Hunger has become a hallmark of repeated life in the sub-continent countries of India, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Hunger in India resulted in over 60 million deaths during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The last great hunger was the Bengal hunger of 1943. Famine took place in the state of Bihar in December 1966 on a much smaller scale and where, "Thankfully, help is at hand and relatively fewer deaths". The drought in Maharashtra in 1970-1973 is often cited as an example where a successful hunger prevention process is used. The famine in British India was severe enough to have a major impact on the growth of the country's long-term population in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on climate: favorable winter monsoon season is essential in securing water to irrigate crops. The drought, combined with policy failure, has periodically led to India's major famines, including the Bengal famine of 1770, Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, the Great Famine of 1876-78, and the Bangka famine of 1943. Some commentators have identified Britain's inaction as a factor which contributed to the severity of the famine during which time India was under British rule. Famine largely ended in the early 20th century with the hunger of Bengal 1943 being the exception related to complications during World War II. The 1883 Indian Famine Code, transport improvements and changes after independence have been identified as continuing famine relief. In India, traditionally, agricultural workers and rural craftsmen have been the main victims of hunger. In the worst hunger, the cultivators are also vulnerable.
Finally, the extension of the railway by the British ended a massive famine in peacetime in the 20th century.
Ancient, medieval and pre-colonial India Ancient, medieval and pre-colonial India
One of the earliest treatises on famine relief has been around for more than 2,000 years. This treatise is generally associated with Kautilya, which recommends that good kings should build new fortresses and waterworks and share their provisions with people, or entrust the country to other kings. Historically, Indian rulers have used some methods of hunger relief. Some of them are straightforward, such as starting a free distribution of food grains and throwing grain and kitchen shops open to people. Other measures are monetary policies such as income forgiveness, tax forgiveness, salary increases to soldiers, and advance payments. But other measures include the construction of public works, conduits, and embankments, and sinking wells. Migration is encouraged. Kautilya advocates the provision of the rich at times of hunger to "dilute them by demanding excess income." Information about famine from ancient India to colonial times is found in five main sources:
- Legendary legends inherited in oral tradition that enliven memory of hunger
- Ancient Indian literature such as Vedas, Jataka stories, and Arthashastra
- Stone and metal inscriptions provide information about some hunger before the 16th century
- The writings of Muslim historians in Mughal India
- Foreigners writing temporarily in India (eg Ibn Battuta, Francis Xavier)
The ancient Ashokan Decree from the Mauryan age of about 269 BC records the conquest of the Ashoka emperor against Kalinga, roughly the modern state of Odisha. The great decree of rock and pillar mentions large human casualties of about 100,000 because of the war. The decree noted that the larger number then perished, perhaps due to injury and hunger. From the Hindu literature, there was a famine of the 7th century because of the failure of rain in Tanjore district mentioned in Periya Puranam. According to Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Sambandhar Tamil Saints and the Experts to provide relief from hunger. Other famines in the same district were recorded on inscriptions with details such as "bad times", ruined villages, and disturbed food cultivation in Alangudi in 1054. The famine preserved only in oral tradition is Dvadasavarsha Panjam Twelve years of Famine) from southern India and Durga Devi Hunger from Deccan from 1396-1407. The main sources for hunger in this period are incomplete and location-based
The Tughlaq dynasty under Muhammad bin Tughluq held power during Delhi-based famine in 1335-42. The Sultanate offered no assistance to the hungry Delhi population during this famine. Pre-colonial pigs in the Deccan include Damajipant 1460 famine and famine began in 1520 and 1629. Damajipant famine is said to have caused destruction both in the northern and southern Deccan. 1629-32 famine in Deccan and Gujarat, is one of the largest in Indian history. In the first 10 months of 1631, about 3 million people were killed in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. Finally, hunger not only kills the poor but also the rich. More famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. Another famine in 1702-1704 killed more than two million people. The oldest Hungarian famine in Deccan with well-maintained local documentation for the analytical study was Doji bara hunger of 1791-92. Assistance was given by the ruler, Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao II, in the form of imposing restrictions on grain exports and importing large quantities of rice from Bengal through private trade, but evidence is often too little to judge the 'real efficacy of efforts' in the Mughal period.
According to Mushtaq A. Kaw, the actions taken by the Mughal and Afghan rulers to combat famine in Kashmir are not enough due to geographical barriers and corruption in Mughal administration. Mughal officials have not taken long-term measures to combat famine in Kashmir, and the Indian Mughal land tax system often contributes to the scale of hunger by depriving Indian farmers of most of their crops in good years, denying them a chance to build stock.
Video Famine in India
English Rules
The late 18th and 19th centuries saw an increasingly severe incidence of famine. Famines in British India are bad enough to have a tremendous impact on the country's long-term population growth, especially in the half-century between 1871-1921. The first, Bengal famine of 1770, is thought to have taken the lives of nearly a third of the population in the region - some 10 million people. The impact of famine caused the East India Company's revenues from Bengal to decrease to 174,300 pounds in 1770-71. The share price of the East India Company fell sharply as a result. The company was forced to obtain a £ 1 million loan from the Bank of England to fund an annual military budget of between £ 60,000-1 million. Efforts were then made to show that net income is not affected by hunger, but this is only possible because the collection was "rigorously preserved by previous standards". The Famine Commission of 1901 found that twelve famines and four "severe scarcities" occurred between 1765 and 1858.
Researcher Brian Murton states that famine was recorded after the arrival of the British, but before the formation of the Indian Hunger Code of the 1880s, it bore the cultural bias about the cause of hunger as they "reflect the views of a handful of Englishmen." These sources, however, contain weather recordings and Accurate plant conditions. Florence Nightingale made an attempt to educate the English subject of famine in India through a series of publications in the 1870s and beyond. The evidence suggests that there may be a major famine in southern India every forty years in pre-colonial India, and that its frequency may be higher after the 12th century. These famines still do not approach the famine incidents of the 18th and 19th centuries under British rule.
Scientific opinion
Florence Nightingale suggests that famine in British India is not caused by lack of food in certain geographical areas. They are instead caused by inadequate food transportation, which in turn is caused by the absence of political and social structures.
Nightingale identifies two types of hunger: grain hunger and "money hunger". Money is drained from farmers to landlords, making it impossible for farmers to get food. The money that should be provided to food producers through public works projects and jobs is diverted for other uses. Nightingale pointed out that the money needed to combat hunger was diverted to activities such as paying off British military efforts in Afghanistan in 1878-80.
Nobel Prize-winning Economy Amartya Sen found that famine in the British era was not due to lack of food but due to inequality in food distribution. He attributes inequality to the undemocratic kingdom of the British Empire.
Tirthankar Roy points out that famine occurs due to environmental and inherent factors in Indian ecology. Roy argues that large-scale investment in agriculture is needed to break India's stagnation, but this will not come due to water scarcity, poor soil and livestock quality and a less developed input market that ensures that investment in agriculture is very risky. After 1947, India focused on institutional reforms for agriculture, but this failed to break the pattern of stagnation. It was not until the 1970s when there was massive public investment in agriculture that India was free from hunger, although Roy argued that improvements in market efficiency did contribute to the alleviation of famine due to weather after 1900, except for the Bengal hunger of 1943.
Mike Davis considers the famine of the 1870s and 1890s as the 'Victorian End of Holocausts' in which the effects of crop failures caused by widespread weather are greatly compounded by the lax response of the British administration. The negative image of the British government is common in India. He says that "Millions of people die, not outside the 'modern world' system, but in a process that is forcibly incorporated into their economic and political structures.They died in the golden days of Liberal Capitalism, indeed, many were killed... by theological application the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham, and Mill. "
Michelle Burge McAlpin argues that the economic changes in India during the 19th century contributed to the end of hunger. The subsistence agriculture economy of 19th-century India gave way to a more diversified economy in the 20th century, which, by offering other forms of employment, created fewer agricultural disorders (and, consequently, less deaths) during the period of scarcity. The construction of Indian railways between 1860 and 1920, and the opportunities offered for greater profits in other markets, allowed farmers to collect assets that could then be withdrawn at the time of scarcity. At the beginning of the 20th century, many farmers in the Bombay presidency cultivated some of their crops for export. Trains also carry food, whenever the expectation of scarcity starts to raise food prices. Similarly, Donald Attwood writes that at the end of the 19th century, local food shortages in certain districts and seasons were increasingly smoothed by the invisible hand of the market and that 'In the 1920s, large-scale institutions integrated the region into industry. and globalization of the world - ending hunger and causing rapid decline in mortality rates, resulting in increased human well-being '.
Cause
Famines are good products of uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies. The colonial policies involved include rack rental, war levies, free trade policy, expansion of export agriculture, and neglect of agricultural investments. India's opium, rice, wheat, indigo, hemp, and cotton exports are a key component of Britain's royal economy, generating vital foreign currency, mainly from China, and stabilizing low prices in the UK grain market. Plant exports replace millions of hectares that can be used for domestic household needs, and increase the vulnerability of Indians to the food crisis. Others argue that exports are the main cause of hunger, suggesting that trade does have a stabilizing effect on consumption of Indian food, albeit a small one
The Odysse Hunger of 1866-67, which then spread through the Madras Presidency to Hyderabad and Mysore, was one such famine. The famine of 1866 was a terrible and terrible event in the history of Odisha in which about a third of the population died. Famine causes around 1,553 orphans whose citizens receive a total of 3 rupees per month until the age of 17 for boys and 16 for girls. Similar famines follow in the western Ganges, Rajasthan, central India (1868-70), Bengal and eastern India (1873-1874), Deccan (1876-78), and again in the Ganges, Madras, Hyderabad, Mysore, and Bombay areas 1876-1878). The Famine of 1876-78, also known as the Great Famine of 1876-78, led to the massive migration of laborers and agricultural craftsmen from southern India to British tropical colonies, where they worked as contract laborers on plantations. The massive death toll - about 10.3 million - offset the usual population growth in the Presidency of Bombay and Madras between the first and second censuses of British India in 1871 and 1881 respectively.
The loss of large-scale life due to a series of starvation between 1860 and 1877 was the cause of the controversy and political discussion that led to the establishment of the Hunger Commission of India. The commission will then appear with the draft version of the Hunger Code of India. It was the Great Famine of 1876-78, however, it was a direct cause of investigation and the beginning of a process leading to the formation of the Hunger code of India. The next great famine was the Indian famine of 1896-1997. Although this famine was preceded by a drought in the Madras Presidency, it was made more acute by the laissez faire government policy in the grain trade. For example, two of the worst-hit areas in the Madras Presidency, Ganjam and Vizagapatam districts, continue to export grain throughout the famine. These famines are usually followed by various infectious diseases such as plague and influenza, which attack and kill populations that have been weakened by hunger.
English response
The first major famine that took place under British rule was the Bengal Famine of 1770. About a quarter to one third of the Bengal population died of starvation in about ten months. The tax collecting of companies in East East was very bad along with this famine and worsened it, even if the famine was not caused by the British colonial government. After this famine, "Consecutive British government does not want to increase the tax burden." Rain failed again in Bengal and Odisha in 1866. The laissez faire policy was employed, leading to the alleviation of some of the famine in Bengal. However, the southwest season makes the port at Odisha inaccessible. As a result, food can not be imported into Odisha as easily as Bengal. In 1865-66, a severe drought struck Odisha and was filled with official British inaction. The British Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, did nothing for two months, at which time a million people had died. The lack of attention to problems causes Salisbury never to feel free from mistakes. Some Britons such as William Digby are anxious for policy reform and famine relief, but Lord Lytton, the ruling young king of England, opposes such a change in the belief that they will induce negligence by Indian workers. Reacting to calls for relief during the famine of 1877-79, Lytton replied, "Let the British public pay bills for 'cheap sentiment', if it wants to save lives at a cost that will bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is no interference whatsoever on the parties Government with the aim of reducing the price of food, "and instructed district officers to" prevent help working in all possible ways.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason to open a relief work. "
In 1874, responses from the British authorities were better and hunger was completely avoided. Then in 1876, famine erupted in Madras. Lord Lytton's government believed that 'market power alone is enough to feed the hungry Indians.' The thought result proved fatal (about 5.5 million hunger), so this policy was abandoned. Lord Lytton founded the Famine Insurance Grant, a system in which, at a financial surplus, INR 1,500,000 will be applied to hunger relief work. The result is that Britain is too early to assume that the problem of hunger has been solved forever. The future viceroy of England became complacent, and this proved to be disastrous in 1896. Approximately 4.5 million starving people starved at the peak of famine.
Curzon stated that such philanthropy would be criticized, but not doing so would be a crime. He also cut off the ration he described as a "very high," and rigid "relief loophole" by returning the temple tests. Between 1.25 and 10 million people were killed in starvation. Famine during World War II led to the development of the Bengal Famine Mix (based on rice with sugar). This will save tens of thousands of lives in liberated concentration camps like Belsen.
Influence of policy
The British famine policy in India was influenced by Adam Smith's argument, as seen by non-government interference with the wheat market even in times of famine. Maintaining cheap famine relief as cheaply as possible, with a minimum cost to the colonial treasury, is another important factor in determining famine policy. According to Brian Murton, a professor of geography at the University of Hawaii, another possible impact on Britain's policy of hunger in India is the influence of English English Law of 1834, with the difference being that Britain is willing to "defend" poor in Britain at normal times, India will accept subsistence only when the entire population is threatened. The similarity between Ireland's 1846-49 famine and the late Indian famine of the last part of the 19th century is seen. In both countries, there are no barriers to food exports during times of famine. Lessons learned from Irish hunger were not seen in policy-making correspondence during the 1870s in India.
Famine Codes
The 1880 Hunger Commission observed that every province of British India, including Burma, had a food grain surplus, and that the annual surplus reached 5.16 million metric tons. The Product of the Hunger Commission is a series of government guidelines and regulations on how to respond to hunger and food shortages called the Famine Code. It had to wait until Lord Lytton's exit as king, and was finally passed in 1883 under the more liberal young king, Lord Ripon. They presented an early warning system to detect and respond to food shortages. Although there are codes, death rates from hunger are highest in the last 25 years of the 19th century. At that time, the annual export of rice and other grains from India was about one million metric tons. Development economist Jean DrÃÆ'¨ze evaluated the conditions before and after the Hunger Commission's policy changed: "A contrast between the periods of frequent recurrent disasters, and the last period when long tranquility was disrupted by several large-scale famines" in 1896-97, 1899- 1900, and 1943-44. DrÃÆ'¨ze describes this "intermittent failure" by four factors - failure to declare famine (especially in 1943), "overly punishing characters" hunger restrictions such as wages for public works, "strict non-interference policies with private trade," and the severity of the food crisis.
There was the threat of hunger, but after 1902 there was no great famine in India until the Bengal famine of 1943. This famine was the most terrible; between 2.5 and 3 million people died during World War II. In India as a whole, food supply is rarely adequate, even in times of drought. The 1880 Hunger Commission identified that the loss of wages due to the lack of work of farm laborers and craftsmen was the cause of hunger. The Hunger Code implements a job-generating strategy for this part of the population and relies on open public works to do so. The Indian Hunger Code was used in India until more lessons were learned from the 1966-67 Bihar famine. The Famine Code has been updated in independent India and has been renamed "Manual Scarcity." In some parts of the country, the Famine Code is no longer used, especially since the rules contained therein have become routine procedures in the relief strategy of hunger.
The impact of railway transportation
The failure to provide food to the millions of people who were starving during the famine of the 1870s has been blamed both because of the absence of adequate rail infrastructure and the incorporation of wheat into the world market via rail and telegraph. Davis notes that, "Newly built railways, hailed as institutional protection against hunger, are instead used by traders to deliver grain supplies from drought-stricken districts to the central depots to stockpile (as well as protection from rioters)" and the telegraph which serves to coordinate the price increase so that "food prices jump out of reach of outcaste workers, abandoned carrier, farmers and poor peasants." Members of the British administrative apparatus are also concerned that the larger market created by rail transport encourages poor farmers to sell their reserve stocks.
Nevertheless, rail transport also plays an important role in supplying grain from food surplus areas to hungry areas. The 1880 Famine Codes urged the restructuring and expansion of massive railroads, with an emphasis on the intra-India line as opposed to the existing port-centered system. These new lines expand the existing network to allow food to flow into the areas hit by hunger. Jean DrÃÆ'¨ze (1991) also found that necessary economic conditions existed for the national market in food to reduce scarcity by the end of the nineteenth century, but food exports continued to be produced from that market even during relative scarcity.. The effectiveness of this system, however, depends on providing governmental famine relief: "The railways can do an important job of moving grains from one part of India to another, but they can not guarantee that hungry people will have the money to buy seed - the grain. ".
Hunger weakens the immune system and causes an increase in infectious diseases, especially cholera, dysentery, malaria, and smallpox. The human response to hunger can spread the disease when people migrate for food and work. On the other hand, trains also have their own impact on reducing deaths from starvation by bringing people to areas where food is available, or even outside India. By generating a wider labor migration area and facilitating the massive emigration of Indians during the late nineteenth century, they gave the people who suffered the hunger of choice to go to other parts of the country and the world. In the crisis of scarcity 1912-13, migration and relief supplies were able to absorb the impact of middle-scale food shortages. DrÃÆ'¨ze concludes, "In short, and with large orders applicable to international trade, it is plausible that the improvement of communications towards the end of the nineteenth century did contribute greatly to the alleviation of distress during the famine, but it is also easy to see that this factor alone can explain the very sharp decline in the famine incident of the 20th century ".
The Bengal Hunger of 1943
The Bengal hunger of 1943 peaked between July and November of that year, and the worst of the famine had ended in early 1945. The statistics of starvation fatalities are unreliable, and it is estimated that up to two million people die. Although one cause of hunger is the cutting of rice supplies to Bengal during Rangoon's autumn into Japan, this is only a fraction of the food needed for the region. According to Irish economist and professor Cormac ÃÆ' â € Å"GrÃÆ'¡da, priority is given to military considerations, and the poor people in Bengal are left unavailable. Efforts were made by the Government of India to direct food from surplus areas such as Punjab to hungry areas of Bengal but the provincial government inhibited the movement of wheat. The Famine Commission of 1948 and economist Amartya Sen found that there was enough rice in Bengal to feed all Bengalis for much of 1943. Sen claims famine is caused by inflation, with those who benefit from inflation eating more and leaving less for the rest of the population. These studies, however, do not take into account the possible inaccuracies in the estimation or impact of fungal diseases on rice. De Waal stated that the British government did not enforce the Hunger Code during the Bengal famine of 1943 because they failed to detect food shortages. The Bengal Famine of 1943 was the last famine of India, and it held a special place in the hunger historiography because of Sen's 1981 classic entitled Poverty and Hunger: The Essay on Rights and Forgiveness .
Maps Famine in India
Republic of India
Since the Bengal famine of 1943, there has been a decline in the number of famines that have limited effects and short durations. Sen attributed this trend to the decline or disappearance of hunger after independence to a democratic system of government and a free press - not increasing food production. Then the threats of starvation 1984, 1988 and 1998 were ruled by the Indian government and there was no major famine in India since 1943. Indian independence in 1947 did not stop crop damage or lack of rain. Thus, the threat of hunger is not lost. India faced severe hunger threats in 1967, 1973, 1979 and 1987 in Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Gujarat. But this did not materialize into a famine due to government intervention. The loss of life did not meet the Bengal scale of 1943 or the previous famine but continues to be a problem. Jean DrÃÆ'¨ze found that the post-independence Indian government was "largely corrected" the cause of three major failures of the British famine policy of 1880-1948, "an event that should be counted as marking a second major turning point in the history of hunger relief in India over the last two centuries ".
Infrastructure development
Death from starvation was reduced by the improvement of hunger relief mechanisms after the British went. In independent India, policy changes aim to make people self-sufficient to earn a living and by providing food through the public distribution system at a discount. Between 1947-64 early agricultural infrastructure was established by the founders of organizations such as the Central Rice Institute at Cuttack, Central Potato Research Institute in Shimla, and universities such as Pant Nagar University. The Indian population grew at 3% per year, and food imports were needed despite improvements from the new infrastructure. At its peak, 10 million tons of food was imported from the United States.
In a period of twenty years between 1965-1985 the gap in infrastructure was bridged by the establishment of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). During times of famine, drought and other natural disasters, NABARD provides loan rescheduling and facilitates loan conversion to eligible institutions such as State Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks for up to seven years. In the same period, superior varieties of wheat and rice were introduced. The steps taken in this phase resulted in a Green Revolution that led to an atmosphere of confidence in Indian agricultural abilities. The Green Revolution in India was initially hailed as a success, but has recently been 'downgraded' to 'quality success' - not because of a lack of increased food production, but because of increased food production has slowed and has not been able to keep up with population growth. Between 1985 and 2000, emphasis was placed on the production of pulses and oilseeds, as well as vegetables, fruits, and milk. An empty land development board was established, and areas that received rain were given more attention. Public investment in irrigation and infrastructure, however, declined. It also saw the collapse of the cooperative credit system gradually. In 1998-99, NABARD introduced a credit scheme to enable banks to short-term and timely loans to farmers in need through the Kisan Credit Card scheme. This scheme has become popular with the issuing bankers and recipient farmers with a total of 339.94 billion US dollars (US $ 5.1 billion) of the 339.94 billion (US $ 5.1 billion) credits available through the issuance of 23,200,000 credit cards as of November 2002. Between 2000 and now, land use for food or fuel has been a competitive issue due to the demand for ethanol. Local belief
Since the Mahabharata era, people in some parts of India have related spikes in rat and starving populations with bamboo flowering. The northeastern state of Mizoram has bamboo as the dominant species in many countries experiencing the phenomenon of bamboo flowering cycles followed by the death of bamboo. Bamboo plants are known to flower once in their life cycle which can occur anywhere in the range of 7 to 120 years. Common beliefs and local observations are that bamboo flowering is followed by an increase in mice, hunger, and anxiety among people. The first such events in the Republic of India were reported in 1958 when the local Mizo District Council warned the Assam government of famine to come which was rejected by the government on the grounds that it was unscientific. Famine took place in the region in 1961.
In 2001, the Government of India began working on emergency plans to address regional food shortages after reports that flowering bamboo and bamboo deaths will occur again in the near future. According to the Secretary of the Ministry of Forestry Special K.D.R. Jayakumar, the relationship between hunger and bamboo flowering, while widely believed by tribal peoples, has not been scientifically proven. John and Nadgauda, ​​however, feel deeply that such scientific connections exist, and that may not be just a local myth. They describe a detailed mechanism that shows the relationship between flowering and hunger. According to them, flowering is followed by a large number of bamboo seeds on the forest floor causing the population spikes of the rats' genus Rattus and Mus to eat these grains. With weather changes and rain onset, the seeds germinated and forced the mice to migrate to farmland for food. On farmland, rodents feed on crops and grains stored in barns that cause a decrease in food availability. In 2001, the local government tried to prevent future famine by offering local villagers equivalent to $ 2.50 for every 100 mice killed. Botanist H. Y. Mohan Ram from Delhi University, who is one of the country's leading authorities on bamboo, considers this technique strange. He suggested that a better way to solve the problem is to teach local farmers to switch to the cultivation of various types of plants such as ginger and turmeric during the flowering period of bamboo because these plants are not consumed by rats.
Similar beliefs have been observed thousands of miles away in southern India at the Cherthala people in the Kerala Alappuzha district that associate flowering bamboo with an impending explosion in the rat population.
Bihar Drought
The 1966-7 Bihar drought was a small drought with relatively few deaths from starvation compared to previous hunger. The drought shows the Indian government's ability to deal with the worst drought situation. The official death toll from the famine in the Bihar drought is 2353, roughly half of what happened in the state of Bihar. There was no significant increase in the number of infant deaths due to hunger found in the Bihar drought.
Annual production of food grains fell in Bihar from 7.5 million tons in 1965-66 to 7.2 million tons in 1966-1967 during the Bihar dry season. There was even a sharper decline from 1966-67 to 4.3 million tonnes. National grain production fell from 89.4 million tons in 1964-1965 to 72.3 in 1965-1966 - a 19% decline. An increase in the price of food grains causes migration and hunger, but public distribution systems, government aid measures, and voluntary organizations limit their impact. On a number of occasions, the Indian government seeks food and grains from the United States to provide replacement for damaged crops. The government also established more than 20,000 stores at a fair price to provide food at a price set for the poor or those with limited incomes. A large-scale drought in Bihar was created because of this import, although cattle and crops were destroyed. Another reason to successfully avoid large-scale drought is to use various drought prevention measures such as improving communication skills, releasing radio drought bulletins and offering jobs for those affected by drought in public works projects.
The Bihar drought of 1966-67 gave impetus to further changes in agricultural policy and this resulted in the Green Revolution.
1972 Maharashtra drought
After several years of a good rainy season and good crops in the early 1970s, India considered exporting food and becoming self-sufficient. Earlier in 1963, the state government of Maharashtra confirmed that the country's agricultural situation was constantly under surveillance and relief measures were taken as soon as scarcity was detected. On this basis, and affirming that the word hunger has now become obsolete in this context, the government endorses "The Abolition of Maharashtra from the Law of 'Famine' Term, 1963". They could not predict the drought in 1972 when 25 million people needed help. The relief measures undertaken by the Maharashtra Government include jobs, programs aimed at creating productive assets such as tree planting, soil conservation, trenching, and constructing artificial tap water bodies. Public distribution systems distribute food through shops at fair prices. No deaths due to reported famine.
Large-scale work to the part of the revoked Maharashtrian community that attracts large amounts of food to Maharashtra. The implementation of Manual Scarcity in Bihar and Maharashtra famine prevent deaths arising from severe food shortages. Although the aid program at Bihar is bad, DrÃÆ'¨ze mentions that in Maharashtra as a model of the program. Government-initiated aid work helps employ more than 5 million people at the peak of drought in Maharashtra leading to effective hunger prevention. The effectiveness of Maharashtra was also caused by direct pressure on the Maharashtra government by the public who considered that work through the aid work program was their right. The public protests with marching, picketing, and even riots. DrÃÆ'¨ze reported a worker saying "they will let us die if they think we will not make a fuss about it."
The Maharashtra drought where there was zero death and one known for the success of hunger prevention policies, unlike during British rule.
West Bengal Drought
The 1979-1980 drought in West Bengal was the next major drought and caused a 17% decline in food production with a deficit of 13.5 million tonnes of grain. The stock of stored food is used by the government, and there is no net import of food grains. The drought is relatively unknown outside of India. Lessons learned from the Maharashtra and West Bengal droughts led to the Desert Development Program and Drought Prone Areas Program. The purpose of this program is to reduce the negative effects of drought by applying environmentally friendly land use practices and conserving water. Major schemes in improving rural infrastructure, extending irrigation to additional areas, and agricultural diversification are also being launched. Lessons from the 1987 drought revealed the need for job creation, watershed planning, and ecologically integrated development.
2013 Maharashtra drought
In March 2013, according to Union Agriculture Ministry, more than 11,801 villages in Maharashtra were affected by drought. the worst red, in addition to the others in Maharashtra in 1972.
Other issues
Deaths from malnutrition on a large scale continue in India to modern times. In Maharashtra alone, for example, there were about 45,000 child deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to Times of India. Another report Times of India in 2010 states that 50% of child deaths in India are caused by malnutrition.
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