Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 124

108
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1923
philosophy and science sophistical and inactive." And in Political Economy, above all sciences, we may expect the idols of the market-place to abound. Indian Economics is full of stubborn fallacies which would at once have been loosened by a Socratic Induction, and altogether dispelled by a scientific analysis. The early history of Indian famines is an instance in point. It is only the deceptive familiarity of common discourse which fosters the prevailing general impression that famines at the present day are the direct consequence of English administration, and that in times of the predominance of the Hindus and Muhammadans they were less extended in area and less tragic in their effects. But a review of the early famines in India, of which History makes mention, shows that such an assertion proceeds from sheer ignorance; there is not a tittle of historical evidence to support it' (Theodore Morison, Economic Transition in India). Famines of long duration and extent, and causing very considerable destruction, have been frequently recorded from the very dawn of Indian History. In the language of the Imperial Gazetteer (vol. III, chapter X, page 475) ' famines were very frequent under native rule and frightful."
But the prevailing general impression is, as we have already said, that famines are far more frequent and destructive now than in former times. The reason for the wide prevalence of this interesting assumption, based upon insufficient data, is not far to seek. The early history of Indian famines lies scattered in scores of volumes which are mostly inaccessible to the general reader; while handy books of reference like Balfour's Cyclopaedia of India, innumerable Gazetteers, Famine Commission Reports and special treatises like R. C. Dutt's Indian Famines, give adequate and ample information about famines in the British Period. It is the dearth of information in the former, and its plenteousness in the latter case, that is mainly responsible, it is submitted, for this widespread fallacy. The following series of papers are a pioneer attempt to sketch the early history of Indian Famines. They make no pretension whatsoever either to erudition or completeness. If this slight sketch of mine should be so fortunate as to induce competent men to undertake the early history of Indian famines on an adequate scale, it will have achieved its object.
Ancient Hindu Period to the Death of Harsha in 650 A.D. The Vedic Period.
The early history of Indian famines must be traced back to a time much anterior to the Vedic period (before 3000 B.C.). "The one great danger that must have constantly threatened primitive man, was famine. Man in the savage state when living [even] in our luxurious country was often brought to the verge of starvation, in spite of his having implements and weapons which his ruder ancestors had no idea of." Consider the condition of savages,' says Bentham (Theory of Legislation, chapter vii, page 109), they strive incessantly against famine which cuts off entire tribes. Rivalry for subsistence produces among them the most cruel wars and, like beasts of prey, men pursue men as means of sustenance. The fear of this terrible calamity silences the softest sentiments of nature; pity unites with insensibility in putting to death the old men who can hunt no longer.'
"It is obvious that famine and its hideous consequence, cannibalism, could only be prevented by the storage of food, which doubtless took at this early stage the form of the confinement or in other words the domestication of such animals as formed the spoils of the chase
In support of this theory, cf. Digby, Prosperous British India; Naoroji, Poverty and Un British Rule in India. For the other side, cf. Morison, Srinivasa Raghava Aiyangar, and others. "The severity of famines is mitigated even in such a country as India."-Marshall, Principles (Bk. IV, chapter iv, page 187).