Editing Famine (section)

===India===
{{Main|Famine in India}}
{{See also|Timeline of major famines in India during British rule}}
Owing to its almost entire dependence upon the [[monsoon]] rains, India is vulnerable to crop failures, which upon occasion deepen into famine.<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Famine |display=Famine § Famines in India |volume=10 |page=176}}</ref> There were 14 famines in [[History of India|India]] between the 11th and 17th centuries (Bhatia, 1985). For example, during the 1022–1033 Great famines in India entire provinces were depopulated. Famine in [[Deccan Plateau|Deccan]] killed at least two million people in 1702–1704. B.M. Bhatia believes that the earlier famines were localised, and it was only after 1860, during the [[British Raj|British rule]], that famine came to signify general shortage of foodgrains in the country. There were approximately 25 major famines spread through states such as [[Tamil Nadu]] in the south, and [[Bihar]] and [[Bengal]] in the east during the latter half of the 19th century.

[[File:India-famine-family-crop-420.jpg|thumb|Victims of the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India during British rule, pictured in 1877.]]
[[Romesh Chunder Dutt]] argued as early as 1900, and present-day scholars such as [[Amartya Sen]] agree, that some historic famines were a product of both uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies, which since 1857 had led to the seizure and conversion of local farmland to foreign-owned plantations, restrictions on internal trade, heavy taxation of Indian citizens to support British expeditions in [[Afghanistan]] (see [[European influence in Afghanistan#Second Anglo-Afghan War|The Second Anglo-Afghan War]]), inflationary measures that increased the price of food, and substantial exports of staple crops from India to Britain. (Dutt, 1900 and 1902; Srivastava, 1968; Sen, 1982; Bhatia, 1985.)

Some British citizens, such as [[William Digby (writer)|William Digby]], agitated for policy reforms and famine relief, but [[Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton|Lord Lytton]], the governing British viceroy in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. The first, the [[Bengal famine of 1770]], is estimated to have taken around 10 million lives—one-third of Bengal's population at the time. Other notable famines include the [[Great Famine of 1876–1878]], in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died<ref name=mikedavis7>Davis, Mike. ''[[Late Victorian Holocausts]]''. 1. Verso, 2000. {{ISBN|1-85984-739-0}} p. 7</ref> and the [[Indian famine of 1899–1900]], in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.<ref name=mikedavis173>Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. {{ISBN|1-85984-739-0}} p. 173</ref> The famines were ended by the 20th century with the exception of the [[Bengal famine of 1943]] killing an estimated 2.1 million Bengalis during [[World War II]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dyson |first1=Tim |last2=Maharatna |first2=Arup |date=September 1991 |title=Excess mortality during the Great Bengal Famine: A Re-evaluation |journal=The Indian Economic and Social History Review |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=281–97 |doi=10.1177/001946469102800303 |s2cid=143627077 }}</ref>

The observations of the Famine Commission of 1880 support the notion that food distribution is more to blame for famines than food scarcity. They observed that each province in [[British India]], including [[British Burma|Burma]], had a surplus of foodgrains, and the annual surplus was 5.16 million tons (Bhatia, 1970). At that time, annual export of rice and other grains from India was approximately one million tons.

{{blockquote|Population growth worsened the plight of the peasantry. As a result of peace and improved sanitation and health, the Indian population rose from perhaps 100 million in 1700 to 300 million by 1920. While encouraging agricultural productivity, the British also provided economic incentives to have more children to help in the fields. Although a similar population increase occurred in Europe at the same time, the growing numbers could be absorbed by industrialization or emigration to the Americas and Australia. India enjoyed neither an industrial revolution nor an increase in food growing. Moreover, Indian landlords had a stake in the cash crop system and discouraged innovation. As a result, population numbers far outstripped the amount of available food and land, creating dire poverty and widespread hunger.|Craig A. Lockard, ''Societies, Networks, and Transitions''<ref>Craig A. Lockard (2010). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=IVvnrsaIgA8C Societies, Networks, and Transitions]'', Volume 3. Cengage Learning. p. 610. {{ISBN|1-4390-8534-X}}. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164813/https://books.google.com/books?id=IVvnrsaIgA8C |date=26 March 2023 }}</ref>}}

The Maharashtra drought saw zero deaths from starvation and is known for the successful employment of famine prevention policies, unlike during British rule.<ref>{{cite book|title=Climate and Food Security: Papers Presented at the International Symposium on Climate Variability and Food Security in Developing Countries|date=1987|publisher=International Rice Research Institute|isbn=978-971-10-4210-3|page=379|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O2bPFK22-GYC&q=maharashtra|access-date=31 October 2014|ref=American Association for the Advancement of Science, Indian National Science Academy, International Rice Research Institute, Indian Council of Agricultural Research|archive-date=16 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230916142024/https://books.google.com/books?id=O2bPFK22-GYC&q=maharashtra|url-status=live}}</ref>