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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

DAVID HALL-MATTHEWS
DAVID HALL-MATTHEWS*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Studies, Leeds University Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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

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

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References

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

17 Ibid.

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

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34 NNR, Jame Jamsed, 18 October 1876.

35 FCR 1880, Part I, p. 28.

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

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

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50 FCR 1880, Part III, p. 208.

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

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62 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 13 August 1877.

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

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

76 NNR, Dnyan Prakash, 9 July 1877.

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85 Ibid., p. xiv.

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87 R. Temple, India, p. 333.

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

90 R. Temple to Salisbury, 22 May 1874.

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

94 Ibid., p. 108. Emphasis added.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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