Famine of 1876-78 in British India

The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was one of the deadliest humanitarian disasters in nineteenth-century India. Triggered by severe drought and compounded by colonial laissez-faire economic policies, the famine devastated southern, central, and northern parts of the country, causing millions of deaths.

Geographic Scope and Causes

A combination of climate factors and colonial administrative practices turned a natural rainfall deficit into a catastrophic mortality event.

Immediate Triggers and Spread

• A failed southwest monsoon in 1875 followed by intense drought in 1876 destroyed crop yields across South India.
• The famine initially hit the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, the Princely State of Mysore, and the Nizam’s Dominions of Hyderabad.
• By 1877, the dry weather extended northward into the Central Provinces, United Provinces, and parts of Punjab.
• The total affected land area covered over 200,000 square miles, impacting a population of nearly 60 million people.

Colonial Relief Policy and the Temple Wage

The colonial government under Viceroy Lord Lytton prioritized fiscal austerity and free-market doctrine over human relief operations.

Principles of Imperial Famine Management

• Viceroy Lytton appointed Sir Richard Temple as Special Famine Commissioner in 1877 to control relief expenditure.
• Temple introduced strict test works where starving laborers performed heavy physical labor in exchange for minimal rations.
• The “Temple Wage” reduced the daily food allowance for relief workers to one pound (450 grams) of grain per day, providing less energy than rations given to inmates in contemporary penal camps.
• The administration refused to regulate grain prices or prohibit private trade, allowing merchants to hoard grain and inflate market prices.
• The colonial state continued to collect full land revenue from impoverished peasants using coercive measures.

Political Contrast and the Delhi Durbar of 1877

The imperial response created deep political resentment among Indian intellectuals and early nationalist leaders due to the glaring contrast between official extravagance and widespread rural suffering.

Imperial Extravagance Amidst Distress

• Lord Lytton organized the grand Imperial Assemblage (Delhi Durbar) in January 1877 to proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India (Kaisar-i-Hind).
• Large quantities of food grains were diverted and spent to feed foreign dignitaries and military escorts attending the Durbar while thousands died daily of starvation in southern districts.
• India exported over 3.2 million metric tons of wheat to Great Britain during the height of the famine in 1877–1878.
• British journalist William Digby and Indian thinkers like Dadabhai Naoroji cited the tragedy as proof of the economic drain of wealth under colonial rule.

The Strachey Famine Commission (1878) and Famine Code

The sheer scale of mortality forced the colonial administration to re-examine its crisis response framework, leading to systematic policy changes.

Key Recommendations of the Strachey Commission

• Lord Lytton appointed the First Famine Commission in 1878 under General Sir Richard Strachey.
• The commission declared that providing famine relief was a direct responsibility of the state.
• It recommended constructing irrigation works and expanding railways into drought-prone rural districts.
• It advised forming a permanent Famine Relief Fund within provincial budgets to handle future crop failures.
• The Strachey report established the framework for the Provisional Famine Code of 1883, setting standardized rules for declaring famines and opening relief camps.

Historical Facts and Data

The Great Famine resulted in the death of over 20 percent of the population in districts like Bellary, Kurnool, and Salem. The Princely State of Mysore suffered extreme population decline, losing nearly one-fifth of its total inhabitants between 1876 and 1878. Sir Richard Temple previously managed the Bihar Famine of 1873–1874 by importing rice from Burma, incurring zero famine mortality. British officials criticized him for excessive spending, prompting his rigid cost-cutting approach during 1876–1878. The Famine Insurance Grant was created in 1878, reserving an annual sum of Rs 1.5 crore to construct protective railways and irrigation canals. William Digby recorded the details of colonial mismanagement in his two-volume work, The Famine Campaign in Southern India (1876–1878), published in 1878.