
of Government expenditure under this head. A Native Surgeon in charge of the civil
hospitals:
This method o f combining econom y with utility.. .reflects much credit on the management
o f the dispensary. W hile it enables the Dispensary to show the admission o f a large
number o f in-patients, it also relieves the hospital funds from being saddled with heavy
expenditure.143
The second reason was that IMD officers saw upper caste use of government hospitals
and dispensaries as “the truest test” of the prestige of European medicine in the
estimation of Indian society.144 Protestant missionaries, who had long grappled with
the caste issue in their congregations, found a way out of the situation. From the
1860’s onwards, they began to build separate wards for high caste natives where they
was adopted in civil dispensaries and hospitals after senior medical officials wrote
143 Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1870, Madras
1872, p. 26.
144 Annual Report of the Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1872, p. 55.
71
approvingly of its results in missionary institutions. The President of the Governing
The time has now com e for Government to initiate a change in the plan o f our Provincial
dispensaries which has long been deemed requisite by the most competent authorities and
partially carried out by the M edical missionary agen cies.. ..I allude to the system o f
separate hutting fa cilities.. ..a provision o f this nature would have the excellent effect o f
inducing respectable natives to avail them selves o f the benefit o f European medical
145
treatment.
This led to formal arrangements for separate hutting facilities for the use of high caste
natives within the main hospital compounds.146 These arrangements, it was felt,
contributed to the prestige of the institutions, and enabled them to perform the dual
functions of charity and medicine more successfully.147 That the ‘separate hutting’
system was seriously taken up by Government is also evident in the fact that ini 880, a
special caste ward in the Nellore civil dispensary was inaugurated by and named after
the Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.148 Further evidence
provided by the fact that when the Scudder family took over a dispensary at Arcot,
they promised to show ‘in two months a larger number of in-patients and out-patients
While the interaction between the Madras Medical Department and medical
missionaries seems to have been generally smooth, the inability of the Provincial
Government to impose rules on medical missions could -and did- make for rough
weather. This was particularly so in the case of the American mission dispensary at
145 Proceedings of the Government of Madras, Public Department dated, G(ovemment) 0(rder) Nos.
125-126, TNSA.
146 Ibid.
147 Ibid.
148Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1880, Madras
1881, p. 73.
149 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated July 20th 1866, Nos. 112-
113, G.O. No. 729, TNSA.
Raneepet. At various points from its establishment in 1866 to its closure in 1880,
district officials complained that the Scudders were more interested in evangelical
activities than in running the dispensary. For example, in 1877, an Engineer of the
Public Works Department was severely injured and was brought to the Raneepet
dispensary for emergency treatment. On arriving there, his companions found that Dr.
Scudder had gone away to a missionary conference, leaving his box of medical
instruments locked away in a cupboard. The engineer’s death caused the Collector
and President of the Local Fund Board, Mr. Whiteside, to complain about Dr.
Scudder’s lack of accountability and ask the Government to clarify and articulate its
financial relations with the American mission. He argued that if there was no scope
for ensuring that a medical officer was available at a dispensary in emergencies, then
it posed a grave threat to the public health.150 The Scudder dispensary at North Arcot
was finally handed over to the Local Fund Board in 1880.151 Thus, by the end of the
period under review, civil medical institutions were largely run by local bodies and
the Madras Medical Department and the IMS had generally relinquished their control
over these institutions. By this time, there appear to have been wide differences in
150 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated February 12th 1877, Nos.
51-54, G.O. No. 159, TNSA.
151Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1880, Madras
1881.
73
Table 0.1 Famines in the Madras Presidency 1729-1866
74
Year Districts Purported Nature of Price of Mortality and
Affected Causes State food crime
Response grains
1791- Ganjam, No Prohibition 7-8 Madras Starvation
2 Vizagapatam, information of exports of Measures deaths reported
Ellore, rice till June per rupee from April
Rajahmundry, 1792 except (1 1/8- 1 d/ 1792.
Condapilly, to other lb.)
Masulipatam, distressed
districts;
distribution
of 50 bags
per month in
charity from
Government
stores in
Vizagapatam
1799 Dindigul No Collector of No No information
information Dindigul information
permitted to
purchase
grain on
Government
account for
purposes of
retain sale.
75
Year Districts Purported Nature of Price of Mortality and
Affected Causes State food crime
Response grains
1824 Masulipatam, No Suspension 3-6 Madras Middle year:
Nellore, information of grain Measures feeding of large
Vizgapatam, duties by per rupee numbers of
North Arcot Munro in (2 Va d- 1 those unable to
North Arcot, 1/8 lb. Pr labour in
on rice from rupee) Madras and
Bengal and North Arcot;
other places; starvation deaths
rue in Nellore and
‘principles of Vizagapatam
political
economy’
applied.
1833 Guntoor, Failure of No 3 V2 - I No reliable
Masulipatam, rainfall in interference Madras figures for
Rajahmundry, 1832 in grain Measures deaths, but
Nellore, November market; large (2 % d - 1 estimated by an
Bellary, expenditure 1/8 d/lb.) officer of
Cudappah on public Engineers at
works 150,000 people
affected out of 500,000.
districts;
relief on
works close
to homes.
1854 Bellary, Early Extra police Price of No information
Ceded cessure of to guard cholum 4
districts rains in talook times its
October/ treasuries; normal
November employment rate.
1853 of 20,000
persons on
the road
work in
Northen
talooks;
tuccavy to
ryots willing
to clear old
wells and
cultivation;
Rs. 16 lakhs
spent on
employment
on public
works.
76
Year Districts Purported Nature of Price of Mortality and
Affected Causes State food crime
Response grains
1865- Ganjam, Failure of Despatch of Average 4,50,000 or
66 Bellary, rains in 3000 bags of increase in double normal
South Arcot, 1864-65 grain by the price of rate. Few
North Arcot, Government raggy: starvation deaths
Trichinopoly, and 2000 46%, in 12 out of 19
Salem, bags by local across 19 districts; 11,000
Madura, merchants; districts; starvation deaths
Coimbatore sanction of increase in in Ganjam In
Rs. 10,000 prices of Bellary: 50,357
for rice: 34% deaths in 1866
employment over 19 (4% per mille.).
of poor in districts. Non agricultural
November Note: In classes suffered
1865; relief Bellary: most, especially
by Ganjam raggy in persons on fixed
zemindars in creased by salaries.
Berhampore 247 % Mussalman
from April to between population
November; September suffered
May 1866: : 1865 and severely in
Formation of September many districts.
General 1866;and Zemindary
Famine relief rice estates suffered
fund August: increased more severely
Relief depots by 131% . than Govt.
(food and villages due to
medicines) impoverishment.
opened in Apparently no
Bellary, increase in
Salem, North violent crime,
Arcot, South but in nearly
Arcot and every district,
Coimbatore. number of grain
Relief thefts and
houses for robberies
aged / infirm increased.
in Bellary, (Sanitary
Kumool, Commissioner’s
North Arcot, report for 1866
South Arcot, reports
Salem, overflowing of
Coimbatore, Behrampore and
Madura, Tellicherry jails;
Trichinopoly great mortality
and Madras. in jails.)
77
Table 0.2 Governmental Agencies Involved in Health, Medical Relief and
Sanitation in Madras (1786-1880).
Madras 1858- Provincial, but Health of Native military Surgeon General, Assistant
(Indian) 1880 linked to EMD native army, hospitals, Government of Surgeons,
Medical at civil health, civil hospitals Madras Surgeons,
Department all-India level. inspection of and (recruited Surgeons-
prisons, dispensaries. through the Major,
lunatic lunatic IMS). designated
asylums, and asylums, Inspector- civil or Zillah
dispensaries. prisons. General of surgeons
Hospitals. (IMS,
Accountable to recruited to
Government of civil duty after
Madras, minimum 2
Commander of years in charge
Native army. of army
station/ unit).
78
Agency Year/s Level Responsible Institutions Headed by/ Executive
for Accountable to Personnel
Sanitary 1864 Provincial Conservancy, SC’s office in Sanitary Civil surgeons/
Commission preventive Government of Commissioner district
health, vital Madras; with the sanitary and
statistics, co assisted by Government of medical
ordination statistical Madras (IMS) officers.
with local assistant. from 1865. (prior
bodies, to this, ICS).
sanitation, Accountable to
forwarding Surgeon-General
returns of vital with the
statistics to Government of
Government Madras.
In 1875:
amalgamated
with Vaccination
Dept, and
Superintendent
(also IMS)
becomes
subordinate to
sanitary
commissioner.
Local Fund 1871 District/ group Health of civil Civil President, LFB District
Boards of districts pop in local dispensaries (elected, but sanitary/MO’s,
fund board and hospitals often collector of vacc’s,
circles, etc. district, who is
vaccination, ICS) in consort
PW, Rev, Jud, w/ Z. surgeon/
police SC.
personnel in Accountable to
circles Government of
Madras, but
funded by local
taxes.
79
Agency Year/s Level Responsible Institutions Headed by/ Executive
for Accountable to Personnel
Revalue 1855 Presidency Collection of Revenue Secretary, Village
Department vital stats, department Revenue accountant
compilation Department. (Kamam or
and (Recruited Kanakapillai)
forwarding of through the ICS.) in consort with
these to Accoun table to dhobi
sanitary Government of (washerman)
Commissioner. Madras, Board and Taliary;
of Revenue, supervised by
Government of revenue
India. inspectors;
taluk returns
compiled by
mortuary clerk
in Collector’s
office and
forwarded by
district
Collector to
sanitary
Commissioner.
80
Agency Year/s Level Responsible Institutions Headed by/ Executive
for Accountable to Personnel
Other agents: 1858 Called in Medical, Temporary/ Private Private
private onwards times of vaccination Permanent practitioners practitioners.
practitioners emergency: and Hospitals, recruited through
epidemics, conservancy dispensaries, universities,
famines, etc. services in famine relief lientiates.
famine relief camps,
camps, outdoors.
outdoors.
Vaccination 1802 Provincial (in Vaccination in None. Work of From 1851: Zillah
Department 1865- prior to Provinces; inspector under Medical surgeons
this- district maintenance involves Department with Deputy
level of vaccination inspection of distt. civil Superintendent
vaccination and sanitary minor surgeons as of Vaccination
depots headed returns (after dispensaries, heads of district supervising
by district 1865), working of vaccination vaccinators,
civil checking of sanitary and .Superintendent circles
surgeons). returns, conservation General of Vaccinators
penalization of departments, Vaccination (working in
erring collection of (IMS) heads it bodies from
deputy vaccination from 1865 till 1865)
inspectors and returns from 1875. From
vaccinators. vaccinators 1875: he
and medical becomes
subordinates, Inspector of
deputy Vaccination and
inspectors of Deputy Sanitary
vaccination. Commissioner.
Submit returns Inspector of
to collectors of Vaccination
districts, made
Surgeon- subordinate to
General or Sanitary
Sanitary Commissioner
Commissioner, from 1875.
advise (IMS).
collectors with Accountable to
regard to Revenue
tabulation of Department (till
district vital 1851)
statistics. Medical Board
(till 1855)
Surgeon General,
Government of
Madras (1857-
1875)
Sanitary
Commissioner
with the
Government of
Madras (from
1875).
81
Chapter 1 State Intervention and Famine Relief Policy in Madras 1876-78
Introduction
policy has tended to divide those who emphasize long-term ideological and moral
influences against those who suggest that ideas about interventionism amongst
colonial officials were mere excuses for decisions that involved financial expediency,
the advancement of personal aims and political careers and the control of threats to a
Examples of the former include Srinivasa Ambirajan who argues that the
famine policy of the Government of India during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century was based heavily on Malthusian doctrines which were imbibed by colonial
civil servants as part of their training.1 Ira Klein also touches upon the issue of non
precipitating cause between a failure of the monsoons and excess mortality. David
Arnold also writes that ‘during the famines and shortages of the early and mid
Free Trade, reproving officials who tried to fix market prices or who sided with
1 Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy, p. 13. However, Ambirajan’s view of policy formation is
slightly different in his 1984 book on monetary management in India. In the former, Ambirajan argues
that belief in classical political economy was a dominant influence on policy processes. In the latter,
Ambirajan asserts that political and administrative processes involving the actions of pressure groups
within and outside the government could modify the way in which ideas were carried forward into
policy’. S. Ambirajan, Political Economy and Monetary Management: India 1766-1914, Madras, 1984.
2 Klein, ‘When the Rains Failed’, op. cit.
3 Arnold, Famine, pp. 113-4.
82
More recent studies have, however, critically questioned the extent to which
intervention or laissez faire- that were constant over a long historical period. Some
studies, noting that ‘theoretical considerations’ played some role in official debates,
argue however that these were mere facades for a reluctance to spend money on
famine relief. 4 B.M. Bhatia, for example, argues that the concern not to undermine
the British hold on the landowning and mercantile classes lay behind the British
desire to keep famine relief as cheap as possible, for fear that fresh taxes would
estrange these classes.5 Lance Brennan, while giving some room to both theoretical
concerns and financial expediency argues that ‘personalities and politics’ were the
decisive factors in shaping what went into the Famine Codes.6 David Hall-Matthews
also favours financially expedient concerns over theoretical ones, and argues that
regard to intervention, and that the state consolidated and standardized its bureaucratic
and infrastructural basis through its non-interventionist famine relief measures in the
1830s.8 Similarly, Ravi Ahuja argues that political expediency- the strategic and
critical importance of control of the labour market for the Government of Madras in
the face of a labour scarcity and a strong ‘Native’ political enemy- prompted
4 G. Patnaik, The Famine and Some Aspects of British Economic Policy in Orissa, 1866-1905, Cuttack,
1980.
5 Bhatia, Famines in India, op. cit.
6 Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’, op. cit.
7 Hall- Matthews, ‘The Historical Roots of Famine Relief Paradigms’, op. cit.
8 Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State, p. 58.
83
intervention by Fort St. George during a famine episode in late eighteenth century
Our aim in the following chapter will be to evaluate the weight of ideological,
administrative, political and personal factors in determining the way in which famine
relief was provided in Madras during 1876-78. We suggest that while beliefs
policy in a very definite way. Moreover, there were substantial gaps between policy
and implementation at any given point of time. These gaps were due to logistic and
Considering all the evidence, it does appear that these emergent factors had more
We will, further, develop Hall-Matthews argument with regard to the structure of the
state as it shaped famine policy. Hall Matthews argues that the colonial state, although
not monolithic, was a basically hierarchical and therefore a relatively stable structure.
We will instead argue that the hierarchy was essentially uneasy, and that there were
deep divisions- ideological and administrative- between different levels and agencies
famine processes. There thus appear to have been two faces of Imperial famine
policy- the first minimalist and non-interventionist; and the other humanitarian and
interventionist.
84
Further, administrative systems in Madras appeared to be unconducive to the
Reports of impending famine began, as in most south Asian famines, with a series of
monsoon failures and requests by district officials for financial assistance for famine
relief works. The southwest monsoon in 1875 was ‘scanty and late’ and unfavourable
reports of the state of the season were received by the Government of Madras from
the Collectors of 11 districts out of 19 in July 1875.10 However, the distress was
particularly acute in two talooks of Bellary district (Ghooty and Raidurg).11 In August
1875, the Collector of the Bellary district arranged with the District Engineer to
execute road repairs as famine relief works at a cost of Rs. 3,000, which was financed
from a grant from Provincial Revenues.12 In October, the Collector reported to the
Madras Board of Revenue that if the north east monsoon failed, distress in these two
talooks would continue. The Board of Revenue reported this to the Government and
85
north east monsoon.13 The rationale stated by the Board of Revenue was decidedly
utilitarian: ‘early and liberal expenditure on works may avert the necessity for
the Government of Madras authorized the Collector to extend and maintain relief
Debates raged between different levels of Government over the form and
nature of famine relief to be provided. The Madras Board of Revenue and the Bellary
Collector clashed over the size of relief works. The Collector selected two roads on
starting small works near villages and asked for a grant of Rs. 12,000 for this purpose.
The Board of Revenue refused this last request on the grounds that relief was to be
provided in the form of large works of utility, and that small projects such as road
repairs would be impractical and wasteful. (This view was also put forth by the
Governments of Bombay and Madras for starting railway projects as relief works). In
the meantime, the Collector reported that rain had fallen and that people were
the two talooks, the Collector repeated his request for Rs. 12,000, stating that after the
harvest, the people would find it difficult to obtain the means of subsistence.15 This
time, the Government of Madras sanctioned the grant after a recommendation was
passed by the Board of Revenue, illustrating that grants of financial assistance often
13 The Madras Board of Revenue was responsible for the daily intimate functioning of the state in the
districts. Technically related to the Provincial Revenue Department, the Revenue Board exercised
much greater influence than any other department of Government over district, talook and village level
affairs. All matters connected with district and village level taxation, annual settlements under the
ryotwari tenure, the management of temples went through the Revenue Board.
14 Madras Famine Review, p. 1.
15 Ibid.
86
had to be made several times by subordinate officials, thereby delaying the provision
of famine relief.
In the meantime, despite rainfall in August and September 1875, the weekly
seasonal reports from the end of October 1875 showed slight or partial rainfall in
several other districts in the Presidency. By January 1876, the prospects of the
northeast monsoon season in several districts had begun to look bleak. The dry
Northern districts of Bellary, Cuddapah and Kumool were particularly affected by the
drought. On the 20th of January, the Provincial Government wrote to the Imperial
Thereupon the Government of India, alarmed at the tenor of the weekly season
reports, asked the Government of Madras to ‘report more fully’ on the state of affairs.
In reply, the Provincial Government wrote to the Government of India that they
expected ‘loss of crops, large scale remissions and high prices’; and that ‘relief works
Government of Madras for financial assistance to open relief works. The response of
the Government of Madras to these requests was uneven. Requests for financial
assistance were routed through the Madras Board of Revenue to the Madras
Government. In many cases, financial grants for relief works were sanctioned or not
sanctioned according to the extent to which the Revenue Board believed a request
from a district collector was legitimate and justified. The persuasive power of district
16 Telegram dated 24th October 1876, from Secretary, Madras to Commerce, Simla, Famine
Correspondence 1, IOR /V/4/Session 1877/Vol.65.
officials played a significant role, thus, in determining whether relief works were
started or not in a particular district. The Collector of the Salem district reported to the
Government of India that the season was exceptional, and requested a grant of Rs.
12,000 to start relief works in two talooks of the district. The Madras Government
refused this request on the grounds that they did not consider the situation serious
enough to justify applying for Imperial funds.17 By May 1876, lists of relief works
had been referred by the Madras Government and approved by the Government of
India in the districts of Cuddapah, Tinnevelly, Chingleput and South Arcot. In the
meantime, relief works were started in another talook of the Bellary district. The
Collector of Nellore was asked to draw up a list of works to be kept ready for
execution in case of monsoon failure. In June 1876, the Collector of Madura district
reported ‘distress’ on the failure of the north east monsoon, but also stated that there
was no sign of the distress turning into scarcity. The following month, the Collector of
Cuddapah reported that there was ‘every chance of distress amongst the poorer
classes’ and asked for a grant of Rs. 25,000 from the Provincial Government. In reply,
the Government of Madras placed Rs. 10, 000 at the disposal of the Collector through
1R
the Board of Revenue, stating that the demand seemed ‘very sudden’. The sub-
order to pay the famine stricken labourers as they would otherwise be ‘unable to
purchase food except at exorbitant prices’. At this stage, both the Government of
Madras and the Board of Revenue turned down the idea of grain imports on the
grounds that ‘such interference would disorganize trade’ and that ‘the Government
88
Provincial Demands for Imperial Assistance
India asking for sanction for the expenditure of Rs. 41,000 for relief works already
begun in the districts of Bellary and Cuddapah.20 This request was acknowledged by
the Government of India only in October 1876, and thereupon summarily refused.21
Relief was initially provided on large public works run by the Madras Public Works
Department.22
from the Collectors of these districts (Bellary and Cuddapah) to open public works
under their personal supervision instead of that of the Public Works Department
(PWD) as the PWD system of employment was believed to be unsuitable for relief of
agricultural distress where daily payment was a necessity. For example, the Collector
of Bellary reported that ‘coolies would not go to works run by the Public Works
Department as the training and organization of its officers was not adapted to a system
requiring daily payment of labour’.23 From this point onwards, the Madras
Government provided relief mainly in the form of works run by district Collectors and
the Madras Board of Revenue. These works were called ‘civil’ works and they were
By the end of October 1876, there were 83, 000 people on relief -mostly civil
works- in Bellary and Cuddapah. By December 1876, civil works under the
supervision of district Collectors were opened to employ famine relief labourers at the
89
rate of 1 V2 lb. of grain per man per day (women and children were paid 1 lb., and
children 34 lb.) In fourteen districts, covering an area of 80,000 miles, distress was
felt: people began to leave their homes in search of food, to crowd into towns and
chhuttrums\ and seek employment on relief works.24 There were also reports of
‘distress’ and ‘scarcity’ from the districts of North Arcot, South Arcot, Salem and
Nellore. Simultaneously, the south west monsoon had failed in Bombay, Mysore and
Hyderabad. In December 1876, the Government of Madras was forced to open centres
for the gratuitous relief of people through distribution of food in relief camps.
From October 1876, the Government of India headed by Lord Lytton began to
Madras, Bombay and Mysore, all of which had experienced extensive and severe crop
failures.25 On the 27th of October 1876, the Government of Madras wrote to the
Government of India stating that Provincial funds had been exhausted and that
Imperial expenditure was now unavoidable.26 The Government of Madras had already
expended Rs. 3, 77,770 on famine relief. Over 50,000 famine stricken people were
between the towns of Bellary and Guduk in accordance with the principles of relief
followed during the famine in Bengal in 1873-4, which were to employ all who
sought work on payment of lower wages than if the works was to be conducted on
24 W. Digby, The Famine Campaign in Southern India Vol. 1, Madras 1878, p. 11.
25 The extent of the famine was at the time unknown, but three months later, in January 1877, the
Government of India estimated that in Madras, 18 million people over an area of 80,000 square miles
were affected and in Bombay 5 million people over an area of 54,000 square miles were affected.
(Secretary of State for India to Government of India, Letter No. 16, dated Revenue Despatch No. 6,
12thJanuary 1877, Famine Correspondence Part 1, IOR/V/4/Sesson 1877/Vol. 65.) The Government of
Madras estimated the financial loss due to the famine at two crores and thirty two lakhs of rupees (Rs.
2,320,000 or £ 232, 000) in December 1876. (Letter No. 14, from Government of India to Secretary of
State for India, dated 8th December 1876, Famine Correspondence l, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65).
26 Telegram dated 24th October 1876, from Secretary to the Government of Madras to Secretary
Commerce, Simla, Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session 1877, Vol. 65.
90
ordinary terms. The Government of India vetoed the suggestion, stating instead that
the Provinces should employ persons on smaller works closer to their homes, instead
of starting large works, which were’ unlikely to be required ‘after a short period’. 27
The Imperial Government thus initially disbelieved the reports of distress sent in from
Madras, just as the Madras Board of Revenue and the Madras Government
conditions and individual political personalities at the helm of affairs were important
determinants of the willingness of senior officials and bodies to believe and acquiesce
to the demands of subordinate officials for financial assistance. Yet, debates over
famine relief in the immediate past also coloured the actions of the Imperial
Government.
During the Orissa famine of 1866 (which also affected the Northern districts of
Madras to a great extent) the Governments of India and Bengal had failed to intervene
in the situation in time, despite warnings from district officials early on in 1865. This
led to at least a million lives being lost in Bihar and Orissa and at least 400,000 in
Madras. In 1873-4, the Government of India under Lord Northbrook began to import
grain in November 1873, as soon as district officials reported distress. In 1876, the
Government of India under Lord Lytton was determined that the 1873 policy could
not be repeated without running the risk of bankruptcy, and this led to strict
27 Letter from the Government of India (Gol) To the Secretary of State for India (SoS), No. 28 of 1876,
dated Calcutta, 17th November 1876, Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
28 P. Brumpton, A Selection from the India Office Correspondence of Robert Cecil, Third Marquis of
Salisbury, 1866-67 and 1874-78, Lewiston, 2002, p. 21.
91
Provincial Governments were also erratic in their assessments of crisis situations.
Although the Madras Government swung into action late in 1876, their initial reaction
was slow, unresponsive and even irresponsible. As we have seen ear her, requests
from the district collectors for funds to start relief works were granted on an ad-hoc
particularly when faced with requests for financial assistance to carry out famine
relief works. This tendency was endemic to the colonial state as a whole; it marked
Governments; the Provincial Government and the Madras Board of Revenue to the
district collectors under the ryotwari system; the district collectors to the Tahsildars
and the village officials. This mistrust seems to have been pervasive not just in the
bureaucracy as a whole.
In early October 1876, the Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham and
Chandos, left Madras on a long tour to the Andaman Islands, Rangoon and Ceylon.30
The Duke took with him most of the members of his council, leaving the reins of the
administration in the hands of Sir William Robinson, whom Lord Salisbury, the
29 This point (that Imperial sanction for relief measures tended to be made on an ad-hoc basis according
to how convincing a district official could make his appeal) has also been made by Elizabeth
Whitcombe. (E. Whitcombe, ‘Famine Mortality’, Economic and Political Weekly, XXVIII, 23 (1993):
1169-1179.)
30 W. Digby, The Famine Campaign in Southern India Vol. 1, pp.4-5. Digby wryly added that (the
purpose of the Governor’s tour) in the last named place (Ceylon) was ‘to inquire about a railway which
will not be wanted for a century.’
92
Secretary of State for India privately described as ‘a most unfortunate phenomenon
led the Government of India as well as civil servants and journalists in Madras to
believe that nothing was amiss and that the scarcity was being tackled satisfactorily.32
soon became alarmed by reports of suffering and starvation in the Presidency. Grain
riots took place in the Cumbum talook of the Kumool district and Cuddalore town in
South Arcot in October 1876.33 Two officials- Mr. Thornhill, of the Madras Board of
Revenue, and Mr. Arbuthnot, of the Madras Council, were deputed to visit Bellary
and Kumool respectively. Mr. Thornhill reported that Bellary district was ‘full of
grain’ but that merchants were reluctant to contract either for sale or transport. There
appeared to be a danger that once the certainty of the north east monsoon ended,
merchants would refuse to sell grain altogether. In the meantime, the Government of
India directed that all large projects requiring an expenditure of over Rs. 2500 should
be avoided and prior sanction sought by the Provincial Governments before allowing
district Collectors or the Madras Public Works Department to begin such works.
31 Letter No. 15 from Salisbury to Lytton dated May 4th 1877, Letters to the Secretary of State, Lytton
Collection, IOR/MSS/Eur 218E/4A.
32 Digby, The Famine Campaign in Southern India Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 5.
33 No. 1,599 A, From the Secretary to the Government of Madras (GoM) to the Secretary to the
Government of India (Gol), dated 7th November 1876. There were also grain riots across the Bombay
Presidency during 1876 October, and this perhaps alarmed the Government of Madras. (Note on the
condition and resources of the districts in the Bombay Presidency which are threatened with scarcity;
dated Simla, October 21st, 1876, Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65).
93
In late October 1876, the Government of Madras took a step that was openly in
Government of India and the Madras Board of Revenue. Thornhill and Arbuthnot’s
report on the Ceded districts indicated that the drought had led to great distress and
hunger. There was a ‘marked increase in crime’; and despite the very low rates
offered as wages on local relief works, ‘large numbers of people resorted to them,
and grain riots, the Governor of Madras wrote privately to Robinson to sanction the
import of 30,000 tonnes of rice from Bengal through the agency of a commercial firm,
intimated the Government of India of its action on November 4th, 1876, requesting
that the Imperial Government foot the bill of Rupees 32 lakhs (Rs. 3,200,000).35
The import of grain was a direct reversal of the non-interventionist policy laid
down by the Government of India and the Madras Board of Revenue since the early
nineteenth century as guides to famine relief policy. It incurred the wrath of Lord
Lytton, the Viceroy, Lord Salisbury, the Secretary of State for India and several of the
members of the Council of the Government of India. The Government of India wrote,
In the present state of the finances, such a measure should only have been resorted to upon
the strongest grounds of proved necessity, and not.. .until full explanation of the necessity
had been submitted to, and accepted by the Government of India, upon whom rests the
entire responsibility for the financial administration of the Empire if local
Governments are to be permitted to embark in financial considerations of such magnitude
34 Letter from the Government of Madras (GoM) to the Government of India (Gol), No. 1599A, dated
7th November 1876, Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol.65.
35 The Government of India (Gol) wrote to the Secretary of State (SoS) for India on 17th November
1876, that they had received a telegram from the Government of Madras (GoM) on the 4th of
November intimating that the latter had contracted confidentially with a local firm for the purchase of
30,000 tonnes of rice at a cost of Rs. 32 lakhs. The GoM requested the Gol to pay this amount at the
rate of Rs. 4 lakhs a week. (Gol to SoS dated November 9, 1876, No. 27, Famine Correspondence 1,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65).
94
without the permission or knowledge of the Government of India, the most serious
embarrassment must ensue.36
Salisbury would later write privately to Lytton: ‘ In its uneconomical views about
the supply of grain the Madras Government went incorrigibly wrong, and there it was
absolutely necessary to resist’.37 Others were more vocal in their displeasure. O.P.
Bume, Lytton’s personal secretary, would write to Louis Mallet, Under Secretary of
State for India: ‘I should like to hang or shoot a great many people in South India if it were
allowable!’38
In its defence (provided much after the transaction had been made), the Madras
Government pleaded that this form of state interference was justified by the
extraordinary circumstances:
Clearly, concerns about threats to public order were intermingled with fears of mass
starvation and death in the Governor’s decision to import grain as a reserve for
distribution as wages to labourers on famine relief works. (At the same time, it is
noteworthy that the imported grain- rice- was intended as a reserve for distribution on
famine relief works, rather than for gratuitous distribution. Much later in the course of
36 Letter, Gol to SoS, No. 28 of 1876, dated 17th November 1876, Famine Correspondence 1,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
37 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton, No. 22, dated June 15, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
38 Letter from O.P. Bume to Louis Mallet dated Coimbatore, 10th September 1877, Letters to Sir Louis
Mallet, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/48b.
39 Letter, GoM, Revenue Department to Gol, Financial Secretary dated 4th November 1876, enclosed in
Gol to SoS No. 28 of 1876, dated 17th November 1876, Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/Vol. 65.
95
the famine, relief officers in Bellary district complained that rice was insufficiently
nourishing for the sustenance of famine relief workers.)40 In a later letter, the
the famine stricken districts and stated that the import of grain was necessary in order
to guard against the risk of ‘great disaster and loss of life’. It also stated that ‘there is
no longer room to doubt that distress, which is even now threatening to culminate in
famine requiring extraordinary State measures, must for some months be experienced
in terms of importing grain and in terms of providing famine relief, when the
magnitude of the impending famine became known. (The Executive Council in the
reasons for this interventionist stance were complex, but it can be argued that one was
a genuine sense of responsibility for human life on the part of the individuals who
formed the Madras Council, the executive body of the Government. Salisbury wrote
to Lytton in late April 1877 regarding the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, who
I have told you by telegraph of Buckingham’s state of feeling as disclosed by his letters....
whatever may be the case with his advisers He is genuinely shocked at the suffering he
sees and hears of, and is anxious as to the future he dreads being held responsible... .for
some terrible calamity.42
40 The Sub Collector of Gooty talook in Bellary district complained to the Talook Famine Relief
Officer that ‘the grain being boiled rice, labourers would not thrive on it, whereas it would do very well
for the people who are fed in camps.’ (Reply to Memo dated 26th October 1877, enclosed in
Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated 3 1st December 1878 Nos.
212-213, G.O. No.. 2634, TNSA).
41 GoM to Gol, dated 13th November 1876, enclosed in Gol to SoS, No. 30 of 1876, dated 24th
November 1876 (Famine Correspondence 1, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.)
42 Letter No. 14 dated April 27th, 1877 from Salisbury to Lytton, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
96
What emerges from this extract is that one cannot generalize, (as have some writers
on the basis of sources for other famine periods) that state intervention emerged only
or even primarily when distress caused people to resort to theft, arson and attacks on
European officials.43 Undoubtedly the threat posed by grain riots did result in many
district officials petitioning the Government of Madras for famine relief. However, we
have seen that these requests were not always granted, and so to credit ‘popular
action’ with such causative power would, we suggest, overstate the extent to which
crisis for a variety of reasons, not all of which were congruent or consistent with each
other. It appears that one cannot entirely discount a genuine sense of humanitarian
In evidence was also fear amongst administrators sitting in London and Simla,
regarding the situation in Madras. Deep in the south, it appeared as strange, remote
and ungovernable territory, and its bureaucrats, albeit European, difficult to control.
Salisbury remarked: ‘As to the Madras Government, I feel I know so little I can
hardly criticize Madras seems to be a very peculiar country!’44 The larger context
of Madras within the Government of India seems to have made the defiance of
43 There is a large literature on food riots and peasant revolts in times of famine, both in the Indian and
European contexts. The interested reader is referred to Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial
State, op. cit. Ch. 3
44 Letter No. 22 dated 15th June 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS
Eur/E218/4A.
97
The Precedent for Intervention: Richard Temple’s Import of Grain in 1873-4
The import of grain, however, was not the first instance of a Provincial
that had governed the utilitarian teaching that many civil servants learnt during their
training since the beginning of the nineteenth century.45 There was a recent precedent
for Provincial interventionism, which had been supported by no less than the previous
Viceroy of India, Lord Northbrook. This was in Bengal during a threatened famine in
1873-4.46
The timely import of grain and relief work by the Bengal Government had
Viceroy of India at the time, had sanctioned a request by Sir Richard Temple for
importing 100,000 tonnes of rice from Burma. Temple, who was the Famine
particular came under fire for overestimating the amount of grain required to feed the
distressed population. His generous estimates of the amount of food required daily by
a labouring adult had led to the Government being faced with huge amounts of left
over stocks of grain after the famine.48 He had been singled out for criticism by
45 The classic work on the intellectual trends informing colonial thought in the nineteenth century is E.
Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, Oxford, 1959. See also C. Dewey, The Mind o f the Indian
Civil Service, Mumbai, 1993.
46 Madras Famine Review, op. cit., p. 12.
47 Here it must be mentioned that the 1873-4 course of Government action was itself a reaction to the
disastrous failure of a strictly non-interventionist state policy which had led to large scale mortality in
Bihar and Orissa in 1866 and Rajputana in 1869. See J.C. Geddes, Administrative Experience Recorded
of Former Famines: Extracts From Official Papers Containing Instructions fo r Dealing with Famine,
Compiled Under Orders of the Government of Bengal. Calcutta, January 1874.
48 An anonymous pamphlet writer (most likely a Bengal civil servant) wrote that Temple had estimated
that the relief measures had cost the Government of India £ 4,400,000 and that the total imports
amounted to 460,000 tonnes of grain, of which 435,000 were left untouched at the end of the famine.
(The Black Pamphlet of Calcutta: The Famine of 1874 by a Bengal Civilian, London: 1876.)
98
members within the India Office and the Government of India for the huge
expenditure that had prevented the scarcity from snowballing into a famine.49
During this famine, there were ‘only’ 23 deaths. Paradoxically, the limited
scale of mortality during this famine caused the Government of India to doubt
whether it amounted to a famine at all. Even more strikingly, each and every course
whether it was the import of grain or the prompt and generous system of relief put
into place- was later criticized by several civil servants as extravagant.50 The authority
measures upon the apprehension of distress had come under intense scrutiny
It was now three years later, and the Madras Government defended its action on the
basis of the Bengal precedent. In a review of the famine in 1878, the Madras
Government wrote, ‘It was impossible for the Government of Madras to choose any
other course of action but that followed by Lord Northbrook’.51 This caused a great
deal of friction between the bureaucrats of the Imperial and the Provincial
Governments. O.P. Bume, the Personal Secretary to Lytton wrote to Louis Mallet, the
.. .Millions have been utterly wasted and the Madras people rest their defence... .on the
wretched famine policy left us as a legacy by Lord Northbrook, (!).. .on the irresistible cry
of humanitarianisni fortunately my violent language does no one any harm as I shall
not be in India to write the history of the famine or to expose to derision Lord
49 The cost of the Bengal ‘famine’ was £ 6,333, 333 (about Rs. 63, 333, 330), while there were ‘only’
23 deaths. See Hall-Matthews, ‘The Historical Roots of Famine Relief Paradigms’, op. cit.
50 The Black Pamphlet o f Calcutta, op. cit.
51 Madras Famine Review, p. 15.
99
Northbrook’s principles and declarations, which would otherwise have given me a vast
amount of pleasure to do s o !52
there. The subject of the choice of a delegate to Madras was much debated amongst
of India.53
many when he was deputed by the Government of India in January 1877 to advise the
Our best course (was) to send Temple in the character of our Commissioner with adequate
powers to Madras. Temple is leaving to retrieve his reputation for extravagance in the last
famine, by showing how efficiently he can work an economical policy... he carries with him
great authority, and I don’t think we could have found in all India at the present moment a
man more likely or better able to help us to save money in famine management.54
The Government of India sent its delegate with an explicit brief. Temple’s 1874
dictum that ‘no expense should be spared in order to save lives’ was inverted in
52 Letter from O. P. Bume to Louis Mallet dated Poona 23rd September 1877, Letters to Sir Louis
Mallet, Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/48b. Louis Mallet,
Under Secretary of State for India, was a passionate supporter of a free market, and authored a number
of essays on the subject. See L. Mallet, ‘Free Exchange’, London, 1891.
53 The incongruence of the lavish ceremony in Delhi to commemorate the Queen’s accession to the title
at a time when millions were starving in southern and western India was commented upon both among
the press and the Madras bureaucracy. See Digby, The Famine Campaign Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 56.
54 Lytton to Mallet, dated Benares 11th January 1877, Letters to Sir Louis Mallet, Lytton Collection,
IOR/ MSS Eur/E218/48b.
100
Even for the object of such paramount importance as the preservation of life, it is obvious that
there are limits imposed on us ... .we must plainly admit that the task of saving life,
irrespective of the cost, is one which it is beyond our power to undertake.55
Clearly, Lytton, along with other bureaucrats in the Government of India such as
Richard and John Strachey, O.P. Bume and Louis Mallet were intent on enforcing a
what they saw as serious financial embarrassment. Bume and Mallet were passionate
a number of tracts and essays on free trade, while Salisbury was a loyal member of
the Conservative party.56 Yet, they were also deeply concerned about the state of
Imperial revenues. Clearly, for these individuals, ideological beliefs did play some
role in shaping responses to famine. However, the weight of the evidence seems to
the Madras Governor, ‘Of course there is a calamity of a totally different kind: the
emaciation and starvation of the Budget next week- to which he (Buckingham) pays
55 From the Secretary to the Government of India to the Hon. Sir Richard Temple, Bart, K.C.S.I., Lt.
Governor of Bengal (on a Special Mission), dated Calcutta the 16thJanuary 1877. (Famine
Correspondence 2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.)
56 See Mallet’s posthumous collection of essays, ‘Free Exchange: Papers on Political and Economic
Subjects’, London, 1891.
57 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton, dated April 27th 1877, Letters to the Secretary of State, Lytton
Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
101
Lytton in turn wrote to Mallet:
I anxiously hope you will not encourage any humanitarian (impulses) in England about the
famine- that is now our greatest danger- if the British public insists on our keeping ryots
alive ‘regardless o f expense’ and imposes on us a ‘life at any cost’ policy- the British
public might in fairness find us the money (which we have not) for satisfying the
co
commands o f its cheap sentiments.
It appears from this extract that a nebulous ‘public opinion’, both in England and in
India, had begun to play a significant role in shaping official famine policy. (As the
famine wore on, both Lytton and Salisbury became more and more worried about the
public image of official famine policy. This preoccupation is evident in the official
enabled a detailed critical view of this issue). Further, although this point cannot be
substantiated with detailed evidence, it does appear that famine policy began to
acquire more and more of a ‘public image’ as the nineteenth century wore on,
By December 1876, the Government of India had received estimates stating that the
financial cost of the famine in Madras alone was computed at Rs. 2 V2 crores. A
complete failure of the monsoons in Bombay, and reports of starvation and distress in
the princely states of Hyderabad and Mysore signalled a vast Imperial financial
outlay. Salisbury wrote to Lytton that ‘.... I am afraid you have had a terrible time
with the famine. It is a sad blow to all our financial castles in the air’.59
58 Lytton to Mallet, dated Bewares 11th January 1877, Letters to Sir Louis Mallet, Lytton Collection,
IOR/MSS Eur/E218/48b
59 Salisbury to Lytton, Letter No. 2, dated February 9, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State, Lytton
Collection, IOR/ MSS Eur/E218/4A.
102
At the end of 1876, over a hundred thousand people were employed on relief works
across Madras Presidency, consisting mostly of repairs to roads, wells and river
works. These works were managed by district Collectors and opened to all who
sought employment at a wage that was lower than the wage paid to able-bodied
had also begun to distribute food gratuitously in relief camps and kitchens to starving
Private Indian charity appears to have had an uneasy relationship with the
gentlemen’ were active in providing gratuitous relief in their houses or in the streets
of Madras. There was official recognition from an early stage onwards that
Government relief operations were woefully inadequate. Yet, private charity was
viewed with suspicion and disapproval, on several grounds. The first of these was that
it attracted huge crowds into the main cities, such as Madras, which the Government
was anxious to keep free of starving migrants.60 ‘Indiscriminate’ private charity was
believed to attract people in unmanageably large numbers to these towns, where such
relief was mostly given. Cornish complained that private charity caused ‘rumours to
fly about the neighbouring districts that in Madras, there were ‘mountains of rice and
60 Despite these allegations, it appears that the failure of the Government machinery to provide
adequate relief in the more far-flung and remote rural areas was the main factor which induced
migration of people to the towns. This failure is evident from the responses received by the Indian
Famine Relief Fund for financial assistance from September 1877. (See later in this chapter).
61 Fourteenth Annual Report of the Sanitary Commissioner fo r Madras fo r 1877, {henceforth SCR
1877), p. 191.
103
Another complaint was that relief was given indiscriminately- that those who received
it were not (in the eyes of European officials) truly in need. Therefore, private charity
was seen to encourage dependency amongst the undeserving poor. In his sanitary
report for 1877, Cornish remarked that from around October 1876 onwards, native
gentlemen of means and position opened kitchens of their own account, where ‘if the
relief was indiscriminating, much food was also given away to the really deserving’.62
In these private feeding kitchens, no attempt was made to issue a standard allowance of
food. A certain amount of grain was cooked daily, and whether the applicants were 1000
or 3000, an attempt was made to divide the dole between the whole number. Those who
were strong and robust, and who by sheer strength could scramble earliest into the feeding
places, got best served while the weak often had to put up with a scanty ration or none at
all.63
In February 1877, Cornish complained that ‘relief was given in such a form as to do
but little good.. ..the quantity of grain appeared to be insufficient but being made up
of with buttermilk and a strong sprinkling of hot condiments.’64 He continued: ‘at one
of these private charities, the rations, in my opinion and in that of Dr. Thompson’s,
did not equal half a pound of rice in each ball of cooked food.’ 65 Yet, he also
expressed a belief that Government relief operations were ill-equipped to deal with a
tragedy on the scale of the famine, and suggested that private individuals be
was discouraged by the Government if the relief houses was managed by non
104
relief operations was seen as essential for the state was to tackle the famine
satisfactorily. Cornish later remarked that he could not ‘help concluding that it was a
grave mistake to dry up, at an early stage of the famine, the springs of private
charity’.67
This account of official responses to private charity during the famine would
confirm Sanjay Sharma’s assertion that the colonial state was willing to encourage
and recognize indigenous efforts if they conformed to a more formal and institutional
idea of charity. Sharma suggests that indigenous practices were sought to be shaped
Yet, as will be clear, at a later stage in the famine, provincial officials themselves rued
this drive as having the effect of severely limiting the scope of operations.69 Thus, we
might state that a drive towards standardization and assumption of the sole right to
give ‘appropriate’ charity was quickly contradicted from within the state itself during
and contradictory attitudes regarding the interaction between private charity and
official relief and the ability of official relief to undertake the task of preventing
starvation.
Thus, state famine policy was marked by deep divisions between Centre and Province
over three aspects of famine relief. First, there was a concern over whether the state
had a moral duty to undertake to feed the famine stricken or merely to employ them
(deriving in part from debates over whether there was a famine of work or food, and
size, management and purpose. Which Government Department was best suited to
manage famine relief works? Should relief should be ‘charitable’ or ‘profitable’? How
large should they be, given the topographical and administrative realities of a
particular region? Finally, was the Imperial Government was to place a ceiling on
district level demands, or allow district level administrators the administrative and
interventionist policy formed a core ‘shell’ around which state responses to famine
official detractors, both for moral as well as expedient reasons. However, the
106
Table 1.1: Districts Affected by Famine, January 187770
Temple’s Recommendations
In the meantime, Richard Temple began his tour of the famine stricken districts of
Madras. Sent as a delegate, Temple had the sanction of the Imperial Government to
70 Only seven districts in the Presidency were considered ‘free from famine,’ in January 1877. These
were Tinnevelly, Malabar, Ganjam, Godavery, Vizagapatam, Nilgiris and South Canara. In two of
these- Tinnevelly and Malabar-there were reports of high prices and ‘distress’. (Letter, Gol (Revenue,
Agriculture and Commerce) to SoS, No. 2, dated Calcutta, 12thJanuary 1877, Famine Correspondence
2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.) While a discussion of the various grades of distress or necessity for
intervention recognized by the state and the politics of ‘famine certification’ would be extremely
insightful, such a study is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, Amrita Rangasami has discussed
the role of the bureaucracy in the classification of famine and distress. (A. Rangasami: ‘The Masking
of Famine: the Role of the Bureaucracy’, in Floud and Rangasami, Famine and Society, op. cit.) New
Delhi, 1993. See also P. Brass, ‘The Political Uses of Crisis: The Bihar Famine of 1966-67’, JAS,
XLV, 2 (1986): 245-265.
107
policy’. Temple set about his duty of economizing relief measures in Madras in full
earnest.
Temple went over the famine stricken districts of the Presidency at breakneck speed,
finding the time to pen over two hundred elaborate minutes and memoranda in the
course of his tour He secured the approval of Lytton and the Government of India.
But in Madras, Temple ruffled many feathers and even Salisbury, the Secretary of
State for India, was alarmed at his revolutionary zeal. In these minutes and
India that nothing was amiss in Madras; the people were not suffering; and the
Government was doing all it possibly could at the lowest possible cost. 71
The keystone of Temple’s proclaimed famine policy was that the Government
could undertake to save lives, but it could not prevent distress. In addition, financial
considerations, rather than humanitarian ones, were to take pride of place in the
principles of provision of state relief. All but those who would be in danger of losing
their lives unless given state aid were to be declared ineligible for famine relief.
for grain wages; and the discontinuation of small relief works and the concentration of
labour on large works at a distance from people’s homes. He insisted that the system
108
overturned, and the Madras Public Works Department be made responsible for famine
rebef. The Madras Government had already, in December 1876, created a famine
department under the secretaryship of the Collector of South Arcot, Mr. H.H. Garstin,
which Temple asked to be dismantled.72 Temple further insisted that in keeping with
works under the stewardship of the Public Works Department, famine relief labourers
were to be ‘patiently and firmly’ transported from Bellary, Kumool and Cuddapah to
the East Coast Canal Works near Nellore district.73 Additionally, Temple ordered
that task work was to be strictly imposed on relief works. Labourers who refused to
work for the reduced wage were, in his opinion, not entitled to receive state aid.74
Temple secured the approbation of the Government of India (Lytton was later
to declare that he had ‘behaved very well indeed’). 75 However, in Madras, his visit
created much anger and dissatisfaction amongst members of the Government and the
economy would result in much suffering. On February 22nd, 1877, the Governor
issued instructions stating that rules regarding the exaction of tasks on relief works
were not to be too strictly applied; and that due care was to be taken by famine relief
officers to ensure that no harm came to relief labourers; and that wages were not cut
and press in Madras the wrong way. Three of his recommendations came under
109
particular fire. The first was the reduction of the wages for adults on famine relief
works from 1 Vi lb. per day for an adult male to 1 lb a day (famously known as the
Temple ration). The second was to dismiss all labourers who did not seem to be in
dire straits or poor physical conditions, from the relief works. The third was to make
village officials responsible on pain of punishment for detecting and preventing all
relief camps or in relief kitchens where cooked food was distributed to the poor.
Upon his arrival in the Bellary district on the 19th of January 1877, Temple
wrote to the Government of India stating that relief on works and in relief camps in
the famine districts was being conducted on far too liberal a scale. He advised that the
wage for labourers on civil (Revenue) famine relief works- which constituted the bulk
assured the Governments of India and Madras, would result in a saving of Rs. 30
I myself think that one pound per diem might be sufficient.. .and the experiment ought to
be tried.. .There might indeed be a question as to whether life cannot be sustained with one
pound of grain per diem.... one pound ought to be made to suffice.77
The wages payable on famine relief works after Temple’s reduction were as follows.
For workers on civil (revenue) relief works, the wage was reduced from the amount or
cash equivalent of 1 Vi lb. of grain per diem in addition to a small cash allowance for
condiments and fuel, to 1 lb or cash equivalent thereof. For those on PWD works
(which formed a very small proportion of relief works in Madras), the wage was to
77 Minute by Sir Richard Temple, No. VII dated 19th January 1877, Famine Correspondence 2,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877, Vol.65.
110
remain at a pound and a half of grain and a small cash allowance.78 Anticipating
protests from Provincial officials regarding this reduction, Temple pleaded that the
reduced wage be given a fair trial, as it was an experiment on which the precious
cause of saving public money revolved. Accordingly, on the 31st January, the
Government of Madras passed orders stating that the reduced wage be adopted on
Within a short period, however, there were protests from medical, revenue and
public works officials in Madras as well as in Calcutta and back in England regarding
the insufficiency of the Temple wage. The wage in turn became a symbol of a harsh
and difficult famine policy, and was criticised severely. These criticisms ranged from
the utilitarian (people could not work up to their maximum potential on the wage; and
to employ them on such terms was a waste of public money) to the humanitarian to
the pragmatic. They seemed to have had an influence on the Government of India and
I am entirely of your opinion as to the necessity of bringing the demand for relief in case of
famine under some sort of regular system; otherwise we shall demoralize the people But it
must be done in language the British people can understand. Sensibility is a strong political
force just now- just as honour used to be- and you must phrase the resolution decently so as
not to shock their ears with the (undue phrase?) of political economy.80
The most trenchant critic of the one pound wage was Dr. William Robert
Cornish returned to Madras after absence of leave in England, and May 1877, there
was a fierce exchange of letters in the official papers between Temple and Cornish.
This exchange centred primarily on discussions of how much food was necessary to
78 Minute No. VII by Richard Temple, dated Bellary, 19thJanuary 1877, enclosed in letter from
Government of India, Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce to the Secretary of State for
India, dated Calcutta, 26 January 1877, Famine Correspondence 2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
79 Letter No. 10, from the Government of India to the Secretary of State, dated Calcutta, 2nd February
1877, Famine Correspondence 2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
80 Salisbury to Lytton, Letter No. 2, dated February 9th 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State for
India, Lytton Collection, IOR/ MSS Eur/E218/4A.
Ill
support a labourer in health and strength; the effectiveness of the agency by which
Temple’s experiment; and the moral responsibility of the state in times of crisis.
The debate was, as we shall see in the following chapter, keenly followed by
criticisms of the ‘Temple ration’ were widely reported and acclaimed in the English
and vernacular press; and in medical journals. Despite the Government of India and
the Secretary of State for India publicly approving the wage, however, Temple’s
May 1877:
Temple has been so baffled by the enthusiastic prodigality of the Madras officials that he
has leant more vehemently towards economy than he would naturally (have) done.... we
are beginning to be alarmed lest he should have overdone it.............. The apprehension that
(his) ration was insufficient was I think shared by all Indian members of Council including
our General Strachey who takes the severest economical view on these questions.81
when it was pointed to him that the reduced wage would not suffice to feed families
where there were young children dependent on an adult bread winner, he ordered that
further pointed out that people on the works received a wage only six days a week, he
ordered that they receive a Sunday wage as well. Yet, Temple’s enthusiasm indeed
seemed to have overtaken him. Between January 14th and 19th, he visited the districts
of Bellary, Kumool and Cuddapah and ordered the district officials stop admitting
81 Salisbury to Lytton, No. 15, dated May 4th, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State for India,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
82 Minute LVII by Sir Richard Temple, on the subject of giving subsistence allowance to the younger
children of relief labourers, No. 145, and Letter from Dr. Cornish, the Sanitary Commissioner for
Madras, to the Chief Secretary to the Government, Fort St. George dated Madras 6th April 1877, No.
209, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/ V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
112
people to relief works; to dismiss all those already on relief works who were not
already in severe want (which he termed ‘shroffing’ the works); and to make village
travelled to North Arcot district, where the district Collector had not opened relief
works in this district, and where no gratuitous relief was being given. Temple praised
the Collector for his economy and contrasted the district favourably with the state of
and Tinnevelly in five days and further made comparisons on the cost at which relief
was being provided. He went on to Salem, Chingleput and Madras, taking several
operate freely and to minimize state intervention. These measures included restricting
entry to relief works only to those ‘in real danger of starvation’; encouraging private
activity in the grain trade by augmenting existing railway lines and building new
ones; and the medical examination of all entrants to relief works and relief camps in
order to test the veracity of their destitution. Temple ordered that wages for labourers
on famine relief works should be paid in money rather than grain; and that gratuitous
relief was to be strictly limited.85 In response to criticism from Provincial and district
officials in Madras about the inability of the famine wages to support workers, he
conceded firstly that young children accompanying their parents on the works should
be paid a small money dole of 3 pies; and that workers should be paid for seven days
although they were not required to work on Sundays. At the same time, he refused to
see evidence of slow starvation and suffering around him in the course of his
113
whirlwind tour through the famine districts of Madras between January and May
1877.86
people were thrown off relief works, they drifted into weakness, debility and
starvation. The mortality from starvation and disease rose steadily upwards through
December 1876 and January 1877, to five times above the quinquennial average. 87
drastic policy of turning off the so-called ‘undeserving’ from the works and relief
camps would lead to large scale starvation, Temple made his third main
go undetected, he urged upon the Madras Government the need for a system whereby
every house in the famine affected districts was to be visited by village officials. In
this, Temple sought to continue the pursuance of an order that that been passed by the
Governor of Madras in 1869; that village revenue officials- the Karnam, Patel and
86 An English newspaper, the Madras Mail, reported on March 13th 1877 that Temple and his
companions came across a man dying in the neighbourhood of Madras while on their tour. The man
was within a quarter of a mile of a police station, and a Local Fund Dispensary. A few yards later, the
party came across the dead body of an emaciated child. Temple was informed that an adult male had
died at the same spot a day earlier. (Digby, The Famine Campaign, Vol. 1, p. 94).
87 Letter from Dr. Comish, Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief Secretary to Government,
Fort St. George, dated Madras, 6th April 1877, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/ Vol.
65, No. 144. (See Table 4.3).
88 Minute by Sir Richard Temple, respecting passages in the Report of the Sanitary Commissioner of
Madras, dated Cuddalore, the 18thApril 1877, No. 218,Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/Vol. 65.
114
Temple’s suggestion was met with cynicism amongst revenue officials and medical
men who believed that the local authorities were not likely to feel compelled to report
deaths from starvation because of their relative autonomy from Provincial control and
influence. Secondly, the enforcement of this suggestion would, it was feared, lead to
the fudging of death returns from starvation, inasmuch as the agency which was to be
punished for the occurrence of starvation deaths was the same agency which recorded
causes of death in the village registers.89 It was thus feared that the suggestion would,
an information system that was vital for the prevention of starvation, and defeat the
purpose of vital registration itself. From the available evidence, it appears that these
August 1877:
From the returns, no one would guess that Nellore is a famine district, but the more
accurate municipal town registration shows a death rate of 93 per mille.90
Whilst Lytton and his allies were very pleased with Temple, his visit was a
thorn in the side of the Madras Government. Colonial medical officials in Madras and
Bombay were deeply divided on the question of the nutritional adequacy of the ration.
By April 1877, the weight of medical opinion was that the existing ration provided
89 On death registration as part of the duties of village officials, see chapter 3 of this thesis. On
Cornish’s criticism of Temple’s third recommendation, see letter from Dr. Comish, the Sanitary
Commissioner for Madras to the Chief Secretary to Government, Fort St. George, dated Madras, 6th
April 1877. Digby also presents a stringent critique of the village agency. See Digby, The Famine
Campaign Vol. 1, pp. 96-103 and p. 139-140.
90 Letter from W.R. Comish, Sanitary Commissioner of Madras, to the Chief Secretary to the
Government of Madras, dated 1st August 1877, enclosed in Proceedings of the Government of Madras
in the Public Department dated 11th August 1877, G.O. No. 1069, TNSA. See Chapter 3 of the thesis
for a further discussion of the issue of accuracy during famine periods.
115
both in camps and on works was dangerously insufficient.91 On May 22nd 1877, the
Madras Government finally discontinued the ‘Temple ration’, quoting the cautious
and stating that the weight of medical opinion in the Presidency was averse to the
continuation of the wage.92 This was widely seen as a significant victory for the
Madras Government and in particular for Comish.93 (However, we shall suggest in the
following chapters that specific role of the Temple wage in exacerbating the total
Temple’s Departure
At the time of Temple’s departure from Madras in early May 1877, the
condition of the Madras districts was critical. District and Provincial officials waited
anxiously for the south west monsoon rains in June. If these rains were copious, then
the famine would end in October, but if the rains failed, then the suffering caused by
was under control in Madras; that human lives had been saved at the lowest possible
cost; and starvation had been successfully combated.94 However, despite an official
91 Report of Drs. Gordon and Smith on the Monegar Choultry Camp, Fourteenth Annual Report o f the
Sanitary Commissioner fo r Madras, pp. 205-208.
92 Salisbury wrote to the Government of India expressing ‘serious fear that insufficiency of relief food
on famine works, especially in Madras, is producing diseases of exhaustion, and will end in great
mortality.’ He also stated that it was preferable not to place too much restriction on the Local
Governments. (Letter from Secretary of State to Government of India, No. 43, dated India Office, 10th
May 1877, No. 251, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/ Vol. 65).
93 William Digby, Editor of the Madras Times, wrote in his account of the famine that several
Provincial officials asked Comish at an official dinner in May 1877, ‘Are you sure that Sir Richard
Temple has really left the Presidency?’ (Digby, The Famine Campaign Vol. 1, p. 132).
94 Temple reported as early as February 1877 to the Government of India that ‘Over the whole of the
Madras Presidency, famine is successfully combated and starvation prevented.’( Famine
Correspondence 2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.)
116
statement that famine had been successfully contained, the India Office was beginning
governor at the end of April cautioning that ‘humane principles’ were to be carried
out and that ‘no scale of rations would be sanctioned which was inadequate to
The price of food grains rose steadily upwards in early May, and along with them, the
The Closure of the Buckingham Canal and the Censure of Madras by India
On May 8th 1877, the Government of Madras passed orders that forced emigration of
labourers to the East Coast Canal in Nellore was to cease; and that the Bellary-Hubli
railway line, long vetoed by the Government of India as unsuitable for relief purposes,
was to commence as a relief work. This seems to have marked a shift in the
point, the Government of India vetoed suggestions both from Madras and Bombay to
commence the construction of railway lines as famine relief works, on the grounds
that these would remain unfinished if the crisis lasted just a few months. 97
.In the meanwhile, in early May, the Government of India passed an order of censure
against the Government of Madras for its alleged delay in informing the Imperial
Government of the impending famine, and its exaggeration of the extent of distress.
117
Comparing the way in which the famine had been handled in Bombay and Madras,
His Excellency in Council is willing to make the most ample allowance for the irksomeness
and difficulty which must have been felt in submitting detailed statistics by officers who were
labouring under the practical difficulties o f organizing relief for starving and clamouring
multitudes, but is constrained to observe that had they more generally grasped the imperative
need o f temperate and thorough diagnosis o f the condition o f affairs around them at a very
early stage o f the famine, the exaggerated impressions which were received, and the excessive
and uncalled for relief which was consequently given, might have been alike avoided, and the
general policy o f the Government might have been, in important particulars, different from
Qg
what it was.
The Imperial Government implied, though this memorandum, that Madras district
officials and the Madras Government had been alarmist in estimating the extent of
relief required, and had consequently been excessively generous in their estimation of
relief requirements, unlike the Bombay Government." This censure had the effect of
pushing the already strained relations between Madras and India almost to breaking
point. It was rumoured that the entire Madras Government was in danger of resigning
from office. Salisbury had to step in to avoid political disaster in May 1877. He
cautioned the Government of India publicly against being too strict about enforcing
measures of economy, stating that the matter of the reduced wage on relief works
‘required extreme vigilance’ and that it was ‘better not to place too much restriction
I felt bound to tell you o f the Duke’s soreness as a guide to conduct for there is no doubt
that his resignation on a matter o f insufficient relief would have done immeasurable harm.
But I do not think you can in any way blame yourself for such a state o f feeling. It is one
o f the inevitable consequences o f the important difference o f opinion between superior and
subordinate. You can no more assail some friction and mortification in governing than you
98 Extract from Proceedings of Gol DRAC, dated Simla, 5th May 1877, Famine Correspondence Part 3,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
99 David Hall-Matthews in his account of the famine in Ahmednagar district shows that the assumption
that official relief measures prevented further starvation in Bombay was mistaken. See Peasants,
Famine and the Colonial State, op. cit.
100 Revenue No. 36, Secretary of State for India to the Governor General in Council, dated India Office,
26thApril 1877, and No. 251, from the Secretary of State for India to the Governor General in Council,
Revenue No. 43, dated 10th May 1877, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
118
can avoid breaking eggs in making an omelette and losing men in war. Governing means
making men go the way they would otherwise not go and they don’t always like it.101
The result of this friction was a relaxation of Imperial attempts to control Provincial
famine relief measures. On the 21st of May 1877, the Government of Madras
withdrew the one pound wage and substituted it with a higher ration of 1 Vi lb on the
grounds that ‘the weight of medical evidence (in the Presidency) was adverse to the
In the middle of June, there was a steady downpour of rainfall and prices declined.
However, from this point onwards, mortality rates began to rise again. In the
meantime, Temple began to focus on more ways to limit the financial loss caused by
the famine. His fourth suggestion was with regard to the cultivating peasants or the
ryots, who suffered almost as much as the artisans and the labouring classes. From
February 1877, he attempted to force the Madras Government to take steps to ensure
that the full land revenue for the financial year 1876-77 was collected from the ryots.
Temple recommended that the collection of the annual land revenue demand should
be deferred rather than cojnpletely given up. This raised the hackles of district
Collectors and the Madras Government in general. Sir William Robinson, a member
of the Madras Council, exchanged a series of letters and telegrams with Temple where
India. Robinson stated that the principles of the ryotwari system of land revenue
101 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton dated May 19, 1877, No. 19, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/ MSS Eur/E218/4A.
102 Ibid.
119
collection was especially demanding and left no margin in ordinary years for the
vicissitudes of a bad season. He further stated that it had been customary in years of
famine to entirely remit rather than merely defer the collection of the land revenue.
settlement and customary immemorial law of the country’, and ‘specially unjust under
the circumstances of the season and of the agricultural population at a time like
this’.103
him into further disrepute with the Madras Government. He attempted to quote his
temporary suspension rather than a complete remission of the land revenue. The
to a head when Temple was refused permission by the Madras Government to view
papers relating to the systems of land revenue settlement in the Presidency. In a report
to the Secretary of State, the Government of India complained that ‘the tone and tenor
position in relation to the Government of India.’ 105 In the end, however, the Secretary
of State for India and the Council of the Government of India were forced to concede
103 Minute by the Honourable Sir W. Robinson, No. 247, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/ Vol. 59. In the light of the fact that Madras was the most highly taxed Province in the entire
Presidency, Robinson’s caution appears to have been well-founded.
104 Demi-official letter from the Secretary to Sir Richard Temple to the Collector of Chingleput, dated
Madras, 13th March 1877, No. 160 of Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
105 Government of India, Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce, to Secretary of State for
India, dated Simla, 25thJune 1877, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
106 Minute by the Honourable Sir W. Robinson, K.C.S.I., Extracts from the Proceedings of the
Government of Madras, dated 9thFebruary 1877, No.2, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
120
Relief in Madras in May 1877
In May 1877, famine relief in Madras continued to consist of a system of small relief
works managed by district Collectors close to the affected districts. This was in direct
contrast to Bombay, where from a very early stage onwards the PWD managed
famine relief works. (It was also in contradiction to the Government of India’s belief
from January 1877, that large works were more economical). Work on two large
works- the Bellary-Hubli railway line and the East Coast Canal, for which labourers
from Bellary, Cuddapah, Kumool and Nellore were transported- had begun since
early March.107 However, as the conditions of those on relief works worsened; and the
numbers of people who were too weak to work rose steadily, relief camps- where
residence was imposed as a condition of relief- and relief kitchens- where food was
distributed to people who were granted relief tickets as residents of a certain locality-
were authorized to grant temporary relief and medical care to migrants who were
Relief Works Under Public Works Supervision: the Debate between Madras and
India
Besides moral questions over the necessity of intervention and debates about financial
devolution and control of relief operations, there were also divisions between Madras
and India over the agency best suited to manage relief. In a resolution dated June 14th
1877, the Government of India issued a Resolution stating that relief works could be
107 Minute LII regarding the Nellore district, dated Coimbatore, 6th March 1877, No. 138, Famine
Correspondence Part 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
108 On the 12th of June 1877, there were 730,000 people employed on relief works across the
Presidency. (Telegram from the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated June 1, 1877, No. 39
Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59). Three months earlier, in the third week of
March 1877, these numbers had been 664,000 on works and 97,000 people on relief works.
121
most conveniently and economically supervised by officers of the Public Works
Department. This system had been followed in Bombay since the beginning of 1877
and was seen by the Imperial Government as conducive to ensuring that adequate
management of relief works largely in the hands of district Collectors working under
till August 1877. Thus, administrative as well as financial management was a source
of friction between the two Governments. When the south west monsoon, which
began in June, failed again, the Government of Madras ordered that a scheme of large
works managed by the Public Works Department (PWD) was to be set underfoot.
Whilst the Government of India and Temple himself believed that works run by the
Public Works Department were more efficiently and economically managed than
those managed by district Collectors, there was considerable ambiguity even within
the Government of India regarding what constituted ‘large works’ and whether large
works or small works were to be the basis of an economical famine policy. Early on
in the famine, this ambiguity had resulted in a sharp confrontation between the
sanction for starting two railway lines as relief works late in 1876, a proposal which
the Government of India had turned down on the grounds that the distress was not
Government employ people on piece work rates under PWD officers.109 Thereafter,
109 Local. No. 21e.-86 of 1877: Secretary, Government of Bombay, Public Works Department, to
Secretary., Gol, Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce, dated 18th January 1877; Extract
from the Proceedings of the GoB, dated the 26th of January 1877; Minute XXXI by Sir Richard
122
Temple attempted to force the Madras Government to concentrate labour on large
irrigation works, of which there were but few in Madras, except for the Chilkha Canal
and the East Coast canal Works. On the 8th of May 1877, the Government of India
admitted:
There is some confusion as regards the term ’large works’. In so far as it extends to
undertakings of primary magnitude such as the East Coast Canal and other irrigational
projects, there may be some difficulty in devising them in the Madras Presidency, or at any
rate, in doing so in time to be of use at the present juncture.110
geographical and social realities also made for difficulties in negotiating local
matters, the divisions between the Imperial and Provincial Governments made for
conflicts of command. For example, Temple had insisted in February 1877 that the
Madras Government forcibly transport large numbers of labourers from the small
works in and around the Ceded districts (Bellary and Cuddapah) and Nellore to the
site of the Buckingham Canal, one of the only works which was classified as a ‘large’
work. Despite Temple’s enthusiasm for the work, however, workers were not keen to
go to the Canal. Temple wrote to the Governor of Madras suggesting that workers be
ordered to proceed to the Canal, with the threat of dismissal if they did not comply. 111
Although the threat was not put into effect, it appears that subordinate officials were
unclear about whether labourers were to be forcibly transported or not. A few months
later, Captain Vernon, an official of the Public Works Department, was summoned by
Temple, dated 10th February 1877;: LXXV Minute by RT on the Labour Test and the Wage Test,
dated Sholapur, March 18th 1877, Famine Correspondence Part 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
110 Letter dated Simla, 8th May 1877, Additional Secretary, Government of India to Additional
Secretary, Government of Madras, No. 423, Part 3 of Famine Correspondence, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/Vol. 65.
111 Minute XLVIII, by Sir Richard Temple about drafting off relief labourers from the neighbouring
districts to the East Coast Navigation Canal, No. 128, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/Vol. 65.
123
the Madras Government on charges of assaulting a man, Pagoda Balaya, in Giddalore,
a village en route to the works. In his defence, Vernon stated that he had struck
Balaya because the man had approached the group of labourers whom he (Vernon)
was escorting from Nellore to the East Coast canal works near Kumool district.
Balaya approached the group and spoke loudly in Telugu. Thereupon, a great crowd
assembled, and there was a verbal altercation between Vernon and Balaya, which
created further unrest. In a melee that ensued, the crowd pelted stones and verbal
abuses at Vernon, whereupon, Vernon struck Balaya twice in the eye. Pleading
forgiveness from the Madras Government, Vernon admitted that the disturbance
would not have occurred if not for his own indiscreet conduct. He further stated that
Balaya’s part as an indication of violence and assault, and thereupon struck Balaya.
The Government readily accepted his apology for striking Balaya and his assurance
that he acted in self-defence against a perceived threat of bodily harm Yet, the
records for this particular case included a pencilled note from the Secretary of the
Revenue Department which stated that ‘the police report shows that Captain Vernon
was to blame his own account shows that he was taking the labourers against their
will to another part of the country, and that the villagers protested. ’112 Accordingly,
Vernon was censured for his use force in transporting the labourers against their own
The Vernon case also reveals the extreme fear of local outbursts of anger that
famine relief officers faced. Quite clearly, it required men who were well-versed in
the ways of local communities to manage famine relief, and this, the Madras
112 Letter from Captain Vemon on Famine Relief Duty to Acting Collector, Kumool, dated Cumbum,
13th May 1877, enclosed in Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department dated
February 27th, 1878, Nos. 182-184, G.O. No. 438, TNSA.
113 Ibid.
124
Government (rightly, it appears) felt, PWD men could not do as efficiently as district
Collectors.
By June 1877, famine stricken migrants were thronging the streets of Madras
city. Relief within the city of Madras became a priority for the Government of
Madras. The Committee of the Monegar Choultry, the main poor house in Madras
city, wrote to the Government of Madras stating that existing structures of relief were
inadequate and that large numbers of the high caste poor were being left out of a
system of state relief due to considerations of status. The Government of Madras then
put in place a system whereby a central committee would control and manage relief
The Madras Town Relief Committee was formed and headed by the
cooked food to destitute residents of the city who were provided tickets by police
officials. Relief camps on the outskirts of the city provided food for ‘wanderers’ from
neighbouring districts who reached the city, exhausted in search of food. There also
existed closed workhouses wherein conditions of light task work and residence were
imposed on people who were weak but still able to do some work, in return for
feeding. Finally, for the high caste poor of the city, who were reluctant to accept food
in kitchens and camps, relief would be given in the form of a money dole of 1 anna
per adult and Vi anna per child. In some of the relief kitchens of the city, separate
feeding areas were also marked off for the high caste poor.
125
The Failure of the Monsoons in July 1877
By the end of July 1877, there was panic regarding the critical state of the season. The
rains which had begun promisingly at the end of June ceased entirely in July. Fears
July communicating his deep anxiety regarding the ‘enormous and fruitless
expenditure’ that was likely in Madras. 114 Simultaneously, there was widespread
public criticism of the Government of India’s policy, particularly the effects of the
one pound wage. Newspapers in Madras and Calcutta had begun to carry reports of
the great mortality that had occurred on account of the Government of India’s
‘economical policy.’ Cornish’s remonstrance against the one pound wage provided a
rallying cry for the public opinion and caused much alarm for Salisbury and Lytton.
as this account has relied primarily on official sources. However, even from these
sources, it appears that there was very vocal criticism of the Government of India’s
famine policy in the press. This raises the question of whether we can see this critical
public opinion as a causative factor in shaping famine policy, and if so, whether we
can trace this to improved communications and information networks across the
Presidency in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These are important questions,
114 Telegram from Lytton to Salisbury, dated 28th July 1878, Famine Correspondence 4,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
115 Yet, we know that the press in current day situations can play a significant role in eliciting
Governmental and public responses to food crises, or on the other hand, of suppressing the existence of
126
Salisbury had written to Lytton in May that
Information of the outside world is not reassuring. All newspaper correspondents seem to
agree that the ration is exhausting the people and that mortality from disease and
exhaustion is assuming alarming proportions. The extracts from native newspapers which
have just come home, take the same line.116
As the months went by, it was clear that ‘the Madras people,’ as Salisbury termed
them, had no intention of letting up on their demand that the Government of India
support financially their attempts to effect a humanitarian and liberal famine policy.
Nor did the press let up in its criticism of the Government of India’s severe economy.
Salisbury attempted to quieten Lytton’s fears regarding public opinion in June 1877:
I do not think you rate sufficiently low the importance of the attacks one or two
newspapers here occasionally make on you. Everyone with an active feeling must present
points of attack and every newspaper having to furnish a certain number of articles daily
requires points of attack. As the bee to the flower so flies the sleepy distracted article
writer to the statesman whose activity promises to supply him with material for the copy
which within two hours he must inexorably render.11
On August 10th, however, even Salisbury was forced to admit what the Imperial
The general feeling with respect to the famine is very much what might have been
expected. The Feeling of all those who express it is that every11effort should be made to
Q
a famine, as in China in the 1970s. With the advent of photography since the 1860s, photographs and
other visual images of starving people circulated in the press have had an even greater impact on
‘public opinion’. In recent years, some of the responses of journalists and reporters to famine have
come under intense public scrutiny. The paradox of representation versus involvement has generated
much debate and criticism. This paradox is epitomised perhaps by the success and tragic suicide of
Kevin Carta-, a journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his haunting photograph of a starving
little girl crawling to a relief centre, published in the New York Times. Carter received international
acclaim for the aesthetics of his photograph and his depict Almost immediately after the acclaim,
Carter was faced with a barrage of hostile public opinion for his failure to save the little girl and this,
amongst other things, led him to take his own life in 1994. See ‘Wanting a Meal’, a web entry on
Carter’s life: (www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds and oddities/ultimate in unfair.htm); or
www.kevincarterfilm.com, the official website for Dan Krauss’ 2006 film, ‘The Death of Kevin
Carter’.
116 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton, dated May 4th, 1877 Letters from the Secretary of State, Lytton
Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
117 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton dated June 15, 1877, No. 22, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
118 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton dated August 10, 1877, No. 32, Letters from the Secretary of State,,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4B.
127
The failure of the monsoons in July 1877 meant that the long and weary wait for the
end of the famine would be extended. Even Salisbury was forced finally to admit that
dangerous.
O f course there is a practical point beyond which it is not safe to rely on the trade. In a
longer or shorter time demand will attract supply; but the longer time may be long enough
to starve a population.119
... .1 quite agree w ith.... a general aversion to any interference with trade. But all absolute
dogmas in human affairs are a mistake and in the present instance there are considerable
cases where the assumptions might involve a vast calamity.120
It was clear that yet again, the differences between the Madras Government and the
Government of India were heading towards a crisis. Accordingly, it was decided that
the Viceroy himself should undertake a visit to the famine affected districts in
Madras. On the 28th of July, Lytton wrote to Salisbury that unless immediate
Salisbury concurred with Lytton on the need to manage the political crisis with urgent
measures. Accordingly, Lytton himself was to visit Madras and Mysore, which
Salisbury believed would ‘settle many controversies’ and ‘greatly satisfy the public
mind’.122As Lance Brennan has remarked, when a Viceroy had to step in at this level
120 Letter from Salisury to Lytton dated September 13, 1877, No. 37, Letters from the Secretary of
State, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4B.
121 Telegram from Lytton to Salisbury, dated 28thJuly 1877, No. 96, Famine Correspondence 4,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
122 Telegram from Salisbury to Lytton, dated 31st July 1877, No. 104, Famine Correspondence 2,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
123 Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’, p. 97.
128
Lytton left for Madras in early August, accompanied by Sir John Strachey, Finance
Member of his Executive Council and a Mr. Arbuthnot, the Head of the Famine
Lytton wrote Salisbury on the 16th of August 1877, complaining that the state
of things in Madras was ‘frightful’; that there was ‘the greatest zeal and devotion
complained to Salisbury about the great waste that he believed was being incurred in
the name of famine relief, and the fraud of famine relief funds to feed those who, he
believed, were not truly in need. Salisbury wrote back: ‘I am afraid there is
imposition and waste in all relief camps, but the case of Madras is extreme The
10 f \
worst is that all this waste in the relief camps does not prevent starvation.’ Lytton
clearly wanted to believe that the issue was one of lack of Provincial management of
famine relief, rather than a need for more central funding. In our assessment of the
situation, it appears that the two, however, were intertwined and contributed jointly to
the tragic mortality that occurred during this famine If Imperial funding was stingy
and delayed, the Provincial Government had few means and even less will to ensure
that relief measures were implemented in a way that would ensure that mortality was
prevented.
unity to the administration of famine relief in Madras. The outcome of his visit was
124 This individual was not the same Arbuthnot who was deputed by the Madras Government to visit
the famine affected districts in October 1876.
125 Telegram, Viceroy to SoS, dated August 16, 1877, No. 140, Famine Correspondence 4,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
126 Letter No. 41 from Salisbury to Lytton dated October 8, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4B.
129
that in the middle of August, the administration of famine matters in Madras was
reorganized. The most important change was that control of famine matters was
wrested away from the Madras Board of Revenue and the Madras Famine Department
under J.H. Garstin. Instead, the Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham and
Further, the Famine Department of the Government of India was also reorganized
under Lytton’s personal supervision. Lytton was to complain to Salisbury that ‘it was
Arbuthnot.127
views on the Governor of Madras. Both Salisbury and Lytton considered the Duke of
Accordingly, Lytton was anxious to maintain an Imperial presence- and one that he
could trust- in Madras. He felt the need for an officer who had ‘the confidence of the
Madras and advise him in the discharge of famine relief matters. The Governor
himself was placed directly in charge of the management of famine relief to be ‘free
127 Letter from Lytton to Mallet, dated Ootacamund, 13th September 1877, Letters to Sir Louis Mallet,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/48b.
128 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton, dated May 25th, 1877, No. 19, Letters from Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4A.
129 Letter from O.P. Bume to Sir Louis Mallet, dated Poona, September 23, 1877, Letters to Sir Louis
Mallet, Lytton Collection, IOR/ MSS Eur/48b.
130 Letter from O.P. Bume to Sir Louis Mallet, dated Coimabatore, September 10, 1877, Letters to Sir
Louis Mallet, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/48b.
131 Telegram, Viceroy to SoS, dated August 16, 1877, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/Vol. 59.
130
The Deputation of Kennedy
Department man from Bombay was sent to Madras. Kennedy was chosen for his
appears that Kennedy had been deputed in a similar capacity in August 1877 as had
Temple in January of that year: in order to control the expenditure of the Government
reports about the severity of the famine that might leak out to a critical press and
public in Calcutta and in Britain. Lytton had written to Salisbury that the ‘state of
things in Madras and Mysore (were) frightful’ that there was the greatest ‘greatest
1o o
zeal and devotion everywhere, but want of unity in administrative authority. ’
Kennedy was believed to hold out the hope of bringing famine relief administration in
Madras under Imperial reign. However, even the Imperial Government was not
sanguine about Kennedy’s ability to change the situation. Lytton’s personal secretary
Poor General Kennedy has a task before him which I do not envy, until he can get matters
more into one groove or the Duke to grasp great principles instead of small details.134
Yet, the Viceroy’s visit resulted in a tightening of relief measures. The provision of
relief was made much stricter. In institutional terms, the distinction between
‘ordinary’ and ‘famine relief works was abolished in twelve famine stricken districts.
( ‘Ordinary works’ referred to PWD-run works which imposed a full task in return for
133 Telegram, Viceroy to SoS, dated August 16, 1877, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/Vol. 59.
134 Letter from Col. O.P. Bume to Louis Mallet dated Coimbatore, September 10, 1877, Letters to Sir
Louis Mallet, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/ 48b.
131
payment of the famine wage; while ‘famine relief works’ on the other hand had earlier
admitted all who were in need, and willing to work for the famine wage.)
This meant that tests of need were to be strictly applied. District officials were warned
that ‘relief works to be prevented from becoming unduly attractive’ and that ‘prima
facie evidence was to be required that an individual really required relief. Penalties
works as its backbone, with all gratuitous relief to be temporary and subsidiary to the
main objective to getting people on relief works. The Madras Public Works
works. Persons considered to be ‘capable and in fair health’ were to be drafted onto
Public Works Department works along with their families. The ‘distance test’ of
need was to be applied on PWD works, wherein a person was required to prove his
need for relief by travelling a distance to works. The test of need was considered
complied with when a labourer went to a PWD-managed relief work and performed
the full task exacted. On the few remaining civil works, revenue officials were to
refuse relief to all but the very destitute. Exceptional cases were to be drafted to works
District Collectors and the Madras Board of Revenue were to supervise the
work. The relegation of the Board of Revenue to such an ‘inferior’ position in famine
relief was a source of conflict between the Governments, and there soon came reports
of conflicts between PWD officials and district Collectors in taking on those who
were less than able bodied. While Collectors were keen to avoid a reliance on
132
gratuitous relief by employing all who sought work, PWD officers were unwilling to
resident in localities where kitchens were established, relief was offered in the form of
cooked meals doled out in kitchens once or twice a day on the production of a relief
ticket. In addition, village and town authorities were authorized to provide relief to
persons who were ‘wandering’ in search of food and work. ‘Wanderers’ were to be
fed in villages and passed on to nearest camp. Relief camps in turn were sheltered
spaces where food and rest were provided until the residents were strong enough to be
passed on to relief works. In some cases, light work was imposed as a requisite for
relief in camps. Persons requiring special treatment were to be treated under medical
advice.
Finally, Temple’s ‘safety net’- the provision of relief in villages of those too
weak to work - was to be confined to persons who were incapable of labour or house-
ridden by illness; or prevented by caste status from coming to relief kitchens and
In August 1877, there had arisen a fresh source of tension between the Provincial
and Imperial Governments. On the 4th of August, the Duke of Buckingham and
residents of the city. The main reason of the meeting was to discuss an appeal to be
made in India and England for charitable contributions towards famine relief efforts in
133
the districts and the town of Madras. This endeavour came to be called the Mansion
House Relief Fund or the Indian Charitable Relief Fund. Led by members of the
Indian business community and by William Digby, W. R. Cornish and the Duke of
Buckingham and Chandos, this Committee resolved unanimously at its first meeting
that ‘the increasing severity of the distress arising from the Famine necessitates an
appeal to private charity’ and that the idea of obtaining this charity be communicated
at once by telegram and letter to the Lord Mayors of London, York and Dublin; the
In the light of Temple’s assurances that all was well and under control in Madras in
February 1877, the formation of the Committee six months later was viewed by
Lytton with consternation. During his visit to the Presidency in August 1877, he
informed the Madras Governor that he was ‘unwilling to appeal for public
subscriptions towards Government efforts to keep people alive through the same
means and channels of organization that Government had already occupied. ’139
Lytton informed the Committee that ‘earlier experiments with soliciting private
charity had shown that when Government relief organizations had been placed under
a Central Relief Committee, it has led not only to the Committee being burdened with
additional work, having to render double returns and correspond with an additional
master, but has also led to unseemly conflicts between Government officials and their
superiors. ’140 In addition, Lytton was keen that private relief did not interfere with the
138 The Indian Famine Relief Fund 1876-78 (Henceforth IFRF): Proceedings of Committees and
Personal Agencies, Final Reports &c. August 1877 to April 1879, Madras; Ch.l, p. 4.
139 Letter No.772 (Famine) from Additional Secretary, Government of India, to Secretary, Government
of Bengal, dated Governor General’s Camp, Madras, 31st August 1877, Famine Correspondence 4,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
140 Ibid.
134
strict economy in the relief kitchens and camps. There was a final consideration which
underlay Imperial opposition to the appeal for private charity. This was that Lytton
had already begun planning to tax the Indian business community in Madras and
Bombay, on account of famine relief efforts, despite public pronouncements that the
famine was under control. To appeal to them for private contributions at this juncture
would lay the ground for resentment and protest when the Famine Cess was
In order to meet the heavy drain on the finances of India, which the Madras and Bombay
famines are already causing, the Government of India will sooner or later be obliged to
resort to heavy taxation.. .the very class whom the Government would be obliged to tax
might be the same class from whom subscriptions might be levied.141
The friction between the two Governments over the prospect of applying for
private charitable funds came to a head when the Calcutta Times published a report
stating that the Supreme Government was against soliciting private charity.142
The efforts of the Madras Government to solicit private funds in aid of famine
relief, however, had support from London-based Britons. The effects of the Times
report was reported to the Indian Famine Relief Fund General Committee (henceforth
termed the Committee) by the mayor of London, who forwarded twenty thousand
Twenty thousand pounds herewith. Telegram in today’s Times deprecating private efforts
as Government will do all necessary. How does your Grace propose to distribute the
funds- during the last famine, a Local Committee was appointed.143
Times states this morning from Calcutta Government deprecates private charity, unless
officially contradicted will prevent further subscription. 44
141 Ibid.
1421FRF1876-78: No. 1, p. 9.
143 T
135
The reply of the Central Committee of the Fund in consonance with the Duke of
Buckingham expressed less than sanguine sentiments about the ability of official
famine relief to reach the famine stricken. The inability of existing administrative
.. .The Duke’s Madras meeting... was in many ways terribly inconvenient. 146
A political crisis between India and Madras was finally avoided by the Central
note is that in August 1877, over a year after the first signs of distress, an admission
of the inability of the state to manage the crisis was forced on the Government of
There was much debate amongst the members of the Committee regarding what the
objectives of the Fund should be. It was resolved that, since Government relief was
focused on the relief of those who were in absolute need, the Relief Fund should focus
on those whom the Government system could not reach. These included grants of
money to sharecroppers and cultivators who had been reduced to poverty by the
144 Ibid.
145 Ibid.
146 Salisbury to Lytton, Letter no.37, dated September 13, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4B.
147 Ibid.
136
famine; the clothing of women whose destitution had left them naked; and the care of
children orphaned by the famine. Essentially, the Fund was intended originally to
people who were immediately above the class of the utterly destitute. In addition, the
endeavours, to the extent that this effort was not detrimental to their official duties.148
The Relief Fund continued its operations from September 1877 to the end of 1879. In
the course of its functioning, Local Committees and sub-Committees were formed in
every district, and district officials often played a key role in the administration of the
The Proceedings of the Fund revealed several cases where Government relief was
either not provided, or was being provided in a limited and ineffective way. The
of relief at the district and village level. In some cases, village heads would refuse to
go into the Pariah settlements within the village in order to inspect the condition of
the people or to disburse relief.149 William Digby, Editor of the Madras Times and a
staunch critic of Government policy, quoted from relief reports in which it was noted
148 The Notification issued was as follows :’It is the desire of Government that public servants of all
grades should give all the assistance they can render without detriment to their official duties, to the
formation of Local Committees; and generally to promote the objects which the Famine Relief
Committees and subscribers of the Famine Relief Fund have in view.’ (Proceedings of the Government
of Madras in the Public Department, dated 24th September 1877, published in IFRF1876-78, No. 4,
p.l).
149 Digby, The Famine Campaign Vol. 1, p. 139-140.
137
that ‘village heads are beginning to understand to whom they are not to give food.
Whether they are equally clear as who is entitled to be fed may be open to doubt. ’150
In several cases, relief meant for agricultural labourers and the untouchable castes was
the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund than in the case of the management of state
relief with regard to relief camps and works. However, Government officials were
perfectly aware of these networks and turned a blind eye to them in their
administration of private famine relief funds. For example, in June 1878, Reverend
involving the son of a European district collector. Several ryots had approached him,
as the Joint Vice President of the Erode sub-divisional committee of the Mansion
House Fund in the Coimbatore district, with a complaint of extortion against the Patel
and Karnam of the Vanjaman Gudalur village. The Karnam had, it seems, taken away
half of the money allotted to them by the Famine Relief Committee for the purpose of
seed com and bullocks, under a threat of using his influence with the Tahsildar
against them Upon receiving this complaint, Little contacted the officials in charge of
famine relief at the district level, and was told that they could not help him
Thereafter, Little asked a Native complainant to try the case in court, but the
man, a Brahmin named Ramaswami Aiyangar, had refused. Instead, the son of the
District Collector had tried the case, and the appeal of the ryots was dismissed on
grounds of insufficient evidence. In his letter, Little explained the facts of the case and
150 Digby, The Famine Campaign in Southern India, Vol.l, Madras, 1878,p. 140.
138
established the guilt of the Patel and Karnam. Yet, the Government Pleader expressed
the opinion that although the law provided for the prosecution of public servants who
were found guilty of cheating or extortion in the exercise of their official functions;
distribution of the Mansion House funds was not an official function. Little’s
‘misappropriation of the Mansion House funds’; the same official later went on to
explain that he had intended to complain about the tendency of Christian priests to
distribute the money to ‘only the untouchable and lower castes’, without ‘sparing a
1 S9
thought for the more respectable classes of the famine stricken. ’ Other cases of
cheating and extortion were levied against lawyers and merchants in Madras city in
The distribution of funds was often the source of bribery, bullying and extortion
amongst local and village officials; which the Government was powerless to prevent
or restrain due to the lack of a legal status for the Fund.154 What appears to have
happened is that as official relief failed to tackle the crisis at the most basic level by
labouring classes, and excluding small cultivators, the artificial line between those in
151 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department, dated 16thJanuary 1878, No.
107, TNSA.
152 The talook sheristedar, Mr. A. C. Subba Row, had at a meeting of the Mansion House Local
Committee of the Ami and Polur talooks of the North Arcot district, alleged that ‘Roman Catholic
priests had systematically misapplied’ famine relief funds. Subba Rao, when questioned by the district
Collector, Mr. Whiteside, explained that ‘in his opinion, the relief money was sent to India not for the
relief of Pariahs or other low castes, but solely for the relief of the respectable upper classes of the
Native community; and as the Roman Catholic priests had, he believed, expended the money in the
relief of all classes and castes whom they found to be distressed, he considered himself justified in
characterising their action as a misapplication of relief money’.(Proceedings of the GoM in the Judicial
Department, dated 20th April 1878, G.O. No. 822).
153 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department dated 30th September 1878,
Nos. 184-185, G.O. Number 1989, TNSA.
154 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department, dated November 16, 1878,
Nos. 52-53, GO No. 2317, TNSA.
139
danger of starvation and those who were merely in distress became increasingly
difficult to maintain. In these circumstances, even village officials and petty officials
fell victim to famine. Whilst the initial objectives of the Fund were to avoid
taking on the people left out of Government structures after the reorganization of
The final sum collected by the Relief Fund amounted to Rs.800, 000. Most of this
money was channelled to the districts through Local Committees, which were heavily
The amount collected by the Fund was miniscule when compared with officially
sponsored relief. Yet, its effects were arguably quite significant, although not
believing that European missionary organizations were closer and more reliable to
official administration than private Native charity, channelled most of the money to
district and local committees which they were in charge of. This decision appears to
155 Reverend J. Strachan, one of the prominent founding members of the IFRF, received a request from
Mr. Oldham, the Famine relief Officer of Adoni talooka in Bellary, one of the worst affected districts,
in early October. Oldham stated that the effect of the Government order of 24th September
(concentrating relief work in the hands of the PWD and tightening strictures would be to ‘throw a large
number of people on the Fund’ .Oldham stated that he had received orders to throw 5000 people daily
off the rolls of gratuitous relief in villages and requested the Fund to make a grant in aid to of Rs. 3000
each for November and December 1877, from which those on government sponsored relief works
could be ‘bodily ‘ transferred from Government relief to the Fund. Strachan asked whether the
members of the General Committee ‘ought to take over those whom Government refuse to support?’ It
was resolved by the Committee that as a general principle, persons who under the GO dated 24th
September cease to receive village relief, and who.. .are unable to have recourse to Relief Works or
Relief Camps.. .must be considered as proper subjects.. .of the Famine Relief Fund’ However the Local
committees of the Fund were considered as being ‘not justified in taking over in large bodies persons
whom Government refuse to support.’ (IFRF, No. 4, p. 1.)
140
have had important consequences. The Census of 1881 found that the proportion of
the population who reported themselves as Christian had increased since the 1871
census and at least partly attributed this to religious conversions during the famine.156
That the famine had had a significant effect on religious conversions is also
noting that there was a sharp increase in the Christian population between 1871 and
Oddie also suggests that the economic explanation is not sufficient to account for the
Trichinopoly over a series of generations prior to the famine. In other words, religious
conversions were spurred by more complex motives than merely the desire to keep
body and soul together to seek upward economic mobility.157 (Further exploration of
It is, of course, difficult to quantify how far the operations of the Mansion House
this is understandably vague. Yet, one can argue that the Mansion House Fund, a
semi-Govemment famine relief fund which was specifically set up on the admission
of the failure of the state to tackle pauperization and starvation, had significant social
effects in the sense of lending official support to missionary activities for the purpose
of famine relief. This would then imply that disorganized Government relief and
156 The Census of 1881, an official document confirmed this. The Census report stated that ‘In 1871,
one fourth of Christians were in the Famine Districts which contained above two fifths of the total
population. In this tract in 1881, while the total population had decreased by 13 per cent, the Christian
population had increased 35 l/ i per cent. In only one district did Famine Mortality outstrip the
numerical results of Missionary labours. In every other district, famine and Non-famine, they have
increased. The Famine appears to have been the Missionaries’ opportunity, for the number of
conversions is believed to have been largest in the worst years.’ (Census of India 1881, Vol. 1, Madras
1883, p. 43).
157 G.A. Oddie, Hindu and Christian in South East Asia, 1991, pp. 153, 154, 157.
141
disputes between different levels of Government, which led to starvation, death and
pauperization on a large scale, provided the space for religious conversions on a scale
which might not have been possible in non-famine periods. (An interesting question,
which this study has not been able to address within its scope, would be the extent to
which state welfare policy contributed to religious conversion and other social
In September and October 1877, there were torrential rains in the Presidency, leading
to the destruction of existing crops in some parts of the Presidency. Thereafter, the
numbers on relief works fell, so that more than three fourths of these had left by
October 1877. Prices however continued to remain high till November. In December
1877, the Madras Government ordered that the provision of gratuitous relief in relief
camps be closed.
east monsoon promised to be normal. From November 1877 onwards, the Madras
Public Works Department began to petition the Government of Madras to abolish the
distinction between professional and famine relief works, so that the PWD could be
relief works had resulted in friction between the Public Works Department and the
District Collectors during the middle of 1877. In Nellore district, there arose a dispute
between the district Collector and the district engineer over how to deal with paupers
incapable of performing 50% of the task. The Collector insisted that to refuse work to
142
someone on the basis of unfitness to perform a task was to swell the numbers on
gratuitous relief, whilst the district engineer wished to turn off those who were unfit
However, the condition of the people was far from sanguine. The winter crops were
planted much later than usual; and excessive rainfall of July and August 1877 had
spoiled a large proportion of the crops that were planted. There were a series of
attacks by locusts in several places across the Presidency. District officials expressed
the fear that there would be another famine in the middle of 187 8.158 This fear was
later stated to be ‘unfounded’.159 Official relief began to wind down in early 1878. In
February 1878, the Government of Madras stated that it was satisfied that workers on
Public Works were capable of doing the full task; whilst the weaker labourers were to
be drafted off onto civil works. In March and April 1878, ordinary ‘budgeted’ public
works were started in several districts; whilst civil works continued to employ famine
labour160. Village relief was completely discontinued in the districts of Madura and
Tinnevelly from the end of February 1878; and shortly thereafter in the others.
Between March and April 1878, several famine relief works were ordered to be
stopped; and to absorb the labour thus set free, ordinary Local Fund and Provincial
works were begun. State sponsored famine relief was officially closed in May that
year. However, it appears that there was still considerable distress in the Presidency.
As we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5, cases of emaciation and starvation were reported
143
Conclusion: State Intervention and Famine Policy in Madras 1876-78
It will, it is hoped, be evident from this chapter that famine policy in Madras was
shaped by a variety of influences during 1876-78. Not all of these were determined by
the Government of India, and in fact, Provincial famine policy was almost a direct
which stated principles of famine relief were laid out on several occasions through the
practice, however, the state did intervene on several occasions in famine processes.
Madras, in which the state was morally responsible for preventing starvation and mass
mortality. This belief was in part utilitarian in that prevention of distress through
employment was seen as preventing a far worse dependence on gratuitous relief. Yet,
it had humanitarian elements too. Several administrators believed that the state had a
moral duty to intervene to prevent agrarian distress from accelerating into starvation
and mass mortality. Thus, beliefs did matter, but both non-intervention and
to famine.
The above account however also suggests that in the Madras context, administrative
144
policy based on large works managed by the Public Works Department could be
applied. There was considerable ambiguity between India and Madras in determining
what was meant by ‘large works’. Further, it appears that it was extremely difficult to
make the PWD the ultimate source of management for famine relief works in a
context where the Madras Board of Revenue and the district Collectors were seen by
peasantry. The PWD itself was not happy to accept the responsibility for famine
relief. (This was strikingly the case in Mysore where the Chief Engineer of the PWD
obdurately refused to admit weak workers to his works for lower wages until Lytton
had to intervene by dismissing him.)161 Another administrative factor that limited the
relief system whereby payments had to be made daily to avoid exhaustion, and the
with district realities in Madras, which made for difficulties in enforcing the large
works policy.
The inability of the Government to enforce a large works policy in Madras- also
enables us to evaluate the relevance for Madras of the argument, made by Sanjay
Sharma in the context of famine relief in the North Western Provinces in 1837-38,
161 Lytton wrote to Mallet of the Mysore episode: ‘I have been obliged to remove Sankey from the
administration of the Department of Public Works.. .strictly speaking there has not been a single relief
labourer on public works in Mysore since the beginning of the famine till now- and all because Sankey
chose to consider famine relief as no business of his. I anticipate that the arrangements now made have
brought several thousands of the persons now in receipt of gratuitous relief, upon well supervised
works... ’ (Letter from Lytton to Mallet, dated Ootacamund, 13th September 1877, Letters to Sir Louis
Mallet, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/48b).
145
that relief provided on large works enabled the structural expansion of the colonial
state. In Madras, this does not appear to have been the case. Famine relief was
provided on large works inconsistently, and labour was concentrated on the repair of
small tanks and wells. The ‘structural expansion of the colonial state’ was thus quite
limited.
Sharma’s point regarding the role played by the state in reforming traditional forms
appears to have some resonance in the Madras context. However, it would appear that
individual officials had different attitudes to private charity, and that at a later stage in
detrimental to the effort of saving lives. Thus, it would appear that institutionalization
was itself inconsistent. Further, late in 1877, private charitable relief through the
Mansion House Fund appears to have become a safety net- albeit a flimsy one- for
those left out of Governmental relief. Thus, in the Madras context, private charity and
official initiatives intertwined in ways that were less consistent than Sharma’s account
Finally, individuals such as the Duke of Buckingham, William Robinson and William
great deal to the way in which famine relief policy was finally worked out in Madras.
The agency of individual officials in policy decisions at the Provincial and district
levels has not often been recognized in the context of discussions about ‘the colonial
state’. Yet, the history of this famine does provide ample evidence of such agency
146
path during the famine due to the role played by individuals, although it did not
famine event as well as between different famine events, individuals did change their
stance on intervention, as did Salisbury between January and May 1877 and Temple
between 1874 and 1877. These changes had significant consequences, both in an
immediate as well as a long term setting. ‘Personalities and politics’ thus played a
significant role in shaping famine policy both during the famine of 1876-78, as well
as in subsequent decades.
147
Chapter 2 William Robert Cornish and State Intervention during the
Madras Famine
I. Introduction
William Robert Cornish was one of the most prominent individuals in the
history of the famine of 1876-78. Cornish is well-known by famine historians for his
debate with Richard Temple over the issue of the adequacy of famine relief wages,
where he suggested that Temple’s standard of a pound of grain per day for men and
half an anna in cash be replaced by a higher wage of one and a half pounds of grain
per day and half an anna in cash. The wage became symbolic of a harsh famine
amongst famine labourers. Although the reduced wage was adopted, at least in theory,
for three months, the Government of Madras replaced it in May 1877 with Cornish’s
standard, despite Imperial support for the “Temple ration”, as it was termed. Besides
his role in official famine relief policy, Cornish also produced a wealth of medical and
demographic observations which have been used extensively by social and medical
order to explain, understand and contextualize his contributions to famine relief and
policy and to the demography of famine. We suggest that there were three important
factors in understanding Cornish’s role during this famine. The first relates to his
idealism regarding the practice of public health. The second relates to the prevailing
relationship between different levels of colonial Government and the medical services
1 See Bhatia, Famines in India, pp. 95-6 Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, op. cit., D. Arnold, ‘Social
Crisis and Epidemic Disease in the Famines of Nineteenth Century India’, Social History of Medicine.
6,3 (December 1993): 385-404; idem, ‘The “Discovery” o f Malnutrition and Diet in Colonial India’
IESHR. 31,1 (1994): 1-26; Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’, op. cit., Klein,
‘When the Rains Failed’, op. cit., Lardinois, ‘Famine, Epidemics and Mortality in South India’, op. cit.
148
during the famine of 1876-78. This relationship was marked by divisions over
intervention in social and economic processes and tension over financing of public
health schemes, and these divisions were crucial to Cornish’s prominence during the
famine. The third relates to conditions internal to the Indian Medical Services. As
Mark Harrison has shown, the IMS was marked by professional competition in the top
rungs of the services, and by animated discussions about the causes of epidemic
disease and the possibility and desirability of state investment in public health and
preventive medicine.2 While Harrison’s work shows how these divisions influenced
the making of medical policy, I will argue that these divisions also shaped famine
policy through Comish, and arguably the whole question of state economic and
William Robert Comish was bom in 1828, into a farming family in the parish of
Butleigh in Somerset. All evidence points to the conclusion that he was unusually
talented and hardworking. Mark Harrison, in his discussion of the social origins of
IMS recruits, finds that the largest proportion of IMS men were sons of British
medical practitioners between 1850 and 1914. Between 1855 and 1896, an increasing
number were sons of businessmen, civil servants, clergymen, and ‘new professionals’.
What is important is that very few IMS men came from farming families, and in fact,
the ‘farmer’ proportion of the IMS remained remarkably small between 1855 and
2 Harrison, Public Health in British India, esp. chs. 4 and 5; Idem., Climates and Constitutions, esp.
chs. 3 and 4.
149
1914, as Harrison’s study shows.3 Comish came from this minute proportion of
into the Madras Medical Department, rather than the Bengal or Bombay departments,
which, Harrison suggests, were more prestigious.5 One hypothesis would be that he
lacked the money and status necessary to obtain an appointment in the other
provinces. Whatever the case, Cornish’s career, both before and after his appointment
to the IMS, was marked by professional recognition and relative success. He was
awarded the gold medal for clinical surgery by the Hospital Board at St. George’s
during his training there in the early 1850’s and obtained the appointment with the
the IMS appointment on account of having ‘distinguished himself by his studies and
good behaviour and by his persevering industry’ and for ‘the success which has
uniformly attended his competition for prizes’.7 What is more, at the time of his
retirement in 1885, Comish belonged to the tiny minority of IMS officers in the
Madras service who had acquired the prestigious FRCS.8 In 1920-21, almost a quarter
3 Harrison, Public Health in British India, p. 28, 236. Appendix A on p. 236 of Harrison’s study shows
that between the yearsl855 and 1884, less than 4% o f all IMS recruits were sons o f farmers. This
proportion went up to 4.4% between 1885 and 1896; and down to 2.6% between 1897 and 1914.
4 Military Records, Assistant Surgeon Papers, Certificate No.32 of 1853/54, C.B. 18 of 1854,
IOR/MIL/9/935
5 Harrison, Public Health in British India, pp. 23-25.
6 Obituary: William Robert Comish, F.R.C. S., C.I.E, Etc., Surgeon-General, I.M.S. (Retd.), BMJ, Vol.
II for 1897, p. 1299-1300.
7 Recommendation dated 15th February 1854, by Joseph Gunning, o f St. George’s Hospital Board,
Military Records, Assistant Surgeon Papers, IOR/MIL/9/935.
8 This referred to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) or the Fellowship of the
Royal College o f Physicians (FRCP). Harrison shows that less than 10% o f IMS recruits between the
years of 1851 and 1890 were elected to either fellowship (Public Health in British India, p. 20).
150
of a century after his death, he was recognized as a pioneer for his work on ‘famine
Cornish was about 25 years old when he joined the IMS.10 He was deputed to the
Madras Medical Department in 1854. By this time, his father had died and his mother
was living in London. After serving for 3 years as a military surgeon-the common rite
of passage for a young IMS recruit- he was appointed the Civil Surgeon of the
Coimbatore district in 1857. In 1858, he was appointed the Secretary to the Principal
Inspector General (later the Surgeon General) of the Madras Medical Department, in
which capacity he served till 1870. Cornish’s selection to the post of Secretary to the
acumen, ambition, and professional recognition of what his obituarist called his ‘very
exceptional merit’.11 He also authored the first Provincial Census Report in 1871 and
played a significant role in preparing the second report of 1881, where his calculations
Throughout his career in India, he held a number of honorary and official posts. He
was Secretary of the Madras Medical Fund- a contributory pension scheme for IMS
officers and their families- from 1864 tol870.12 Cornish edited some issues of the
9 See J.A. Nixon, ‘Famine dropsy and pioneer work in India’, Proceedings o f the Royal Society o f
Medicine Section o f the History o f Medicine, 14 (1920-21): 1-2.
10 This is calculated from the date of baptism, which is 7th September 1828. (Military Records,
Assistant Surgeon Papers, IOR/MIL/9/935.
11 ‘Obituary’, p. 1299.
12 Ibid.
151
Medical Department which was published irregularly during the 1860s. He founded
the Madras Philharmonic Society, and was a keen horticulturist and enthusiast of the
1^
Madras Botanical Gardens.
administrator by his peers and by the Government. This is made evident through an
incident which occupied some official attention. In 1872, he devised a scheme which
sought to ‘bribe’ Indian mothers in the city of Madras with money to permit their
children to be vaccinated and allow the extraction of vaccine lymph from their arms.
The Madras Vaccination Depot had for years struggled to maintain an adequate
inefficiency, despite the provision of food to mothers and children who came to be
vaccinated. Cornish communicated his idea about a money payment to Dr. John
Shortt, a peer of Cornish’s in the IMS, and the Inspector General of the Vaccination
Department at the time.14 The ‘bribery scheme’, as it was called by the Government of
Madras and by Cornish and Shortt, was hugely successful in the first two years of its
application. Large numbers of mothers and children came to the Vaccine Depot in
Madras city. (The scheme fell through a few years later due to a miscalculation of the
13 ‘Obituary’, p. 1299.
14 Shortt and Cornish had both joined the Madras Medical Department in 1854. See D. G. Crawford,
Roll o f the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930, London, 1930, p. 343-44. Through the 1870’s until
Shortt’s retirement in 1877, the two often entered into bitter disputes about vaccination policy. When a
dedicated Vaccination Department was organized for the first time in 1865, Shortt was appointed
Inspector General and held this post until 1875, when the Vaccination Department was subordinated to
the Sanitary Department. Cornish scored an important point with this amalgamation, when the post of
Inspector General of Vaccination was changed to Deputy Sanitary Commissioner and made
subordinate to that o f the Sanitary Commissioner’s post. An interesting aspect to this professional
rivalry might have come from the fact that Shortt had not been recruited directly to the Indian Medical
Service as had Cornish. He obtained a commission in the IMS by nomination from the Subordinate
Medical Department, and worked his way up the senior service. See Crawford, A History o f the Indian
Medical Services, Vol. 2, London, 1914, p. 111.
152
extent to which a money payment would entice people, as well as lack of official
Cornish had a public dispute with two other senior medical officials over the
intellectual origins of the ‘bribery scheme’ immediately after this flush of success.
These officials were Dr. Shortt and Edward Balfour, then Inspector General of the
Madras Medical Department. Balfour claimed that the idea of substituting money for
rice was first suggested to him by John Shortt.15 Shortt himself claimed in his report
for 1872-3 that the experiment was conducted ‘under his personal supervision’.16
Conversely, Cornish insisted that the idea of bribing the people had been put into
effect by Shortt only after he, Cornish suggested it to him, and that there was evidence
of this meeting in the form of pencilled notes that Cornish had made in Shortt’s office
during the meeting, owing to the fact of Shortt being deaf. Shortt in turn informed
Cornish that he had not kept the notes that Cornish had given him during the
meeting.17
Proceedings. Cornish insinuated that Shortt’s physical handicap of deafness may have
prevented him from fully recollecting the conversation that Cornish carried out with
him in pencilled notes, wherein the idea of ‘bribery’ was suggested. Shortt, in
response to this, was ambiguous about Cornish’s role and skirted the issue of who had
15 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated October 15th, 1874, Nos.
49-51, G.O. No. 1134, TNSA.
16 Annual Report on Vaccination in the Madras Presidency fo r 1872-3, Madras 1874, p. 9.
17 Letter from Dr. W. R. Cornish, Sanitary Commissioner of Madras, to the Secretary to Government,
Fort St. George, No. 1238 dated Madras, 1st October 1874, enclosed in Proceedings o f the Government
of Madras in the Public Department, dated October 15th, 1874, Nos. 49-51, G.O. No. 1134, TNSA.
153
due to Dr. Shortt imperfectly recollecting my communication to him and the
importance. The great success and vigorous pursuit (of the bribery scheme) must have
Cornish insisted that he- and not Shortt- be recognized by the Madras Government
and the Madras Medical Department as the brain behind the scheme, despite the fact
that Shortt had implemented the scheme. Ultimately, Cornish succeeded in eliciting
an official apology from Shortt and from Balfour, both of whom recognized his
claim.19 Cornish’s persuasive powers and bureaucratic skills, in evidence during this
episode, served him in good stead throughout his career as a medical official. One
important aspect of these skills was his ability to put forth written evidence in a
logical sequence to convince his medical superiors and non-medical officials in the
Quite clearly, Cornish had a keen sense of duty and professional commitment. He
appears not only to have aspired to the proper performance of his tasks as a
Government servant; but also desired official recognition of his ideas about public
health, disease transmission and indeed, of the workings of Indian society and health-
seeking behaviour. These ideas had two aspects: firstly, they can be seen as
factors- not just filth or climate- took precedence. But more generally, they can also
be seen as the product of an interventionist and paternalistic approach, which was one
of several official attitudes to the governance of Indian society. Based on the belief
that a scientific and sympathetic study of Indian society, personality and human
character was the basis for state intervention, and in turn that intervention was a
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
154
product of enlightened European governance, this stance sat uneasily with other
approaches and beliefs which were more fatalistic about the impossibility,
governance amongst British administrators in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century. For example, Eric Stokes’ classic study of political thought amongst British
administrators casts Thomas Munro, the first Governor of Madras and one of the main
architects of the ryotwari system, as belonging to one - if the last- generation of men
who believed that the task of European colonization was ‘to take the peasant in all his
simplicity, to secure him in the possession of his land, and so to avoid all the
spring directly from that current of contemporary thought which literary historians
utilitarianism after Munro as a victory in the battle between two ideologies: the one
155
were a significant part).21 Burton Stein’s biography of Thomas Munro also casts this
arrogance and certainties.. ..a hinge connecting the long development of South Indian
22
rural political and cultural institutions with the long nineteenth century imperial era’.
It would perhaps not be going too far to state that some aspects of Munro’s vision -of
political and social institutions- survived into the late nineteenth century, both in the
Clive Dewey’s detailed study of the personal papers of two Indian Civil
Service officials also points to two sets of intellectual trends amongst ICS officers at
9 ‘X
the end of the nineteenth century. The one saw the task of European governance as
termed the ‘cult of friendship’. Cornish can be said to have represented a combination
scientifically Indian society and culture which can be linked with eighteenth century
Munro 24
There are fewer (in fact almost no) secondary works which deal with intellectual
trends, social position and ideas amongst medical officials recruited by the East India
21 Ibid, pp. 19-21. See also Idem, The Political Ideas o f English Imperialism: An Inaugural lecture
given in the University College o f Rhodesia and Nyasaland, London, 1960.
22 B. Stein, Thomas Munro: The Origins o f the Colonial State and His Vision o f Empire, Delhi, 1989,
p. 5.
23 Dewey, The Mind o f the Indian Civil Service, New Delhi, 1993.
24 ’Stein, Munro, op. cit.
156
Company, and after 1858, the Provincial Governments, except for Mark Harrison’s
studies. Harrison suggests that the low status of the medical profession in Britain was
employment and over-staffing led to much dissatisfaction amongst many young IMS
recruits.25 Accordingly, most recruits entered the service with few ambitions and with
little predilection for medicine, and the professional aspirations of many IMS men can
be said to have been modest. Further, Harrison finds that the uncertain official and
legal status of most IMS men positively discouraged innovation in theory and
practice, leading to fatalism and indifference to the plight of Indian people. 26 For most
IMS men, then, a career as a colonial medical official was a means to a secure, if
In another work, however, Harrison suggests that despite the general mediocrity of
the majority of IMS recruits, the impulse towards sanitary reform in the mid
thus part of a growing trend towards reform and intervention, in which the medical
services played an important part. Harrison points out quite rightly that this reformist
of Indian sanitary practices. Yet, those officials who voiced critical opinions were
clearly in the minority and had few hopes that their sanitary critique of the colonial
157
Yet other clues come from Richard Grove’s study of the origins of environmentalism
such generalizations to the nineteenth century. Grove suggests that there did exist a
sensitive and atypical interest in the culture and welfare of the indigenous population
with an equivalent concern to develop public works specifically related to the basic
resource needs of the population’, and that ‘this concern for basic needs far
outweighed more short term commercial consideration’.28 Grove suggests that for an
understanding of the intellectual origins of such ideas amongst medical men, we must
turn to men like Alexander van Humboldt, Joseph Hume and J.B. Boussingalt,
evangelical fervour.29 For these men, argues Grove, man’s natural environment was
seen as possessing value in much wider terms than the purely commercial. This in
turn fed into what Grove terms an ‘anticolonial’ sentiment amongst a small minority
of IMS officials.30 Grove’s use of this term would tend to indicate that despite the
fact that these officials gained authority, status and remuneration through their
affiliation with the colonial state, they were still critical of the way in which non
These studies indicate that Cornish appears to have had some predecessors, who were
concerned about the welfare of the people in a wider moral and material sense than is
evident amongst the majority of civil servants or IMS recruits in India. Quite clearly,
28 R. H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins o f
Environmentalism, 1600- I860, Cambridge, 1995, p. 448.
29 On the influence o f Alexander von Humboldt on medical thought and colonial medical geography in
the nineteenth century, see N.A. Rupke, ‘Humboldtian Medicine’, Medical History. 40, 3 (July 1996):
293-310. Rupke argues that a significant aspect of Humboldtian medicine was its commitment to a
theory of causation that stressed ‘natural’ rather than ‘social’ causes. (Ibid., pp. 307-309).
30 A
Grove, Green Imperialism , p. 426.
158
he belonged to a small minority. At the same time, a detailed analysis of the
intellectual origins of his ideas must remain obscure for lack of sources on his
Cornish seems to have been a talented, hardworking and ambitious man. His
aspirations were rewarded by recognition both within the medical profession and by
the Madras Government. In 1880, he was promoted from the post of Sanitary
*11
he became one of just six officers in the entire history of the Indian Medical Services
to have skipped four intermediate ranks to succeed to the highest civil medical post in
the Presidency. D.G. Crawford, historian of the Indian Medical Service mentions that
Cornish ‘never held the rank of Deputy Surgeon General, and on appointment as
Surgeon General, went over all four (existing) Deputy Surgeons General and seven
have no evidence on how his peers viewed him, his rapid promotion must surely have
raised several hackles within the Madras Service. It is also extremely likely that this
rapid rise in professional status might have had to do a lot with his very prominent
public role in support of the Madras Government’s famine policy against that of the
honour which was usually reserved for senior bureaucrats.33 He was appointed
31 ‘Obituary’, p. 1299; Mountstuart Elphinstone (1885?), ‘Draft o f a speech in honour ofW.R. Cornish,
Surgeon-General ofMadras on his retirement, with notes on his career and distinguished predecessors
in the Madras Medical Service ’, Private Papers of Mountstuart Elphinstone as Governor of Madras,
IOR/MSS/Eur/F234/l 18.
32 D.G. Crawford, Roll o f the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930, London, 1930, p. 343.
33 Mountstuart Elphinstone, ‘Draft o f a speech in honour o f W.R. Cornish ’, op. cit.
34 Ibid.
159
Despite the recognition of his merit by the Government of India, Comish achieved
significant part in compiling the Madras Famine Code of 1882. He retired in 1885 and
returned to England.
empire, its people and health issues. In the last years of his life, he was a member or
fellow of several medical societies: the British Institute of Preventive Medicine, the
Sanitary Assurance Association, the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, and the
branch of the British Medical Association till his death in Worthing in 1897 at the age
of 69.36
II. State Intervention, Public Health and the Indian Medical Services
Comish participated and in some cases played a prominent role in the professional
culture of the Indian Medical Services during the middle three decades of the
nineteenth century. Debates over the origins of epidemic disease, their character in an
Indian setting, and the means of prevention, control or cure were the subject of much
lively and animated discussion, not just among officers within a Provincial Medical
160
While protecting the health of European military and civilian populations was an
important motivating factor behind these discussions on disease, it seems evident that
there were other aspects to these endeavours, which have not always been taken into
account by previous writers on the colonial medical services. It would appear that for
cynical administration was a major preoccupation. The repeatedly expressed need for
accurate vital statistics of the population pointed to this aspect.37 Another aspect of
medical inquiries into disease causation in a colonial setting pertained to their value
these populations. Previous historians have tended to take for granted that this value
was recognized by non-medical administrators, and that the medical services were an
However, it would appear that non-medical administrators were not always convinced
either of the scientific status of medical inquiries, or of the value of medical ‘science’
towns and villages, IMS officials were also concerned with wider medical questions
pertaining to the endemic disease amongst the general population, and with the
37 On the origins of social statistics and their status as science, see D. R. Headrick, When Information
Came o f Age: Technologies o f Knowledge in the Age o f Reason and Revolution, Oxford, 2000, Ch. 3.
(Transforming Information: The Origin of Statistics). Headrick’s reading of how statistics transformed
social policy in the western world would appear somewhat idealistic in the context of nineteenth
century India, where the ‘avalanche o f printed numbers’ does not seem to have corresponded quite so
closely to visions of orderly progress, as much as they recorded European administrative desperation to
understand and control a reality that bewildered them.
38 C f Arnold, ‘Medicine and Colonialism’ in W. F. Bynum and R. Porter (eds.) Companion
Encyclopaedia o f the History o f Medicine Vol. 2., London, 1993, p. 1411.
161
39
peculiarities, both medical and social, of diseases in an Indian setting. However,
their recommendations regarding prevention were not always taken into account and
were often handicapped by lack of knowledge about the precise character of epidemic
In 1869 and 1870, Comish wrote two reports examining the history of the
cholera reports of those two years. In his report, Comish challenged the theory
propounded by the Statistical Assistant with the Government of India, Dr. J.L.
Bryden, who suggested that the movement of cholera had nothing to do with
contagion or human contact, but was borne by winds. Comish argued that all evidence
pointed to the likelihood that cholera was indeed transmitted through human contact,
Yet, Comish did not rigidly endorse a contagionist theory of epidemics, where
human beings were seen as foci of filth and thereby disease. As will be seen in this
and other chapters, his was essentially a multicausal view of disease causation, in
39 These debates were particularly pronounced in the case of cholera and fever epidemics, which were a
source of deep fear and considerable anxiety on the part of medical officials due to their threat to
European military and civilian health. This anxiety is manifest in the number of pages devoted to
cholera epidemics in annual sanitary reports. (This usually far outnumbered the number of pages given
to other diseases or medical concerns). See also Harrison, Public Health in British India, ch.4, ‘Cholera
Theory and Sanitary Policy’; idem, Climates and Constitutions, ch.4, ‘Epidemics and the Ideology of
Improvement 1800- I860’. However, the pages of hospital and dispensary reports, as well as medical
journals such as the Madras Journal o f Medical Science point to the fact that other sorts of activities,
such as medical curiosities, surgical operations and snakebites, also were of considerable interest.
40 The notion of ‘predisposing causes’ occupied a central role in eighteenth and early nineteenth
century medical thought. Chris Hamlin argues that medical theories based on concepts of
predisposition were important reasons for medical men to oppose Edwin Chadwick’s sanitary
programme in England which sought to reduce the causes o f disease to filth. (See C. Hamlin ,
‘Predisposing Causes and Public Health in Early Nineteenth Century Medical Thought’, Social History
of Medicine. 5,1(1992): 43-70. Within this notion of disease, causality was complex and sophisticated,
and could not be reduced to a single factor such as ‘filth’. Disease meant a deviation from health, and
162
epidemic of fever in the Godavery and Kistna districts in 1873-4, Comish entered into
an argument with the Surgeon General of the Madras Medical Department, Dr.
Edward Balfour, who believed that irrigation and water-logging in these districts was
the main reason for increased fever mortality. Suggestions that irrigation made
regions unhealthy and promoted the circulation of miasmas had formed an important
wished to curtail the construction of public works from borrowed money on financial
grounds.41 However, Comish argued on the basis of a district surgeon’s reports that
the epidemic had less to do with irrigation than with the movements of miasmatic
winds over mountain ranges and marshy lands before they entered these districts.
Thus irrigation works were not causative of fever epidemics. On the contrary, state
investment in irrigation works had a positive role to play in the prevention of disease
notion of extensive state intervention in sanitation and medical relief but also in the
as well as in moral terms. On the one hand, improved economic welfare and agrarian
most discussions of disease recognized two main divisions of cause: the ‘proximate cause’ and the set
of ‘remote causes’. The ‘proximate cause was the ‘essence’ o f the disease itself, the ‘pathological
process that characterized it’. The remote causes were further classified into ‘predisposing causes’ and
‘exciting’ causes; all remote causes could, according to Hamlin, be thought of as necessary causes for
the disease to surface and manifest itself, (pp. 50-51). Hamlin suggests that this understanding left
considerable room for medical practitioners in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to
appreciate the role of social factors in the causation of disease, (p. 52). Mark Harrison also suggests
that medical conceptions o f fevers in India differed from developments in Britain after 1800 in the
important respect that Anglo-Indians were more likely than their British counterparts to attribute ill-
health to poverty and dearth, rather than merely to filth amongst the poor and the working classes.
(Harrison, Climates and Constitutions, pp. 176-177).
41 Some of these debates can be gauged from a Parliamentary Report on Public Works in India. See
Report from the select Committee on East India (Public Works) together with the Proceedings of the
Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Appendix, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/ Vol. 12).
42 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated 30th December 1872, G.O.
No. 1413, TNSA.
163
prosperity prevented epidemic disease by protecting a population’s nutritional status.
On the other hand, agrarian prosperity was seen as a moral and civilizing end of
nutritional, sanitary and climatic factors combined to act upon human beings for good
or worse was an important complement of these ideas. However, there are some
orientation, in the sense of emerging from a motive to religious conversion, as was the
case with some of his IMS contemporaries.43 Secondly, it appears likely that what we
frame and present a construction of the Indian as a subject of social, scientific and
medical inquiry- was an important part of Cornish’s approach. He was the author of
the first census of Madras Presidency in 1871, and the censuses themselves have been
contained in the first Census were noticed by the Government of Madras with
State for his ‘lucid and valuable report....that indicated his wide research and large
views’ and awarded an honorarium of Rs. 5,000 ‘to mark their sense of the efficient
Comish believed that accurate vital statistics, physiology, anatomy and surgery
could form the basis of efficient medical practice and would contribute to health and
43 This would place Comish in contrast to some of his colleagues discussed in the introductory chapter,
for whom medicine was an explicit means of saving souls, rather than merely bodies.
44 For the classic statement of this view, see B.S. Cohn, ‘The Census, Social Structure and
Objectification in South Asia’ in idem, An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays,
Delhi, 1987, pp. 224-254.
45 Mountstuart Elphinstone, ‘Draft o f a speech in honour ofW.R. Cornish', op. cit.
164
well-being of populations through public health and sanitary policy. In an address to
the College of State Medicine in London in 892, he advised public health students:
You deal with human life in the aggregate, and whatever you may be able to
effect...w ill be for the benefit o f thousands, instead o f the units who fall into the
hands o f the practising physician.. .if ever the glorious time is to com e when men and
women shall die o f old age, just as ripe fruit falls, and enjoy long and healthy days,
you w ill have the satisfaction o f knowing that sanitary science, which has already
appreciably added to the longevity o f human life, and to which you give your loving
duty and service, has been the ch ief factor.46
can clearly notice a belief in the idea of public health as a moral and political practice,
not unlike that sketched by John Eyler for William Farr.47 Eyler writes of Farr that
‘statistics were, for Farr, always a means to an end, a tool in a greater reform
campaign’.48 Farr appears to have used far more sophisticated statistical tools than
Comish (reflecting perhaps more reliable data, although some of the English death
similarity of purpose in the uses of statistics and in the social orientation of medicine
is evident. A similar reformist spirit was also part of the medical ideas of Rudolph
Virchow.49 It seems plausible to draw common connections between the three men in
their visions of a state sponsored public health, despite the vast differences in context
46 Abstracts o f Introductory Lectures, etc: The College o f State Medicine, Introductory Address by
Surgeon-General W.R. Comish, C.I.E., Q.P.H., The Lancet, Oct. 8, 1892, p.830.
47 On Farr, see J.M. Eyler, The conceptual origins o f William Farr’s epidemiology: numerical methods
and social thought in the 1830s, in A.M. Lilienfield (ed.) Times, Places and Persons. Aspects in the
History o f Epidemiology, Baltimore, 1980; Idem., William Farr (1807-1883): An Intellectual
Biography o f a Social Pathologist, Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School o f the University of
Wisconsin in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Idem.,
Victorian Social Medicine: The Ideas and Methods o f William Farr, Baltimore, 1979; Idem., ‘Mortality
Statistics and Victorian Health Policy: Program and Criticism’, Bulletin o f the History o f Medicine,
Vol. 50, pp. 335-355.
48 Eyler, Victorian Social Medicine, p. 197.
49'On Virchow’s life, professional activities and political ideas, see I.F. McNeely, Medicine on a Grand
Scale: Rudolph Virchow, Liberalism and the Public Health, The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History
of Medicine at UCL, Occasional Publication N o.l, 2002. An earlier extensive biography was written
by Erwin Ackemecht. (Rudolph Virchow: Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist, Madison, 1953.) To
Virchow is attributed the statement ‘Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing more than
medicine on a grand scale’. (McNeely, p. 1).
165
between colonial India and late nineteenth century Europe. However, that context was
also important in shaping the way in which Cornish’s ideas were put into practice, or
some districts experienced what was termed as ‘distress’ by the district Collectors and
the Provincial Government. By the middle of 1876, the signs of famine were clearly
pronounced in several districts, and resulted in friction between the Imperial and
relations between the Provincial and Imperial Governments became turbulent over
imports of grain and the management of famine relief works. In January 1877,
Richard Temple was deputed to enforce economy in the famine stricken areas of
Madras.
pronounced by January 1877, when Comish, who had been on furlough in England
from October 1875, returned to his post as Sanitary Commissioner. In a letter dated
13th February 1877 addressed to the Government of Madras, Comish laid out his
This was to be the first of a series of exchanges between the two over the
following three months. Cornish’s objections to the wage rested on the argument that
the diet was deficient in quantity as well as quality, particularly in terms of its
nitrogenous elements. While Temple advocated that labourers on relief works should
50 Letter from Surgeon-Major W.R. Comish, F.R.C.S., Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief
Secretary to Government, dated Madras, 13th February 1877, No. 115, SCR 1877, p. 192.
166
receive the equivalent of 16 oz. (1 lb.) of dry grain; Comish stated the normal
consumption of the adult human being as not less than 24 oz., while many Indians
could consume up to 48 oz. of dry grain in a day. Further, he also held that the
nitrogenous proportion of a daily ration should not be under 140-180 grains in a state
of rest; ordinary labour required 300 grains of nitrogen; while severe exertion required
500-600 grains of nitrogen. The 16 oz. of grain provided by Temple’s wage would
provide 68-80 grains of nitrogen if rice was given; 100 grains of nitrogen if ragi or
cholum was given; and 116 grains of nitrogen if wheat was given. A diet containing
less than 200 grains of nitrogen, while barely sufficing to provide nutrition for the
human body at rest, would not permit the severe exertion which was required of
famine labourers on relief works. Comish based his argument for a higher wage upon
a dietary survey he had co-ordinated in 1863 using the agency of district medical
officers. His study indicated that in ordinary years, the average labourer in the Ceded
districts (Bellary and Cuddapah) consumed at least 24 oz. of dry grain {ragi or
The crux of Cornish’s objection to the Temple scale was that, going as it did
against the results of the 1863 Madras survey, it was unscientific and disregarded the
current nutritional knowledge about dietary requirements. However, there was another
was cmel and dangerous and risked the loss of life in great numbers. He warned that
current knowledge suggested that the symptoms of starvation were often insidious and
invisible until the human body had passed the point where life could be saved.52 In
other words, starvation was difficult to detect through cursory physical inspection by
51 W.R. Comish, Reports on the Nature o f the Food o f the Inhabitants o f the Madras Presidency and on
the Dietaries o f Prisoners in Zillah Jails, Madras, 1863.
52 Ibid.
167
medically untrained personnel. This difficulty was exacerbated amongst gangs of
relief workers where numbers fluctuated greatly from week to week and continuous
observation of a stable cohort was difficult, if not impossible. The conditions under
which people sought relief thereby would make it difficult to monitor the effects of
the reduced wage and there was a great danger of going against established norms
regarding minimum nutritional requirements. Clearly, Comish was laying stake not
the Madras Council. A few weeks later, the Governor of Madras met Temple with a
summary of Cornish’s objections and pleaded that the wage not be imposed on famine
held responsible for some terrible calamity’.55 Yet, Temple persisted in his appeal to
53 Such ‘expertise’, however, seems to have been contested rather than given, as ideas regarding
nutritional adequacy appear to have been fluid at this time. See Kenneth J. Carpenter, ‘A Short History
of Nutritional Science Parts 1-3’, Journal of Nutrition. 133, pp. 638-645, American Society for
Nutritional Sciences, 2003.
54 In an order dated 1st March 1877, No. 757, the Government of Madras resolved to forward Cornish’s
letter to the Government of India and the Secretary of State for India; and to ‘anxiously watch’ the
effects of the reduced wages on the labourers. (SCR 1877, p. 194).
55 Letter No. 14 from Salisbury to Lytton dated April 27th, 1877, Lytton Collection, IOR/ MSS
Eur/E218/4A. (See also footnote 43 in Chapter 1).
56 Temple pleaded with the Government of Madras that the adequacy of the wage should be tested by
‘patient practical observation of the labourers’ and not by ‘pre-conceived physiological theories’. (No.
LVl-Minute by Sir Richard Temple, reviewing the objections of the Sanitary Commissioner, Madras,
to the reduced scale of wages, No. 144, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/Session 1877/Vol.65.)
168
Temple defended his recommendation publicly a few weeks later, and this led
between the two men over the course of the next six weeks, which mirrored and
Government of India over the wage; and indeed over the question of state
intervention. Without going into too much detail about this lengthy correspondence, it
suffices to state the points on which the debate was conducted. Firstly, Temple
‘medico- chemical theories’ in the composition of an adequate diet for famine stricken
nourishing diets, lower body weight in general as well as the lower nutritional
out that the theories he enunciated referred to Indian labourers and not European men;
and that they were not based on chemical theories as much as on physiological
essentially uncertain and that the only test of adequate diet was a ‘patient
examination’ of the physical condition of the people on the relief works and in the
relief camps.
57 Temple’s minutes and memoranda, which were the main form in which he made his attack on
Comish, were published in the Government of India’s Gazette as well as in what was known as the
‘Blue Books’ or Parliamentary Papers.
169
of using nutritional standards as a guide to constructing dietary standards in 1874 and
would need to import 3.75 million tonnes of grain to feed the famine-stricken
population. He had used the census of 1871 as a baseline, then calculated the amount
of food required by each person so enumerated, and assumed that each person
ro
required a minimum o f I V2 lbs. per diem for a period of nine months. In 1877,
Temple claimed that a precise calculation of the amount of food required by a human
being was not possible, and that ‘patient practical observation’ of the physical
Temple’s later stance threw doubt on the assumption that dietary adequacy could be
food. The crux of Temple’s argument in 1877 was that dietary adequacy could only
be determined by noting the physical effects of a given diet on the human frame,
while his earlier position had suggested that accumulated evidence in jail dietaries
could provide an accurate guide to constructing dietary standards. Further while the
census of 1871 was seen as a reliable source of population estimates in 1874, Temple
could be arrived at.60 Quite clearly, what had changed in the intervening three years
was not the scientific status of a method of estimating nutritional requirements for a
170
Table 2.1: Richard Temple on Famine Relief in 1874 and 187761
61 Reproduced from Letter from Dr. Comish, the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief
Secretary to the Government, Fort St. George dated Madras 6th April 1877(Famine Correspondence 3,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/ Volume 65).
171
character of these estimates, I feel my tour of this Presidency thousands of
bound to record my tribute to the utility relief labourers, I give it as my opinion
of census carried out two years that with very few exceptions, which
previously under Sir George Campbell- are not, as a rule, traceable to
the first regular census which had ever insufficient relief wages, the general
been taken in Bengal. If the success of physical condition of the labourers is as
the prescribed plan of relief operations good now as in ordinary years.”
has in any degree depended on the ****
framing of estimates, if these estimates (17.) In conclusion, it is not possible, I
have in any degree helped the submit, to determine a priori on
Government to make a proper forecast scientific data, what amount of food is
of the supplies and the resources necessary to sustain the particular
necessary to encounter the crisis, then it classes who come to our relief. The real
is to be remembered that these point to be considered is whether in
estimates could never have been framed ordinary times they get more than 1 lb.
had not that census existed.” a day for a male adult. This is an
economic question which can be
determined by calculating the rates of
wages in the rural districts, not the
wages of trained professional labourers
employed by public bodies, not the
wages of stalwart men of the
professional class of workmen, but the
men of lesser physique and lighter
frame such as that of the village poor-
the wages received by the labouring
poor in the villages of the interior; and
then by taking the prices of common
grains in ordinary years. Now from
inquiries made in various districts of the
Madras Presidency, I apprehend that the
labouring poor in rural localities can
hardly get more than 1 lb. a day for a
male adult in ordinary times.”________
which Comish pointed out succinctly in his longest reply to Temple.62 Yet another
point of dispute between the two men related to the methods of estimating the
62 Letter from Dr. Comish, the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief Secretary to the
Government, Fort St. George dated Madras 6th April 1877(Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/ Volume 65).
172
presence of starvation amongst workers and recipients of relief In March and April
1877, Temple had requested two IMS officials travelling with him to inspect the
regarding the adequacy of the wage. Both these men- Dr. Harvey, Temple’s personal
medical adviser, and Dr. Townsend, Officiating Sanitary Commissioner with the
were in fine physical condition.63 This was cited as evidence of the sufficiency of the
reduced wage. Harvey had on March 25th 1877 informed the Government of India that
I have been agreeably surprised and greatly pleased to find the people o f all classes on the
works, on gratuitous relief, and the poorer classes generally in much better physical condition
than I expected, or imagined to be possible, considering the extent o f the failure o f crops, and
the severity o f the scarcity.64
Townsend’s visit to the Madras Presidency in April 1877 further reiterated Harvey’s
assessment of the normal condition of the people. He went further to suggest that
adequacy. Townsend pointed out that physiological theories of nutrition were greatly
The question o f the sufficiency or otherwise o f the allowance could not be decided on
physiological grounds.. .som e years ago, the doctrine on the subject was that muscular
exertion entailed waste o f muscular tissue and that in order to compensate this waste, food
containing nitrogenous principles must be supplied in proportion to the labour
undertaken.. .late investigations have tended greatly to modify this teaching, and certainly
at the present time there is no theory on the subject so generally accepted or founded on
data so incontrovertible that no econom ic question involving the expenditure o f large sums
o f public money can be decided by it.65
63 Memorandum by Dr. Harvey, on special duty with Sir Richard Temple, on the physical condition of
the people in the distressed districts of Madras and Bombay, dated Kiergaon, March 25, 1877, and
Report by Surgeon-Major S.C. Townsend, Officiating Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of
India, on the Condition of Famine Relief Labourers in the Madras Presidency, dated Bangalore 3rd
April 1877(IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Volume 65).
64 Memorandum by Dr. Harvey, on special duty with Sir Richard Temple, on the physical condition of
the people in the distressed districts of Madras and Bombay, dated Kiergaon, March 25, 1877(Famine
Correspondence Part 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Volume 65.)
65 Report by Surgeon-Major S.C. Townsend, Officiating Sanitary Commissioner with the Government
of India, on the Condition of Famine Relief Labourers in the Madras Presidency, dated Bangalore 3rd
April 1877(Famine Correspondence Part 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Volume 65).
173
Townsend thus averred that ambiguities in scientific theories made them of limited
use in the formulation of famine policy. Further, Townsend argued for a test of
physiology or chemicals. Townsend touched upon a question that was central to the
Imperial concern, of limiting relief only to those who were in danger of death without
it. How was the state, for purposes of famine relief, to identify the signs of unusual
Townsend’s argument was that it was difficult to distinguish between the physical
effects of ordinary poverty, which the state had no moral responsibility to relieve, and
extraordinary suffering, which it had only a limited duty towards. Thus, ‘when
inspecting masses of people with a view to estimating the effects of abnormal scarcity
amongst them’; a ‘very large allowance must be made for what may be called
Ironically, Townsend’s aim in making this point was to insist that it would be
perfectly justifiable to err on the side of strictness. (An opposite interpretation might
have been possible, and was in fact the basis of Cornish’s critique: that it was
impossible for an observer to discern the point at which inadequacy of food became
irreversible, and therefore it was better to err on the side of liberality.) Townsend went
on to detail the ‘ordinary low level of living’ amongst Indians. According to him,
‘loose skin, paleness and anaemia’- all details noted by Comish in his inspection of
the poor in camps, on works and generally in the district- were regular features of
66 Ibid.
67 TU i A
174
The Government of India concurred in Townsend’s report, and claimed it as evidence
that deterioration had taken place in the physical condition of the labourers
/TO
between January and April, when the wage had been in force.
Through March, April and May 1877, Comish toured the districts and reported
mortality from ordinary diseases, both on relief works and in relief camps.69 He
observed that after the introduction of the one pound wage, numbers on the relief
works had begun to dwindle while those of gratuitous relief- considered universally
Comish chronicled a process of gradual and fatal deterioration of workers on the one
pound wage. As insufficient nutrition continued for days, weeks or months, they
gradually became weaker and unable to work and were eventually drafted off into the
relief camps. The result of Temple’s “shroffing” the works and camps was that the
numbers of people on relief works fell from 907,316 in the first week of February
1877 to 662, 195 in March. However, the numbers of people too weak to work, falling
upon gratuitous relief, rose from 38,163 in the first week of March to 99, 113 in the
last week of March.71 Mortality in the camps meanwhile reached alarming proportions
starvation.
68 See No. 21 of 1877, From Gol to SoS for India, dated Simla, the 19th April 1877(Famine
Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Volume 65, No. 221).
69 See Chapter 4 for references.
70
Letter from Dr. Comish, the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief Secretary to the
Government, Fort St. George dated Madras 6th April 1877(Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/ Volume 65).
71 Ibid.
175
Temple rejected the suggestion that inadequate wages had led to weakening workers’
health and pushing them into a state of exhaustion so that they were only fit for
gratuitous relief. He vehemently argued that there was no connection between the
The inmates of the camps who are admitted there as being unable to work are a class
totally different from those who are admitted to the works as being able to work.. .the
poor inmates of camps have never gone to relief works at all.. .Indeed, the very
reason for their being admitted to the camps is this, that they were incapable o f going
to relief works. They are diseased, infirm, or being indisposed to work, have
wandered about, passing by means of relief close at home, have wandered to a
distance.72
In other words, people who went to the works never reached the camps. People in the
camps had never been on relief works. Where there was evidence that relief workers
had indeed left the works, Temple attributed this to their laziness: such people were
reluctant to perform the required task or to travel a distance to the works, and the
wage itself was not culpable. He then concluded that there was no mortality on the
works from inadequate nourishment, any deaths that occurred were due to cholera and
mortality in the camps and in people’s homes in the villages, he attributed it to the
inefficiency of the village officials who had been instructed not to allow any mortality
from starvation in the villages. The imperfect supervision of village officials by the
district administration and the Provincial Government was thus to blame for famine
mortality, rather than the inadequate wages recommended by Temple and approved
72 No. 23 of 1877, Gol DRAC to SoS, dated Simla, 3rdMay 1877, Famine Correspondence 3,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
73 Minute XXXIX by Sir Richard Temple, dated Nundydroog, 8th February 1877, Famine
Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
176
Yet, public criticism of the wage had already begun to alarm the Secretary of State for
Our telegram o f yesterday will tell you that we are beginning to be alarmed lest (Temple)
should have overdone it, disquieting accounts and opinions come in from every side.74
Clearly, the reduction of the wage was a widespread concern amongst senior civil
.. .Letters from.. .the Provinces.. .cast serious doubt on the sufficiency of Temple’s pound
of grain.75
Coimbatore were unanimous about the detrimental effects of the wage. Most of these
reports deprecated the wage on the grounds that it was insufficient for work, and
therefore wasteful and expensive in the long run. On the 17th of April, the deputy
It is a known fact to all natives that half a seer of grain is hardly sufficient for a single
meal for an able bodied coolie (i.e. half a day’s food); the coolies are falling off in strength
and growing depressed in spirits; 92 deaths have occurred in one party since the new scale
was introduced. A special deputy collector says women eat more than men and require
more nourishment, and their wage ought not to be less than a man’s.76
On 18th April, Venkatachalam requested that the Madras Government raise the wage
Considering the amount of exhaustion resulting from wastage among the relief labourers,
I would respectfully suggest a gradual increase in the rates of wages until such time as we
could detect a change for the better in their physique.77
In Cuddapah, the Collector Mr. J. F. Price reported on 17th April: ‘I fear that with the
present scale of wages (task work) can never be done. Making the coolies in this case
74 Letter No. 15 dated May 4th 1877, Letters to the Secretary of State, Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur
E218/4A.
75 Ibid.
76 Report o f the Indian Famine Commission Part 3: Famine Histories, p. 217, IOR/V/4/Session
1881/Vol. 71.
77 Ibid.
177
JO
turn out anything but the veriest pretence of a task will mean killing them’. Price
I watched carefully the working o f the Temple ration in the Cuddapah district.. ..it was
applied I believe in March and continued until Government raised the ration in May or
June. It was certainly in force for over two months. During this time I personally inspected
10,000 persons, some of the gangs two and three times; and in saying that I observed
distinct deterioration, I base my observation upon particular observation of particular
individuals whom I personally remembered.79
In Nellore, the Collector reported a ‘marked falling off in all classes’ in the week
ending 18th of April.80 The Civil Surgeon of Vellore in North Arcot opined that the
Q1
condition of labourers on the scale had ‘much deteriorated’. The Special Relief
Officer in Coimbatore reported that the condition of the coolies had ‘certainly
OJ
deteriorated owing to the small pittance we pay them’.
Yet, it is difficult to estimate how far these observations were based in truth, although
mortality rates were well above their normal levels in the three months that the wage
was in force. There certainly were reports that people on works became weaker after
the introduction of the wage, but whether this was the case on all relief works was not
(and is not now) verifiable from existing data, which was not systematically collected
for all works. It would appear that the prescribed rate was sometimes not given, or the
labourers themselves were defrauded by overseers and grain sellers. In addition, there
seems little doubt that many of the labourers were indebted and forced to pay their
78 Ibid, p. 218.
79 Ibid, p. 223.
80 Ibid, p. 225.
81 Ibid, p. 228.
82 Ibid, p. 230.
178
The reasons for the lack of systematic local data seem to have lain in the
administration of famine relief. Frequently, gangs of labourers moved from one place
who were present at one inspection were not present at the next, and it was only
careful observers like Collector Price who would bother to keep track of the
individuals from one week to another. Even so, district Collectors were medically
from week to week, could at best sort people by condition into categories of
‘condition good’, ‘fair’, ‘indifferent’ (unable to perform small tasks), ‘bad’ and ‘very
bad’, the categorization of which left very wide margins. While this is not to devalue
their observations, it does mean that reading the reduced wage as the single most
district and village level. It is thus clear that we need to be cautious about making
such a sweeping generalization regarding the direct link between the Temple wage
and famine mortality, and also account for the role played by local factors in
However, the reduced wage does seem to have become a leitmotif for critics of
Imperial policy. Press reports were severely critical and Salisbury was worried both
Information of the outside world is not reassuring. All newspaper correspondents seem to
agree that the ration is exhausting the people and that mortality from disease and
exhaustion is assuming alarming proportions. The extracts from native newspapers which
have just come home, take the same line. On the whole we thought that the time had come
for hanging out a danger signal.83
83 Salisbury to Lytton, Letter No 15 dated May 4th, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State, Lyt
Collection, IOR/ MSS Eur/ E218/4A.
179
What emerges from these sources is that Cornish’s objections had become a rallying
cry for public criticism of Imperial policy as embodied in the Temple ration. Further
evidence from the districts of Madras reveals considerable support amongst district
It is also worth noting that these debates were played out in the media and that the
Government of India was forced to take an ill-defined ‘public opinion’ into account.
Although this ‘public opinion’ is not the main focus of this study, this issue deserves
example, ‘starving baby’ pictures force Governments to act and provoke international
The Temple ration thus came to be associated with harsh Imperial famine policy. The
battle over the adequacy of wages was fought on a number of grounds: scientific,
moral and political. Newspaper correspondents and district officials were indignant
about the fact that prisoners in the jails of the Presidency received a higher wage than
the ‘innocent famine labourer’. This indignation was apparently present not only
amongst officials, but also among the famine labourers themselves, indicating that the
labourers were themselves quite aware of discussions amongst European officials. For
labourer in Bellary district asking an overseer,’ Have I not the virtue of a convict to
get a bellyful of food?’ 84 This example seems to indicate the presence of a ‘peasant’
Governmental anxieties regarding the setting of a nutritional standard for the wage.
These concerns seem to have occupied ‘public’ attention amongst Indians as well. In
180
Malabar, one Indian reporter protested against ‘the criminals of our jails being fed
Of
better than innocent and starving cultivators’.
‘innocent labourers’ and the indigent famine stricken in camps. Perceptions of jail
inmates were thus necessarily more negative than those of relief labourers, despite an
awareness of the impact that famine had on the rural economy, and thereby on crime.
Indeed the official perception of famine criminals as being driven to commit offences
in order to seek out official relief seems also to have had these negative connotations.
Official morality thus clearly differentiated between those whom it was permissible to
protect, and those whom it was not. Comish himself suggested that a starvation wage
be tried and its effects on the health of prisoners documented in order to settle the
question of famine wages once and for all.86 This suggestion was immediately vetoed
by the Inspector General of Prisons, on the grounds that the prisons were filled with
the starving poor upon whom such an experiment would be disastrous. (This is further
evidence that different agencies within the Government took different positions on
moral and scientific questions).What emerges from this is that Comish believed that it
was morally permissible to experiment upon prisoners, while crying down the same
experiment on labourers and inmates of relief camps, indicating that notions of the
deserving and the undeserving were firmly embedded in the official mind.
85
Report on Native Newspapers fo r the Month o f April 1877, Madras, 1877.
86 SCR 1877, p. 226.
181
The debate on the reduced wage captured public opinion in the Presidency as
well as in Bombay. There were strong moral overtones to criticisms of the wage, and
this in some senses reflected the moral differentiation between labourers and
criminals. In particular, opponents of the wage were furious that it was lower than the
diet prescribed for convicts in the jails of the Presidency. Thus the plight of ‘innocent
87 .
famine stricken’ was repeatedly juxtaposed with that of ‘hardened criminals’. The
wage, according to the critics, rewarded criminals and punished the honest.
Vernacular opinion of the wage was particularly scathing, as we have seen. Labourers
and overseers alike decried the anomaly of criminals receiving a higher wage than the
famine stricken.88
In Britain as well there was much indignation over the wage. Pamphlets
describing the condition of those suffering from starvation were indignant about the
OQ
Comish received widespread support from amongst senior IMS officials for
his discussion of science and morality in the formulation of famine policy. Such
support seems to have been based on two grounds: first, on Cornish’s call to a
that his arguments and the support that he received from Provincial administrators,
87 See footnote^P>.
88 See footnotes 84 and 85.
89 It is necessary to point out that criticism of the Government o f India’s famine policy was voiced on
many grounds and from many quarters, both in India and in Britain. One of the fiercest critics was Sir
Arthur Cotton; a pioneer o f irrigation works in India, and an Engineer o f the Madras Public Works
Department who accused the Gol of shortsightedness in their refusal to finance public works from
Imperial money. Others included Florence Nightingale, Sir John Bright, M.P.; John Wilson, Editor of
the Indian Daily News; and William Digby, Editor of the Madras Times.
182
‘scientific standards’ and indeed of ‘science’ itself as the new logical basis for
governance. Within this understanding, the medical establishment gained power and
authority due to its claim to possess a ‘scientific’ solution to political and economic
problems.
policy. It is important to note that this stance was not justified on grounds of its utility
humanitarian, scientific and professional grounds. This will be evident from the
following quote. Comish had, during his debate with Temple, called upon
Sir Richard Temple is like a skilful general commanding a battle. His attention is fixed on
the main points of attack and defence. If these are safe, his work is accomplished. I, on the
other hand, as a public health official, whose special duty it is to preserve life, am bound to
listen to the cry of the wounded and note in what way combatants suffer. I should be
wanting in my duty to myself and to the Government if I failed to state the facts coming to
my knowledge and the deductions thence.90
After a visit to the Monegar Choultry Relief Camp in Madras city on the 9th
of April 1877, Comish reported at length on the physical appearance of people at the
camp. People on gratuitous relief in camps received a higher food allowance than
those of relief works owing to their low state of health. The inmates of the Monegar
Choultry camp had been receiving 1 Vi lbs. of rice in addition to a small quantity of
vegetables, dal, ghee, curry and meat. Yet, Comish reported that the inmates of the
camp had seemed ‘in a low state’ and ‘suffering from a peculiar condition of the
mucous membrane of the mouth and tongue’. 91 Following this, the Government of
Madras invited Dr. C.H. Gordon, the Surgeon-General of the British Medical
90 Letter from Dr. Comish, the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras, to the Chief Secretary to the
Government, Fort St. George dated Madras 6th April 1877(Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session
1877/ Volume 65).
91 SCR 1877, p. 204.
183
Department, and Dr. G. Smith, the Surgeon -General of the Indian Medical
reported of the more recent inmates of the relief camp that their physique was
‘inferior’; that their health was ‘deranged’; and that the diet was ‘altogether
Q7
insufficient’ to enable them to resume work’.
tongue and gums, the present ration was ‘altogether insufficient to preserve health.’
The Surgeons General both agreed that ‘a diet of less than 24 oz. a day was not
enough to maintain a man in health and work’. If people could not recover health on
less than 24 oz. of rice per day, 16 oz. a day was unlikely to keep people healthy
wage.93
Sir Joseph Fayrer, the head of the India Office Medical Board from 1876 to 1896, also
Early in May (1877), I was present at the Famine Committee of the Indian Council, where
I strongly supported the recommendations of Dr. Comish of Madras with reference to the
supply of food to the starving to give them a higher scale of diet than the Indian
authorities had contemplated.94
within official circles, as the following extract from Salisbury to Lytton in May 1877
indicates:
92 Report of Drs. Gordon and Smith on the Monegar Choultry Camp, SCR 1877, pp. 205- 208.
93 SCR 1877, p. 208.
94 Surgeon-General Sir Joseph Fayrer, Recollections o f My Life, Edinburgh, 1900, p. 423. Fayrer had,
during the Bengal famine in 1874, also written papers for Salisbury and Mallet on famine diseases.
(Ibid., p. 321).
184
Sir Joseph Fayrer entertains strong views (about the wage) and therein sustained Comish
against Townsend.95
Sir Robert Christison also wrote to Comish from Edinburgh supporting his view that
Temple’s wage was both unscientific and dangerous.97 Christison advised Comish
that
Mere practical experience is a dangerous guide to a dietary for a body of men.. ..(in fact)
what is called practical experience is nothing else but a body o f loose
observation.. ..(which should not be tmsted) but neither should scientific analysis be
tmsted to singly. It must be tested by practical observation, and the two methods together
will supply trustworthy results.98
Christison concluded that the dietary proposed by Sir Richard Temple was ‘both
insufficient in quantity, and ill-chosen’." Such support for ‘medical theory’, from a
Scottish doctor, presumably a very ‘practical’ medical man, also indicates that
Comish had enormous professional support, both within and outside India. In turn,
professional and administrative support at the Provincial level made it difficult for the
95 Letter No. 15 from Salisbury to Lytton dated May 4th 1877, Lytton Collection, MSS Eur/E218/4A. it
will be remembered that Townsend,
96 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton dated June 21, 1877, Eur MSS/E218/4A.
97 Sir Robert Christison was a well-known chemist and toxicologist at Edinburgh University. His
biography states:’ Christison, Sir Robert, first baronet (1797-1882), toxicologist and physician, was
bom in Edinburgh. Christison’s life exemplified the heroic age of Edinburgh Victorian medicine during
which he became an outstanding toxicologist, medical jurist, physician, teacher, and fierce protector of
what he judged to be the best interests of Edinburgh University.’ See Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography Online, (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5370).
98 SCR 1877, p. 196.
99 Italics in original.
185
Cornish’s debate with Temple gained him a mention in the British Medical Journal
in 1877.100 The BMJ lauded Cornish’s use of vital statistics during the famine and
summarizing the correspondence between Temple and Comish, it was noted that
Whenever an argument based on scientific data is urged on a question o f public health, the
invariable reply is, as it is, in this particular case, that it is ‘a medical theory’, which
“practical” men may safely discard. This was the view taken of the lime juice ration by Sir
George Nares, with what result we know and Sir George Nares knows. “Practical men”,
however, like the commander o f the Arctic Expedition and Sir Richard Temple, are not
above framing theories of their own and acting on them.. .Sir Richard Temple is satisfied,
from his hurried inspections of people on the relief works, that his dietary is sufficient; not
so the Sanitary Commissioner, who does not, like Sir Richard, pass by the subject of the
actual mortality of the famine stricken...101
Cornish’s debate with Temple thus was seen as a common cause dear to the hearts of
We must not stop without, in the name o f his profession, thanking the Madras Sanitary
Commissioner for his courage in challenging the opinions and acts of one of the highest,
ablest, and most trusted officials backed by all the influence of the Government of India.102
Cornish’s combined use of vital statistics and physiological arguments were seen as
weapons ably wielded by a practitioner of public health. Moreover, Comish was seen
as having shown the way in using nutritional science and medical knowledge as tools
of rational governance. So, the medical establishment seems to have seen the dispute
over the wage as a ‘medical’ problem (not as a political one) and thus approved of
Temple using a ‘scientific’ standard. The debate was seen as lying essentially in the
100 ‘The Famine Minutes of Sir Richard Temple and the Madras Sanitary Commissioners’ , BMJ , I
(May 26th, 1877).The British Medical Journal was the mouthpiece o f the British Medical Association,
the professional body for most British physicians, formed in the mid-nineteenth century from the
amalgamation of several regional medical associations.
101 Ibid.
102 t u ; j
186
lack of consensus over what constituted the correct method of arriving at this
standard.
Nor must we withhold from Sir Richard Temple the praise which is his due; he might have
invoked the Government to rebuke the presumption o f a health officer for daring to call
into question his ‘theories’ and the fatal acts founded on them; but instead of this, he
descends into the arena and defends himself, if not without success, then at least with skill.
The combatants on such grounds were unequally matched, but Sir Richard Temple must at
least feel that there is no disgrace in being worsted in such an argument by so consummate
a master of his subject as Mr. Comish.103
Comish had quite successfully managed to win professional approval, Townsend and
Harvey notwithstanding.104 The British Medical Association was indignant when, the
following year, 1878, Comish was not felicitated by the Government of India for his
role during the famine. The Gol awarded the title of ‘Star of India’ to several officers
for their services to the state during the famine, but Cornish’s name was not included.
The BMJ mentioned the ‘boldness’ and ‘honesty’ with which Comish resisted
Temple’s measures, which at one time ‘threatened to destroy more people than the
famine’. The anonymous author of the article declared perhaps with some flourish
that Cornish’s role had ‘won for him the admiration of all classes of South India’.
That Comish had not been awarded the Star of India was seen as a direct result of his
challenge to the ‘Imperial Delegate’ and the Government of India. Comish was seen
It was confidently expected that Mr. Cornish’s name would have appeared in the honour-
list of on the Queen’s birthday; but when that list appeared, his name was conspicuous by
its absence. It is no secret that the Sanitary Commissioner’s name was sent in by the Duke
of Buckingham and his Council; but when that list was submitted to Lord Lytton and his
Council, it was remembered that Mr. Comish had had the presumption to dispute with the
104I b i d '
Harvey and Townsend’s criticisms of Cornish’s method of arriving at the standard, however may be
seen as a reflection o f the uncertainty amongst the medical profession at this time regarding the
connection between food, energy requirements and the means o f measuring this connection. See
Kenneth J. Carpenter, ‘A Short History of Nutritional Science Parts 1-3’. Journal of Nutrition 133
(2003): 638-645; Idem, Protein and Energy: A Study o f Changing Ideas in Nutrition, Cambridge, 1994.
187
great delegate from Calcutta, and his name was struck out and that of another
substituted.105
The Sanitary Commissioner has the approbation of his own conscience and that of the
community he has served so well. O f this neither Lord Lytton nor his small-minded
advisors can deprive him.106
It seems quite clear that Comish had become a Ha*0 for the medical profession
in general, and that his debate with Temple touched chords not only amongst medical
men in India but also in Britain. This was supplemented by popular and administrative
disapproval both of the Temple ration and of the principles on which it was based. It
is worth considering whether Cornish’s rapid promotion within the Madras Medical
intervening ranks) in 1880 was in some ways a ‘compensation’ for the ‘unfair
difficult to determine whether the wage was strictly enforced on all relief works. In
fact, it is almost certain that this was not the case, as the following account indicates.
In the Bellary district, Lieutenant Wilson, a Public Works engineer who was posted as
involving fraud of famine relief funds. The case centred around the disappearance of
Wilson had not wilfully defrauded funds. Owing to his unfamiliarity with the weights
and measures used by local merchants, Wilson had actually authorized the issue of
105 Ibid.
106
188
over 2 lb. of grain per person per day. Not surprisingly, it was found that more coolies
flocked to Wilson’s camp than any others in the district!107 Whilst this case may
indicate that in some camps, more than the prescribed ration was provided, it also
indicates that strict enforcement of Provincial standards with regard to weights and
measures was not possible. In some cases, in fact, it is possible that less than the
This case also reveals the disorganized state and the relative lack of Provincial
control over the provision of famine relief. As late as March 1877, Comish found that
the scale of diet provided on relief works and in relief camps differed widely from
what he prescribed as the standard. This was partly due to the fluctuation in the price
of grain (on 31st January, the Government had directed that labourers would be paid
on a sliding scale of wages according to the price of grain, provided that in no case
would the payment fall below a 1 Vi lb. a day), and partly due to the inability of
Comish directed in March 1877 that the rate of wages payable on relief works be
standardized at 1 Vi lb. of grain and 20 oz. of cereal grain and 1 Vi oz. of dal for
1OR
persons in relief camps. However, as the Wilson case shows, the payment of wages
on relief works and food in relief camps was by no means standard even six months
later. This would lead us to conclude that although Comish was historically
significant in framing public opinion against the notion of the Temple wage in
principle, it is difficult to ascertain what was actually carried out in the districts.
107 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department, dated 31st December 1878,
Nos. 212-3, Government Order No. 2634, TNSA.
108 Letter from Surgeon Major Comish, Sanitary Commissioner for Madras to the Chief Secretary to
Government dated Vellore, 10th March 1877, No.l, SCR 1877, p. 199.
189
Cornish and the Indian Famine Relief Fund
Comish played a significant role in famine relief well after Temple departed
from Madras. The Indian Famine Relief Fund began its operations in August 1877. As
discussed earlier, the Mansion House Fund was primarily established to assist official
efforts in famine relief in the face of great disapproval amongst the Government of
India and Lytton in particular. Comish was a founding member of the General
Committee and continued to play a key role in its operations, both in the manner of
distribution of funds and through his communications about the mortality in the
famine stricken districts throughout the period of its operation, to 1879. One of
Cornish’s observations was that in order for women to be fully capable of going to the
relief works, children and infants needed to be taken care of and fed on a suitable and
adequate diet during the working day. He further observed that the mortality returns
showed that infants and children suffered the brunt of the famine. Although the
famine wage allowed for parents of young children to receive an extra allowance, the
allowance was too meagre for the support of these children. Moreover, the
disorganization and paucity of Government feeding centres for children meant that the
allowance in several cases did not reach the children as their starved parents spent the
entire day on the works, too busy to take the children to the feeding centres. Comish
wrote that:
It is quite clear th a t..... government outdoor relief.. ..has not been brought home to the
great bulk of the poor requiring food although feeding depots have been increased
since February, so scattered is the area of the town that it is quite impossible for parents
who may be in service to absent themselves and accompany their children to the feeding
depots.109
109 The Madras Famine 1877, Ch. 3, p. 18, in The Indian Famine Relief Fund 1877: Proceedings o f
Committees and Personal Agencies, Final Report &c., Madras, 1879 (Henceforth IFRF).
190
The result was that
.. .children in very large numbers have suffered and are suffering from the consequences of
chronic starvation, and unless means can be devised to supply the children of the
necessitous poor with food in excess of the parents, many must die before food prices
reach their original value.110
was to encourage the district and sub district committees to set up day nurseries where
children were to be fed and cared for by women employed for the purpose. Comish
prescribed an adequately nourishing diet for children who would be admitted to the
Over the period that the Mansion House fund was in operation, several day nurseries
were set up. They were mostly in Madras city, but there were several in the districts as
well. Cornish’s wife organized one of the first such nurseries at their residence in
strengthened his view that benevolent intervention was necessary to save lives.
Moreover, his observation of human behaviour amongst the families who brought
children to the nursery sharply contradicted official views that the poor were only too
ready to become dependent on the state- a staple tenet of classical political economy
and Poor Law in England. His sympathetic view of the famine stricken is evident in
!n IFRF
Ibid' Ch. 5, p. 4. It is of course difficult to measure the effects of these day nurseries on the
widespread suffering in the absence of exact numbers and more information.
IFRF Ch. 5, p. 4. (Note that Teynampet is the modem name; while Comish spelt it as Teynampett).
191
Comish wrote to William Digby, the Chairman of the fund in October 1877,
stating that ‘A great deal too much is said about the readiness of the poor to sponge on
the bounty of Government, or private charity. Half the tales on this subject are untrue
and the other half garbled or exaggerated’. 113 Remarking on the generous nature of
Exceptional cases have been known, but the general experience of the Teynampett
nursery, and I imagine of others, is that mothers, aunts, grandmothers or neighbours will
bring children up to be fed, and though in want themselves, will never express by word or
sign a desire to share in the help they know is meant only for young children. Big boys
will bring little boys, and though lank and hungry, and casting longing eyes on the food,
are only intent on seeing their charges get their allotted ration. For the past six weeks, a
little girl o f ten or eleven has been bringing up two sickly children twice a day, nursing
them with the tenderest care and never asking for a bite or a sip on her own account. She
showed no signs of starvation until the last few days, when I noticed that she was
beginning to go down, and I have asked the lady in charge of the nursery to bring her on
the list of those to whom one good meal a day may mean the salvation of life.114
apprehending the early signs of famine. Provincial Famine Codes were intended to
make the conduct of famine relief more in consonance with a set of guidelines that
were roughly similar across different Provinces. At the same time, the civil
administration of each Province or Presidency was required to modify the all- India
Legislative Council of Madras and his imprint appears quite clearly upon the earliest
Madras Famine Code of 18& 3>The Madras Famine code based state intervention on
moral, rather than financial principles. It began with a statement of state responsibility
113 The Madras Famine 1877, Weekly Statement dated October 20, 1877, IFRF Ch. 5, p. 1.
114 Ibid.
115 K. Suresh Singh, The Famine Code: Context and Continuity, pp. 141-161.
192
In conducting a famine campaign it must be laid down as a first principle that that
the object of state intervention is to save life and that all other considerations should
be subordinated to this.. .it is the duty of the state to take steps to avert disastrous
consequences to human life which must ensue if means of subsistence are not
afforded to classes affected.116
More importantly, medical officers were to be explicitly responsible for laying down
and inspecting nutritional standards of rations in relief works and camps. The
Provincial Sanitary Commissioner was ‘to inspect poor houses, relief camps and
management of affected population, and to test the adequacy of the rations prescribed
The code also gave the medical profession primacy over civil officers in deciding
officers in charge of a relief work, and the Medical Officer attached to the same,
regarding sanitation or the health of people on the works, the civil or Public Works
officer was authorized to refer the matter in dispute through Collector, to the Surgeon
General. But pending the reference, he was ‘bound to act in accordance with the
medical officer’s opinion’.118 (It seems likely that there were many civil officials who
would have been only too glad to hand responsibility in this area to the Medical
Officials).
193
Conclusion
Studies of state intervention in famine have until recently seen the state as a
unified entity and famine policy as the product of the actions of this entity. Other
authors, notably David Hall-Matthews, have argued that the colonial state was deeply
hierarchical. Yet, it would appear that this hierarchy was extremely uneasy, and the
divisions over the question of intervention could make for an extremely fragile
shaped the hierarchy itself. Indeed, Cornish’s ‘victory’ in the debate over the Temple
ration indicates that perhaps this hierarchy could be frequently disrupted. In the
process, what emerged with regard to famine policy was the medicalization of
starvation and famine- related disease and a degree of Provincial autonomy in matters
of famine relief. In this case, however, medicalization can be said to have meant the
triumph of what be termed a ‘social’ or a ‘public health’ model of famine and famine
William Robert Comish was a significant historical figure during the famine
in Madras during 1876-78. He played a key role in debates between the Imperial and
Provincial Governments over the moral and scientific basis of intervention, and over
famine policy as embodied in the Madras Famine Code. Cornish’s prominence in the
emerges is that Comish was a master of bureaucratic politics between different levels
of Government. This was an essential skill for an ambitious (and not too well-
connected) officer.
194
In turn, tensions between the Provincial and Imperial Governments over state
success in gaining professional recognition and popular support during the famine.
Cornish’s professional debates with other IMS men in the decade previous to the
famine indicate that he saw social and economic well-being or the lack of it as an
important causal factor in health and disease. This view of disease causation was
Cornish’s prominence during the famine was related primarily to his successful
Cornish’s skill, the ration quickly became a symbol of misguided Imperial famine
and related primarily to his use of vital statistics and his observation of physiological
characteristics of starvation amongst the famine stricken poor of the Presidency. More
between non-medical administrators and medical men over firstly, the scientific status
of nutritional theories, and secondly, over the uses of medical science in formulating
Cornish’s ‘victory’ in the debate was largely due to popular and administrative
support within Madras and within the Indian medical profession for the idea that the
wage was the main cause of increased mortality. Some of Cornish’s arguments were
195
not bome out by the future course of events. In terms of mortality, in fact, between
January and April 1877, the period during which the Temple wage was tried, the
death ratio fell below its levels in December 1876 and May 1877. ( See Chapter 4 for
a table of monthly mortality per thousand population). It is also likely that the wage
Yet, this does not detract from Cornish’s significance for Provincial famine relief
policy in Madras. In the following chapters we will move on to examine his use of
vital statistics and physiological observations to discuss in greater detail their political
196
Chapter 3 Vital Statistics, Famine Policy, Colonial Medicine and the State
I. Introduction
“The question o f the mortality from famine is still left very much in the same doubtful
state as before the mortality arose partly from sickness extending not only throughout
the year 1877, but throughout the two previous years 1875 and 1876. The mortality
arisingfrom the famine itself cannot be exactly estimated. ”
(Extracts from Proceedings o f the Government o f India, Famine Department, dated Simla, 8th
June 1878, No. 1299).
“It is impossible to say how fa r cholera, fever or many other ailments may have been
influenced by the sufferings o f famine... through all the affected districts. ”
( Extracts from letter from J.H. Garstin, Esq., Additional Secretary to Government o f
Madras (Famine) to the Additional Secretary to Government o f India, Public Works Department
(Famine), (No. 1257), dated Ootcamund, 1st June 1878. )
Vital registration was begun in the mid- 1860s in all the Provinces of British India as part
of the extension of state medicine to a wider section of the civilian population. The
registration of deaths at a village and town level was begun in 1866, and the registration
of births in 1868. These registers formed the admittedly shaky foundation of colonial
public health policies.1Yet, except for brief references, vital statistics have not been
examined in debates about colonial medicine or the medical profession, or with reference
to their place within the larger historiography about statistical knowledge, its generation,
different ways. Historical demographers have used them in order to demonstrate patterns
of life, death, health and disease among historical populations. Despite using them as
source data however, most modem demographers have been aware of the deep
197
inaccuracies of the statistics. They have attempted to take into account the alleged
studying some of the Provinces or regions believed to have more complete registration. 2 •
direct attempts to know, mould, control and govern subject populations. This school of
thought has been particularly influential, and has inspired several debates in South Asian
history.3 It would appear that we can divide the historiography into three categories:
pessimists, sceptics and optimists.4 First, there appear the pessimists: those who argue
that the Imperial quest for knowledge and information about Indians was linked to the
consequences for the success of an imperial project of control and domination, and for
colonial rule’, which sought to know and understand India and Indians in order to make
possible the cultural and political domination of India by Europeans.5 Cohn drew on a
2 See for example, T. Dyson, ‘India’s Historical Demography: Developments and Prospects’ (pp. 1-15) and
‘The Historical Demography of Berar 1881-1980’ (150-196) in idem., India’s Historical Demography:
Studies in Famine, Disease and Society, 1989 idem., ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’,
p. 7; A. Maharatna, ‘The Demography of Famines: An Indian Historical Perspective’, Oxford, 1996; and
T. Dyson and C. O’Grada, Famine Demography, Oxford, 2002.
3 On the use of statistics in England generally since the 18th century, see Headrick, When Information Came
of Age, op. cit.
4 This categorization is admittedly inspired by David Washbrook’s classification of views on the impact of
commercialization on small farmers in South India (‘The Commercialization of Agriculture in Colonial
India’, op. cit.)
5 Cohn defined an investigative modality as ‘knowledge (that) enabled the British to classify, categorize
and bound the vast social world that was India so that it could be controlled’. B. S. Cohn, Colonialism and
Its Forms o f Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton, 1996, pp. 5-6. An investigative modality,
according to him, ‘included the definition of a body of information that is needed, the procedures by which
appropriate knowledge is gathered, its ordering and classification, and then how it is transformed into
usable forms such as published reports, statistical returns, histories , gazetteers, legal codes and
encyclopaedias’. Most investigative modalities were constructed in relation to institutions and
administrative sites with fixed routines; some were transformed into ‘sciences’ and their practitioners
198
Foucauldian and Saidian framework which saw European knowledge about India as
exoticizing and constructing the country as part of the technologies of dominance and
hegemony. Others such as Ronald Inden, Aijun Appadurai and Nick Dirks, argued that
colonial knowledge about India was not only part of a desire to know in order to govern,
but was internalized by Indians and shaped Indian identity.6 In this, both Cohn and
Appadurai saw the all-India censuses from 1871 onwards (but particularly after 1901) as
classification that had begun from the 1840’s, whose objectives were to render Indian
society knowable to the colonial state in order to dominate and control it. An important
part of the argument constructed was that the information networks established by British
Imperialism not only endured in post-colonial India, but crucially shaped the self-image
Bayly’s work on the colonial ‘information order’ highlighted a number of issues in regard
to the working of the colonial state and its links with power/ knowledge. Bayly’s first
point was that the colonial information order borrowed heavily from the Mughal state
both in its classificatory schemes (especially with regard to land assessment and revenue)
became professionals. Cohn also hypothesized that what was entailed in the construction of the census
operations was the creation of social categories by which India was ordered for administrative purposes.
6 R.B. Inden, Imagining India, Oxford, 1990.
7 Here it is pertinent to note to differences between these authors in the way in which they see the colonial
knowledge as constructing Indian sociological reality. While Inden and Dirks take the extreme view that
colonial knowledge invented caste, in a sense, Appadurai is prepared to grant some amount of objective
reality to caste as an institution.
8 C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-
1870, Cambridge, 1996.
199
as well as in its informal networks of spies and informants. In that sense, he emphasized a
thread of historical continuity which questioned claims of the ingenuity of colonial rule
and its connections with previous and succeeding regimes. Secondly, although European
desire to know Indian society was motivated by a desire for control and dominance, the
completeness of European knowledge about India was undermined at critical points, most
notably the 1857 Revolt.9 Thus, the colonial information order was aimed at mastering
knowledge about India for the purpose of control and domination. Yet, the knowledge
gained thus was incomplete and inadequate for the purposes of military or political
control. Nevertheless, the changes that swept colonial administration in the 1830’s and
1840’s, had, according to Bayly, important consequences for the information order in
colonial India. Bayly suggests that these changes- the movement towards statistical
surveys away from human intelligence and the rapid diffusion of print media into north
Indian society- were responded to by the ‘Indian ecumene’ with speed, flexibility and
discretion, and thusitf!/? . critical factoitin shaping the growth of a new native
intelligentsia.10 The British quest for ‘useful knowledge’ quickly gained popularity
among native Indians. At the same time, the contradictory policies of economic
stringency and gaining knowledge crippled the state’s information gathering apparatus.
Bayly also suggests that in the north Indian context, statistical information collected from
1857 onwards proved of little value in predicting popular sentiment or political events.11
The new statistical movement in administration was, as Bayly points out, also very
uneven in the depth of its local detail. Bayly concluded that the new information order
was intended to transform the nature of the hybrid Anglo-Indian government inherited
200
from the days of Warren Hastings by enforcing and introducing the new concept of
‘useful knowledge’. However, its scope eventually stretched far beyond this Orientalist
discourse, reflecting a much wider change in the international division of labour and
knowledge. Further, the shift to a more routinized, abstract type of information that the
statistical movement provided within administrative circles was the undoing of the
Indian society.12Although Bayly’s work ended at 1857, he suggested that post 1860, the
At the same time, British knowledge about India had, by the 1870’s, become more static
and less in touch, so to speak, with Indian political currents than a century before.
Guilmoto, who argues that the beginning of the census in 1871 represented ‘a step
control’. Guilmoto further argues that ‘the census was an expression of a larger concern
of the state to intervene in the well-being of its people’.14 This view seems overly
optimistic in its assessment both of colonial objectives and of indigenous responses to the
12 Ibid, p.246.
13 Ibid.
14 C. Guilmoto, 'The Sircar’s Idle Curiosity: Critical Evaluation o f Tamil Nadu’s Demographic Sources
1871-1981\ MIDS Working Paper No. 85, Madras Institute of Development Studies, 1988, pp. 5-7.
201
census, although some other authors have also seen the census as a tool of social
mobility.15
The works of Cohn, Bayly and Guilmoto can in some sense be seen as
somewhat cruelly- be termed as an apologist’s view.16 Other scholars have developed the
information networks and imperial control; the role played by indigenous people in
shaping and using this information, and the implications that this has for understanding
the interaction between ‘the colonial state’, ‘Indian society’ and knowledge/information.
For example, scholars such as Ronald Inden, Aijun Appadurai and Nick Dirks, argued,
developing the subaltern perspective, that colonial knowledge about India was not only
part of a desire to know in order to govern, but was internalized by Indians and shaped
Indian identity.17 In this, both Dirks and Appadurai saw the all-India censuses from 1871
social categories which ordered and constructed Indians according to the essentialized
15 For example, see M.N. Srinivas, Caste in Modem India and Other Essays, 1978 (4threprint).
16 These are, as reiterated in the Introduction, labels which encompass a wide and subtle range of
scholarship, and do them only partial justice. See ‘Introduction: Colonial Transitions and Indian
Historiography’ in S. Subrahmanyam (ed.) Land, Politics and Trade in South Asia, New Delhi, 2004. An
older review is presented by D. Washbrook, ‘Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social
History, c. 1720-1860’, MAS. 22, 1 (1988): 57-96.
17 R.B. Inden, Imagining India, Oxford, 1990.
18 Here it is pertinent to note to differences between these authors in the way in which they see the colonial
knowledge as constructing Indian sociological reality. While Inden and Dirks take the extreme view that
colonial knowledge invented caste, in a sense, Appadurai is prepared to grant some amount of objective
reality to caste as an institution.
202
quantification, enumeration and classification that had begun from the 1840’s, whose
objectives were to render Indian society knowable to the colonial state in order to
dominate and control it. An important part of the argument constructed was that the
colonial India, but crucially shaped the self-image and social divisions within Indian
one should see exoticization and enumeration as complex strands of a single colonial
project. This project used numerical and statistical information in two ways: justificatory
different levels of the state, where numbers were the fuel for internal debates about
plausibility and relevance of various classifications and numbers attached to them. Yet,
colonial numbers also had a disciplinary aspect, in that they were the means for
accuracy on them.19 The ‘disciplinary’ aspect is also taken up by Richard Smith, who
argues that the introduction of official statistics in Punjab was an important element in the
systematization of land revenue and that the land record produced by the subordinate
native official was an important means of control of this selfsame official by superior
19 A. Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, in C.A. Breckenridge and P. van der Veer,
Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia, 1993.
203
district officials. A strict control of the information produced by these officials freed the
Both Smith and Rosselli deal with the links between the structure of power in the colonial
bureaucracy in the second third of the nineteenth century; and the information on land
systematization was a means of ‘disciplining’ the native village servant, Rosselli argues
that the European official in the Western Provinces (later the NWP) was dependent on
native village officials for information on records of land rights in the absence of means
a response to the insecurity felt by the European bureaucrat. Rosselli thus suggests that in
fact Imperial control was a myth; and the contribution of Imperial knowledge to such
Finally, some recent work on official information supplements this view of the
and hegemony of a subject population. Sanjoy Bhattacharya has argued, in his analysis of
the use of official information in wartime Bengal during 1939-45, that the colonial state
was a complex structure involving interaction between Indian and European officials that
was not just ‘collusion’ or ‘collaboration’ on the part of the former, but actively shaped
administrative structures and political outcomes. While Bhattacharya does not endorse
20 R.S. Smith, ‘Rule- by- records and rule- by- reports: complementary aspects of the British Imperial rule
of law’, op. cit
21 John Rosselli, ‘Theory and Practice in North India: the Background to the Land “Settlement” of 1833 ’,
IESHR. VIII. 2, (1971): 134-165.
204
the ‘colonial project’ view of the Subaltern studies school, he also suggests that the role
of the ‘native informant’, emphasized by Bayly, was less autonomous than a pure
‘Cambridge School’ perspective would permit. Bhattacharya argues that ‘the colonial
state’ cannot be seen as analytically separate from its district and village networks where
Indians were actively involved, and that most previous analyses have dwelt on the
Province and the Imperial Government as the unit of analysis. He suggests that despite
official control over the use of wartime propaganda, what constituted propaganda was
never clearly defined and there existed considerable ambiguity at different levels of the
state in this regard. Despite his emphasis on lower levels of bureaucracy, however,
Bhattacharya suggests that the ‘native’ informant was not always an autonomous or
This chapter seeks to evaluate each of these claims and look at the connection between
Imperial dominance, control and information in the specific context of the way in which a
particular type of official information- vital statistics and population enumeration- were
viewed and used by policymakers during the famine of 1876-78. Were vital statistics
profession extended its hold over the Indian population? To what extent did these
did they succeed in their objectives; and what, if any, influence did these efforts have on
long term trends in governance and state policy? Finally, can we theorize something
about the historical role of famines: did events or trends during famine situations reflect
22 S. Bhattacharya, Propaganda and Information in Eastern India 1939-45: A Necessary Weapon o f War,
Surrey, 2001.
or magnify longer-term processes or were famines unusual, catastrophic historical
movers in themselves? 23
statesmanship from the earliest available historical periods.24 However, the form and the
purposes of enumeration varied according to the needs of individual regimes; and the
collection of demographic information in the form that we know it today related to the
The mid- nineteenth century saw the beginnings of state medicine and some
impetus to the registration of births and deaths. Prior to this, there had been irregular
attempts at counting the numbers of people in the Madras Presidency. Censuses had been
conducted by the Government of Madras of different areas within the Presidency since
1822. These attempts were linked to settling the land and estimating the amount of
revenue payable to the Government under the ryotwari system; and also to evaluating the
condition of the agricultural population. In particular, the census of 1838 in four districts
seems to have been motivated by the desire to gauge the loss of population during the
famine of 1832-33.26 However, these surveys were limited to particular districts and were
23 In other words, we seek to explore the relationship between event/crisis and process (Cf Arnold, Famine,
p. 6).
Bayly, Empire and Information, pp. 10-54.
25 Cf. Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, op. cit.
26 ‘The Influence of Famine on Population Growth’, Appendix to SCR 1878, Madras, 1879, p. lxxx.
“7 Guilmoto, '‘The Sircar’s Idle Curiosity’, pp. 12-13.
206
Vital Registration 1864- 1875
A regular system of reporting births and deaths (vital events)- rather than absolute
population figures alone- on a monthly basis had been instated in Madras Presidency
from 1864, when the Sanitary Commissions were set up in each Presidency. This echoed
developments in England, where from 1837, institutional arrangements for state medicine
led to a regular system of reporting vital events to local state authorities. The British
sanitary movement placed great emphasis on mortality rates as measures of the success of
state intervention.28 The beginning of vital registration in India was also directly linked to
concerns about the state of military health and miasmatic theories of disease causation.
Filth was seen as a direct cause of disease and death, and state involvement in cleansing
In 1859, the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India
proclaimed the need for a public health service, and stated that military health could not
be improved without taking into account civilian health to some extent.29 The
improvement of civilian and military health was seen as depending on two things- firstly,
intended to cleanse Indian towns and villages of filth and including drainage systems in
Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, the provision of piped water supplies, the clearance of
roads and bridges- and secondly, a system for the accurate registration of deaths and
28 On the use of statistics in Victorian public health, see G. Rosen, A History o f Public Health, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1958, Ch. VI; Eyler, ‘Mortality Statistics and Victorian Health
Policy: Program and Criticism’, op. cit.
29 The Report of the Royal Commission declared that ‘While diminution of mortality in the army and
improvement of its sanitary state was the primary objective of the Government., still the full improvement
of its sanitary state could not be brought about by measures directed solely to the amelioration of the
sanitary condition of the soldier as such’, and that ‘the interests of the community at large were as much
concerned as those of the army; every step wisely taken towards the improvement of the public health
being a step towards better civilisation and better Government’. {Report on Sanitary Improvements in
India, IOR/ V/24/3675).
207
births so as to measure the influence of these improvements on the health of the civilian
and military populations.30 At a Provincial level, the Report of the Royal Commission led
to the setting up of Sanitary Commissions in each Presidency in 1864 to look after the
health of the general population and to inspect the works set up by the revenue and the
military authorities, and to scrutinize returns of vital statistics sent by the collectors of
districts.
improve military health by cleansing Indian towns and villages, and in this sense
reflected Imperial priorities. The business of registering deaths was entrusted to existing
administrative agencies at various levels of the colonial state. At a district and village
level, the registration of deaths was delegated to the existing official agency set up for the
collection of land revenue. In the Madras Presidency, where two thirds of the land was
under ryotwari tenure, the agency was the village administration that had been set up in
the first decades of the nineteenth century under the ryotwari system. 31 This consisted of
the village headman or patel, the accountant or karnam, who collected and recorded the
revenue received at each harvest, and the munsiff or watchman. They were intrinsic to
the system of benevolent despotism envisaged by Col. Munro and Read who settled
Madras in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Under this system, it was assumed
that the village officers responsible for settling the annual revenue would have the most
30 Ibid.
31 In the zamindari areas such as the Shivaganga estate in Ramnad district and the Venkatagiri zamindari in
North Arcot, the zamindar’s agents collected the returns. These returns from Zamindari estates were
notoriously inaccurate.
32 The ‘karnam ’ was called ‘kanakapillai’ in some areas. In some of the quotes used in this chapter,
‘karnam’ was spelt ‘curnam’ in the original sources. In these quotes, the original spelling is retained.
208
intimate knowledge of daily events in the lives of the people of their village. 33 These
officials were technically the servants of the village, and therefore of the people as well
as the Government.34 From 1866 onwards, these officials were expected to record deaths
as they occurred in their villages, and forward a monthly statement of deaths through the
tahsildar to the district Collector. At a district level, a mortuary clerk in the office of the
Collector compiled the mortuary returns from each village in the district, which were then
forwarded to the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of Madras, who compiled
them in the form of an Annual Report. From 1866 onwards, there was a statistical
assistant in the office of the Sanitary Commissioner who tabulated the district returns.
Right from the inception of registration in 1866 till well into the 1880’s,
Provincial and district officials raised doubts as to the veracity of the death statistics. The
perceived sources of error were of three kinds: firstly, the completeness of coverage;
secondly, the reliability of the statistics, and thirdly, the categorization of disease and of
age. With regard to the completeness of coverage, the anxiety related to whether every
death was brought to the attention of the village or the town mortuary official by the
people. Some villages comprised scattered hamlets over huge areas, and revenue officials
within some districts, particularly North Arcot, Nellore, Ganjam, and Kistna, large
portions of land were under Zamindari tenure. In the Zamindari areas, the village
33 Nilmani Mukherjee also asserts that ‘there was scarcely a single fraud of any kind which could be
committed in a village either against the Sircar or the poorer ryots without the Karnam either being
acquainted with it or taking active part in it’. (The Ryotwari System in Madras, p. 250.) According to
Mukherjee, the dishonesty and falsity of the Karnam’s accounts were legendary amongst European district
Collectors.
34 Mukherjee, The Ryotwari System, p. 249.
209
officials were further removed from the agency of the district and Provincial
administration by the interposition of the Zamindar. Here, the state was even more
insecure than in the ryotwari areas about its ability to penetrate Indian society and social
also doubted. Town and district officials were often unsure about whether the figures
entered referred to actual deaths, or whether a subordinate simply made a guess and
The Collectors and their subordinates are already overburdened. This is an age of vital
statistics, social statistics, agricultural statistics and statistics generally. The Collector
gets an order; he sends it to the tahsildars, who send it to the villagers. Here it is regarded
with the greatest suspicion and disgust; but the orders of superiors being emergent, the
Curnam fills in the paper at a guess and sends it back. The returns of different villages are
condensed in the talook; those of the talook in the Collector’s office, and those of the 19
Collectors in the office of the Board of Revenue. How trustworthy the result is (can be
guessed from the following): the last quinquennial return showed a decrease of some 1
million ploughing cattle while cultivation in every district had increased 20%....All these
statistics are based on estimates only; there is nothing accurate about them. I would not
have them dropped, as they accustom people to the sort of thing; but until education has
multiplied a hundredfold and the law of division of labour has acted more generally,
things will remain the same. The village Munsiff.. .is an utter barbarian.. .the village
Curnam is for the present purpose but little better. He can read and write and cipher, but
in general intelligence is scarcely more advanced. Such are the twin office bearers of a
Madras parish; the manipulators of our statistics and the instruments for the introduction
of our reforms.37
There seemed to be no way to supervise or check the returns with regard to the veracity
of deaths. At the same time, the agency was deemed to be the most suitable for the
registration of deaths due to its intimate involvement with the daily lives of people.
Finally, the deepest doubts related to the categorization of diseases employed in the death
returns; and the accuracy of data on age in relation to corresponding age in England. With
regard to disease categories, the system of classification in force was that adopted by the
Statistical Congress in Vienna in 1862.38 The most common sources of confusion were
37 Letter From D. F. Carmichael, Coll. Vizagapatam to Secretary to Board of Revenue, dated 13thMarch
1867 No. 102, Proceedings of the Madras Board of Revenue dated 27thMarch 1867, IOR/ P/440/36.
38 SCR 1866, p. 162.
211
between various types of fevers and bowel complaints, and the confusion often arose not
only at the village level. Apart from the common observation that village officials often
could not distinguish between the many types of fevers in the classificatory schedules,
there were also disagreements at all levels of Government between civil and medical
officials over the nature and aetiology of bowel diseases and their relationship to cholera.
Cholera itself was a source of concern for European Governments and a puzzle for
medical officials in India and in Europe, and fevers were classified in a number of ways,
making the distinction of particular types of disease difficult. (See Chapter 4 for a fuller
The counting of births and deaths thus relied heavily on what was seen at a Provincial
level as unaccountable native agency. The hereditary (and permanent) nature of village
offices under the ryotwari system was a source of dissatisfaction to those who would
make the village officials accountable to the Provincial and district administration. Yet, it
was believed that to make drastic changes in administrative practice in order to achieve
accuracy in vital statistics- seen as but an inferior function of these village officials- was
hardly worth the effort. This is seen from the following evidence.
In 1867, the Madras Board of Revenue asked all district Collectors to give their opinions
legislation to make the Munsiff (the village watchman) responsible for the registration of
births, deaths and marriages; and to make the offices of the Karnam (the village
39 See Guilmoto, ‘'The Sircar’s Idle Curiosity’, pp. 30-46, on inaccurate age returns.
212
accountant) and Munsiff impeachable instead of hereditary. (When Munro and Read
settled Madras in the early 1800’s, they had acted on the principle that the village
officials constituted honourable and hereditary forms of local social organization which it
was desirable to continue .Thus the office was passed from father to son within a village
The abovementioned suggestion to make the posts of village officials impeachable and
legally accountable for the collection, recording and submission of vital events had been
made by the agent and manager of the Shivaganga Zamindari in Ramnad district. This
gentleman believed that this would make the registration more accurate. The responses
received from several districts were not in favour of the change because it was believed
that such measures would endanger the control of the Provincial Government over the
ryotwari areas. Clearly, the dependence of the Provincial Government on the local
influence of these officials was far too great to permit of reforms intended for more
‘scientific’ administration and sanitary activity on the part of the state. For example, D. F.
Death registering is no part of a Curnam’s duties. The office of Curnam is of the utmost
importance to the property and rights of a people. Mr. Fischer desires the power of
dealing with them summarily, destroying their independence and reducing the tenure of
an ancient, honourable and hereditary post to that of a ten- rupee copyist.
The same writer was also sceptical of the tenor of the reforms proposed
40 Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics, pp. 149-150. Washbrook however makes the point
that the karnam acted in consonance with the patel or headman (p. 148), and that from the 1850s, it was the
village headman who was a real source of local power, as Fort St. George began to attack ‘administrative
cliquism’. (Note also that in some villages, the village watchman or munsiff doubled as the headman.)
41 Proceedings of the Madras Board of Revenue 1867 dated 27thMarch 1867, No. 1934: Letter From D. F.
Carmichael, Coll. Vizagapatam to Secretary to Board of Revenue, dated 13thMarch 1867 No. 102,
IOR/P/440/36.
213
Proceeding in the same revolutionary strain, our Projector, passing over these truculent
Curnams (often the only people in a village who can read and write), is for setting up the
Village Munsiff as a kind of Deputy Accountant. ‘Let the registration of deaths, marriages
and births be rendered compulsory, and immediately as these “domestic occurrences”
happen in a village, let the Munsiff at once report the fact to the Magistrate, European or
Native, within whose jurisdiction he resides, mentioning any particulars he thinks
important. These reports are to be condensed in the District Collector’s office and then
the statistics which all these reports will furnish might be collected by the Head of the
Medical Department, who might be appointed registrar General and a monthly report be
submitted to Government and published in an official Gazette in the same way as is now
done in England. (Our Projector) is also in favour of a comprehensive Sanitation Act.
Those who urge that everything English should be introduced into this country
(should) consider not only the obvious differences in the scale of civilization between the
two countries but also inquire by what machinery and at what cost to the taxpayer any
given system in England is worked (Can Mr. Fischer) tell us that the English
Registration Act (1836), the Nuisances Removal Act (1855), the Diseases Prevention Act
(1855)- found feasible in 10,000 parishes of wealthy, civilized and densely populated
England is likely to prove equally so in 100,000 villages and hamlets of a territory like
Madras? 42
statistics, either of revenue or of vital events, because it was feared that such pressure
would further threaten the delicate control of the Provincial Government of the workings
of land revenue and rural South Indian society. Inaccurate data, it was believed, was a
small price to pay for this delicate control. Despite doubts about the accuracy of the
registration data, however, this data began to be used by Provincial and Imperial sanitary
officials through the 1860’s and 1870’s in debating both the causes of disease and various
public health schemes to be undertaken by the state. Vital statistics formed the basis of
the sanitary activities undertaken from 1866 onwards. As the Sanitary Commissioner of
Madras noted in 1867, ‘although imperfect, a very fair approximation of the prevailing
mortality is obtainable from the Returns collected, which are submitted to Government
42 Ibid.
SCR 1866, p. 161.
214
III. Debates on state responsibility during the famine of 1876-78
During the famine of 1876-78, the accuracy of vital statistics became a central bone of
contention between the Governments of India and Madras and their respective Sanitary
key role in debates about timely and adequate state relief. What is more pertinent to this
chapter, however, is that excess mortality as recorded in the death statistics was central
to Cornish’s argument; as was a theory of disease causation which saw chronic hunger as
the root cause of much of this excess mortality. For Comish, the accuracy of the rural
death statistics was a principal feature of his argument for state intervention to prevent
famine mortality.
Comish used vital statistics to argue for more liberal and timely state intervention
in food crises. In the previous chapter, we have argued that personal qualities and
during 1877 and 1878. Here we delve in greater depth into his arguments regarding the
use of vital statistics to trace a theory of causation with regard to the great mortality of
those years.
mortality rates were greatly elevated and birth rates greatly depressed during the famine
months of 1877 and 1878 in comparison with their monthly levels over a five year mean.
(See Appendix 3.1: Causes of Death 1877) .Secondly, in his annual reports for 1877 and
1878, Comish drew a series of graphs showing the close connection between the rise in
215
mortality rates, the decline in the birth rate and a rise in food prices in ten districts from
which distress was reported. These graphs implicated high food prices- and thereby a
lack of food - in the causation of the elevated mortality and depressed fecundity and
categorized the individual districts of the Presidency into three types: first, those where
district administrators had reported agrarian distress, migration and starvation in 1876
(the early famine districts); secondly, those in which distress began to be reported in
1877 (late famine districts), and thirdly, those in which distress was reported amongst
starving migrants but not amongst the resident populations (non-famine districts).44 The
mortality rates for all registered causes of death were much higher in the first two
Comish stated that starvation was difficult to detect, and easy to mis-classify in the death
statistics. However, people died in greatly increased proportions from ordinary diseases,
such as cholera, smallpox, fever and bowel complaints in the famine districts 45 Clearly,
this implicated lack of food and inadequate state relief as a primary cause of epidemic
mortality in these districts, although social and environmental factors connected with
famine migration and relief measures also played some role in exacerbating mortality.
Moreover, Temple had declared in March 1877 that ‘starvation was successfully
44 It is important to note that these distinctions might not have been completely accurate. The Government
of Madras in its famine census made a different set of distinctions.
45 SCR 1877, pp. 74-75.
216
combated’ all over the Presidency.46 Cornish’s declarations thus caused Lytton and
Salisbury much embarrassment, because they pointed to the existence of much excess
mortality, which was directly linked to famine conditions, the existence of which Temple
Finally- and this was the point where he came most into conflict with Temple and the
Government of India- deaths from famine often occurred despite the ability of the state
to prevent them. They occurred because state sponsored relief was not given early
enough or in large enough quantities to prevent the slow degeneration of people beyond
the point of salvation. In his annual report for 1877, Comish wrote that ‘ Scientific and
practical experience in regard to the food and dietaries of Indian populations (were)
almost wholly opposed to the policy endorsed by the Government of India for famine
relief.. ..a very sad experience of the effects of inadequate food is now before
Government’.47
Cornish’s analysis of mral vital statistics thus was a sharp and articulate critique of
Imperial famine policy and incorporated what can arguably be called a ‘starvation/
social’ model rather than a ‘health crisis/ disease’ model of famine mortality.48 This
argument was that epidemic disease followed upon starvation, which was the root cause
46 Letter No. 219, dated 21st February 1877, from the Additional Secretary Government of India to the
Secretary, Government of Madras, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/ Vol. 65.
47 SCR 1877, p. 227. The prevalence o f ‘chronic starvation’ and its irreversible effects once a certain stage
was past was a prominent aspect of Cornish’s discussion of the physical condition of famine labourers. (See
Chapter 4 for more details).
48 See Chapter 4 for further explanation of these terms.
217
was in turn a crisis that was preventable by state intervention through the provision of
adequate wages for work, and some amount of gratuitous relief at an early stage in the
distress.
One of the central aspects of Cornish’s assessment of the effect of famine on mortality
rates was that famine as a crisis itself seriously disrupted the vital registration system at
the village and town level. He argued that all evidence pointed to the fact that during the
months of high food prices, village servants, whose incomes were in part derived from
land revenues and land itself, themselves became destitute and dependent on state
sponsored relief. This meant that their duties in death registration- already a subject of
hundreds of thousands of deaths went unrecorded as the village officials sought work at
famine relief works or left their villages in search of food and work.49 In addition,
Temple’s order that village officials should be held accountable, on pain of punishment,
for preventing every case of starvation that occurred in their jurisdiction would seriously
influence the reporting and classification of famine deaths.50 Thus, all mortality rates
derivedfrom official registration data understated the total amount of mortality during
these months.
However, Comish argued that although the mortality rates were imperfect as
absolute measures, they could nevertheless be used as relative measures for comparison
as the amount of error was tolerably constant from year to year. While the mortuary
218
registration would never show the full and exact impact of the famine on the well-being
of the people, yet it would give a fair indication of its ravages simply by registering the
Notwithstanding all the disorganization of the village service, and family and social life, it is
simply marvellous how the death registration has served to portray the intensity of the famine.51
Temple ration created a flutter amongst the medical profession as well as the press. By
April 1877, newspapers were filled with reports of the great mortality caused by the
Temple ration. (As has been mentioned in Chapter 1, an analysis of newspaper reports
would have provided a valuable set of illustrations regarding this point, but has not been
possible within the scope of the thesis). Cornish’s publication of mortality rates further
Government to control starvation. Despite the Temple ration being discontinued in May
1877, critical public opinion continued to decry Imperial famine policy for months.
That the number and nomenclature of famine deaths had become a problem to be
politically managed is evident from the following extract from a letter from Salisbury to
I do not think you rate sufficiently low the importance of the attacks one or two
newspapers here occasionally make on you.. .However, all’s well that ends well... the
rain has come, the Madras Government have not resigned in a body, more people have
not died than can reasonably be attributed to cholera and an unhealthy season and
George Hamilton is looking forward to his budget in very good spirits.52
Ibid.
52 Letter No. 22 from Salisbury to Lytton dated June 15, 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State, Lytton
Collection, MSS/Eur 218e/4A. (Italics in original).
219
By September 1877, there were rumours rife in Madras, Bombay and London regarding
the enormous mortality caused by the Imperial policy of neglect. In the meantime, the
Madras Government appealed to private charity in Bombay, Madras and London for
financial assistance with famine relief, much to the displeasure of Lytton and his council.
The Duke’s Madras meeting.... was in many ways terribly inconvenient it in a degree
committed the Madras Government to an endorsement of Cornish’s romances... and however
strongly convinced we might be from internal evidence that they were romances, we had no
material (nor had anybody else) with which to contradict. It may be possible to prove that half
a million have died; but it is next to impossible to prove that half a million have not died.53
Reported deaths of the half year thus exceed the reported death rate of 1875 by 16 Vz per
thousand, or 227,123 cases, and they exceed the supposed normal death rate by 13/1000 or
188,945 cases. This latter number somewhat exceeds total of cholera deaths.54
At the same time, he also adopted a defensive tone regarding the mortuary registration on
which these reports were based: ‘Impossible to say how much additional mortality due to
Accordingly, Lytton suggested to Salisbury that a census of the famine stricken areas be
undertaken in Octoberl877 October. Lytton was of the opinion that the census largely in
order to counter the ‘misapprehension about the mortality in Madras Presidency’ in the
English press.56 Salisbury endorsed Lytton’s suggestion and ordered a ‘famine census’ in
53 Letter from Salisbury to Lytton No. 37, dated September 13,1877, Letters to the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/E218/4B. (Italics and emphasis in original).
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid (Italics in original)
56 Telegram, dated 16th October 1877,Viceroy, Simla, to SoS, London, No. 275, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/
Vol. 59.
220
early 1878 as part of his commission for an inquiry into the famine. (This inquiry was
later to form the basis of the Report of the Famine Commission of 1880).57
The object of the Famine Commission and of the census itself was nothing less than a
‘scientific’ evaluation of state relief efforts with the purported aim of formulating a set of
guidelines for state intervention to prevent future crises on such a scale. However, in
commissioning the census Salisbury prefaced his despatch with a deliberate note of
caution regarding the tools that would be used to evaluate these efforts:
It is not easy to ascertain with precision in what cases these praiseworthy efforts were
rewarded with complete success, or how far they were defeated. The evidence which has
been offered on this subject is conflicting, and is evidently based much more upon
estimate than accurate knowledge.58
Salisbury further suggested that ‘scientific questions’, instead of clarifying, had ‘coloured
the extreme views’ which had been expressed by officials in regard to the relief efforts of
the Government.59 Although not stated, it seems clear that he was referring to Cornish’s
debate with Temple. While expressing the desirability of a scientific evaluation of relief
efforts, Salisbury also suggested that the basis for such a scientific evaluation did not
exist. In other words, while such an evaluation was highly desirable, it was hardly
57 See ‘The Famine Code: Context and Continuity’ in J. Floud and A. Rangasami, Famine and Society, op.
cit. and P. Robb, ‘The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast
Frontier in the 1880s’, MAS. 31,2 (1997): 245-83. Lance Brennan has a sceptical view of the actual way in
which the Famine Commission’s recommendations were translated into policy. He suggests that dominant
personalities and career ambitions within the top rungs of the Indian Civil Service in the Government of
India, rather than a realistic appreciation of the requirements of a famine policy for India, was the key
factor that shaped the Famine Codes. (Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’, op. cit.)
58 Copy of a Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Governor General of India in Council
dated India Office, 10thJanuary 1878 No. 2 (Revenue) on the subject of the recent Famine in Western and
Southern India, IOR/V/4/ Session 1858, Vol. 59.
59 Ibid.
221
The simultaneous appearance of epidemic diseases, especially of cholera in a visitation
of unusual severity, has lent an additional and formidable element of uncertainty to the
information that we possess in respect to the famine mortality of the past year, for it
appears that deaths from cholera and from want are attended by symptoms sufficiently
similar to mislead an untrained observer. At the same time, the datum from which all
calculations of increased mortality must proceed is in a great measure wanting. 60
Commenting on the deduction of the effects of famine from registered mortality rates, he
suggested that the ‘recent introduction’ of death registration made for imperfect
knowledge regarding the number of deaths in ordinary years; and that the number of
deaths in those years had been ‘understated seriously’.61 In other words, the imperfection
of the rural statistics in normal years made them of limited or no value in estimating the
Salisbury further went on to suggest that contrary to Cornish’s assertion that the famine
improved as a result of the instructions to village and district officials that they were to be
Where the normal mortality is not certainly known, it is hopeless to attempt to calculate
the amount of abnormal increase; and as the organization for famine relief would cause a
more careful observation of mortality, it cannot be assumed that the causes of error which
have vitiated the statistics of ordinary years would operate with equal force on the year of
famine.62
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid. Other authors such as Tim Dyson have also suggested that registration might have improved as a
result of these strictures. Dyson cites Comish on under-registration but also cites the 1881 Census report as
indicating that death registration in Bombay had improved during 1876-78. A similar improvement was
cited to have taken place in Punjab in 1939. (Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’,
p. 10.) However, given the local influence of village officials in Madras, and the testimony of a number of
district officials and independent journalists, this does not seem to have been the case in Madras during
1876-78.
222
Finally, Salisbury made a deliberate statement of the futility of an inquiry into famine
I am not of opinion that any useful result would be obtained by instituting a special
inquiry (on the question of an abnormal increase in famine mortality), even if there was
the slightest hope that trustworthy statistics could be collected as to the mortality due to
famine alone.63
Despite this statement of futility, a partial census of some selected districts was carried
out on the night of 14th March 1878.64 Comish assumed charge of the census undertaking
and designed a sample of talooks where the census was to be taken. The districts where
the census was undertaken were Bellary, Kumool, Cuddapah, Nellore, Coimbatore,
Tinnevelly which were seen as partially distressed, and Tanjore, which was assumed to
be a non-famine district.
The basis on which these classifications were made is unclear from the sources. In his
Annual Report for 1877, Comish classified Kumool, Bellary, Cuddapah, Nellore,
Madras, North Arcot, Salem, Chingleput, Coimbatore and Madura as ‘early famine
districts’ where scarcity and drought existed at the end of 1876 and early 1877; South
Arcot, Tinnevelly, Neilgherries, Kistna and Trichinopoly as ‘later famine districts’ where
scarcity and distress developed into famine over the course of 1877; and Ganjam,
“ fold.
64 Comish insisted that March was far too early to carry out the census, as the famine dragged on till the
end of 1878. However, the Governments of Mysore and Bombay carried out their censuses even earlier, in
January 1878.
223
whose ‘resident populations’ were unaffected by famine or scarcity.65 The official
correspondence indicates however that distress was reported from South Arcot
(purportedly a later famine district) as early as January 1876.66 In addition, a different set
of classifications appear to have been used by the Government of Madras in its review of
the famine. This document includes in its list of ‘distressed districts’ all the districts
classified by Comish as ‘early famine districts’ and Tate famine districts’ as well as
In the last four districts (Kistna, Trichinopoly, Tinnevelly and Tanjore) bordering
on the distressed areas, one talook each was chosen for the sample. No census was taken
of any portion of Madura or North Arcot in which the distress was assumed to have been
about equal to that of Coimbatore and Salem.68 Thus the 19 talooks chosen were Gooty
districts; Mayaveram in Tanjore district which had hardly been affected; and all nine
talooks of the Salem district which was held to ‘fairly represent a famine district’.69
224
The Results of the Famine Census
The calculations of famine mortality were made by Comish after the census had been
between the two censuses was that the population had increased at a rate of 1 l/i% each
year since the census of 1871 till the beginning of the famine year of 1876. In the six
talooks of the famine districts, the population of the selected subdivisions had declined
from 871,061 to 739,989. The total loss of population was 131,072, or 15% on the
70 Comish stated that the loss of population was greatest in Cuddapah, and the lowest in Chingleput.
However, he believed that the selected area in Chingleput did not fairly represent the entire calamity; as
was also the case with Coimbatore. (‘Influence of Famine on the Growth of Population\ Appendix to SCR
1878, p. lxxxii).
225
In the other four talooks, the population had increased by 6.1 % on the 1871 census. 71 In
Salem district, which was held to be an average and representative famine district, there
was a decrease of population to the tune of 20.7% of the 1871 population. In terms of the
sex and age-wise subdivision of the increase or decrease in population between 1871 and
1878, the census showed firstly, that the loss of population was greater for males than for
females. Cornish attributed some of this apparent discrepancy to the observation that
women were more imperfectly counted than men.72 Yet, this discrepancy was
corroborated by evidence from the relief camps where men died in greater numbers than
women. Secondly, in the famine area, children under 10 years disappeared in almost
double the proportion of those above 10 years age.73 (These conclusions will be dealt
Each of these figures was obtained on the assumption that the population grew at
the rate of 1 Vi % per annum between 1871 and 1876. Cornish obtained this estimate by
comparing the population totals obtained in previous censuses of parts of the Presidency
in 1822, 1838, 1851-2, 1856-7, 1861-2, 1866-7 and 1871 and arriving at an annual rate of
increase.74 Cornish estimated the amount of increase between 1851 and 1871 was 9 Vi
assumptions regarding the assumed annual rate of increase, derived from calculations
71 The actual increase was higher since eleven villages with a population of 9,480 had been transferred out
of the boundaries of these districts in 1878. (Ibid, p. lxxxiii).
72 Ibid, p. lxxxiv, lxxxv.
73 Ibid, lxxxvi.
74 Ibid.
226
based on previous census attempts, in themselves widely acknowledged as inaccurate. 75
The Secretary of the Madras Famine Department, J.H. Garstin, in reviewing the results of
the census, wrote that ‘the accuracy of registration is too open to doubt to allow of any
safe opinion being formed as to the existence of and what normal increase between the
census of 1871 and 1875’, albeit admitting that there had been a large increase in the
Lieutenant-General Kennedy, the head of the Public Works Department in Bombay, had
been deputed in late August by the Government of India as the personal assistant to the
Governor of Madras. Kennedy’s appointment came on the heels of Lytton’s visit to the
Lytton had felt the need for an officer to be placed in Madras who had ‘the confidence of
the Supreme Government’ to advise the Governor of Madras in the discharge of famine
relief matters.77 Kennedy was chosen for his ‘admirable skill in managing the famine
relief operations in Bombay’.78 However, it was obvious that Kennedy had been deputed
in a similar capacity in August 1877 as had Temple in January of that year: in order to
227
administrative accountability and to soften reports about the severity of the famine that
wherein he directly refuted the contention that the loss of population between the two
censuses was due to mortality caused by the famine of 1876-78. Kennedy claimed that
‘the population of southern India had remained unchecked as a result of peace and
tranquillity for a number of years prior to the famine’, and that ‘no large arable areas
(had) been available in late years for increased cultivation’. Under these circumstances,
he argued , it was probable that ‘the limits of increase of population and produce have
now been at reached and that the land under the rude system of cultivation prevailing
now supports and for some years has supported as large a population as can draw a
Proceeding from this Malthusian assumption, the ‘normal rate of increase’, he suggested,
could not have been more than 0.2%.80 Kennedy made this suggestion on the basis of a
comparison of the birth and death registers since the census of 1871 (as against Cornish,
who had compared census figures since 1822) and thereby suggested that the figures led
census would have been 2,871,846 (a figure arrived at by adding to the census population
of 1871 the actual difference between births and deaths to the end of 1876 and the normal
79
‘Memorandum on the Partial Census in the Madras districts in March 1878’, by Sir Michael Kennedy,
contained in Copies o f Papers relating to the Mortality during the Late Famine in Southern India, No. 46
of 1878, Government of India, Public Works Department, (Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/Vol. 59).
80 Ibid.
228
difference between births and deaths for the 12 months of 1877 and 2 months of 1878).
Instead, the famine census had shown that the actual population of this tract was
He then proceeded to argue that the bulk of this difference could be attributed to
migration out of the famine districts into the non- famine districts or to foreign
destinations by sea.81
Despite there being no detailed figures showing emigration from the famine districts in
particular, the figures from all the main ports of the Presidency between 1st Oct 1876 to
30th November 1877 was 287,482. This amounted to an increase over the average for the
preceding five years of 131,339, or nearly double the five yearly figure.82
The lack of detailed figures for migration and emigration notwithstanding, Kennedy used
the figures from the famine census of 1878 to show the age and sex-wise distribution of
81 Ibid, p.15.
82 Ibid, p. 16.
229
Females do-------------- : 351,084 (Difference of 48,000).
Males above 10 years : 772,517
Females do-------------- : 820,973 (Difference of 4,000).
While there were 4,000 less boys than girls in this population, there were 48,000 less men
than women. Kennedy argued that it was obvious that men would migrate in greater
numbers, while there did not seem to be any reason why men should die in greater
numbers.83 Therefore, he argued, ‘it was only fair to conclude that whatever the number
of migrants may be, the women exceed the men by at least 48,000’. From this it followed
that such a large excess of females would not be possible unless a large portion of the
‘missing people’ had migrated rather than died. Kennedy stated that ‘it was very liberal to
assume that the number of migrants was 350,000, among whom the males were 33% in
excess of women’.84 Adding 350,000 to the 1878 total of 2,295,885, the number obtained
Kennedy then turned to the birth and death returns of the 15 talooks since the
commencement of the famine to the end of February 1878, showing an ‘excess mortality’
of 190814; and a decrease of births amounting to 32,000, i.e. a total diminution in the
population of 222,839. Kennedy argued that the bulk of the diminution of births was due
to migration; while deaths had been due to the prevalence of cholera, fever and smallpox,
leaving merely 68,290 deaths, or less than 2 V2 % of the population missing and possibly
dead due to the famine. In other words, Kennedy’s method of estimating the loss of
83 Historical demographic research over the past quarter of a century has suggested, however, that male
mortality during periods of famine is considerably greater than female mortality. See Chapter 4 for details.
84 ‘Memorandum on the Partial Census in the Madras districts in March 1878’, by Sir Michael Kennedy,
contained in Copies of Papers relating to the Mortality during the Late Famine in Southern India, No. 46
of 1878, Government of India, Public Works Department, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/Vol. 59.
230
population due to famine relied on three key assumptions: first, the assumption that
Cornish’s assumed rate of increase was too high (an assumption which was shared by
other administrators); second, the assumption that a large portion of those ‘missing’ had
in fact migrated as the number of males in the 1878 census was lower than females,
particularly in adult age groups; and third, the assumption that the bulk of the excess
registered deaths and negative births during the famine months was due to the prevalence
of epidemic disease. The remainder of the loss was attributable to famine, which was
‘greatly to be regretted’ but ‘considering the vast areas over which the famine extended
and the helpless nature of a large portion of the population’, on the whole, ‘the substantial
safety of the people was secured, so far as such a result was practically attainable’.85
While Kennedy’s conclusion that Cornish allowed for too high a rate of non-famine
population growth appears to have had some weight, his confident assertion that the
‘missing’ people had migrated appears to have been whitewashing the truth. Cornish
refuted the ‘migration’ theory in his 1878 report by pointing out that in the famine areas,
the children less than ten years of age had disappeared in nearly double the proportion of
people of greater ages, the ratios being 25.5% for children and 13.7% for those above ten
years of age. Cornish reasoned that children under ten years of age were not more likely
to have migrated in an undue proportion to other classes of the population, and therefore
the greater loss amongst them was due to the combined effects of death and diminished
85 Ibid, p.17.
86 ‘The Influence of Famine on the Growth of Population’, pp. lxxxvi.
231
Kennedy concluded that ‘considering the vast areas and lengthened periods over which
the famine has extended and the helpless nature of the population, it may be said that on
the whole, the substantial safety of the people was secured, so far as such a result was
07
practically attainable’.
The question of how many people had died from want during the famine was never
resolved, with Cornish placing the total mortality ‘directly and indirectly from want’ at 3
million as opposed to Kennedy’s figure of 68,000. However, the debates about the use
and accuracy of vital statistics during the famine of 1876-78 had important consequences
for Provincial famine policy in Madras. In the aftermath of the famine, the Famine
Codes modelled on the Draft Code issued by the Imperial Government in 1880. Lance
Brennan has argued that the Strachey brothers manipulated the composition of the
Famine Commission in order to make sure that the Commission’s report made Provincial
expenditure, the Commission also authorized each Provincial Government to draw up its
own code specifying the administrative, legislative and financial arrangements for
preventing distress from accelerating into famine. This suggests that the key concern of
the Government of India was financial expediency rather than increased Imperial control
or ideological dominance.
87 ‘Memorandum on the Partial Census in the Madras Districts in March 1878’, by Major-General
Kennedy, in Copies o f Papers relating to the Mortality during the Late Famine in Southern India, No. 46
of 1878, Gol- PWD, Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
88 Brennan, ‘The Development of the Indian Famine Codes’, op. cit.
232
The Madras Famine Code, first issued in 1883, when William Robert Cornish was
against mortality statistics as tests of state relief. In its introduction, the Madras Famine
Code declared,
In such circumstances (of drought and distress) it is the duty of the state to take steps to
avert disastrous consequences to human life, which must ensue if means of subsistence
are not afforded to the classes affected.89
The Code continued in a vein directly against that of the Government of India’s stated
Governments, and between the state and its medical services, contributed in fact to create
a more humane famine policy statement in Madras than in any of the other provinces as
evinced by the Famine Codes.91 It would not be going too far to say that this was an
occasion when vital statistics, however imperfect, became the basis of an official
233
statement of responsibility for human lives, juxtaposed against limiting financial
Vital statistics were an extremely clumsy and blunt tool with which the Provincial
Governments were forced to base sanitary policy from 1864 onwards. Despite optimistic
claims by medical officials regarding their value in knowing patterns of disease and death
amongst the general population, it is clear that from their inception, they were tied to the
structure of power at the local level within the Madras Presidency (and the administrative
basis of ryotwari), where the primary duty of the village officials was seen as
administering the complicated land revenue system satisfactorily, and collecting other
administrators. To that extent, even though the compilation and collection of vital
statistics can be seen as an ‘Imperial project’ aimed at protecting the health of the armies
and the European civilian population, and of gradually establishing a hegemonic hold
over the ‘general population’, this project was crippled by administrative factors that
influenced the accuracy of the statistics and their value as means of actually knowing the
Secondly, the relationship between different levels of the state and its medical services
was clearly not smooth when it came to interpreting and using the statistics as a basis for
234
opinion over the financial and administrative basis of intervention in economic processes,
as well as contests over the ‘scientific’ status both of the statistics and medical theories
regarding the causation and prevention of disease, which influenced the interpretation of
statistical patterns. This would enable us to question studies which uncritically see
modalities’ of colonial rule which enabled control and domination. It would further place
us in the ‘sceptical’ position as regards the potential of information system of the colonial
state to augment its control, with an important modification. While much of colonial
information was ambiguous and of doubtful value and that local networks played an
important role in generating, shaping and using such information, statistics did indeed
have a ‘justificatory’ dimension in conflicts between different levels and agencies of the
Finally, we return to the question of whether one can see the debates during this famine
history. It appears that we can see a little bit of both, lending support to David Arnold’s
argument that famines were both crisis and process.92 The use of vital statistics in famine
policy reflected the long-term conflicts between different levels and agencies of
Government over the financial, administrative and moral basis of intervention. At the
same time, these conflicts had important consequences for future policy. Allegations of
inaccuracy of the rural statistics- a defence for Imperial non-interventionism- along with
a distancing of the Imperial Government from financing famine relief led to a paradox.
Knowledge which was manifestly inaccurate- and depended largely on the whims of local
92 Arnold, Famine, p. 6.
235
and Provincial officialdom- came to be enshrined as the cornerstone of a relatively
236
Appendix 3.1 Causes of Death 1877.
All tables reproduced from W.R. Cornish, Fourteenth Annual Report o f the Sanitary
Commissioner for Madras, Madras, 1878.
Diseases
I. Cholera
237
C. Famine districts where scarcity developed into actual famine over partial areas
or the whole district during the year 1877.
II. Smallpox
238
Nellore 4466 3.2 0.5
Madras 6679 17.4 1.5
North Arcot 5388 2.7 1.5
Salem 11,257 5.7 1.5
Coimbatore 2366 1.3 0.7
Chingleput 5621 6.01 1.5
Madura 3161 2.3 2.2
C. Non-Famine Districts
D. Famine/Prevalence of smallpox
239
III. Fever Mortality (See also table 4.4).
A. Districts in which fever mortality has not varied much from average
240
IV. Bowel Complaints
B. Famine Districts
241
C. Relief camps (a large proportion of deaths are not registered in the above returns as
people are in relief camps).
V. Injuries.
242
VI. ‘Other Causes’
B. Famine Districts
243
Appendix 3.2 The connection between food prices and mortality: from
The Fourteenth Annual Report o f the Sanitary Commissioner for Madras
for 1877, Madras 1878.
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Chapter 4 Starvation, Disease, and Death in Madras (1876-78)
Introduction
Several have attempted to show that historical crises of mortality hitherto attributed to
epidemic disease (for example, plague) were actually crises of subsistence.1 For
many, the links between the appearance of famine and waves of epidemic mortality
employment and/ or subsistence; trade was unable to supply the wants of the people;
the state was unable or unwilling to intervene; this led to starvation, which then
caused disease, and thereby death, particularly among the marginal and poor.2
This model has been questioned by others, who have seen famine deaths as
reflecting not just failures of subsistence, but also crises of sanitation, health and
social dislocation. From this viewpoint, famines killed through a complex ecology of
disease that attacked not just the poor but also the rich.3 Climatic factors favoured the
breeding of disease vectors and thereby shaped the course of disease and death.4 The
failure of governments to provide adequate relief, contain migration and social unrest,
protect water supplies and provide adequate sanitation in areas where relief was given
This chapter will investigate the epidemiology of the famine of 1876-78 and
address some of these debates. Although it is difficult to generalize from a case study
1 A. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, Liverpool, 1987. See also J. Walter and R.
Schofield , ‘Famine, Disease and Crisis Mortality in Early Modem Society’, in idem. Famine, Disease
and the Social Order in Early Modem Society, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 17-25; 57-73.
2 This view has been particularly characteristic of nationalist readings of famine in colonial India, such
as R.C. Dutt and B.M. Bhatia. (See Chapter 1 for references).
3 A. de Waal, Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan 1984-1985, Oxford, 1989, .and idem, ‘Famine
Mortality: A Case Study of Darfur, Sudan 1984-5’, Population Studies, 43 (1989): 5-24.
4 Whitcombe, ‘Famine Mortality’, op. cit; Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’,
op. cit.
244
of one particular famine episode, this method has the advantages of being able to
delve in depth into the historical specificities of this situation. Moreover, at least five
writers have used this episode in order to investigate the epidemiology of famines in
nineteenth century India.5 This surely testifies to the importance of this particular case
in the history of Indian famines; as well as the quality and richness of the
epidemiological data available for it. (Tim Dyson, for example, believed that the
Madras famine of 1876-78 was the first for which demographic and epidemiological
What this chapter seeks to do, then, is to revisit some of the questions that
previous authors have asked in connection with famine mortality and epidemiology.
How did this famine kill most of its victims? Was it through the biological impact of
starvation? Was the bulk of the mortality due to the ecological and climatic
sequences of the famine? Or did the dislocation of normal social relations caused by
personal and social behaviour, were heavily implicated? The chapter forms a
foundation for the following one, which seeks to evaluate the contribution of state
Famine, Disease and Mortality during 1876-78: The ‘Two Phase Model’
The demography of the 1876-78 famine has been studied by several authors.
In 1985, Roland Lardinois suggested that the coincidence between the subsistence
crisis (as measured by the rise in prices of ragi) and the mortality crisis (as measured
5 Klein, ‘When the Rains Failed’, op. cit., Lardinois, ‘Famine, Epidemics and Mortality in South India:
A Reappraisal of the Demographic Crisis of 1876-78’, op. cit; Whitcombe, ‘Famine Mortality’, op. cit;
Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I ’, op. cit.
6 Dyson , ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I ’, op. cit.
245
by the peak in mortality) was very sharp in late 1876-early 1877; and again in July-
August 1877.7 Lardinois suggested that the lack of correspondence between grain
prices and mortality rates was due to ‘other causes of mortality than the dearness of
grains’, and that ‘numerous factors favoured the unleashing and propagation of
Q
Lardinois concluded that ‘in the background, the hike in the prices of foodstuffs and
the rigidity of their fluctuations lead to high prices of grain being the decisive cause
of mortality’.9
Other authors were not so convinced of the connection between high prices,
dearth, disease and mortality. In a 1991 article on the historical demography of Indian
famines, Tim Dyson charted the main generalizations he had drawn from an analysis
of five of India’s pre-Independence famines. His focus was on the demographic and
rather than starvation, constituted the bulk of increase in deaths during famines, over a
relatively short period of time. He showed that most of these deaths were classified as
being due to cholera and fevers. Third, most of the mortality increase occurred not
during the height of the drought and distress. Instead, it happened after the resumption
of the monsoons and agricultural activities, when presumably, levels of nutrition had
This implies that high prices- and therefore economic distress- were not directly
related to the famine mortality in a simple and unproblematic manner, i.e. economic
distress causing starvation deaths or famine mortality. Further, climatic rather than
death. Dyson further found that if cholera were removed from the monthly mortality
246
figures for November 1876 to December 1877, the bulk of the increase was
attributable to a steep rise in fever deaths, which accounted for 62% of the deaths for
There were thus two phases in Dyson’s explanation of famine mortality. The
marked by a steep rise in prices, contributed a relatively small increase in the number
of deaths. The bulk of the ‘excess deaths’ during this early period were caused by
cholera and dysentery. Both occurred because of the contamination of water sources
This phase was succeeded by a very heavy monsoon, which created conditions
that most of these deaths in the second phase were undoubtedly due to malaria. These
‘malaria inspired crescendos’ struck at precisely the point when the drought and social
dislocation caused by the famine ended and people were returning home from relief
that malaria deaths should increase so greatly at a point when better nutrition should
in fact have led to improvements in health- Dyson suggested that the increased
moisture/ vector breeding explanation was only one part of the equation. The other
concerned the interaction between nutritional status in the host and the development
of the disease agent. Starvation inhibited the development of the disease agent- the
plasmodium- in the human body, and hence protected the famine stricken against
disease. In this explanation, once normal feeding was resumed, the plasmodium was
able to multiply and cause disease, which then caused death. This was the ‘re-feeding
247
Re-Feeding Malaria
various observers and scientists in the latter half of the twentieth century. One of the
experimental biologist, who had observed the phenomenon that undernourished rats
exposed to anopheles mosquitoes often did not develop malaria as quickly as better
nourished rats. 10 The Bengal Famine Commission of 1945 had also noted that
Malaria not infrequently developed in patients who had rallied after a few days stay in
hospital. The temperature would rise and malaria parasites would be found in the blood.
This may be explained in two ways: either the parasite was unable to multiply in a starved
body and revived together with its host, or during the phase of starvation, it was present as
in the later febrile stage but owing to the low state of the patient, produced no febrile
condition.11
The re-feeding malaria hypothesis was put forth again in 1978 by the Murrays, a
scientist couple who had measured the spleens of populations in malaria- endemic
went on to suggest that as a general rule, the re-feeding malaria hypothesis could
10 S.P Ramakrishnan, ‘The course of blood-induced infection in starved albino rats’, Indian Journal of
Malariology, 7,1(1953): 53-60; S.P. Ramakrishnan , Satya Prakash, A.K. Krishnaswami and Chanan
Singh , Effects of milk diet on the course of blood-induced infection in albino rats, Indian Journal of
Malariology. 7, 1(1953): 61-66; S. P. Ramakrishnan, Satya Prakash, A.K. Krishnaswami and Chanan
Singh , ‘Effect of Glucose, biotin, para-aminobenzoic acid and methionine in the course of blood
induced infection in starving albino rats’, Indian Journal of Malariology. 7, 3 (1953): 225-228 ; S.P.
Ramakrishnan, ‘Malaria and Nutrition with special reference to Plasmodium berghei infections in rats’,
Indian Journal of Malariology. 8, 4 (1954): 327-332.
11 Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal, 1945, p. 117. The Commission observed that
anaemia was prevalent in patients in famine hospitals at all stages of the famine, largely due to the
combined effects of undemutrition and malaria. Yet, the commission also remarked that ‘destitutes
attacked by malaria often failed to respond to appropriate treatment and succumbed readily to the
disease while healthy people attacked in the same way recovered after treatment in the usual way’ (p.
120-122). The Commission concluded that both rainfall and high food prices were correlated with the
occurrence of epidemic malaria.
12 See M.J. Murray, A.B. Murray, N.J. Murray and M.B. Murray, ‘Refeeding Malaria and
Hyperferraemia’, The Lancet. 305, 7908 (March 22, 1975): 635-654; M.J. Murray and A.B. Murray,
‘Starvation and Re-Feeding Activation of Infection: An Ecological Necessity?’ The Lancet, 309, 800
(January 15, 1977): 123-125. Enlargement of the spleen has long been used as a measure of the severity
of infection.
248
explain the excess mortality in most of the Indian famines he studied. He thus argued
that the natural ecology of disease transmission- determined primarily by climatic and
parasitic factors- played the most significant part in causing famine mortality. This
would imply then, that, if ways to control malaria been known and utilized at the time,
there were two distinct phases in famine epidemiology- one marked by high mortality
from cholera and bowel disorders, the second marked by the predominance of fevers
as the main cause of deaths.13 Primarily a historian of colonial irrigation systems and
their social impact on north India, Whitcombe’s 1993 study of famine mortality in
Madras during 1877-78 and Punjab 1896-7 and 1899-1900 remarked on the similarity
of late nineteenth century India. Using data culled from the Sanitary Commissioner’s
reports, Whitcombe emphasized the biphasic nature of famine mortality and the
She argued strongly and convincingly that deaths from fever were composed largely
of malaria.14
and high prices prevailed, conditions were not conducive to the transmission and
mosquito. Further, starvation during this phase prevented malaria, ordinarily the
largest killer, by acting to suppress the nutrition of the plasmodium already present in
resumed, the conditions for epidemic malaria were set in motion. The mosquito
multiplied when the rains came. Once people returned to work on their fields, levels
of nutrition improved and conditions became conducive for the multiplication of the
the period of the famine helped spread the incidence of disease across geographical
factors in which the ecology of disease rather than the direct consequence of
‘absence of insect life’ during the first ‘choleraic’ phase of famine when according to
Cornish, fevers were absent. After the resumption of the rains, however, Cornish
noted the ‘rapid proliferation of insect life’- an observation all the more remarkable
because this was before Ross, Manson or Laveran’s discoveries in the 1890s.15
Thus, both Dyson and Whitcombe concluded that malaria was of immense
importance in the mortality patterns during famine years, with cholera and bacillary
patterns). Both alluded to the likelihood that instead of hastening death, drought and a
Paradoxically, the resumption of the monsoons which might have been thought to
bring relief to them instead proved deadly. Other, earlier epidemiological work also
15 For a discussion on the work of these men, see J. Guilleman, ‘Choosing Scientific Parsimony: Sir
Ronald Ross, Alphonse Laveran and the Mosquito-Vector Hypothesis for Malaria’, Journal of the
History of Medicine. 57 (2002): 385-409.
16 C.A. Gill, The Seasonal Periodicity of Malaria and the Mechanism of the Epidemic Wave, London,
1938.
250
Social Dislocation, Migration and Famine Mortality
Arnold at around the same time.17 (It is worth noting that his essay relied heavily on a
to generalize the argument for all or most nineteenth century Indian famines). Arnold
applied to his study of Indian famine epidemiology John Post’s argument regarding
In Arnold’s view, social, rather than nutritional/ climatic/ parasitic factors were at
issue in excess mortality from famine disease. Famine mortality was thus an
17 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease in the Famines of Nineteenth Century India’, op. cit.
18 J.D. Post, ‘Nutritional Status and Mortality in Eighteenth Century Europe’ in L.F. Newman et. al.
(eds), Hunger in History: Food, Shortage, Poverty and Deprivation, Massachusetts, 1990. Post argued
that ‘epidemiological evidence and present day medical views on the interaction of nutrition and
disease entities responsible for the epidemics that became rife during the early 1740s and 1770s
indicate that prolonged undemutrition probably cannot principally account for the elevated incidence or
higher case fatality rates in the majority of the infections identified’ (p. 259). Post found that smallpox,
louse-borne typhus and relapsing fevers were the main causes of elevated mortality during the food
shortages of these years. Smallpox was also directly influenced by changes in ‘normal’ behaviour
patterns during subsistence crises. Typhoid and bacillary dysentery were directly communicated
through the fecal-oral route from infected people who failed to wash contaminated hands or fingernails.
He similarly traced the increase in typhus and relapsing fevers to the fact that it was ‘doubtful that
destitute people exhausted by hunger and fatigue bothered much about washing themselves’ and
‘(crowded) together for warmth at home and in public shelters’. Only in the case of dysentery was Post
prepared to grant some causal significance to nutritional deficiency, (p. 258). Anne Hardy makes a
similar point regarding the epidemiology of typhus epidemics in the sixth and seventh decades of the
nineteenth century in London, wherein she suggests that personal habits and lack of cleanliness, rather
than economic distress, were responsible for these outbreaks. (See A. Hardy, ‘Urban famine or urban
crisis? Typhus in the Victorian city’ Medical History, 32 (1988): pp. 401-425).
19 See de Waal, Famine that Kills, op. cit.
251
to food crises played a very significant role in hugely magnifying mortality from
epidemic disease.
Thus, starvation did not involve simply crossing a threshold from a situation
of ‘some food’ to ‘no food’; but rather a series of increasingly desperate measures to
stay alive. The first steps were a reduction in the quality and quantity of food
consumed; rice, the normal staple of the people, was substituted with ragi and
cholum20; people ate fewer meals and began wandering afar in search of food and
work. The untouchable and agricultural labouring castes had recourse to plentiful
supplies of meat in the early days of economic distress when cattle died in large
numbers. However, these sources of nutrition quickly dried up and themselves might
Many of the wild plants and berries consumed by those on the move were poisonous
and irritated the bowels. In the early stages, drought led to the drying up of existing
sources of water, and the few sources that remained were often contaminated, leading
to outbreaks of cholera and dysentery, from which few towns were immune. Arnold
further argued that ‘contaminated water, lack of sufficient water to replace body fluids
rapidly lost through diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera, and scarcity of water to
maintain bodily hygiene.. ..were as crucial as the want of food to famine mortality’.22
Arnold’s account focused primarily on cholera (arguing that ‘cholera had a massive
impact on mortality during the famine’.23 However, he also discussed other causes of
20 Arnold’s account appears to be inaccurate in the context of the Madras famine, although the general
argument holds. The staple food of the bulk of the people (except the well-off) was not rice, but ragi
and cholum. Government relief was largely provided in the form of rice imported from Burma and
Bengal. Rice was widely believed by medical officers to constitute a less nutritious and satisfying meal,
given the habits of the people. Thus, the normal eating habits of the people were disrupted, but in the
opposite way as suggested by Arnold.
21 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 391.
22 Ibid, p. 392.
23 Ibid.
252
death such as smallpox, malaria, plague and tuberculosis, arguing that all of them
‘preyed upon the collapse of normal social relations or exploited cultural and
94
behavioural traits that favoured the dissemination of disease’. Amongst the
search of work and food played a large role in disseminating disease, in Arnold’s
disease, brought famine paupers together in vast and insanitary numbers.. .and made
9S
the eventual resumption of agricultural operations far more difficult. Cholera was
the main disease associated with such migration and insanitary congregation, but
other diseases also preyed upon such abnormal conditions. Smallpox, for example,
preyed on the crowds of people huddled together waiting for relief in camps and
kitchens. Malaria was also ‘heavily implicated in mortality arising from these
population movements’, with ‘migrants moving in and out of endemic malaria zones’
acting as a ‘contributing factor as malaria carriers moved back into areas where the
disease had not previously been endemic’.26 In addition, although there is no data for
bubonic plague and tuberculosis for the 1876-78 famine, Arnold suggested that
factors connected with movement of grain (and hence rat fleas) favoured the
24 Ibid, p. 402.
25 Ibid, pp. 397-8.
26 Ibid, p. 401.
27 Ibid, p. 403.
253
II
explanation where the ‘natural/ climatic/ parasitic’ ecology of malarial fevers assumed
great importance, and perhaps even negated the role of acute hunger, starvation and
human agency. Arnold’s analysis on the other hand emphasizes the role played by
dysfunctional human social and personal behaviour, which disrupted a ‘normal’ way
of life and the balance between disease and rural populations in their normal social
environment. For him, this displacement was the key to explaining the various
or compromised bodily defences that play the major role in causing famine mortality.
Arnold’s explanation appears to be the most comprehensive of the three studies of the
Madras famine. It takes into account a wider range of behavioural and social
responses in analysing the epidemiology of famine mortality than does the ‘climatic’
theory and incorporates remarkable local detail. Yet, while Arnold hesitates to ‘share
28 This account of a ‘classic pattern’ would also appear to be based on the Bengal Famine
Commission’s Report of 1945. The Commission concluded that there were 2 stages of famine mortality
and disease, the first characterized by starvation, with or without coincident disease. In the second
stage, it was noted, epidemic disease took precedence over starvation. By this the Commission seems
to have meant that acute undemutrition was at its height in the early months of the famine, although
‘the provision of suitable nourishment to the patients in famine hospitals was of primary importance in
treatment, although it was in the early stages.. .the problem of resuscitating cases of starvation by
suitable therapeutic means was most acute.’ (Famine Commission, Report on Bengal, op. cit).
254
Post’s apparently confident conclusion that “the principal link between the shortage of
food and epidemic disease was more social than nutritional’” , we would argue that his
account tends to overemphasize the social factors more prominently than the
nutritional.
physiological link between nutrition and health, starvation and disease. For example,
Arup Maharatna, while cautiously endorsing the role played by environmental and
sanitary factors, suggests that the debilitated physical condition of the famine victims
was the primary factor in the causation of famine mortality. Maharatna suggests that
the category ‘fever’, upon which so many authors have laid an emphasis, consists of a
over a forty years period, argues that the ‘re-feeding malaria’ hypothesis is based on
the supposition that lower levels of plasmodium in the blood as measured by the
spleen index were not necessarily associated with lower risk of death; and that in fact
rainfall was less of a predictor than food prices in determining the likelihood of
might exhibit more severe forms of malaria infection as measured by the spleen index
(the degree of enlargement of the spleen in comparison to the normal), the disease
29 A. Maharatna, The Demography of Famines: An Indian Historical Perspective, Delhi, 1996, p. 57.
30 Ibid, pp. 49-50; 58-9.
31 S. Zurbrigg, ‘Hunger and Epidemic Malaria in Punjab (1860-1940) Economic and Political
Weekly. 27, 4 (1992): PE2- PE26; Idem, ‘The Hungry Rarely Write History and Historians are Rarely
Hungry: Reclaiming Hunger in The History of Health ’, Paper presented at the Centre for Health
Studies, York University, 1992; Idem., ‘Rethinking Public Health: Food, Hunger and Mortality Decline
in Indian History’, Paper Presented to the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
April 29th 1997.
255
was more lethal amongst the poorly nourished. Starvation thus not only failed to
protect its victims from malaria, but increased the likelihood that they would die when
99
infected even with mild forms of the disease.
Although few authors would go as far as stating that all excess deaths in a famine
situation were due to starvation alone, there is evidence that what is termed a
‘synergy’ between nutrition and infection influences the health of individuals and
The terms synergism and antagonism in the physiology of nutrition have been
The combined effects o f malnutrition and infection cannot be predicted from the
occurrence and characteristics o f either alone. When infection aggravates malnutrition or
malnutrition lowers resistance to infection, the relationship between the two can be
classified as synergistic, i.e. the simultaneous presence o f malnutrition and infection
results in an interaction that is more serious for the host than would be expected from the
combined effect o f the two working independently. An infection, through precipitating
clinical malnutrition, can result in further synergism as the infection in turn becomes more
severe in the malnourished h o st.. ..in some special circumstances, malnutrition is more
likely to discourage multiplication o f the agent than to affect the resistance mechanisms o f
the host. In this event, the interaction between malnutrition and infection can be identified
as antagonistic, the combined effect being less than would have been expected.33
important to note that Scrimshaw and his associates concluded that synergism is a far
more common and recurrent phenomenon than antagonism; and also that it is a
misconception to assume that poor diet may be interfere with the progress of some
32 S. Zurbrigg, ‘Did Starvation Protect from Malaria? Distinguishing between Severity and Lethality of
Infectious Disease in Colonial India’, Social Science History, 21, 1 (1997): 27-58.
33 N.S. Scrimshaw, C.E. Taylor and J.E. Gordon, Interactions of Nutrition and Infection, Geneva, 1968,
p. 16.
256
infections and thereby be beneficial to man. Another significant finding was that the
provision of dietary supplements like vitamins and minerals could not be substituted
for a diet satisfactory in bulk (carbohydrates and proteins). They found that genetic
factors could not account for differences in human resistance to the same extent as
adequate diet, and finally concluded that a satisfactory diet had established value as
One cannot entirely write out from the historical record the role played by climatic,
sanitary and contagious factors in causing deaths from malaria, smallpox and bowel
infections. Yet, it appears that climatic and sanitary factors carried out their deadly
work upon the ground prepared by starvation and compromise of the body’s defences.
the causation of famine disease need to be taken into account in analysing cause of
categories to describe or ‘fit’ nineteenth century data. We will argue in the following
essay that each of these studies has in fact neglected a category which accounts for a
34 Ibid., p. 266, italics mine. The issue of synergism in history has also been addressed by Anne
Carmichael and Carl E. Taylor in two separate essays in a collection of essays by R.I. Rotberg and T.K.
Rabb. (See A.G. Carmichael, ‘Infection, Hidden Hunger and History’, pp. 51-67 and C.E. Taylor,
‘Synergy Among Mass Infections, Famines and Poverty’ in RI. Rotberg and T.K. Rabb, Hunger and
History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society, Cambridge,
1983). Carmichael suggests that we need to look at the relationship not just between mortality and
nutrition but also on the domino effect of infectious disease on resistance, i.e. a synergism between
disease and disease as the seat of a vicious cycle rather than between nutritional status and disease. We
would agree with Carmichael to some extent but would suggest that the synergism between disease and
disease does need to be looked at from the point of view of the social classes amongst whom it occurs.
This, we suspect would make it difficult to separate a disease-disease synergism from a nutrition-
disease synergism, both historically as well as scientifically, unless one has access to detailed studies of
food intake over a long period of time. On the other hand, we would agree with Taylor’s point that
social conditions and cultural factors need to be brought into the analysis of the relationship between
nutrition and infection.
35 See Chapter 2 for an explanation of the term ‘predisposing causes’.
257
significant one third of famine mortality, the inclusion of which strengthens the case
Ill
*This is the first year that this category was introduced into the returns.
We present above in table 4.1 the mortality returns for the years 1871-78,
including the three main famine years- 1876, 1877 and 1878. Distress began to be
reported to the Provincial Government from two districts in early 1876; and four
districts around the middle of 1876. By October 1876, eleven districts reported
distress which was threatening to turn into famine. However, the worst year of famine
was 1877.
From the above table we may deduce the following. First, the famine years
1877 and 1878 saw record numbers of deaths in all categories, although these
258
numbers had been rising since 1875. The largest number and proportion of deaths in
1877 and 1878 were registered under the categories ‘other causes’, ‘fevers’ and
‘cholera’. In the first year of famine, ‘other causes’ dominated the returns and caused
a higher proportion of deaths than did fever. In 1878, ‘fevers’ overtook ‘other causes
in terms of deaths.
Table 4.2 shows the monthly distribution of deaths by cause. We deal with
each of the registered causes in terms of their contribution to the total mortality in the
Fevers
Fevers accounted for the largest proportion of deaths from a specified cause
during both famine years, as in other years. The classic pattern of mortality noted by
Dyson, Maharatna and Whitcombe, whereby the initial phases of drought were
marked by a decline in the proportion of fever mortality, was visible during 1876, to
some extent. Thus, despite the existence of high prices and reports of starvation in late
1876 and throughout 1877, deaths from this category started to rise dramatically only
from June 1877, when the monthly number of registered deaths rise from 25,000 in
May to 31,000. From July 1877 onwards, deaths from fever soared. Prices reached
their maximum in September 1877. The number of deaths rose again sharply to
65,000 in November and peaked in December that year at 71,000. At the same time,
the proportion of deaths attributed to fever declined from 39% in 1875 to 33% in 1876
to 30% in 1877.
In 1878, fevers accounted for a steep 46% and this increase was concentrated in the
first three months of the year. Through 1878, fevers were the single largest
259
Table 4.2 Monthly Distribution of Deaths by Cause 1876-78
260
cause of deaths. At the same time, they never reached the levels of November and
Other Causes
The category in which the maximum numbers of deaths were registered during
the main famine year 1878 is a category called ‘other causes’. It is important to note
that none of the authors mentioned above take this category into account in their
analysis. Lardinois, Dyson and Arnold simply do not refer to it, while Whitcombe
terms these deaths as ‘defectively registered’!1 ‘Other causes’ was responsible for the
largest absolute number and proportion of deaths in the main famine year 1877.
The monthly figures for deaths registered under this category are not given.
But it is possible to reach a fair estimate in the following manner. The deaths from
cholera, smallpox, fevers and bowel complaints are subtracted from the total number
of deaths for each month. The remaining figure then represents the combined monthly
total for ‘other causes’ and ‘injuries’. An estimate of the monthly number of deaths
from injuries is obtained by dividing the yearly total for injuries by 12 and arriving at
a monthly average. This average is then subtracted from the monthly combined total
for injuries and other causes. The remaining figure represents the monthly total of
deaths from ‘other causes’. Although this method will tend to smooth out the
monthly or seasonal variations in deaths from injuries by using a flat average, we can
justify its use on the grounds that the number of deaths from injuries is a very small
proportion of the total (between 11,000 and 17,000 per year for each of the three
famine years, or between 1.05 and 1.85% of all deaths). This category would not
disturb the monthly variation in the combined total of ‘other causes’ and ‘injuries’ to a
significant extent).
261
Thus ‘other causes’ and ‘fevers’ constituted the majority of deaths throughout
the famine years, in common with non-famine years, ‘Fevers’ as a category of deaths
December 1877 and January 1878, and thereafter throughout 1878, as noted above.
These two categories, therefore, accounted for between half and three fourths of all
deaths in every year from 1871. In 1877, these causes account for 61% and in 1878,
this rose to over three fourths of all deaths, due to the increase in fever deaths.
Deaths under the category ‘other causes’ fell slightly from their 1876 levels in
early 1877, then started to rise from May 1877. They rose dramatically and dominated
the death returns in May, June, July, August and September 1877, then began to
decline gradually and reach early-1876 levels by May 1878. However, the number of
deaths attributed to this category increased again in July and August 1878, decreased
slightly in September, October and November 1878, and then rose sharply in
December 1878.
Cholera
Cholera deaths peaked in January 1877, although small rises are seen again in
May and August 1877, as seen in Graph G4.1. Cornish and other observers pointed to
the occurrence of a cholera epidemic in 1875 and 1876.2 This epidemic continued into
the early months of 1877, and swelled mortality figures. After ‘other causes’ and
‘fevers’, cholera constituted the third largest cause of deaths in 1877 at 23%. In 1878,
this proportion fell to 5.6% of all deaths. Thereafter, deaths from cholera declined
steadily, despite a small rise in August 1877. In 1878, the Presidency reported
262
Smallpox
attributed to smallpox declined from this crescendo, but the proportion of the total
deaths attributed to smallpox rose from a level of 3.86% in 1875 to 7.06% in 1878.
Smallpox exhibited distinct seasonal patterns. This indicates that the increase was
caused by several factors peculiar to the famine situation- particularly the massing of
people on relief works and camps, and by famine migration (thereby validating
Arnold’s argument to some extent). However, there also appear to have been seasonal
factors which played a role in the virulence and transmission of the disease, much as
in non-famine years. The greatest number of deaths from smallpox in 1877 occurred
in March and April, but deaths from this cause increased again in September and
Bowel Complaints
year between 1871 and 1878. This category was introduced into the returns in 1871
to differentiate between cholera and other diseases whose symptoms also included
fluxes of the bowels. They therefore referred in the European mind particularly to
‘dysentery and diarrhoea’, both of which seem to have been linked to each other. In
1877, bowel complaints caused 8.5% of all deaths, a considerable increase from its
pre-famine proportions of 1875 and 1876. Deaths from bowel complaints peaked in
the monsoon months of July, August and September 1877, then decline from October
1877. Despite a slight increase in July, August and September 1878, they came down
3 SCR 1877, p. 137. Cornish however remarked that in 1877, the seasonal variations were less marked
than usual: although the maximum mortality occurred in March as in other years, the epidemic did not
decline as quickly as in other years.
263
to pre- 1876 levels by end-1878. This category, then, had a clear correspondence with
Injuries
Finally the category ‘injuries’ also increased sharply in 1877 over the previous
year. The number of deaths registered as due to injuries in 1877 was the highest in the
decade. At the same time, it must be remembered that the proportion of deaths
attributed to injuries of all sorts fell to a low this year, as other causes of death simply
overwhelmed it. Since monthly figures for this category are not available, it is not
categories leads us to ask the following questions. Firstly, does the data support the
existence of two main phases of famine mortality, the first dominated by cholera,
starvation and bowel disease, and the second dominated by fevers? Secondly, what
was the relationship of different disease categories to the general death rate, and what
to raise some fresh ones. This graph is useful because it shows the movements of
different categories under which deaths were registered over a two- year period. We
are also able to analyse the relationship and contribution of different causes of death
to the general death rate over a 2 year period. There appear to have been four, not two
phases in mortality between January1876 and December 1878, during each of which
264
Graph G4.1 Monthly Movement of Deaths 1876-78
200000
180000
160000 —-—
140000
120000 Cholera
Smallpox
100000 Fever
BC
80000 OC
Total Mort
60000
40000
x
20000
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Month
Average Distribution of Deaths 1871-75
Cholera
5%
Smallpox
7%
OC
36%
■ Cholera
■ Smallpox
□ Fevers
□ BC
■ Injuries
□ OC
Fevers
42%
Injuries
3%
BC
7%
Distribution of Deaths by cause 1876
Cholera
22 %
□ Cholera
Smallpox □ Smallpox
3% □ Fevers
□ BC
■ Injuries
□ OC
Injuries
2%
BC
6% Fevers
33 %
Distribution of Deaths by Cause 1877
Cholera
23 %
□ Cholera
IB Smallpox
□ Fevers
Smallpox
□ BC
6%
■ Injuries
□ OC
Injuries
1%
BC
9%
Fevers
30 %
□ Cholera
□ Smallpox
□ Fevers
□ BC
■ Injuries
□ OC
the death rate exhibited distinct patterns by disease. The first phase lasted from March
to November1876. During this phase, the general death rate saw a fairly minor peak
which occurred in July 1876. ‘Other causes’ and fevers led the increase in death rates
pretty evenly in this phase, with cholera slightly behind. Between July and October
1876, the total number of deaths fell to their March levels, mirrored by the fall in
cholera deaths. However, the total number of deaths from fever and other causes
remained fairly steady. Whether this early period can be included in our analysis of
famine mortality is a debatable question, but we must note that the harvests had been
poor in the Ceded districts even in 1875, and thus there must have been some
The second phase may be seen as lasting from November 1876 to April/ May
1877, and can be said to have constituted a ‘cholera’ phase. During the first half of
this phase, November 1876 to January 1877, there was a sharp and steady increase in
deaths from cholera, which shaped the general mortality curve remarkably. From our
examination of the official records, we know that, by this period, distress had begun
to be felt across the Presidency, and famine was clearly visible. This phase was
dominated by cholera deaths, which peaked in January 1877. Between January and
April 1877, the cholera deaths declined and led the general death rate downwards. It is
important however to remember that this falling mortality rate is only in relation to
the preceding three months. In fact, the mortality rate in these months was very much
higher than the same season in previous years, as seen in Table 4.3.
From this falling mortality rate at the end of this second phase, we are led into the
third phase of famine mortality, which covers the period April/ May to October/
270
Table 4.3 Mortality in Famine Districts December 1876 and January 1877
Districts Cput Nellore N Arcot Kurnool Cuddapah Bellary
Pop 1871 938184 1376811 2015278 914432 1351194 1668006
Av. 5 yrs endng Dec 1875 1892 2007 3445 1420 2336 2585
Av. 5 yrs ending Jan 1875 1404 1794 3493 1371 1933 2253
December 1876 2865 5641 6006 11862 6612 7440
January 1877 6094 11142 13686 6253 13361 9361
Mort/1000 5 yrs 21.08 16.6 21.9 18.3 18.9 17.4
Mort/1000 Jan 1877 57.2 73.7 58.7 118.8 88.7 60.4
Source: Letter from Dr. Cornish to the Chief Secretary to Government, dated 6th April 1877.
(No. 144, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65)
271
November 1877. This phase was the most lethal in the entire course of the famine and
there was a huge increase in the general death rate. It was dominated by ‘other
causes’, which, along with ‘fevers’ began to increase from March 1877. Deaths from
‘other causes’ led the increase in the general death rate in this phase, while the
connection between cholera and the general death rate lost strength dramatically from
the beginning of this period. Note also that death from ‘bowel complaints’-
numerically a relatively minor cause of death- mirrored the general death rate in shape
to a great extent at this stage. Thereafter, the general death rate fell slightly in
September.
The fourth phase of famine mortality began from November 1877. At this
point, deaths from fever, which had been increasing from April/ May 1877, overtook
‘other causes’. The general death rate was led into another peak in December 1877,
caused primarily by the sharp increase in fever deaths. The highest absolute number
of deaths from a single cause in any month occurred in December 1877, and was
attributed to fever. Yet, the peak in the general death rate which occurred as a result of
this increase in fever deaths was smaller than that of the preceding phase. This means
that the earlier during the third phase was far more lethal in relative terms. The
swelling of the death rate from all causes contributed to the August 1877 peak in the
general death rate, while the later fever peak was neutralized to some extent by falling
death rates in other categories. From this point onwards, the total death rate declined,
although there is another minor peak in August 1878, which is again largely due to
The phases in famine mortality can thus be summarized as: (1) March 1876-
November 1876: This phase, which may be included in the famine period with some
doubts, saw a minor peak in July 1876, and was led by other causes, fever and
272
cholera. (2) November 1876 to April/ May 1877: This phase may be said to constitute
a ‘cholera’ phase. It saw a dramatic rise in deaths from November 1876 which peaks
in January 1877, and this was dominated by cholera. From January 1877 to
Aprill877, cholera began to decline, and though death rates for these months was
well-elevated over preceding years, the absolute number of people dying declined.
This decline in cholera deaths led the general death rate downwards. (3) April/ May
to October/ November 1877: This, the third phase, was undoubtedly that of greatest
suffering, with a very steep increase in the general death rate. ‘Other causes’
dominated this increase, rising from end-April and peaking in August 1877.
Interestingly, the shape of the death curve from ‘bowel complaints’ although much
smaller than ‘other causes’ is similar to it at this stage. Both ‘other causes’ and ‘bowel
complaints’ mirror the general death rate curve in shape. Between September and
October 1877, the general death rate declined from its August levels, but was still
high. (4) November 1877 to December 1878: This was the fourth ‘fever’ phase of
famine mortality . Deaths from fever had been increasing in importance from April/
May 1877, overtaking ‘other causes’ in November 1877. The general death rate rose
in response from end November 1877. Fever mortality peaked in December 1877.
This was the highest number of deaths from any single cause in the course of the three
famine years. However, this peak did not affect the general mortality trend to the
extent that ‘other causes’ did in the preceding phase. This seems to have been because
The previous section established the existence of four phases in famine mortality
rather than the two suggested by Dyson and Whitcombe. Further, we also pointed to
273
the importance of a category of death causes either not considered by any of the
authors who have analysed the mortality trends for this famine, i.e. ‘other causes’.
The preceding discussion as well as the graph presented above clearly illustrates the
importance of this category, both in terms of absolute numbers and in terms of the
main registered cause of death in the most lethal phase of famine mortality. We now
mortality.
We need first of all to examine the categories under which death was
what the category ‘other causes’- shown to be the category in which the maximum
number of deaths were registered in 1877, and particularly in the third and most lethal
phase of famine, consisted of? Secondly, did the category ‘fevers’ refer undoubtedly
to malaria as we know it today and what evidence do we have in this regard? Thirdly,
how did famine conditions influence the other categories of death causes- cholera,
bowel complaints, smallpox and injuries? Fourthly, can we possibly conclude whether
infection or debility played the most important role in causing famine mortality?
Finally, is there any evidence to suggest that administrative and medical actions
‘Other Causes’
In the main famine year, 1877, the category ‘other causes’ accounted, as we
have seen, for the largest proportion of all deaths, 31.5%. Cornish’s evidence on this
category seems to point to the possibility that a large proportion of this category was
estimated that in the seven non-famine districts, the death ratio was 8.5 per thousand;
274
while the fourteen famine districts returned 21.8 per thousand population. He
suggested that a large proportion of these would more aptly be classified as starvation
deaths, despite the uncertainty surrounding the actual identity of these causes. 1
Cornish pointed out that there were marked differences in the way in which
the administration classified death causes in different districts. Thus, in the Ceded
districts comprising Bellary, Kumool and Cuddapah, all of which were geographically
deaths from ‘other causes’ and a relatively modest number of deaths from fever.
Kumool and Cuddapah returned a very high proportion of deaths from fever, but a
small proportion from ‘other causes.’ However, these differences pointed Cornish to
the suspicion that both these categories were organically linked to clinical
person was to be permitted to die from want of food would prevent the entry of
starvation deaths in the returns, and that ‘the great bulk of the famine mortality has
been included under ‘cholera’, ‘fevers’, ‘bowel complaints’ and the general heading
...The exact truth in regard to the effect of diminished food supplies on a population
cannot be shown in the death registration tables....the diseases of innutrition, however
well-known to persons of medical training, cannot be specified by uneducated village
servants and the fear of getting into trouble with the authorities would further have the
effect of making these servants record mortality as due to ‘old age’, ‘fever’, or any other
head of classification, rather than to the proper heading ‘chronic starvation.3
Cornish therefore suggested that the bulk of the mortality was due to the effects of
chronic starvation on the human body; that the death registration seriously misjudged
275
and understated its effects; and that several deaths primarily traceable to starvation.
Going back to Table 4.1, it appears that the heading ‘all other causes’ accounted
for between 31 and 37.5% of deaths in all years, not just famine years. To attribute
the totality of the deaths under this heading to starvation or its effects would be
erroneous, for we would have to believe that a third of the registered population were
starving to death every year from 1871 onwards. This clearly is difficult to believe. It
remains an interesting anomaly that, in every year, when nearly a third of all deaths
were attributed to this category, no medical official at the Presidency felt the need to
explain this large proportion. It was only in 1877 that Cornish made a special note of
it, indicating that we need to weigh the evidence carefully before attributing it in its
entirety to starvation.
It seems reasonable therefore to conclude that there was simply a large amount of
disease and death in ordinary years that colonial medical men had no idea about and
which we therefore have few clues to. We are faced with the difficulty that despite its
significant presence in the death returns both in famine and non-famine years, we
know very little about what actually constituted deaths from ‘other causes’. Cornish
himself expressed his ignorance, as ‘details of diseases included under “all other
causes” were seen only by the mortuary clerk in the offices of each of the nineteen
district Collectors’.4 It clearly contained deaths from old age and debility amongst the
destitute, even in ordinary years, and possibly all other diseases not clearly recognized
or identified by village officials. It was only in 1877 that Cornish made a special note
of it, indicating that the original purpose of these statistics was the monitoring of
276
infectious diseases, particularly cholera, and that other conditions not of importance to
the state could not easily be encompassed by them This again points us to the
conclusion that the death statistics were themselves very rough-hewn tools to work
with.
Despite this, however, it still appears reasonable to suspect that starvation deaths
constituted a significant portion of the great increase in deaths registered under this
Royapettah Hospital during the famine months of 1876 to 1878. Here it is worth
remembering that this was a sample which was analysed by medical professionals in
Many cases were admitted with great emaciation and weakness but suffering from no
appreciable disease. These were generally returned under debility, privation or
atrophy.. ..they are all grouped under ‘other causes’. 5
It might also have contained deaths from old age and venereal diseases, although
which were explained not in European terms, but had a distinct identity in native
vocabulary. For example, district officials reported great panic amongst people due to
the outbreak of a disease called ‘soorukumari \ ini 877, which medical officials
such inexplicable or ambiguous cases would have been included in this category.
we would suggest that it might credibly be argued that Cornish’s reading of this
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category- as indicating the existence of starvation and its effects on susceptibility to
two-phase model
As the preceding paragraphs make clear, ‘other causes’ constituted the largest
proportion of deaths in the worst phase of famine. Both Porter and Cornish suggested
deaths. It is, therefore, doubtful whether famine mortality can indeed be divided into
The sharp rise in fever deaths that took place in November and December 1877 and
throughout 1878 was far less than the peak attributed to ‘other causes’ which
accounted for the maximum number of deaths between April and August 1877, and
Further, starvation and emaciation were being reported even in the third and fourth
quarters of 1877, a phase which would properly have fallen into the ‘epidemic malaria
phase’ under the two-phase schema. In September 1877, district officials in Bellary
reported that ‘the coolies here are all in a bad way and have fallen off in condition
very much during the past month; especially the young men.. .have recently become
mere skeletons of human beings. ’ The Deputy Collector of the District reported a
‘great deterioration in the physique of the people at large’; that ‘several had sold their
huts and all household things and even their cumblies and cloths for annas and pice
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and are now left without anything except hunger and starvation’.7 If those on relief
works were in bad shape, people on money and food doles in villages or in relief
What seems to have been happening was that as the famine continued, people
gradually fell from various stages of subsistence into various stages of starvation. In
desperate strategies to stay alive is appropriate. In the early phases, as Cornish noted,
cattle mortality as well as distress sales of cattle by small farmers and sharecroppers
meant that the meat-eating castes (who were usually poor untouchables of Pariah,
Palli or Vanniyar caste) had a source of nutrition which enabled them to survive.9
However, this source did not last long, and as Arnold has noted, this paradoxically
meant that they were disqualified from the relief works.10 As the famine wore on,
small landowners and menial government servants fell into destitution. Petty
allowance to supplement their meagre income.11 The slightly better off ryots began to
migrate, sell jewellery, utensils and other belongings. By the middle of 1877, a
7 Letter from J.H. Master, Esq., Collector of Bellary, to C.A. Galton, Esq., Acting Secretary to the
Board of Revenue, dated Kudlighi, 20thAugust 1877, No. 670, Proceedings of the Madras Board of
Revenue for September 1877, TNSA.
8 Early on in the famine, Comish noted that ‘the most marked effects of the famine were to be sought
among people of this class’ (i.e. those who came to receive food or money doles in the camps) ‘rather
than those who had strength to work on relief gangs.’ He also found that ‘for the first effects of (the
reduced wage scale) we must look to the old and infirm and the young children, that is the dependents
of labourers who are incapable of earning a living for themselves... .these classes are not to be seen on
the relief works.’ (Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated 9th March
1877, Nos. 31-34, TNSA).
9 SCR 1877, p. 220.
10 Arnold, ‘Famine in Peasant Consciousness and Peasant Action’, p. 95; ibid, ‘Social Crisis and
Epidemic Disease’, p. 391.
11 Superintendents and Deputy Inspectors General as well as jail servants were granted an increased
‘batta’ from November and December 1876 onwards. This indicates the range of persons who must
have felt the pinch of increased prices. Prisoners in police custody were also given an increased
allowance from December 1876. Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department
dated 20th November 1876 (Nos. 100-101); 12thDecember 1876 (No. 261), 28th December 1876 (Nos.
172-174).
279
number of previously prosperous persons were destitute. The sheer scale of the
famine suggests that it affected a very wide section of south Indian society.
occurring long after July 1877, and that state machinery was relatively useless in
dealing with it. For example, a famine relief officer of the Chingleput district begged
the Indian Famine Relief Committee (a semi-private organization which appealed for
assistance from private persons in England and in British colonies) for assistance in
September 1877, stating that ‘every day, scores of new applicants who are
As late as January and February 1878, reports of starvation were coming in from
the districts. A Protestant priest in the Bellary district requested funds from the
Mansion House Relief Committee in January 1878, mentioning that ‘a poor old
woman died of misery before my door. I gave her food and money but the relief came
1^
too late’. In the North Arcot district, in the middle of February 1878, a man was
cannibalism (He was found by the police eating the remains of a poorly interred
corpse in the dry river bed of the Palar river). However, the case resulted in a
difference of opinion between district revenue and medical officials. That he was sent
to the dispensary and not prison was due to the fact that district revenue officials saw
him as being mentally unsound rather than of criminal intent. The medical officer in
charge of the dispensary, an American missionary priest called Dr. Scudder, however,
12 Letter from C. Devaraja Mudliyar, Special Famine Officer, Chingleput district, dated 27th September
1877, Proceedings of the Indian Famine Charitable Fund, Chapter 3, p. 6, TNSA.
13 Letter from Rev. A. Kroll to the General Famine Relief Fund, dated 9thJanuary 1878, Proceedings of
the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund, Chapter 16, p. 30, TNSA.
280
reported that the man was neither criminal nor a habitual lunatic; he was simply
‘(the man) when brought to the dispensary was extremely emaciated and him self declared
that he committed this act because he was suffering from hunger and was faint from want
o f food .... for these reasons I connected the word famine with his name, and though he is
subject to periodic attacks o f insanity, 1 still have no doubt that starvation was the
immediate cause o f his act. 14
What this would suggest is that quite late in the famine, an indeterminate number
down the line of hunger. Therefore it is not quite so easy to implicate contagious or
infectious diseases in these latter phases without reference to debility and starvation.
Alexander Porter noted that in all the autopsies he had seen in the post mortem room,
‘the most notable feature was emaciation.’ Fully 86% of men and 83% of women
whose bodies he saw between November 1876 and May 1878 had wasted to the point
where they had reached two thirds of their normal weight.15 This would indicate that
starvation was a slow and painful process, and that its ravages were not restricted to
Fever deaths, Malarious Fevers and Malaria: Theories of Disease causation and
Descriptions of Symptoms
Returning to the ‘malaria hypothesis’, we also need to examine the way in which
fever deaths were classified. Did fever in fact mean malaria as we understand it
today?
The evidence suggests that ‘fevers’ was a generic term used to describe very many
syndromes, and similarly ‘malaria’ had different connotations from what we would
understand of malaria today. In 1870, Cornish wrote: ‘As regards the registration of
14 Proceedings of the GoM in the Judicial Department, dated 28th March 1878, G.O. No.657, TNSA.
15 Porter, Diseases of the Madras Famine, p. 201.
281
deaths under the head of ‘fevers,’ no attempt is made to classify the various diseases
which cause mortality.. ..the prevailing form of fever is the malarious remittent or
might lead us to believe that indeed the ‘malarious fever’ which Cornish refers to here
was the malaria we know today, with its symptoms of splenic enlargement, and
In fact, the correspondence between the term ‘fever’ and malaria as we know it
today appears not to have been quite so watertight. The term ‘malarial fevers’ was
i.e. exposure to bad air. It did not always refer to a specific disease entity as we
understand it today. Malarial poisoning was thought to cause disease both indirectly
and directly through exposure to contaminated or poisonous air, on the one hand, and
through the exhalations of decayed vegetable matter, on the other. Malarial poisoning
could then manifest itself in a range of symptoms and disease conditions, caused both
directly through exposure to bad air, and indirectly through This is evident from the
following quote:.
The extent to w hich... .malarial fevers prevail is very great, and there are considerable
variations in the intensity o f fever prevalence in the various districts. The actual deaths
registered as due to fevers during the year are about thirty per cent o f the whole mortality
and in this registration, for obvious reasons, no attempt has been made to show the
mortality actually due to malarial poisoning in the form o f anaemia, dropsy and bowel
complaints. Were the deaths from these indirect effects o f malarial poisoning added to
those which are the direct product o f malaria, the proportion one year with another,
probably would not fall very short o f fifty per cent o f the whole.1
which a range of symptoms and conditions were seen to be caused by changes in the
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disease causation as well as descriptions of symptoms. In India, as in England, fevers
Cornish did remark that people were more liable to suffer from fever, ‘not during
the time of greatest famine pressure, but after the rainfall following on prolonged
drought had set free malarious exhalations, and in many of the famine districts, after
the worst pressure of famine had been relieved’.19 In addition, ‘all classes of the
people, even the European officials, felt the malarious influences’; ‘in Kumool and
Cuddapah public business nearly collapsed owing to the subordinate officials being
stricken down with fever’.20 This might suggest that fever struck indiscriminately; and
91
that there was no connection with starvation and debility. This certainly seems to be
the conclusion drawn from the Sanitary Commissioner’s Annual Report of 1877 by
Elizabeth Whitcombe, who wrote that ‘all classes of the population were
vulnerable’.22 Cornish also wrote that ‘malarious fevers following on famine are just
prolonged drought’, lending support to the argument that malaria following on the
unusual climatic and ecological sequences of famine was unrelated to the economic
Yet, in the same report, Cornish also remarked that this fever, ‘an ordinary
malarious ague’ occasioned ‘very little mortality with the strong and well-to-do, but
18 The interested reader is referred to Margaret Pelling’s classic work on how disease categories were
linked with programmes of sanitary reform. (M. Pelling, Cholera, Fever and English Medicine 1825-
1865, Oxford, 1978).
19 SCR 1877, p. 141.
20 SCR 1877, p. xxviii.
21 Ibid.
22 Whitcombe, ‘Famine Mortality’, p. 1173. Whitcombe has referenced this quote erroneously as being
located in Cornish’s 1878 report, when in fact it is cited in his 1877 report.
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with the ‘weakly and half-starved victims of famine, it was very fatal.’23 Cornish
further reiterated:
The relation o f the fever mortality to the famine appears to be this, that a vast number of
people had been so debilitated by want that they had no reserve or vital force to enable
them to withstand a disease which, in ordinary years, is not very fatal in proportion to the
number o f sufferers. The feeble health and depraved condition o f the body amongst the
poor, induced by long privation, were undoubtedly the circumstances predisposing to the
large mortality from fever. 24
Cornish also stated that in his opinion, ‘it (seemed) very probable that that in the
famine area, many deaths were ascribed to “fever” which would more appropriately
have been registered as being due to privation’, indicating once more the fluidity and
evidence would tend to support the argument made by Sheila Zurbrigg that in
expressed in mortality.26
Medical officials were well aware of the greater lethality of disease amongst
the poor and famine stricken, even if they did not have the discoveries of Koch,
Manson and Ross in the 1870s. Alexander Porter’s investigations between November
1877 and July 1878 indicate very strongly that ‘fever’ referred to a variety of
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syndromes and conditions. Porter believed that pneumonia caused a vast proportion of
I have no doubt that many o f these (fever deaths reported by Cornish) were deaths from
pneumonia, present in a large proportion o f famine sick; in fact in the post mortem room
pneumonia in a more or less advanced stage was found in one case in every four.27
In Porter’s sample, the fevers observed were of short duration, and had a lower death
rate in comparison with the bowel fluxes. Porter mentioned the existence of cases of
ague, febricula, ‘simple continued fever’ and sunstroke, all of which were classified
under fever deaths.28 Cornish concurred with Porter when he stated that most fevers
were simple agues, except that they were far more lethal to a famine stricken
population. 29 ‘Fever’ was mentioned as a cause o f death in only seven out of 459
autopsies, indicating that it was classified differently by the village registrars and by
medical official. On the other hand, fever was mentioned as a symptom in numerous
cases where the cause of death was recorded as fever, pyaemia, phthisis pulmonalis,
acute pneumonia, and hepatic abscess. One might suspect that particularly in the
districts, the distinction between fever as a symptom, and fever as a primary cause of
At the same time, this is not to suggest that we have no commonalities with past
societies in experiencing some of the same disease conditions and symptoms, i.e. the
supposition that past societies did not experience malaria as we do today and in
similar conditions. For example, in cases where splenic enlargement was mentioned
285
as a concurrent phenomenon along with malarious fever, it is quite likely that this is
the malaria that we know. Undoubtedly, famine stricken populations in the 1870s
must have experienced malaria in ways similar to those experienced today, and
possibly malaria caused as much devastation on a regular basis as it does today in the
developing world. One would need to guard against taking the category ‘fevers’ to
signify malaria alone, particularly when the district death returns are used.
malaria as we understand it after the work of Ross, Laveran and Manson. Moreover,
even where fevers were linked to climatic conditions and splenic enlargement, the
Even if the incidence of ‘fever’ had a strong climatic element (this association
between climate and fever mortality is particularly marked during 1878, which falls
into our fourth phase of famine mortality), it is by no means clear that climatic or
parasitic changes alone were the most important factor. We return to Cornish’s reports
to examine the distribution of fever deaths. While noting the strong seasonal
movement of the mortality, Cornish showed that fevers were most fatal in the districts
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Table 4.4 Fever Mortality in 187731
A. Districts in which fever mortality has not varied much from average
between variations in mortality, food prices and rainfall by district. Yet, Table 4.4
does provide a picture that implicates starvation in the mortality caused by fever, as
all the districts showing excessive fever mortality were districts where famine had hit
death ratios as compared to the famine districts, as migrants from these districts would
have wandered into the non-famine districts and introduced new strains of disease.
Instead, the famine stricken districts experience vastly inflated death ratios in
comparison to the previous five years. (This is, of course allowing for imperfections
The evidence from this famine, considered along with other nineteenth century
famines and the Bengal famine of 1943, does implicate the role of ‘fever’ in famine
deaths. It is also possible to suggest that this category must have included a number of
malaria deaths, which had a strong climatic or seasonal element. However, to argue
from there that the climatic factors were the main cause of mortality in famine years
seems to push this argument too far. The mistake, it appears, lies mainly in four areas:
division of phases of famine mortality into starvation/ infectious disease, when in fact
starvation continued to be reported well after the middle of 1877; third, the identity of
fever deaths and their correspondence with malaria; and fourth in the confusion
between infection and the likelihood of death: the latter being far higher for victims of
starvation.
288
Sanitary and Contagious Factors in the Spread of Disease during Famine
We turn now to consider the role of sanitary and contagious factors in the
transmission of disease during the famine. The main categories of disease for which
these factors are claimed include smallpox, cholera and bowel complaints.32
Smallpox
As we have noted, the total number of deaths from smallpox increased significantly in
1877 and remained high in 1878. Smallpox is generally distinct because of its
recognizable symptoms and its extreme contagiousness. In the returns, it begins to rise
from November 1876, when the first wave of migrants begin to crowd into urban
The condition o f the population was such as to be eminently favourable to the spread o f a
contagious disease like smallpox. Many thousands o f the labouring classes wandered away
from their homes to the nearest towns or markets or to relief works and camps, so that the
people got herded together in large crowds, and at night, every resting place affording shelter
33
was dangerously overcrowded.
I have seen a man, his body almost nude, and covered from head to foot with smallpox
pustules, elbowing his way through a crowd at the distribution o f fo o d ... .in the earlier days of
relief camps, it was a common sight to witness women and children in stages o f smallpox
sitting close by others free o f the disease, awaiting the distribution o f food.34
The mortality statistics for smallpox are interesting in that they show the
clearest linkage of all disease categories with migration and with the establishment of
relief camps. The mortality from this disease thus supports most strongly the ‘social
32 It is worth noting here that nineteenth century medical theories ascribed a role for sanitary and
contagious factors in the causation of fevers. However, to go into these debates and theories would
deflect us from the main focus of this chapter. See Pelling, Cholera, Fever and English Medicine.
33 SCR 1877, p. 137.
34 Ibid.
289
dislocation’ thesis. Thus, despite the fact that famine only partially affected some
districts- termed ‘non-famine’ districts where the effects of famine showed itself
primarily amongst migrant populations in 1877- these experienced a rise in the death
ratio from a mean of 1.4 over the previous five years to 2.4 per thousand population in
1877. At the same time, the death ratio for the famine districts rose even higher, from
a five year mean of 1.2 to an average death ratio of 3.0. (We would need to consider a
range of factors, such as how far people actually went to get relief, where smallpox
was prevalent, etc., in order to deal with this fully. This is regrettably not possible in
Graph G4.1 shows us the seasonal movements in deaths from smallpox during
the famine. In terms of seasonality, smallpox mortality rises from December 1876 and
peaks in March 1877. There is another (minor) peak in December 1877, and yet
another in March 1878. What is also notable about the smallpox death curve is how it
forms something of a plateau between March 1877 to March 1878, over which period
the death rate from this disease is roughly even. This might be explained by noting
that in the early stages of famine and crowding to relief centres, the mortality from the
disease was very high. Once the measures for famine relief were more stable, the
We may thus conclude that the smallpox was least affected in biological terms
starving poor to cities, relief works and centres of relief, the provision of relief in
crowded centres, and the inability of compelling segregation- were primary factors in
its transmission and in the great mortality from this disease in 1877 and 1878.
290
Cholera and Bowel Complaints
We next move on to cholera and bowel complaints. There are good reasons for
considering these diseases together. ‘Cholera’ was a disease that had been known and
feared since the early nineteenth century by European administrators. Its characteristic
symptoms included abdominal cramps, loss of body fluids through characteristic ‘rice
water’ diarrhoeaic bowel discharges, a drop in body temperature, clammy skin, and
great thirst. A variety of theories were propounded as to the causes and transmission
of the disease. In 1877, the disease was well-recognized, but still hardly understood.35
Cholera was the most politicized of all diseases during the famine. This was
for several reasons, firstly the larger historical context of cholera epidemics. From the
1830s onwards, epidemics of cholera became the focus of conflicting medical theories
periodically during further international epidemics and conferences in 1848, 1866 and
1877. However, as several authors have shown, both in India and in Europe,
35 For example, in 1876, there was a detailed inquiry into the causes of an epidemic of cholera in
Kanakampatty village in Salem district. This became the subject of dispute between the Acting
Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of Madras and the Army Sanitary Commission with the
Government of India over the mode of transmission of the disease, with the former asserting that
cholera was spread by the use of contaminated water, and imported into the village by persons from
outside. The latter insisted that the epidemic had nothing to do with polluted water, and that the proof
offered by the Acting Sanitary Commissioner was ‘defective’. (Surgeon-Major Comish, ‘On an
Outbreak of Cholera in an Indian Village’, The Practitioner: A Journal of Therapeutics and Public
Health, XXIV (January to June), 1880.
36 Harrison, Public Health in British India, Chapter 3.
37 See R. Ramasubban, ‘Imperial Health in British India’ op. cit.
291
despite the statistical importance of fevers and other causes, cholera appears to have
been the prime force behind the administrative changes of the 1860s, particularly the
setting up of the Sanitary Commissions in 1866. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s,
cholera occupies the maximum number of pages in sanitary reports, primarily for
these reasons.
However, in the immediate context of the famine, there was a far more
compelling reason for administrative concern with cholera. Early in the famine, at the
Famine Diarrhoea
For a moment, we must digress, therefore, into the history of famine. On the
1st of February 1877, while inspecting relief camps in Madras, Cornish noted the
presence of ‘diarrhoea of a very severe type’ amongst patients in the hospital attached
to the relief camp. Of these, Cornish wrote, ‘I fear that in the majority of these cases,
OO
it will not be possible to save life.’ He stated that, ‘the deaths from cholera and
privation and want of the necessaries of life. ’ In further inspections around the city a
week later, Comish saw more cases of this diarrhoea and termed it ‘famine diarrhoea.’
Mistakes of this kind are not made in hospital or relief-camp returns, but they are
on his tours of inspection noted of the relief camps in and around Madras:
At each o f the camps which Sir Richard Temple inspected were a considerable number of
women and children in an emaciated and miserable condition. In the relief hospitals were
292
being treated some hundreds who were suffering from diarrhoea, brought on or aggravated
by want of food. The death rate among these poor people was very high; and to some of
them the relief came too late. There were some, but not many, cases of cholera; but the
great many fatal cases were caused by diarrhoea which was called by the medical officers
“famine diarrhoea” and was identifiable as the same complaint that was so fatal in the
Rajpootana famine hospitals during the year 1869. 40
Famine diarrhoea was, in Cornish’s opinion, ‘the main cause of death and the
gravest feature in the business’.41 It was commonest amongst the young and the old.
(These age groups lost the most people as ascertained by the 1881 census of
Madras).42
February 1877:
.. .The bodies are worn away to skin and bone. All the tissues that can readily be consumed
have disappeared. The sick lie on the ground, in extreme weakness, curled up like a ball,
the thighs drawn up against the abdomen, the head bending forward on the chest, and the
arms folded close against the body. The surface of the body appears to be below the normal
temperature, and the pulse is weak and barely to be felt. The motions are mostly of a
dysenteric character, and if they do not contain blood, the bright green tint of the matters
passed, betoken blood in an altered condition. In these cases I apprehend that the fatal
termination is really due to ulceration of the large intestine. 43
starvation. Cornish identified two types of starvation- acute and chronic- and
emphasized the great difference between them in several of his letters to the
Government of India, and in his annual reports. ‘Acute starvation’ referred to ‘the
40 Memorandum XXV dated Chittoor, 30th January 1877 by Mr. Bernard, Secretary to Sir Richard
Temple, on the condition and prospects of the Chingleput District, Famine Correspondence 2,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
41 SCR 1877, p. 188.
42 See Lardinois, ‘Famine, Epidemics and Mortality in South India’, p. 460.
43 SCR 1877, p. 188.
44 Comish, ‘The Sanitary and Medical Aspects of Famine’, p. iv.
293
Cornish, could be easily remedied by good and adequate food and some medical
for months together, was far more insidious and dangerous as it was frequently
irreversible. Thus, long use of ‘poor and insufficient nutriment’ led to a ‘gradual
health officials, whose duty it was to ‘bring home to the comprehension of famine
administrators that chronic starvation (was) one of the most terrible disasters that
wasting, emaciation, scurvy, dropsy (swelling), alterations in skin and hair, arrest of
growth and development, and stunting of the reproductive functions. When these
‘intractable diarrhoea’, which was ‘merely a stage in the long process of degeneration
and wasting’.48
Famine diarrhoea began ‘gradually, without pain or uneasiness’, and only after a
certain amount of emaciation and wasting. Its symptoms were stools full of mucous,
mixed with blood, or blood that had undergone pathological change to a bright green
‘Famine diarrhoea’ and cholera were frequently confused, even by the medical
eye. At a relief camp in February 1877, Cornish noted that ‘there is no cholera in this
294
camp, but the mortality is large from famine diarrhoea’.50 An officer visiting a relief
camp in Salem district in April 1877 noted that a large proportion of the children were
emaciated beyond the reach of any intervention, and could not digest the food that
Most of these little things had been two or three months in the relief camp, and had not
picked up at all. Side by side with them were fat, happy little creatures who got no larger
allowance than the thin ones. The explanation given by the Relief Officer and the Native
doctor is that some of the children came into the camp in very bad condition, and they
cannot assimilate the rice and broth. The Native doctor said that these poor little things
passed their food in an undigested state, they had been tried with ragi, with rice and
cholum, and some of them had been treated in hospital with sago, but nothing would bring
them around. Among the adults too, were some people who had been in the camp for
months, and yet were still very emaciated.51
cholera’ in February 1877, when inspecting relief camps in Madras town.52 The same
month, Surgeon B.R. Thompson reported extensively on famine diarrhoea in the relief
symptoms, could be distinguished by trained medical men who were familiar with its
symptoms. Of the 1372 patients in the Monegar Choultry Relief Camp Hospital in
January and February 1877, all were treated for famine diarrhoea and dysentery rather
than cholera.
‘I had learnt clearly to distinguish one disease from the other and was thus able when
cholera broke out subsequently to separate persons suffering from these diseases when
they were brought in... Not a single case of cholera occurred among the inmates of any of
the camps...53
295
Second, Thompson also stated that early treatment was of the utmost
Diarrhoea has a manageable stage.. .if it occurs when the patient has not long suffered
from want of food, and the functions of digestion and assimilation are not seriously
injured’.54 (This seems to indicate that medical officials were themselves unsure of
how to detect or define the point at which chronic starvation had had progressed
beyond hope).
1877,
In the camp, diarrhoea is very common among the children.. .the stools are loose.. .and
perfectly green... it stains cloth deeply and may be seen staining the ground. It is fearfully
fatal; when I see it I always think the case hopeless.55.
The point of dispute is... .whether the deaths from disease which seem to be taking place in
great numbers are not to be looked on rather as famine deaths than as ordinary mortality
... .that distress has had some share in swelling the (mortality) rate few will dispute but it is
possible that inanition may constitute the main cause without the special character of the
disease itself being lost.56
registered similarly, deaths from bowel complaints are not representative of the
entire amount of fatal diarrhoea and dysentery less than one tenth of the deaths
can be ascribed to anything other than starvation diseases’.57 Other medical officials
in the famine districts also noted common errors of diagnosis on the part of village
54 Ibid.
55 Comish, ‘The Sanitary and Medical Aspects of Famine’, p. xxxv.
56 Letter No. 15 from Salisbury to Lytton dated May 4th 1877, Letters from the Secretary of State,
Lytton Collection, IOR/MSS Eur/ E218/4A.
57 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department, dated September 14th, 1877,
No. 32-34, TNSA.
296
officials. Dr. Gray from Chingleput district mentioned, ‘Cases of irritative dysentery
and diarrhoea (are) being put down as cholera’.58 Another medical official in
Cuddapah wrote that ‘some coolies supposed to have cholera.. .were all cases of
Gudur taluk reported that the tahsildar professed ignorance that anyone in the talook
was suffering from starvation. When the journalist asked if the weekly mortuary
returns did not open his eyes, the tahsildar answered that they ‘did not and could not,
for in the event of an emaciated corpse being picked up, the village munsiff, whose
duty it was to report cases would not attribute the death to starvation but would say
It appears that the early rise in cholera mortality must have taken into account a
large number of deaths which would more correctly have been put down to starvation.
This leads one to ask whether the rise in cholera deaths in the early part of the
probably to push the case too far. Cholera mortality is remarkable for its great
years, famine and non-famine. While its predilection for the poor and malnourished
was well-recognized, so was the danger to those who were better off.61 Thompson
291
noted a sudden increase in cholera deaths in December 1876 and January 1877 in
Madras town. He also stated that the early cases of cholera in late 1876 were less
severe and fatal than those in January and February 1877. He attributed this partly to
An epidemic of cholera had been raging in parts of Madras Presidency prior to the
onset of famine in 1876. There were, moreover, other reasons for the great increase in
cholera deaths during the latter half of 1876 and early 1877. These reasons implicated
amongst these was the use of polluted water for drinking, as usual sources of water
supply dried up during the early part of the drought and famine. In Cuddapah district
in 1877:
Attacks were not confined to the poor; several wealthy merchants and their families suffered,
and the disease very suddenly appeared in almost every part of the town. At this time, owing
to the drought, most of the drinking water was taken from a public well fed by springs from
the bed of the river, or from holes in the river bed. These sources were liable to constant
pollution.63
Similar reports of pollution of water supply came from Madras town, where ‘the
reservoir for supplying the town of Madras ran so low that the water had to be
pumped into the delivery channel.. ..and was very much the consistency of green pea
Civilization: The Cholera in Paris, 78J2.London, 1986. See also R.J. Evans, Death in Hamburg:
Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830-1910, London, 1987.
62 Surgeon B. R. Thompson, ‘A Report on the Diarrhoea in the Famine Relief Camps at Madras’, in
Madras Town Famine Relief Report by Col. W.5. Drever, Commissioner o f Police, dated 2(fh
February1877, Madras, Government Press, TNSA.
63 SCR 1877, p. 118.
64 SCR 1877, p. 103.
298
The Consumption of ‘Unwholesome Food’
Additionally, the consumption of damaged grain and ‘famine foods’- leaves, berries
and fruits that were otherwise considered inedible- played a role in exacerbating the
The scarcity of grain.. .caused the poorer classes to resort to extraordinary means of filling
their stomachs. They ate the fibrous pith of the aloe stalk wherever it was to be had. Fmits
of the Indian fig, prickly pear, margosa, and leaves of many jungle trees- some nutritious
and digestible, and others having probably only a mechanical action in distending the
stomach.65
other factors were also involved in the early rise in cholera mortality. Polluted water
supplies and the consumption of indigestible foods were some of these. Further, the
lack of sanitary arrangements in the early relief camps and works seems to have
The Etymology of ‘Bowel Complaints’ and its translation into the vernacular
‘Bowel complaints’ was a category introduced in the death returns in i875 by the
Indian Medical Department to refer to diseases other than cholera which presented
symptoms of morbid bowel discharges. The registration of deaths under this category
was problematic because ‘bowel complaints’ was not easily translated into Tamil as
‘dysentery and diarrhoea’, which it signified for the European physician. For him, the
term ‘bowel complaints’ conjured up all the symptoms that he wanted it to, and most
For the village official, it was a puzzle. The translation worked out as ‘vaithuvalli’ or
‘vairu noy’, which was interpreted as ‘bellyache’ or stomach pain. The term for
299
cholera is ‘vaangi bedi’ which literally means ‘vomiting and diarrhoea’. Diarrhoea
was translated as ‘bedi’, while dysentery was translated as ‘cheethu bedi’, translated
as ‘diarrhoea with mucous.’ These conditions were therefore identified not as disease
entities, but in terms of a set of symptoms, for the village official. It is imaginable that
a native official might have been able to ascertain the differences in symptoms at the
time of death by questioning relatives (i.e. whether someone had vomiting and
diarrhoea, diarrhoea alone, and whether the diarrhoea had mucous or not). However,
he was likely to have been puzzled when trying to assign the death to a category
which literally translated into something which did not have any reference to these
symptoms (bellyache). Hence this category contained, Cornish and other medical
officials believed, fewer deaths than its due share.66 This also points to the deep
including its aetiology, was often disregarded by European revenue officials. Thus, in
1875, the Collector of the Malabar district had a dispute with the civil surgeon of the
district over whether ‘choleraic diarrhoea’ could be entered as a cause of death. The
civil surgeon was more inclined to believe that the symptoms in the cases referred to
were not those of true cholera, but should be registered as ‘bowel complaints’. When
referred to the Government of Madras and the Government of India, the latter ruled
that in future, in all such cases where deaths from diseases resembling cholera were
reported, the cause of death would be registered as ‘cholera’, thus eliminating the
66 The translations for this piece of evidence have been worked out through personal knowledge and
conversations with people. Clinical distinctions between diarrhoea and dysentery reveal some amount
of ambiguity. In Porter’s study, the difference was said to lie in the fact that ‘dysentery’ implicated that
part of the gut supplied by the nerves of defecation’, i.e. the large intestine. Diarrhoea was believed to
be less correlated with the appearance of lesions in the intestines.
300
finer distinctions wished for by medical officials.67 This leads one to suspect, as did
Cornish, that a great many deaths from cholera were in fact not true cholera,
Deaths from bowel complaints in the famine years probably owed some portion of
their great increase to the consumption of contaminated or poisonous food and foul
water. Yet, the rise in this category of deaths was closely linked to starvation,
particularly during August 1877, the worst peak of famine mortality. The death ratio
from bowel complaints in Madras city, where migrants flooded in throughout the
famine period, was 38.2 per thousand as against a five year mean of 5.0 in 1877.
in our famine relief camps and hospitals, the most common termination of life was bowel
flux, either dysenteric in character or diarrhoeal.. .of the 82,993 persons known to have
died in camps, three fourths of the whole number had some bowel affliction.. .indeed a
healthy evacuation was the exception, and fluxes the rule, in all who had undergone a
certain degree of starvation. .. .Diarrhoea and dropsy of the whole body are the usual
endings of four fifths of the famine stricken, but in many cases the texture of the mucous
membrane of the bowels is not only wasted but inflamed and ulcerated as in chronic
dysentery.68
deaths from bowel complaints was confirmed by other medical investigations done
Commissioner with the Government of India, reporting on the Madras relief camps,
67 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department dated January 7th 1878, Nos. 21-
22, G.O. No. 32, TNSA.
68 SCR 1877, p. 143.
301
validated Cornish’s thesis regarding the existence of morbid conditions caused by
majority of cases, the final termination of life occurred when famine diarrhoea led to
complications such and dysentery and pneumonia, which were then seen as ‘causing’
the deaths:
Morbid conditions exist which may with propriety be termed ‘famine diarrhoea’ and
‘famine dysentery’ as the case may be. These are without doubt cases in which the
symptoms o f disease observed during life can be referred to no other origin save morbid
changes and degenerations dependent on malnutrition. Many other cases occurring among
the inmates o f relief camps are however complicated by the supervention o f other diseases
such as acute diarrhoea, dysentery, pneumonia, & c., and although in the majority o f such
cases the conditions leading to true ‘famine diarrhoea’ may be distinctly detected, and in
som e cases the com plications may be directly ascribed to their agency, yet the fatal
termination is caused, or at all events, accelerated by the com plications.69
structures were damaged by starvation over a long period of time, was irreversible:
Where once the com plex structures o f the intestinal mucous membrane have been so
seriously affected by degenerative changes dependent on insufficient nutriment, they
cannot be renewed and no diet, however careful and generous it may b e can be o f any
avail when once the means by which alone it can be appropriated to the necessities o f the
body, have been destroyed.71
69 From Surgeon D. D. Cunningham, Special Assistant to the Sanitary Commissioner with the
Government of India, to Surgeon Major S. C. Townsend, Officiating Sanitary Commissioner with the
Government of India, dated Calcutta, 18th June 1877 (Famine Correspondence 4, IOR/V/4/Session
1878/Vol. 59).
70 Ibid.
302
Cunningham, Cornish and other medical officials in Madras thus saw ‘famine
That symptoms of intestinal irritation should set in under such circumstances is only what
might be expected, and that these symptoms should have been especially liable to occur in
people shortly after admission into relief camps is readily explicable. While they were
outside and actually suffering from extreme privation, the primary destruction of tissue
was no doubt advancing, but the amount of nutritive material ingested was
correspondingly reduced... .On admission into camp a larger amount of food was supplied;
the digestive and absorptive apparatus which had formerly sufficed was now relatively
greatly reduced, and the surplus food- elements became mere sources of irritation.72
Further, it appears quite clear that Temple’s ‘experiment’ was the focus of their ire.
Cunningham continued:
All the phenomena observed in the present series of investigations point to the absolute
necessity of great caution in regard to dietetic experiments, dietetic systems of
punishment, & c. They shew it is not safe to push such procedures in the belief that, as
long as no active evil results present themselves, we can at any time pull up and restore
things to their normal state.73
Post mortem studies of famine victims at the Royapettah Hospital Famine Relief
Camp in Madras city also named ‘alvine fluxes’ as the cause of death in 347 out of
459 autopsies.74 Cornish noted that ‘in the camps, a large number of people have
‘diarrhoea’ which simply means that the food given to them is passing away without
affording nutrition to the body.’75 Similarly, the reports of civil hospitals and
diarrhoea, dysentery, and anaemia in 1877. 76 More modem studies have also
72 D.D. Cunningham, On Certain Effects of Starvation on Vegetable and Animal Tissues, Calcutta,
1879, p. 46.
73 Ibid.
74 Porter, Diseases o f the Madras Famine, p. 3.
75 ‘Remedial Measures Ordered to be Adopted in Connection with the High Death Rate in Madras
Town Due to Cholera’.
76 Report on the Civil Dispensaries and Hospitals of the Madras Presidency for 1877-78, Madras,
1879.
303
mentioned the presence of ‘famine diarrhoea’ as a physiological manifestation of
W. R. Aykroyd mentions that ‘in starvation the intestinal walls lose substance like the
rest of the body, leading to the common and very serious condition often called
“famine diarrhoea’” .77 Aykroyd also emphasizes that ‘infective organisms have rarely
been isolated in famine diarrhoea; the condition is primarily due to wastage and
ulceration of the intestinal walls. Clearly famine diarrhoea is essentially the same
Rivers writes that ‘in severely starved subjects gut function is disturbed so that
feeding may be associated with severe diarrhoea and food passes through the gut
functions, not just in the early phase of the famine, but well into 1878. This would
mean that we need to give starvation a primary role in causing famine mortality,
despite making an allowance for a certain proportion of these deaths being brought on
by ‘social dislocation’: the consumption of polluted water and food, and the
transmission of disease within badly organized and crowded camps and relief works.
304
The physiological aspects of famine diarrhoea as a result of chronic and irreversible
starvation need to be appreciated to a greater extent than existing studies have done.
The category ‘injuries’ has not been included in this analysis, as it is supposed that
deaths under this category cannot be grouped along with starvation and epidemic
disease. Also, monthly deaths from this cause are not available or calculable. (See
above under ‘Other Causes’ for a description of how monthly totals are derived).
However, it is clear that the social and economic disruptions caused by the famine
contributed largely to increase the number of deaths in 1877 and 1878. In 1877, the
number of deaths from injuries amount to the highest ever recorded since 1866. The
number of suicides increases greatly due to the mental depression caused by famine.82
That starvation affects the mental and emotional frame of mind is expected. The great
increase in deaths from wounds and accidents however needs further explanation. In
1877, deaths from injuries and wounds in Madras city alone amounted to 1066, nearly
a tenth of the entire number of deaths from this cause. This was due to the great
increase in the grain traffic in the port town. Once again we refer to Cornish:
Nearly all the rice brought by sea was removed to the railway goods station, nearly two
miles distant, by carts drawn by men, and very frequently the wheels of heavily laden carts
caught the naked heels of the pullers. This crushing of the heels generally led to great
sloughing and constitutional disturbance, and frequently tetanus supervened. 83
In the absence of information from other areas in the Presidency, it is difficult to say
whether this feature of the famine led to similar injuries in other parts of the
Presidency. However, it is worth noting that in 1878, deaths from ulceration and
82 The increase in suicides and depression had been noted in earlier Indian famines as well. The main
question for administrators in the 1870s seemed to be the connection between mental depression and
physical health during famines. See J. C. Geddes, Administrative Experience Recorded in Former
Famines, Calcutta 1874, pp. 187-88.
83 SCR 1877, p. 145.
305
sloughing of wounds were reported widely and ascribed to debility.84 Chronic
A final note about who died during the famine qualifies our thesis about there
and its influence on famine disease and mortality. In his essay on famine in Darfur,
Alex de Waal concluded that socio-economic indicators were poor indices of who
died during the famine. ~ De Waal suggested that the lack of correspondence between
pre-famine indicators of wealth and status, and famine mortality led very strongly to
the conclusion that social class and economic indices were in themselves not adequate
Was this the case in Madras Presidency in 1877 and 1878? All reports of
indeed accurate predictors of who died during the famine. Here, it is important to note
that in Madras, caste and occupation were very closely intertwined. In Alexander
Porter’s sample of 459 victims from the Famine Relief Sheds of the Royapettah
Hospital, the great majority were agricultural labourers from the Pariah and Palli
castes, as well as several weavers and potters. Government hospital surveys need to
be treated with caution because they are influenced by cultural and social factors
significant role in shaping the number of patients recorded. It is, however, quite
84 It was reported in 1878 that fatal abscesses and gangrenous ulcerations were unusually prevalent
amongst the poor (SCR 1878, p. 135). This was also the case during the second year of famine in
Bengal in 1943-44.
85 Famine That Kills ,p. 182.
86 It appears that Government hospitals were resorted to largely by the poor in Madras. See Proceedings
of the Government of Madras in the Public Department No. 79 dated 21st January 1879, G.O. No. 41,
TNSA.
306
reasonable, however, to suggest that in this context, unlike in Darfur in 1984,
landownership and caste- both strong predictors or indices of social and economic
status in nineteenth century Madras- greatly determined the chances of life or death
Census data also confirm this view- regarding the close correspondence
between caste, entitlement to food, and famine mortality. 88 Tables 4.5 and 4.6 show
the changes in different groups among the Hindu population between the Censuses of
1871 and 1881. From this we can see that in terms of absolute losses of population,
Pariahs, Vanniyans and Idaiyars (the first two were untouchable labouring castes, the
latter were shepherds) lost the most numbers between the two Censuses. In terms of
washerman caste) lost the most in terms of proportion, the next worst group was the
Shetties, a large, heterogeneous and largely urban trading caste. Small traders
probably faced the destruction of their businesses once depression and starvation set
in among the local population. After the Shetties, the Satanis, a mixed caste group
Idaiyars, a shepherd caste, whose livelihoods were destroyed by the drought and
famine. These data appear to reflect the extent of economic devastation; the
complexity of the rural and urban occupational structure ; and the disruption of the
environment. The famine upset the rural and urban economy to such a great extent
87 See D. Kumar, Land and Caste in South India: Agricultural Labour in the Madras Presidency
during the Nineteenth Century, New Delhi, 1963.
88 Census officers attributed the change in population between 1871 and 1881 largely to the effects of
the famine. The Census Report of 1881 states that ‘the mark which that calamity (the famine) made
upon the population was so deep that it stains every column of these returns, and compels allusion on
every page of the succeeding chapters.. ..it may be said without exaggeration that this Report is quite as
much a record of the Famine effect on the population, as it is a review of the Census’ (.Imperial Census
o f 1881: Operations and Results in the Presidency o f Madras Vol I, Madras 1883, p. 9).
307
such a great extent and could indicate that, in addition to unemployment and high
food prices, the pollution of water supplies led to more deaths from cholera and bowel
diseases. It could also mean that the demand for their services declined considerably
proportion were urban based, except for the Shanars, a toddy tapping caste who
converted in large numbers to Christianity during the famine. Among the groups
which lost numbers, the Shetties and Satanies were largely urban. The Shembadavans
(washermen) were both urban and rural, as were the Kaikalars or weavers. The other
groups in this category however were overwhelmingly rural. The Census of 1881
noted:
Not only was relief sooner at hand in the towns but the work of relief created employment
in the towns. There was work, perhaps not for goldsmiths, but for carpenters and
blacksmiths. Men had to be shaved and their clothes had to be washed, and although ‘the
sky of brass and the soil of iron’ trebled the price of food for the barber, as for the pariah,
it did not deprive him of the possibility of earning his ordinary wage, and he did this in the
towns, where food, if dear, was still procurable.89
mortality by caste, we would also need to account for the apparent female survival
explain this advantage. Some authors have argued that social disadvantages faced by
89 Imperial Census of 1881: Operations and Results in the Presidency o f Madras Vol I, Madras 1883,
p. 115.
90Dyson, ‘On The Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’; B. Mohanty, ‘Orissa Famine of 1866:
Demographic and Economic Consequences’, Economic and Political Weekly. January 2-9, 1993.
91 M.B. McAlpin, Subject to Famine: Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1983, Chapter 3 (especially pp. 56-64).
308
women, which protected them from childbearing, normally a source of danger.92 Still
others have argued that migration exposed adult males to the risk of disease and
access to official famine relief could have played a role in conjunction with innate
while women were paid less than men on many relief works, they also outnumbered
men in the number of applicants seeking relief, both in camps and on works, in
mentioned that ‘the female coolies outnumber the males beyond all proportion’.94 In
Kumool, it was reported that ‘the great majority on works seemed to be women
and children’.95
David Arnold also mentions that ‘women and children were well-represented
amongst those seeking work and food’ and that ‘ryots preferred to send their wives
and children to bear the brunt of the disgrace- and the hard work incident to it rather
92 P. Greenough, ‘Inhibited Conception and Women’s Agency’, Health Transition Review, 2, 1 (1992):
101-105; J.C. Caldwell et. al., ‘A Note on Conscious Planning’, Health Transition Review, 2, 1 (1992):
105-106; T. Dyson ‘Famine Reactions’, Health Transition Review, 2, 1 (1992): 107-113.
93 Dyson, ‘On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I’, p. 25; Mohanty, ‘Orissa Famine of
1866’ p. 57. See also B. Mohanty, ‘Migration, famines and sex ratio in Orissa division between 1881
and 1921’.The 1911 Census of India in reviewing the evidence presented during different famines also
supported the ‘migration’ theory. (Census of India 1911, Appendix to Chapter VI, ‘Relative Mortality
of Males and Females in Famine Years’).
94 Letter from N. Murugesam Moodelliar, Deputy Collector, to J.H. Master, Esq., Collector of Bellary,
dated Kottoor, 18thApril 1877, No. 250, SCR 1877, p. 220.
95 Memoranda by Mr. C.E. Bernard, Nos. V and VI, dated 16thJanuary 1877, on the condition and
prospects of Kumool district, based on Sir R. Temple’s Conference with the Local Officers on 14th and
15th January 1877, Famine Correspondence 2, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
96 Arnold, ‘Famine in Peasant Consciousness and Peasant Action’, pp. 108-9.
309
the thesis that male migration was the most plausible explanation of the sex
differential. In order to answer this question fully, however, questions regarding the
intra-family distribution of food also need to be taken into account. 97 Quite clearly,
the famine hit the very young and the very old the hardest, although amongst the adult
population, the loss was much greater amongst adult men as compared to adult
QO
women. These questions require investigation which is beyond the scope of this
thesis.
Conclusion
nutritional, ecological and sanitary. In tracing the causes of famine mortality, we have
argued that it is difficult to separate out with any precision the effects of disease from
those of starvation in causing famine deaths, particularly because of the way in which
death statistics were collected. It appears from the data reviewed that to divide famine
mortality into two clearly defined phases, the first constituting starvation, and the
second constituting infectious disease spread largely through climatic, contagious and
background of nutritional stress that occurred throughout the two main famine years.
organized systems of relief. Starvation and emaciation occurred throughout the two
so-called phases of famine mortality. In addition, we find that when all categories
97 B. Harris, The Intrafamily Distribution of Hunger in South A sia’, in J. Dreze and A. Sen (ed): The
Political Economy of Hunger Vol. I, Oxford, 1990; R. Bairagi, ‘Food Crisis, Nutrition and Female
Children’, Population and Development Review, 12, 7 (June 1986); L. Sami, ‘Gender Differentials in
Famine Mortality: Madras (1876-78) and Punjab (1896-97)’, Economic and Political Weekly, June
29th, 2002. For an overview of the literature on sex differentials in famine mortality, see K. Macintyre,
‘Famine and The Female Mortality Advantage’, in Dyson and O’Grada, Famine Demography, op. ciL
98 See Lardinois, ‘Famine, Epidemics and Mortality in South India’, p. 460.
310
under which deaths were registered are taken into account, we have four instead of
two phases of famine mortality. The first phase was marked by a sharp increase in
cholera, fever and deaths from ‘other causes’; the second by an increase in cholera
deaths; the third by an increase dominated by ‘other causes’ and the fourth by an
increase in fever deaths. The third and most lethal phase was the phase in which
‘other causes’ led the general death rate, and was, we argue, mostly composed of
It is difficult to implicate malaria as the sole or even the most important cause of
death through which the famine killed its victims. The data indicate that ‘fevers’ were
classified in different ways; that there was great disagreement both in nomenclature
medical men, the nomenclature and aetiology of fever deaths was uncertain.
Moreover, fever was most fatal amongst starved famine migrants, despite the fact that
all classes fell ill. It also appears from the evidence that continued slow starvation
caused a protracted and unbelievably slow ending for the victims of famine, and fever
was just one of several clinical manifestations of starvation, under which the cause of
death was registered. In addition, the sharp differences between the ‘famine’ and
‘non-famine’ districts in regard to fever mortality indicates that the ‘migration’ thesis-
that migrants introduced new strains of malaria into districts where they migrated-
We have argued that despite some of the famine mortality from cholera, bowel
complaints and ‘other causes’ being attributable to ‘social dislocation’ and its effects-
consumption of contaminated food and water, as well as inedible foods, and the close
proximity of migrants in relief camps and works with poor facilities for hygiene- a
large proportion of mortality from these three causes can be seen as the result of
311
‘famine diarrhoea’- a non-infective, physiological manifestation of chronic starvation.
The spread of contagious diseases such as smallpox through close contact in camps,
jails and on relief works played some- but a relatively small- role in shaping the huge
contemporary accounts and census data indicate that mortality was directly linked
with caste and occupation. The towns were better provided for in terms of relief as
employment than the rural districts. Yet, some urban groups such as traders and
washermen lost a large proportion of their population. However the worst affected
during the famine were the poor and untouchable rural groups such as the Pariahs,
Pallis and Vanniyars. This indicates that while climatic and ecological factors, social
dislocation and transmission of epidemic disease might have had some role, it is to
failures of entitlement and disorganized relief systems that we must largely turn for an
312
T able 4.5 In cre a se o r D ecrease of N um bers by C a ste 1871-1881
1871 1881
Caste No. Prop/ H Pop No. Prop/Total H pop Inc/Dec
313
Table 4.6 Proportionate Increases a n d D e c rea se s by C aste
Decreases
No %
Pariahs 190419 -4.11
Vanniyans 182266 -4.63
Idaiyars 175197 -9.98
Shembadavan 138836 -13.72
Kaikalars 89811 -8.4
Shetties 80427 -11.16
Satani 75378 -10.76
Vellalars 46579 -0.66
Kanakkan 5011 -4.66
Increases
The preceding chapter traced the epidemiology of the famine of 1876-78, examining
the links between starvation, social crisis, epidemic disease and mortality. This
We draw upon and critically evaluate arguments made by some authors, already
discussed partially in the preceding chapter. John Post argues that governments which
prevented the movement of people during the famines of the 1740s and the 1770s
succeeded in containing famine mortality to a far greater extent than those which
Post, the primary causal factor in the relationship between climbing food prices and
rising incidence of fevers and dysentery was that harvest shortfalls inevitably led to
together for relief facilities without adequate sanitary facilities. Marginal public
welfare systems were put under severe pressure, and administrations which were
successful in preventing social upheaval and population movements were better able
to contain excess mortality than those which focused primarily on the prevention of
responses to food crises were, then, critical factors in exacerbating or limiting the
1 John D. Post, ‘The Mortality Crises of the Early 1770s and European Demographic Trends’, JIH, 21,
1 (Summer 1990): 29-62; Idem, ‘Nutritional Status and Mortality in Eighteenth Century Europe’ in
L.F. Newman et al. (eds.), Hunger in History: Food Shortage, Poverty and Deprivation,
Massachusetts, 1990.
315
Historians of south Asian history have also expressed the view that state famine
migration as a way out of what was seen as a Malthusian imbalance, and in doing so,
exacerbated famine mortality through the spread of epidemic disease amongst people
on the move.2 Ira Klein also argues that the application of laissezfaire famine policy
was the direct cause of a much higher mortality than would otherwise have occurred
Finally David Arnold, building on the arguments put forth by Post and Klein, suggests
policy facilitated the spread of epidemic disease during famine periods in a number of
prisons and plantations during periods of famine. However, the epidemiological threat
posed by famine migrants forced colonial medical attention- otherwise focused on the
health and wellbeing of European military and civil officials and select labouring
316
populations- towards the health of people outside these ‘enclaves’.5 In other words,
the diseases brought upon by dysfunctional administrative and social responses had a
positive role to play in increasing the depth and extent of medical intervention for the
general population.
These authors further concur that the conditions and terms on which official famine
relief was given were in themselves responsible for the spread of epidemic disease
during subsistence crises. Thus, if relief works had been organized close to the homes
of the famine stricken, and labourers did not have to travel large distances, much
epidemic disease would have been prevented.6 Both Klein and Arnold also argue that
the conditions under which institutional relief was given by the state encouraged the
spread of epidemic disease through overcrowding and poor sanitation facilities. The
state refused to respect the caste taboos of people in regard to feeding houses and
particularly amongst ryots or landowners- a condition for receiving relief. This meant
that large numbers of high caste poor were denied relief, while colonial institutions
such as relief camps and prisons were insanitary breeding grounds for many of the
This chapter examines these arguments in the context of the Madras famine of 1876-
317
What follows is a critical review of some aspects of these responses. The first pertains
to the extent to which population movements were a direct result of famine policy.
The second pertains to the size and direction of such movements during periods of
briefly in the previous chapter. Next, the chapter examines the role played by colonial
penal, medical and famine relief institutions in facilitating the spread of contagious
looks at medical responses to famine. How did state medicine explain and address the
mass mortality during subsistence crises? And why were medical men like Cornish so
concerned with the observation, description and recording of starvation and famine
diseases?
research, rather than firm and definitive statements. However, these observations have
important links with arguments presented in the preceding two chapters regarding the
epidemiology of famine.
Both Whitcombe and Arnold argue that the state encouraged emigration as a famine
policy, based on the theory that overpopulation was the cause of famine. This in turn
Government policy encouraged migration to towns where food grains were stockpiled by
private trade, at the behest of official policy, and to the public works and relief camps.8
318
Similarly, Arnold states
In the 1860s and 1870s migration was often actively encouraged by the state as a way of
ameliorating the problem of local shortages and moving available or imported food
supplies to the people who needed them most.9
However, there is some evidence which suggests that Imperial ‘migration policy’ was
perhaps based more on manipulation than on a belief in its value as a strategy against
from famine stricken territories because it was believed that such force would push
people the other way: towards the relief works. In other words, it was less a
and more a desperate means of forcing people on to large famine relief works.
There is great danger that we shall demoralize the people, also, if we fix the idea in their
minds that Government will always provide against want we require to apply the
principle of the New Poor Law- the work house screw in some other form ... .a good deal
might be made of Emigration. The people hate it so absolutely that they will work their
hardest rather than submit to it. But of course minute calculations are required as to how
far the transport of labourers to other places.. .can really be made to pay.10
This suggests that the Imperial Government held emigration and deportation out as a
threat in order to force people to relief works, rather than as a real ‘policy’ against
Further, there also appears to have been disagreement between different levels
of the state over the consequences of migration in times of famine, and there was
apprehension over its epidemiological and physical effects. The main instance of
319
Buckingham Canal. In February 1877, Temple recommended that people from
Nellore and the Ceded districts be induced to work on the East Coast Canal ( also
called the Buckingham Canal) near Nellore, which, he believed, would employ
seekers were less than enthusiastic about leaving their districts to go to the canal,
Temple suggested that they be denied relief unless they agreed to be drafted on to the
works.11 This forcible emigration was tried unsuccessfully for three months from
early February 1877, and then abandoned in May 1877 as opposition was so great,
19
both among Madras civil servants and amongst the people. (While there were
reports of cholera along the canal, these appear to have been controlled fairly early
on).13
On the other hand, evidence suggests that some officials were apprehensive
about the movement of people into Madras. Migration from Mysore, a Princely state
in which the suffering from the famine was even worse than in Madras, was actively
discouraged on the grounds that the ‘constant and unregulated movement hither and
times of scarcity and of great sickness, is highly undesirable, and cannot but entail
11 Minute by Sir Richard Temple about drafting off relief labourers from the neighbouring districts to
the East Coast Navigation Canal dated Nellore, 28th February 1877, Famine Correspondence 3,
IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol. 65.
12 Ibid.
13 In the Nellore district, where the Buckingham Canal was being constructed, it was reported that
‘there was a good deal of cholera in January 1877, but under properly supervised sanitary arrangements
the health of the labourers during the worst famine months was very fair’(SC/? 1877, p. 99).
14 No. 767 dated Fort St. George, 1st March 1877, from the Chief Secretary to the Government of
Madras to the Chief Commissioner of Mysore, Famine Correspondence 3, IOR/V/4/Session 1877/Vol.
65.
320
Apparently, then, Provincial administrators were aware that people would get
exhausted and sick on the move. They sensed that this could exacerbate the spread of
disease amongst the starving, and were keen to avoid such movements, particularly
when it came to the subjects of a foreign state. This implies therefore that official
attitudes towards the famine stricken varied; and were contradictory, confused and
disorganized.
The second thing to note is that although migration was probably quite extensive,
we have very little firm evidence regarding the size or direction of migratory
movements and how these influenced famine mortality. Arnold mentions that the
cattle in search of pasture; migration in search of food and employment; and the
‘aimless wandering’ of the destitute. He also cites Cornish as stating that ‘mortality
among male migrants was twenty per cent higher than women who stayed at home’.
Arnold suggests that such migration inevitably had adverse epidemiological effects.15
migration: from Nellore, Chingleput and North Arcot in the direction of Madras; from
North Nellore and Kumool to the Kistna delta; from Salem and Trichinopoly to
to Ceylon was enormous during the famine. Between 1st October 1876 and 30th
November 1877, the number of people leaving the ports of Madras for Ceylon, Burma
and other distant places was 2,287,482, or nearly double the average for the preceding
five years. Of this figure, an estimated 350,000 belonged to the famine districts.17 Yet,
321
we would hesitate to give migration in itself as much significance as previous authors
The main epidemic diseases which Arnold and Whitcombe associate with famine
migration are smallpox, malaria and cholera. We have already dealt with fever and
smallpox in some detail in the previous chapter, and seek to address the connection
In arguing that migration influenced cholera mortality through means other than
heavy mortality from cholera every year between 1871 and 1880; and that the
percentage of total deaths attributed to cholera in Tanjore was in fact higher than that
in Kumool, in the epicentre of the famine, in 1877 and 1878. In other words, cholera
caused a higher proportion of the total deaths in Tanjore (a non-famine district which
saw great numbers of migrants in 1876-78) than in Kumool (a famine district where
Arnold’s table is reproduced as Table 5.1 below. Arnold argues that population
movements inevitably had adverse epidemiological effects, and that ‘with its water
channels and migrant labour, Thanjavur was always cholera-prone.. ..and the influx of
thousands of famine migrants made it, like Kumool, a place of heavy mortality’.18
India, No. 46 of 1878, Government of India, Public Works Department, Famine Correspondence 4,
IOR/V/4/Session 1878/Vol. 59.
18 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 399.
Table 5.1 Cholera Mortality in Thanjavur (Tanjore) and Kumool districts
(1871- 1880).
1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880
Thanjavur
(Tanjore)
(a)
Cholera
deaths
945 120 54 33 18,125 8,015 13,098 2,744 897 23
(b)
Cholera
deaths as
a % of all
deaths
2.3 0.3 0.1 0.1 29.8 15.8 17.7 4.9 2.1 0.1
Kumool
(a)
Cholera
deaths
18 129 - - 886 11,758 10,451 1,896 - -
(b)
Cholera
deaths as
a % of all
deaths
0.1 0.8 - - 4.1 31.1 12.2 4.3 - -
The data in the table above indicate that a large proportion of the total deaths were
year. Further, in a famine year, the percentage of deaths attributed to cholera could
migration than in a famine district. While the general point holds, there are some
qualifying factors that would need to be considered. First- leaving aside the
differentiating it from ‘other causes’ and ‘bowel complaints’ during the famine- it is
323
also worthwhile to look at the death rate instead of the percentage of all deaths
attributed to cholera. During the main famine year 1877, the mortality rate (expressed
as the number of deaths from cholera for every thousand of the registered population,
as against Arnold’s figure which shows the percentage of total deaths ascribed to
cholera) was much higher in Kumool (at 11.4 deaths per thousand population) and the
other ‘famine districts’ than in Tanjore (at 6.6 per thousand population) and the other
‘non-famine districts. (See Appendix 3. l).What this means is that cholera killed a
much larger proportion of the people in Kumool in 1877 than it did in Tanjore,
despite the in-migration of famine stricken people into the latter. Thus, there were
10,451 deaths registered in Kumool in 1877 out of a total population of 914232 (i.e.
cholera killed 1.1% of the population) while in Tanjore there were 13,098 deaths out
other words, cholera was twice as fatal in the famine district of Kumool as it was in
Tanjore in 1877, despite the high number of cholera deaths in the latter. This would
mean that in 1877, despite the water channels of Tanjore and the massive in-
migration, the population was in a better condition to withstand the ravages of cholera
Also, there is some evidence that migration during the famine years was not as far-
flung as we might believe, although the numbers might have been large. The Census
of 1881 found that almost ninety six per cent of people in the Madras Presidency lived
Whatever may have been the case at the end of the famine, the census of 1881 found the
people fairly well at home. There is no more sign of migration from the Famine to the
Non-famine districts than of the reverse movement- not so much, in fact.20
19 Source: SCR 1877, Appendix II (Vital Statistics of the General Population), Tables II and VI.
20 Census of Madras 1881, p. 130.
324
We would of course need to be cautious about interpreting a single piece of evidence,
and also take into account the fact that the census was taken nearly three years after
the famine, indicating that migration was short-term and occurred within a district,
usually to neighbouring towns; or that most migrants died en route’, or that most
have had demographic and epidemiological consequences over the long term, it might
well be the case that famine migration was short-lived and of limited epidemiological
or demographic consequence. Clearly, these questions are material for further inquiry,
and would enable us to evaluate critically the suggestion that famine mortality was in
part a result to the exposure of weakened migrants to ‘new disease environments’ and
that the movement of famine stricken populations facilitated the introduction of new
‘encouraged’ except in a very general way and in isolated instances by the state. Even
then, there were conflicting opinions between different levels of Government over its
purpose and value. We would therefore caution against overestimating its significance
as conscious ‘state policy’. Further, we would suggest that the epidemiological and
investigated further, taking into consideration the duration and direction of population
21 On mortality among famine migrants, see R. Shlomowitz and L. Brennan, ‘Mortality and Migrant
Labour in Assam, 1865-1921’, IESHR. 27 (1990): 85-110.
22 Shlomowitz and Brennan, ‘Mortality and Migrant Labour’, op. cit.; Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and
Epidemic Disease’, op. cit.
325
movements, and a number of other factors including sanitation, wages, and
physiological conditions.
An important aspect of state intervention and of governance in peace time was the
maintenance of medical and penal institutions opened and run by the Provincial and
local administrations. These institutions were points of contact for the state and the
indigenous population, and inevitably reflected social crises both in terms of numbers
relief works and camps- were opened specifically to address such crises. Were state
institutions , as some authors have argued, ‘death traps’ in that conditions within them
hastened the spread of disease among inmates? 23 Did institutional confinement itself
spell death for thousands of famine stricken people; or did it instead protect them by
In the early stages of famine, relief camps and works were started haphazardly,
contributed to the rise in cholera mortality from the end of 1876 to the middle of
1877:
As soon as the food dearth began, the lower classes of villagers left their homes, making
for die chief food markets or centres of Government relief. The influx of applicants for
23 Klein, ‘When the Rains Failed’, op. cit; Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, op. cit.
326
work or relief was so great that district officials were utterly unable to cope with the
proper organization of relief measures. The people everywhere were massed under
unwholesome conditions, crowded in their daily tasks and crowded in their sheltering
places at night.24
Relief on works and in camps appears to have been more quickly and efficiently
organized in large towns as compared to the rural districts, although the great influx
of starving people to towns inflated death rates greatly. In Madras town, Cornish
reported to the Madras Government in February 1877 that mortality on a large scale
would be best prevented by feeding the poor to prevent them falling into a condition
of debility, and supplementing this with measures to control the spread of epidemic
disease among the ill-fed population. The Madras Government acted quickly on this
Municipality and the Provincial Government was appointed to inspect dwellings and
neighbourhoods across the city from February 1877 to December 1877. Starving
people were removed to relief camps and kitchens, cases of smallpox and cholera
dwellings were cleansed. The Special Health establishment was funded by the Madras
camps and relief works- seem to have been important in curbing some of the death
and disease from cholera and bowel complaints in several rural and urban areas. At
the same time, innumerable deaths occurred outside the purview of state institutions-
on roads and highways, in ditches, and riverbeds. The disposal of the dead created a
327
road in the Adoni talook of Bellary as covered with the dead and dying so that it
9 (\
‘resembled a battlefield’. Bodies were disposed of in the dry beds of rivers across
the Presidency. A large proportion of people died on roads, in ditches, and on jungle
97 ♦
paths throughout 1877. A journalist visiting Gudur talook in Nellore district in
for ‘suppressing the practice of disposing dead bodies in the dry sandy beds of rivers.’
Cornish suggested that cremation was a more sanitary method of disposal, and
lamented the fact that ‘it was customary only with certain castes’. Understandably, the
Government of Madras was averse to pressing this matter, especially at a time when
‘our poor are famine-stricken and disheartened’. Quite clearly, the Government feared
that interference of this sort in ‘caste feeling and domestic sympathy’ would incite
anger. In the end, a typically bureaucratic solution was devised. A circular was sent to
district magistrates to the effect that they were to ‘impress upon local officials the
necessity of seeing that corpses are properly interred and do not cause any nuisance or
Local Fund Boards and Municipalities, and these bodies had formulated their budget
for 1876-7 and 1877-78 without anticipating the occurrence of famine and the
consequent outlay on famine relief. This meant that during these years, their budget
328
was stretched to the utmost, and very often general works of sanitation were
neglected. Several of the Municipalities reported that want of funds had impeded any
sanitary or conservancy works, while in others, these consisted largely of those works
which could be carried out as famine relief works- for example, minor repairs to roads
and epidemiological crisis, and taken steps to address both. However, such measures
appear not to have had much success, largely due to the inadequacy of rural relief
measures and to the unevenness of those undertaken by the smaller municipalities and
local fund boards. The death rate of the municipal towns was stated to be
‘exceedingly high’: in Madras, the death ratio was 118 per thousand population; in
Kumool town, it was 118 per mille; in Erode in Salem district, it was 252 per
thousand; in Nellore, it was 99 per thousand (here, a margin must be given for under
o 1
registration); and in Tuticorin it was 131 per thousand. Interestingly, the towns
showed the same death ratio for cholera as the rural districts (12.2 per thousand) but a
much higher death ratio for smallpox, bowel complaints and injuries, while the fever
death ratio was nearly double in the rural districts as compared to the towns.32
Thus, particularly in the early part of the famine, local administrations appeared to
have been overwhelmed by the scale of distress, and there were significant regional
imbalances in the provision of famine relief in camps and works. This contributed to
high death rates in urban areas and limited the utility of institutional relief measures.
329
Cooked Food, Commensality and the Provision of Gratuitous Relief in Camps
It has been argued by David Arnold and Ira Klein that the Government refused to
They suggest that people of the same caste, particularly among the respectable ryots,
were not allowed to sit together and eat, apart from other castes. Further, the
consumption of cooked food- which would not be accepted by people of upper caste
or ‘respectable’ households- was made a condition for receiving state assistance. This
led to great mortality amongst these individuals and families, who died rather than
British officials tended to exploit caste-Hindus’ cultural objections to the receipt of cooked
food by making it a precondition for state relief. The argument was that if Indians were
sufficiently desperate for food they would set aside their religious scruples; if they did not,
the reasoning ran, they were not genuinely in need. 34
The evidence suggests that the practice of making the provision of relief contingent
upon the disregard of cultural taboos, while followed in some locations across India
during famine situations (especially in the North west Provinces and Orissa in 1861
and 1866 respectively) was not uniformly adhered to. In 1866, in Madras, relief was
provided in the form of cooked food for the very poor and untouchable households as
well as raw food for those whom caste scruples forbade the partaking of cooked
33 Klein, ‘When the Rains Failed’, p. 198; Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 394. Arnold
draws mainly on Klein’s evidence to substantiate this point, and Klein’s evidence relates mostly to
famine relief in Mysore.
34 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 394.
330
food.35 This appears to have been the case during 1876-78 as well. The Government
There are exceptional cases which require exceptional treatment, such as the class of
respectable women who cannot appear in public, and for whom labour tests are
inappropriate; and men who from caste prejudice would rather die than take employment
on relief works. In these cases, it may be necessary to give relief without the application of
tests for need.36
concessions when it came to questions of providing raw food for those who refused to
eat cooked food on grounds of caste taboos. On March 12, 1877, Temple argued for
the need to make concessions to caste and family feeling in relief camps and kitchens,
instead of giving relief solely and strictly in the form of cooked food, enforcing the
Inmates might be allowed to cook their own food either for themselves or for self-arranged
gangs, and they might be allowed to eat their food apart and free from observation. ..the
sheds might be set apart for the principal castes; in such cases the casteless or very low
caste people would in such cases have sufficient shed accommodation for themselves.37
In most relief camps, the people appear to have been segregated according to caste.
For example, Cornish described the system in the Cuddapah relief camps: ‘The people
sat in rows according to their castes waiting the arrival of food. 38 Thus, it appears
that the government did not uniformly force people to go against their cultural taboos
331
However, the type of food provided by the Government of Madras could
worsen the symptoms of chronic starvation. Dr. H.M. Scudder, the American mission
doctor, wrote to the Mansion House Committee asking for a grant to purchase ‘a little
sago or arrowroot’ for his mission dressers to feed dysentery patients. According to
Scudder, these were often the means of saving life, while the coarse rice and other
grains provided by the Government only ‘aggravated the disease’.39 This indicates
that the scarcity of digestible grains and difficulties in procurement might have
If relief camps and works were poorly organized, inadequate and not always
social responses?
strength of prisoner (population)’ was ‘an index of distress among the population’.40
David Arnold also suggests that high crime levels resulted in enlarged prison
In 1877, there certainly was an enormous increase in the number of prisoners confined
in the gaols of Madras. In Bellary central gaol, in ordinary times, 400 prisoners could
39 Letter from Dr. H. M. Scudder to the Honorary Secretary to the Madras Famine Relief Committee
[sic.], dated 20th September 1877, Proceedings of the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund, Chapter 3,
Madras: 1878, TNSA.
40 Dr. G.S. Sutherland in Report of the Indian Jail Conference, Calcutta 1877, quoted in Arnold,
‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 396.
41 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, p. 396.
332
be accommodated, while on the 2nd of October 1877, there were 2988 prisoners
confined.42 Gaol mortality during the famine was appalling, and in many cases higher
than the mortality amongst the rest of the population. The average death ratio (deaths
per thousand populations) for gaols in the famine districts (Bellary, Chingleput, North
Arcot, Cuddapah, Madras, Madura, Nellore, Salem, South Arcot, Trichinopoly) was
216 per thousand population, while the average for all other gaols was 68.3 per
thousand population in 1877.43 (The general death rate was 53.2 per thousand
population in the districts, although this was often higher in towns where the starved
There can be no doubt that gaol authorities struggled to maintain basic sanitary
measures in the face of an influx of starving, emaciated prisoners that was much
larger than the state infrastructure could deal with. There was an outbreak of hospital
gaols were set up in the famine stricken districts to relieve overcrowding, but
It is easy to trace this appalling rate of mortality during famine periods to congestion
or overcrowding alone, but the picture appears to be more complicated. The Collector
of the Salem District reported in 1877 that ‘the jails and their compounds were often
42 Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Judicial Department dated 30th March 1878, Nos.
164-166, TNSA.
43 SCR 1877, p. 69.
44 SCR 1877, p. 83.
45 SCR 1877, pp. 72-3.
46 Ibid.
333
full to overflowing.. ..but there was little or no mortality which could be traced to
overcrowding’.47
It appears more likely that conditions outside the prison- mostly long-continued
starvation- were responsible for famine mortality. Table 5.2 strongly supports the
conclusion that starvation prior to imprisonment influenced mortality more than the
Madras 48
The fact that gaol mortality was related to the larger social and economic
circumstances of the famine; and to caste and occupation is also borne out by the fact
that 25, 207 out of 59, 903 of those who were imprisoned during 1877 were labourers;
while 21,699 were ‘agriculturists’.49 Of the deaths registered amongst prisoners, 1,668
out of 3,593 were due to ‘dysentery and diarrhoea’; 516 were from cholera; 480 were
due to ‘anaemia and general debility’; 437 were from ‘other diseases’; 169 from
respiratory diseases; 118 from intermittent fever; 116 from ulcers and boils; 35
334
suicide, 8 jaundice.50 It seems therefore that it is impossible to discount the effects of
reports of the officers in charge. There was an increase of almost 40,000 inpatients in
the 165 institutions across the Presidency in 1877 over the previous year, also a
famine year. Some of the increase was attributed to the opening of new institutions,
but the bulk of the increase was attributed to the increase in patients ‘who were
beyond the resources of outdoor medical relief. Thus, in 1875-6, the total number of
in-patients was 28,968; in 1876-77 it was 38,751, and in 1877 it was 82,820.51 In
Bellary, the Inspection report stated that ‘the hospital building has been, and is now,
much overcrowded. The sick are put everywhere- in the verandah, bathroom, and
wherever a covered comer can be found’.52 From Chingleput it was reported that ‘the
However, most diseases treated in these institutions were related more to starvation
and social dislocation outside them rather than to overcrowding within. Of the
diseases which were treated in 1877-78, the maximum were treated for dysentery,
diarrhoea and injuries, and death rates were correspondingly high. The mortality rate
for dysentery and diarrhoea was 77 per thousand population (dysentery) and 72.5 per
50 Ibid., p.27.
51 Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries fo r 1877-78, p. 5.
52 Ibid, p. 17.
53 Ibid, p.26.
54 Ibid, p.32.
335
The penal and medical institutions seem to have been receiving the epidemiological
that it is worthwhile to investigate further the claim, made by several native and
basic subsistence during the famine. Such claims came from deep moral and
There appears to have been a conflict between the exigencies of crisis management
and the need to lay out principles of long term governance, both amongst Europeans
as well as amongst elite Indians. During the famine of 1876-78, in the face of public
opposition in Madras to the Temple wage, the moral question was one that was
These concerns were particularly evident in the case of prisons. However, in the case
of hospitals and dispensaries as well, the question of whether people were “abusing”
medical institutions as “almshouses” during the famine was a source of great moral
56 In 1877, the Surgeon General of Madras reported to the Madras Government that ‘So far as can be
ascertained, admissions into dispensaries are strictly confined to the sick. In 1877, many cases were
admitted for ailments resulting from starvation, but this did not in any way reduce them to the grade of
almshouses’. (Annual Report on Civil Hospitals and Dispensaries in Madras fo r 1877). In 1878, the
Surgeon General reported to the Madras Government that ‘Dispensary Committees are expected to see
that abuses of dispensaries as almshouses do not take place, and there is every reason to believe that
admissions are restricted to those requiring medical aid’. (Annual Report on The Civil Hospitals and
Dispensaries in the Madras Presidency fo r 1878).
336
As Arnold points out, however, if people did adopt such a strategy, then it was sadly
people outside them, but because many who reached such institutions were beyond
redemption. In cases where starvation had not progressed too far, the provision of
adequate food and medical relief within institutional care probably did save a certain
number. Where starvation had indeed gone too far, even the provision of food would
not have prevented destruction of life. Divisions over the functions of governance and
crisis management led to increased contact between the government and people in
these institutions, but such contact seems to have had uneven epidemiological
How did medical men address and respond to the disease and death consequent upon
subsistence crises? David Arnold argues that famine ‘constituted one of the few
occasions when Indians became the focus of state medical concern’ at ‘a time when
colonial medicine in India still remained closely tied to the needs of the European
population and the army’ and that ‘famine was one of the factors that encouraged
colonial medicine to move, albeit hesitantly, towards a more general system of public
health for the people of India’.59 How, if all, did European medical skill influence the
course of suffering and death during the famine? And why did medical men like
337
Cornish record in such minute detail their observations and investigations of
The most striking feature of medical responses to famine and famine disease was
complete helplessness in saving most who came under their observation. This is
The only effective treatment of famine diseases is the prevention of famine, or, if this be
impossible, the efficient organization of famine relief. This to be efficient must be early in
the famine, before the famine-stricken have begun to suffer from the disorganization of the
tissues of the alimentary canal.60
At the same time, famine provided the conditions for medical officials to observe and
such observations were recorded in great detail by Cornish as well as by other medical
officials such as Porter and Cunningham during this famine. It might be argued that
organic changes in the human body followed upon the divisions between Madras and
India over the adequacy of relief wages, administrative and financial responsibility,
relationship between different levels of the state and its medical services, as well as to
the management of crisis. The state was at one level concerned with administrative
efficiency: the identification of a system and level of state support and intervention
which would not result in wasting money without saving fives. There were differences
between Madras and India over the best system to achieve this. At another level it was
338
divided over moral notions of responsibility between intervention and non
intervention. In this, the physical body of the famine stricken- both those who were
able to work as well as the recipients of relief in camps and kitchens- came to signify
the scientific proof of competing points of view, both medical and non-medical.
Moreover, notions of ‘science’ and ‘scientific proof were the touchstone- or the
excuse- for particular courses of action and policy, indicating a preoccupation with
The determination of the point at which state intervention was to cross the line
led were based, in fact, on the lack of precise knowledge regarding the point at which
this line was crossed, when the provision of relief became futile to the task of saving
life.
inspection of workers and of people on relief camps and works by sanitary inspectors
deputed to famine duty from March 1877. These sanitary inspectors consisted of IMS
officers deputed from the Madras Medical Service, as well as officers ‘borrowed’
from Bengal, the only Province which did not experience famine in 1877 and 1878.
Nine IMS officers were deputed; one each to Bellary, North Arcot, Salem,
the ‘physical condition’ of labourers, relief camp inmates and the population in
339
general formed one of the main aspects of their brief. They were required to note their
development amongst teenagers and children, the condition of pregnant mothers and
newborn children, and whether the prescribed diet was being given to the people on
Whilst all sections of people were observed, those of the relief works received
the most attention, due to the fact that their physical condition was central to resolving
the dispute between Madras and India over the adequacy of the Temple wage, and
indeed over intervention in a more general sense. The weighing of labourers on the
wage was conducted in four places (Nellore, Chittoor, Palaveram and Poonamallee)
from March 1877. The “scientific” conduct of these observations was crucial to
arguments that the Government of India’s wage standard was inadequate; and that the
However, the “scientific” character of these inspections was questionable, and this
constituted a source of frustration for medical officials. In some areas, scales and
weights were hard to come by; in others, as soon as weighing was begun, a rumour
spread among the workers that they were being weighed in preparation to be deported,
f\0
and in such circumstances, ‘the first weighing was also the last’. Regular weighing
of the same cohort was possible only in Nellore district, where it was found that
between March and June 1877, workers on the Temple wage lost weight. Cornish
then proposed that the diet be tried on prisoners in jail, a suggestion which was
340
that prisoners were already suffering the effects of starvation.63 There thus appears to
have been disagreements not only between different levels, but also different agencies
medical men like Cornish was clearly qualified in the case of different sections of the
population.
The only form of preventive medicine that was carried out with great persistence
was vaccination. The congregation of famine stricken people on relief works and
increase in both the total numbers vaccinated as well as the number of vaccinations
among children under the age of one. There was a considerable increase in the
number of vaccinations performed in 1876-77 and 1877-78 over the numbers in the
increase of over 26% over 1875-6 in the number of vaccinations performed in the first
year and over 105% when comparing the number of vaccinations in the second year
of famine. The vaccination of emaciated and starved people was the subject of much
public disapproval. As one reporter remarked of the relief camps in North Arcot,
Vaccination, o f all things, had been scrupulously attended to, and I noticed several
emaciated children and diarrhoea patients with marks o f recent vaccination on their arms.
This, I have been told at the Madras relief camps, is very w rong... .no-one is to be
vaccinated who is not in a tolerably sound condition o f body.64
341
Yet, famine vaccination had little lasting impact on protection against smallpox,
perhaps due in some respect to the exceedingly high proportion of infant mortality
during the famine, and the inflated birth rate in the years immediately following.65 As
late as 1886, it was believed that only 20% of children bom were subsequently
vaccinated before their first birthday.66 Clearly, what had been achieved during the
Most of the medical work carried out by the Madras Medical Department
during the famine was of a palliative nature. This included the provision of food and
remedies to calm the pain caused by diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera. Famine
diarrhoea was treated with liquid diets containing milk and soups and mixtures
containing dilute sulphuric acid, opium, nitric acid, chlorodyne, ipecac and morphine,
In some places, the dropsy or swelling that was characteristic of starvation was
relieved by the use of diuretics and sudorifics. At the Monegar Choultry Relief Camp
Hospital, coconut oil was massaged into the skin to soothe the itching of the dry
‘famine skin’; and a mixture of cod-liver oil and balsam was given to relieve
patients was treated by giving them a mixture of dilute sulphuric acid in water. For
65 On the long-term demographic consequences of famine, see J. Menken and C. Campbell, ‘Age
patterns of famine related mortality increase: Implications for long term population growth’, Health
Transition Review, 2, 1 (1992): 91-113.
66 Source: Annual Report on Vaccination throughout the Madras Presidency fo r 1886.
67 ‘Remedial measures Ordered to be Adopted in Connection with the High Death Rate in Madras
Town Due to Cholera.’ Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department, Nos. 68-
69 dated 13th February 1877. The utility of these remedies seems doubtful, and there must have been
some protests from patients. Porter reported that diarrhoea was concealed by patients in hospital for
fear that they would be put on a bland diet of milk and soup and deprived of ‘curry’.
68 Comish, ‘The Sanitary and Medical Aspects of Famine’, p. xv.
342
acute pneumonia, ‘a stimulating treatment of bark and ammonia, brandy and egg
state medicine in times of crisis, for two reasons. In times of mass suffering and death,
the medical services were extremely hard pressed for manpower, and indigenous
practitioners were seen to constitute a floating labour force. (It was also hoped,
possibly, that indigenous doctors could be schooled in biomedicine and that they
would be able to popularize biomedicine amongst the people). 70 However, the second
reason was that indigenous remedies were seen to have particular palliative and
curative efficacy in the case of famine diarrhoea, which as we have seen, caused a
substantial portion of famine deaths and suffering. In 1877, Vythians were employed
by the Collectors of Madura and Coimbatore districts for the reason that ‘(they) treat
successfully those maladies which are now so rife, diarrhoea and dysentery.. ..we
cannot cope with disease which is now carrying off so large a percentage of our
population’.71
The paradox is apparent: European medicine was hopeless, in its curative and
preventive aspects, in dealing with famine disease and famine mortality because most
famine stricken people were too far gone by the time the doctors reached them Yet, at
the same time, this famine in a sense allowed for the development of an expert
medical body of knowledge, using both vital statistics and clinical observation. This
343
paradox of helplessness/expertise is summarized in Cornish’s lament in December
1877:
A very large proportion o f those applying for relief are so far reduced in frame that the
72
expert can at a glance say o f but too large a number, ‘these must d ie’.
Medical treatment of what was a social and economic phenomenon, and treatment of
what had once been preventable, but was now too far gone, was clearly of limited
value. While this expertise does not seem to have spurred research into nutrition
immediately after the famine, ironically, this expert knowledge about starvation and
disease incorporated what could be termed today a social rather than a medical model
of famine disease. This gave colonial medical men a significant role to play in famine
Yet, it is perhaps simplistic to argue that ‘epidemics during times of famine forced
medical men out of the enclave’.73 This would imply that the health of Indians was
not a concern for the medical services except when famine led to epidemic disease
However, military health was left almost untouched by the 1876-78 famine, and
medical practitioners were aware of this immunity. Cornish remarked in his annual
In Madras, Bangalore, Bellary, Trichinopoly and Secunderabad the British soldier could
not take his walks abroad without encountering the victims o f smallpox and cholera, and
running the risk o f personal infection; but we shall see how little these circumstances have
affected a body o f men, provided with wholesom e food and drink, and whose domestic
situation was thoughtfully cared for by the State.74
72 ‘Remedial Measures ordered to be adopted in connection with the high death rate in Madras Town
due to Cholera,’ Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Public Department, Nos. 68-69,
dated 13th February 1877, Nos. 68-69, TNSA.
73 Arnold, ‘Social Crisis and Epidemic Disease’, op. cit.
74 SCR 1877, p. 17.
344
This immunity was reflected in the death rates of different sections of the population,
which were as follows: European Army 17.25; Native Army 15.2; Jail population
175. 4; and for the general population 53.2.75 Clearly, then, a more complex
explanation is required to account for medical concern with famine disease and
deaths.
Conclusion
conflict between different levels and agencies of the state over the necessity and form
of state intervention, as well as great unevenness in the provision of relief. The towns
were better provided for than the rural districts, and this appears to have contributed
While famine migration mirrored seasonal responses to scarcity and famine, its
conflict between different levels of the state. In the early stages of famine, poorly
organized relief camps and works, lack of potable water and general insanitation
created the conditions for the spread of epidemic disease, especially cholera and
smallpox, amongst starving people. There however appears to have been great
unevenness in the way in which relief measures were organized in different areas
across the Presidency, and this appears to have played a role in inflating death ratios
in the main urban areas. Further, official relief was often unsuitable for patients who
345
Colonial penal and medical institutions appear to have acted as recipients for the
it appears that most mortality within the gaols occurred amongst those whom it was
too late to save. Similarly, while hospitals and dispensaries were also overcrowded,
the nature of diseases treated implies that chronic starvation was the main underlying
syndrome.
early stage of famine was the main factor involved in exacerbating famine mortality.
In addition, the great unevenness of relief measures as well as the regional imbalances
Medical responses to famine disease were largely palliative, although preventive and
with somewhat short-lived effects, and indigenous medical practitioners were enlisted
in the relief of symptoms of starvation. The most marked response on the part of
European medical men was helplessness as regards the ability to save life where
starvation had created the almost certainty of death in several cases. Yet, the divisions
between different levels of Government over intervention made for detailed recording
of the physiological and pathological symptoms of starvation. This created the space
for medical men to make a claim for expert status in the prevention and management
of famine and famine disease- concerns which were increasingly important to the
interventionist state in the decades following the famine. This, we might argue,
346
Conclusions
The colonial state was irrevocably divided in moral, administrative and financial
terms in its responses to famine and the provision of famine relief in Madras during
1876-78. These divisions made for inconsistencies in the relief of distress, and
resulted in widespread suffering and starvation. However, they also allowed for
Imperial famine policy, and for the medical profession to gain administrative
The 1876-78 famine heralded the beginning of organized all-India state intervention
bureaucratic machinery for the early prevention of agrarian distress through prompt
state intervention. To this extent, this particular episode was a ‘prime mover’ in the
history of the medical profession and the history of state intervention in famine relief
in India.
Famine policy, was as S. Ambirajan puts it, ‘a composite of many things- classical
callousness towards life’.1 However, colonial famine policy was not- as Ambirajan,
Ira Klein and David Arnold have argued- simply an application of non-interventionist
ideals based on theories of classical political economy. To this extent, our conclusions
coincide with those made by Sanjay Sharma, Ravi Ahuja and David Hall-Matthews,
347
that non-interventionist political philosophy probably justified financially and
politically expedient courses of action, rather than determining them through the
However, we differ from the above authors in that our findings indicate there were
great differences between what was espoused by the Government of India and what
was implemented by the Provincial Government. The divisions within and between
different levels and agencies of the state- moral, administrative and financial- over
colonial state itself as much less cohesive and hierarchical than Sharma and Hall-
Matthews do. Political authority in colonial south India appears to have been far more
fragmented than they have suggested for western and northern India. Policy formation
was critically influenced by this fragmentation. The thesis thus points to the role
played by regional and local political structures, and relations between these regional/
crisis.
significant in shaping and implementing ‘state’ policy at a Provincial and local level.
Our study would therefore reiterate the point made by Lance Brennan and David Hall-
and in policy formation, although we would need to qualify Brennan’s argument that
348
it was the dominant personalities in the India Office who called the shots. The beliefs
and actions of individuals within the Provincial Government like William Robert
Cornish, William Robinson and the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos clearly seem
‘policy’.
The division between the Imperial and Provincial Governments over the question of
position during the famine. Cornish’s prominence owed largely to his arguments in
favour of a higher famine wage than that suggested by the Government of India and
his public critique of Richard Temple’s one pound ration. These arguments were
supported by the Provincial Government and the district bureaucracy in Madras, and
received widespread recognition from the medical profession as well as from the press
both in India and Europe. Clearly, Cornish’s ‘victory’ in the debate owed to
This would enable us to see the relationship between the colonial state and the
medical services as more complex than has been suggested by existing authors,
particularly those who have argued that medicine was a handmaiden or a tool of
empire. Medicine shared selectively in contesting visions of empire, and played the
divisions within the state to its advantage during this particular crisis. On the other
349
justified the Provincial Government’s interventionist stance and sustained it against
The use of vital statistics was central to Provincial defence of interventionist famine
policy, and was made possible by a system for the use collection, compilation,
publication, interpretation and use of vital statistics in sanitary policy may be seen as
an extension of the drive towards ‘scientific’ and ‘rational’ administration that Eric
Stokes, Chris Bayly and others have seen as gaining momentum from the third decade
of the nineteenth century. However, right from its inception, the accuracy of vital
statistics was tied up with the limited ability of the Provincial and Imperial
reflected this insecurity of control. During the famine, debates around the accuracy of
statistics were linked with assessments of the efficacy of Imperial policy and criticism
the basis of a Provincial famine policy that was relatively humanitarian. Vital
statistics in particular formed the weak and clumsy knowledge base of colonial
sanitary science; and after 1880, of Provincial famine policy. It is thus perhaps more
power and administrative authority rather than a direct corollary of a single imperial
system. At the same time, vital statistics did play a ‘justificatory’ role, as argued by
350
Starvation, Disease and Medicine
Because of the ways in which death statistics were collected and used in sanitary and
famine policy, it is doubtful whether one can assert, as scholars like Tim Dyson,
Elizabeth Whitcombe and David Arnold have done, that famine mortality consisted of
two well-defined phases, the first constituting starvation and the second constituting
disease. The most striking feature of the death statistics, and one which historians and
historical demographers of this famine have not paid attention to, is the existence of a
category of registration called ‘other causes’, which accounted for over a third of all
deaths during the famine, and led the death rate during the worst phase of famine
mortality. In considering this category of deaths, the thesis thus offers a more
While fevers accounted for the highest peak in mortality from a single cause during
the two year period we have studied, it was ‘other causes’ which was responsible for
the maximum deaths. The evidence seems to indicate that Cornish’s hypothesis that
‘other causes’ was largely composed of starvation deaths. Further, evidence also
indicates that there was great confusion over the classification and aetiology of fever
deaths, making it difficult to attribute these to malaria. In effect, this also draws
attention to the issue that it is often misleading for the modem historian to extrapolate
It follows that modem climatic theories of malaria do not explain a large proportion of
famine mortality. On the other hand, while ‘social dislocation’ and congregation in
urban areas, and famine relief works and camps did play an important role in
351
exacerbating cholera and smallpox epidemics, an emphasis on these factors tends to
hypothesis that entitlement failures, rather than the transmission of epidemic disease
mortality.
It appears that there were great variations in the ways in which local administrations
tackled subsistence crises. Under the circumstances, famine stricken people migrated
in large numbers to centres of relief. While this might have created a sanitary crisis
detailed investigation. It also appears that while numbers in colonial penal, medical
and famine relief institutions did swell beyond their regular capacity, the condition of
inmates upon admission rather than conditions within the institutions themselves
course of starvation and pathological degeneration amongst the majority of the famine
stricken, led to detailed investigation of the physiology of starvation and its related
352
certain stage created an emphasis on adequate and appropriate state intervention as the
only effective preventive against famine mortality. Yet, because of the importance of
the determination of a ‘scientific’ standard for wages and doles which would straddle
this ‘social model’ of famine disease enabled colonial medicine to claim an exclusive
353
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374
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C/tejsme BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.
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Khandaah . 1,098,049
ffiK
10,103
N .flik 789.989 8,140
Ahmadoayar 773,938 0,047
Poona . 907,936 6,099
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Shol.pnr 718.034 3,999
SoUra . 1,001,009 6,378
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Snfi Kaladyi. . 810.037 8,096
Balyaum . 938,780 4.891 l.'ooi 114
Dharwar 988.037 4.804 1 JM
Beet Lokr Natiye States.
THE FAMI NE D I S T R I C T S CoromamM
K o l a j r a r ..................... 809,091
A k a lk o ta ..................... 81,000
Coloured to ahev degrees of Distress Booth Maratha Jayhira (81 010,434
Satara Jagblra ( 3 j , 903,984
_ M ADRAS Khandoah Agency f ib , D.ng, 89,111
BOMBAY M a n d a t,
Savanur . . [ n * Mawaa) 17,988
Sawantwari 190 A 14
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One* third* o f the crop gone 9 ,v „ . MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
H a l f crop loot. D istricts,
Salary 1,008,000 9,318
Throe fourths o f erop lost.
Karoul. 980,040
C u ddapah . 1,361,194 1,195 112
T rilic h r North Aroot 9,018,978
K rt.hna 1,489,874
MADRAS Salaro 1,000.998
/IW fidmr, Nallor*. 1,370,811
i C bingl.put 938,134
Distressed T .n jo ra 1,978,731
Triohinopgly 1,900,408
Coim balor. 1,783,974
Severely distressed. Bad- Madura 9,900,01;
Very bad* N ative State.
P u d n c u tt a .
M M A b 1 ■ M H
Cholera prevail* thrmif hotel the famine district! of D istrict* in MYSORE.
H e in e , it it meet ttvert in Biliary, Cuddapah, M y a o r. 943,187
A akiagra ■
a n d diUore. Hahno DtvSn*. . 0 0 8 ,4 1 7
C h ittU d ra * 611.300
J m ^ T T Y .» . K adur 333,999
S i.a J a of S to tu U M ll«» Sbinog. 498.970
11 a n g a l DM 898,384
018,964
T ttm k u r 089,939
Coor& (TM«i n.lttoh D tatrM U 108,319
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Famine, Disease, Medicine and the State in Madras Presidency (1876-78)
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