Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / The Bengal Famine of 1770: Drought, Tax, and the Great Mortality
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to talk about something that still haunts Bengal's collective memory — the famine of 1770. It's often called the Great Famine, or in Bengali, Chhiattorer Manvantar — the famine of 76. That refers to 1176 in the Bengali calendar, which corresponds to 1769–70. But the worst year was really 1770. Luna: We've touched on famines before — the 1943 one, of course. But 1770 sounds even earlier, and somehow less known. Lucas: Exactly. It's overshadowed by the later famines, partly because the British East India Company tried to suppress how bad it was. By the time it was over, roughly one-third of Bengal's population had died. Estimates range from 7 to 10 million people. And the trigger wasn't just a drought — it was policy. Lucas: Remember, in 1765, after the Battle of Buxar, the Company received the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa — the right to collect revenue. They immediately started squeezing. The Mughal revenue system had been harsh, but it was flexible. The Company demanded fixed cash payments, and they didn't care if the harvest failed. Luna: So they were collecting taxes even as the crops were dying? Lucas: Worse. They actually raised the revenue demand in 1768 — what's known as the 'assessment of 1768' — just as the monsoon started failing. Harry Verelst was the Governor of Bengal then. He and his council pushed for maximum collection, ignoring reports of distress. They even used torture to extract payments from zamindars — the local landlords. Lucas: The monsoon failure of 1769 was severe — the winter rice crop, the main staple, withered. By early 1770, people were eating leaves, grass, and the bark of trees. The Company's own servants wrote back to London describing piles of corpses along the Hooghly River. Luna: What did the Company do when they realized what was happening? Lucas: Very little. There was a token relief effort — rice was distributed in Calcutta — but it was tiny. The Court of Directors in London actually scolded Verelst for not collecting even more revenue. They wrote, 'It is a matter of regret that the famine did not produce greater savings in the collection.' That's a direct quote. They were upset that fewer people meant less tax revenue. Luna: That's horrifying. So they saw mass death as a budget problem. Lucas: Yes. And they tried to hide the scale. When Warren Hastings became Governor in 1772, he conducted a survey that put the death toll at about 10 million. But the Company's official report downplayed it, saying only a third of the population died in some districts — which actually confirms the staggering toll. They also banned exports of grain to other parts of India, but that was too little, too late. Lucas: One of the most vivid accounts comes from William Bolts, a former Company employee turned critic. He wrote that in 1770, the roads were lined with skeletons, and 'the living were feeding on the dead.' He estimated that 5 million people died in Bengal alone, and another million in Bihar. Luna: Did anyone in the Company try to stop the collections? Lucas: A few. Richard Becher, a Company official in Murshidabad, wrote a desperate letter to the Council in Calcutta in 1769, warning that the revenue demands were causing 'the greatest distress and misery.' He said the peasants were fleeing the country, leaving their lands barren. But his warnings were ignored. The Council was focused on meeting the 'investment' — the annual dividend sent to London. Luna: So the famine was man-made in a very direct sense. It wasn't just a natural disaster. Lucas: Absolutely. Drought was the spark, but Company revenue policy was the fuel. And there's another layer: the Company had monopolized the grain trade. They forced peasants to grow cash crops like opium and indigo instead of food. When the famine hit, there was no buffer. The traditional village granaries — the system that had saved Bengal during earlier droughts — had been dismantled by the new revenue system. Lucas: The famine also had long-term consequences. It weakened the zamindars, many of whom went bankrupt. The Company used that as an excuse to impose the Permanent Settlement in 1793, which fixed revenue demands forever but locked in inequalities. And the population didn't recover to pre-famine levels for nearly a century. Luna: I've heard that the famine is remembered in Bengali literature, but not so much in British accounts. Lucas: That's right. There's a famous novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay called 'Anandamath' — it's set during the famine and features the song 'Vande Mataram.' The book portrays the famine as divine punishment for foreign rule. But in official British histories, it's often brushed aside as a 'dearth' or 'scarcity.' Even today, many textbooks barely mention it. We're trying to correct that. Luna: It's a stark reminder of how colonialism could turn a bad season into an apocalypse. Lucas: Exactly. And it's a story that Bengal carries, even if the world forgot. The scars of Chhiattorer Manvantar are still there in the resilience of the people, and in the cautionary tale of what happens when profit is put above human life.