Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the origins, principles and functioning of poorhouses that were established in colonial north India. Following the workhouses in 19th c Britain, poorhouses sought to combat hunger, transform indigenous charity and instill discipline before disappearing from the colonial agenda.

Paper long abstract:

The late 19th c was marked by a number of famines in colonial India resulting in high mortality and circumstances that aggravated the precarious food security of the poor. This pushed the colonial state in India towards some ameliorative steps for its starving subjects in its quest for legitimacy. This paper investigates a somewhat neglected experiment in famine relief, namely the poorhouses that were established in several districts of the North-West Provinces and the Awadh region in north India.

Beginning with the first poorhouses that were established during the famine of 1860-61, colonial administrators sought to devise and test many principles of governance on people confined and located in a defined space. Poorhouses were simultaneously conceptualised as workhouses where subsistence was offered to those who were considered eligible, deserving and willing to do some work. Those who were considered able-bodied or seeking alms were to be deterred. However, poorhouses soon became unpopular as they were perceived by relief-seekers as places that violated caste norms. Colonial administrators saw them as desirable institutions that had the potential of regulating 'desultory private charity' and instilling values of diligence and discipline in the subject population. Poorhouses were apparently modelled on those workhouses in Britain that followed the New Poor Law (1834) and yet they were different and pale imitations in the colonial context, something this paper explores. Poorhouses were regarded as institutional solutions to hunger and despite their humanitarian and benevolent rhetoric, they tried to minimise responsibility, discourage indolence, and institutionalise indigenous charity.

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies contradictory and changeable British famine policy in India in 1860-70s and the role of the parliamentary business lobby in the process of its elaboration and implementation.

Paper long abstract:

In 1860-70s the British authorities tested various theoretical ideas and practical methods to prevent famines or minimize level of starvation and mortality in India: from total inaction in accordance with free-trade doctrine during Orissa famine (1866) and tough state regulation by means of organization of public works, large-scaled food procurement, market prices' restrain during Bihar-Bengal famine (1873-1874) to a limited interference in the situation during Madras famine (1877). Disastrous effects of Orissa famine entailed strong criticism in the British parliament. Overwhelming majority of its members were the representatives of commercial and industrial circles who used Orissa famine as an instrument to strengthen pressure and influence on Indian authorities. Accusing officials of inaction and irresponsibility they insisted on the intensification of public works' projects and active state participation in their implementation. Although free-trade staunch adherents at home, in the colony they were interested in strong state support and guarantees of their profits, well-developed infrastructure and wide range of investment projects. While the authorities went from one extreme to another in the attempt to overcome famines, the British businessmen used recurrent starvations in India to lobby for their own business interests, for example to promote highly remunerative railroad building rather than law-profit irrigation construction. Experience of these decades led to a formulation by the very beginning of 1880-s of more or less balanced famine policy that combined a range of indirect protective/preventive measures and a very restrained intrusion into market mechanisms.

Paper short abstract:

This paper co-relates the rise in anti- imperial sentiments and mobilization of Indians against foreign domination during four nineteenth century famines in politically crucial North Western Provinces and Awadh, now Uttar Pradesh.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investgates the spread of national consciousness and mobilization against colonialism in North Western Provinces and Awadh, still the determining centre of Indian polity.

During four devastating famines (1837-8, 1860-1, 1868-9,1896-7), that ravaged this province, affected people combined, confronted government for the enforcement of their entitlements, reminding the rulers of Rajdharma, obligations. They petitioned officials, merchants money lenders for concessions; issued threats even murdered perceived oppressors; vandalized imperial symbols, committed dacoities, loot. Particularly indicted was the expoliation of hunger for proselytim by some missions. Lawlessness was so unprecedented that army stoodby in several districts. Economic and cultural grievances coalsced and cre reason for the watershed 1857 war. Rebel farmans underlined increasing poverty, indebtedness, recurring famines to mobilize people.

From 1860's critics of economic imperialism, nationalists, reformers, organizations like Arya Samaj, Bramho Samaj, Ram Krishna Mission, the Indian National Congress commonly indicted increasing poverty, indebtedness, recurring famines, attributing these to exploitative economic imperial policies. They criticized the narrow, callous state relief, organized their own relief which became opportunities to spread political, national messages, mobilizing the afflicted. It demonstrated that Indians were capable of managing their national affairs, debunking the 'white man's burden,' and 'civilizing mission' theses.

The discourse of these actors, the mechanisms deployed for nationalist mobilization, and government response to such activities will be examined.

Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at cattle mortality during two massive famines that broke out in India at the end of the nineteenth century. It will discuss colonial famine policies and examine the various ideological motivations that lay behind the relief measures that were implemented by the state.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at the two massive famines that broke out in India at the end of the nineteenth century: in 1896-7 and again in 1899. However, instead of looking at the human cost of famines, which has been the subject of most studies till now, it examines the question of cattle mortality during these disasters. The huge numbers of cattle that perished during famines not only created an ecological imbalance, but also had a massive impact on the livelihood of peasants, on agrarian structures, on agricultural productivity, and on cropping patterns, and this is one of the questions we will deal with. Besides this, we will also discuss colonial famine policies and examine the various ideological motivations that lay behind the relief measures that were implemented by the state. We will look, in particular, at the ideologies of Malthusianism and free trade and argue that, together with the avowed need to maintain "fiscal prudence", they were used by the colonial state to justify minimal famine relief. Even this minimal state relief was, however, not accessed by the affected peasants to the extent that one would expect, and we will also examine the reasons behind this.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to address the centrality of statistics to famine relief practices in nineteenth and early twentieth century India.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will address the question of famine statistics in India as a site on which significant shifts in the culture and practice of colonial governance occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. The use of famine statistics during this period was not mere coincidence, but rather an integral part of a broader political effort to create an impartial state bureaucracy. I argue that statistics in the context of famine not only performed the work of ideological and political legitimation but also served to display the Empire. The colonial state ensured the public access of the numbers it produced by disseminating them through famine commission reports, blue books, imperial gazetteers, and multivolume commercial dictionaries and agricultural glossaries, which enabled people, for the first time, to assume an effective visual and conceptual map of the Empire.

I use the example of Florence Nightingale to reflect on how she made effective use of famine statistics by skillfully coloring it with moral overtones to mobilize public opinion in India and England. In particular, I provide insights into how Nightingale formulated prescriptive principles targeted not only at the relief of suffering, but at the moral and material improvement of distant subjects - principles which continue to inform more recent debates over humanitarianism and global ethics. My aim here is to historicize the global networks of exchange that not only pioneered the gathering of data on Indian famines but also enabled the convergence of colonial humanitarianism with the statistical movement in the nineteenth century.

Paper short abstract:

Examining how Indian Communists portrayed hunger, famine and starvation in the 1940s, the talk provides a perspective on the entanglements of politics and famine relief and explores the instrumentality of hunger and victimhood.

Paper long abstract:

The occurrence of famine, hunger and starvation in Bengal in the 1940s provided the Communist Party of India (CPI) with the opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to address the calamity and thereby to potentially expand the party's political influence and popularity. This was a much-needed opportunity for a party itself in crisis: with the decision to accede to international communist demands to support the British war effort, the CPI had alienated its local cadre. Acting on behalf of the suffering and creating public visibility of its efforts thus proved instrumental in countering the party's disintegration and in rallying support for its political ideas. Towards the end of the year 1942, the CPI embarked on a media campaign that proved successful in mobilising relief for the starving and in diffusing political propaganda.

The talk examines the public portrayal of hunger, famine and starvation by Indian Communists in the 1940s and highlights how Communists articulated the victimhood of those affected by the crisis with reference to the party's political agenda, ideological premises and societal vision.

Exploring how Indian Communists contributed to the particularities of the public visibility and representation of famine this decade, the talk addresses the entanglements of politics and famine relief and sheds light on the political instrumentality of hunger and victimhood.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is a documentation of the political history of the public food distribution system (PDS) in Kerala, India. The origins of today's PDS in Kerala are traced to the struggles of peasants and industrial workers in the 1940s, and the powerful food movements of Left parties in the mid-1960s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper documents the political history of public food distribution system (PDS) in Kerala, India. The origins of PDS in Kerala are traced back to the struggles of peasants and industrial workers and decisive state action between the 1940s and 1960s.

During the second world war, an acute food shortage emerged in the regions constituting today's Kerala. In the Malabar region, struggles for rationing began with struggles of the Left peasant movement to establish 'Producers and Consumers Co-operatives' (PCCs) in 1942. The peasant movement forcibly entered go-downs of landlords, confiscated paddy and distributed it to the poor through PCCs. Finally, rationing was officially introduced in 1944. In the Travancore and Cochin regions, the food movement was led by the industrial workers in the coir-weaving belt. A labour unrest resulted in a strike agitation in 1942. Ultimately, in 1943, a skeletal rationing system was introduced in Travancore and Cochin.

When the first communist government came to power in unified Kerala in 1957, it established local food committees to supervise ration shops. Yet, the availability of rice was frequently interrupted. By 1964, another acute food shortage emerged, leading to huge protests. Thus, an "informal rationing" system was introduced. In 1965, food struggles of communists swept the State again. To avoid a sharp leftward shift in Kerala's politics, Indian government agreed to provide a "minimum universal statutory ration" for the State. Thus was born Kerala's PDS, a major constituent element in the State's unique developmental experience.