Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / The Great Bengal Famine of 1770: A Colonial Catastrophe
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, we've talked a lot about Bengal's wealth — its textiles, its saltpeter, its fertile land. But today I want to talk about the flip side: the Great Bengal Famine of 1770. It killed about ten million people, roughly a third of the population, and it was not just a natural disaster. Luna: Ten million? That's staggering. And you're saying it wasn't just drought? Lucas: Right. The monsoon did fail in 1769, but the real killer was what the East India Company did — and didn't do — in the years before. Since the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the Company had the diwani rights — that meant they controlled Bengal's revenue. And they squeezed it dry. Lucas: You know, speaking of what makes this show possible, let me just mention something quickly. A small number of listeners help fund these episodes through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what keeps us ad-free and allows us to dive into these deep stories. If you've been enjoying the series, that's how to keep it going. Luna: Yeah, it's a good way to support the research. So, back to the famine — what exactly did the Company do wrong? Lucas: Well, first, they kept the land revenue demand at the same high level even when crops failed. The zamindars, who were the local tax collectors, had to meet their quotas or lose their positions. So they extracted grain from peasants who barely had enough to eat. Second, the Company monopolized the grain trade, buying up rice for its own use and even exporting it to other parts of India for profit. And third, when the famine hit, they continued to collect taxes with brutal efficiency. Luna: So the people who were starving were still being taxed? That's horrific. Lucas: Exactly. There's a famous report from the time: Warren Hastings, who became governor in 1772, admitted that the Company's revenue collections in 1771 were actually higher than in 1768, despite the famine. The collection went from about £1.5 million to £1.8 million. They literally profited from the disaster. Luna: Wait — Hastings admitted that? I thought he was later impeached for corruption, but this seems even worse. Lucas: He was indeed impeached, though eventually acquitted. But yes, the famine was a key part of the charges. The Company had imposed a 'cornmeal' tax — a duty on the grinding of grain — even as people were dying. And they refused to remit revenue even in the worst-hit districts like Murshidabad and Birbhum. Lucas: Let me give you a picture of what happened on the ground. In the summer of 1770, the Hooghly River was lined with corpses. People ate leaves, roots, and even the flesh of dead animals. Some sold their children for a few rupees. Villages were completely depopulated — entire families died or fled. The British physician John Zephaniah Holwell, who we mentioned in the Black Hole episode, wrote a harrowing account. Luna: What did the Company do in response? Any relief efforts? Lucas: Very little. Hastings did authorize some grain imports from Bihar, but it was too little, too late. The Company's priority was maintaining its profits and its military. In fact, they continued to export rice to other parts of India and even to Britain. The only significant relief came from some Indian merchants and zamindars, who set up free kitchens, but they couldn't match the scale of the crisis. Lucas: One particularly tragic detail: the famine hit the weavers of Dhaka and Murshidabad especially hard. Bengal's famous muslin industry depended on a skilled workforce, and thousands of weavers died or fled. The industry never fully recovered, and that's one reason why British textiles eventually replaced Indian ones. Luna: So the famine didn't just kill people — it destroyed an entire economic system. Lucas: Exactly. And the long-term consequences were profound. The population of Bengal didn't recover to pre-famine levels for decades. The Company's reputation was permanently damaged — both in India and in Britain. Edmund Burke used the famine as evidence in his impeachment campaign against Hastings, arguing that the Company had 'drained the treasury of Bengal' and 'left the people to perish.' Luna: And this was before the great famines of the 19th century under direct British rule. It set a pattern. Lucas: That's right. The 1770 famine was a precursor to later disasters like the famines of 1876-78 and 1943, which also had colonial policies at their root. In many ways, the British Raj's response to famine was shaped by this early failure. The idea that the market should be left to sort itself out — which we now call 'laissez-faire' — led to millions of preventable deaths. Luna: I've heard that some historians argue the famine was actually a genocide. What do you think? Lucas: That's a contested term. The Company didn't set out to kill people, but their policies were callously indifferent. They prioritized revenue over human life. The famine was a man-made catastrophe, but whether it meets the legal definition of genocide is debated. What's clear is that it was a crime of neglect, not a natural disaster. Lucas: Let me give you one more specific: in the district of Birbhum, the Company's own surveyors noted that the population fell by half between 1769 and 1771. Yet the revenue demand was barely reduced. The zamindars there were forced to sell their own jewelry to meet the quotas. Some of them fled to avoid punishment. Luna: It's hard to imagine that level of suffering. And we don't talk about it nearly enough. Lucas: That's why I wanted to do this episode. The Great Bengal Famine is often overshadowed by later famines, but it was the first major test of British colonial rule in India — and it failed catastrophically. It showed that the Company's first loyalty was to its shareholders, not to the people it governed. Lucas: So, next time you hear about the 'wealth of Bengal,' remember that a lot of that wealth was built on the bones of those ten million. It's a sobering reminder of what empire really meant. Luna: Thanks for covering this, Lucas. It's a story that needs to be heard.