Indian Antiquary Vol 52

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

Page 251

SEPTEMBER, 1923 1
EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN FAMINES
235
flesh, and the pounded bones of the dead were mixed with flour, and sold. When this was discovered, the sellers were brought to justice. Destitution at length reached such a pitch that men began to devour each other, and the flesh of a son was preferred to his love. The numbers of the dying caused obstructions in the roads, and every man whose dire sufferings did not terminate in death and who retained the power to move, wandered off to the towns and villages of other countries. Those lands which had been famous for their fertility and plenty now retained no trace of productiveness."
The blunt English sailor, Peter Mundy, who travelled from Surat to Agra and back while this famine was raging, used no art in describing what he saw on his way, and we get from his narrative a most vivid picture of the horrors of famine in the seventeenth century. But we abstain from quoting his extremely gruesome and repulsive description.
Many other references to this " direful time of dearth " may be found in the letters sent from the English factories in India at this period (vide The English Factories in India, 1630-33. by W. Foster). There is one sentence in those letters which corroborates the testimony of previous witnesses, that the people were driven to cannibalism by the awful famine of A.D. 1630. It is as follows: "Masulipatam and Armagon were solely oppressed with famine, the living eating up the dead, and men soaroely durst travel in the country for fear they should be killed and eaten."
These quotations may serve to give some idea of the severity of famines in bygone times. The evidence of their frequency is even stronger. These famines, while undoubtedly due to failure of rain,13 were also due to the rack-renting over-18sessment, and to the unexampled prodigality of the court. The prodigality and splendour of Shah Jahan's court are apt to dazzle our vision, but we must remember that they had a dark back-ground of untold suffering and misery (vividly depicted by Bernier), seldom exposed to view. We shall give the following extract from Bernier, Travels in the Moghul Empire (ed. V. A. Smith) illustrating the state of the country. Having spoken of the despotic tyranny of local Governors, he declares that it was often so excessive as to deprive the peasant and artisan of the necessaries of life, and then leave him to die of misery and exhaustion, a tyranny owing to which these wretched people have no children at all, or have them only to endure the agonies of starvation, and to die at a tender age,-a tyranny, in fine, that drives the cultivator of the soil from his wretched home to some neighbouring states in hopes of finding milder treatment, or to the army where he becomes the servant of some trooper. As the ground is seldom tilled otherwise than by compulsion, and as no person is found willing and able to repair the ditches and canals for the conveyanoe of water, it happens that the whole country is badly cultivated and a good part rendered unproductive from the want of irrigation. The houses too, are in a dilapidated condition, there being few people who will either build new ones or repair those which are tumbling down" (Bernier, Travels in the Moghul Empire, p. 226).
Regarding the conditions of the Indian manufactures (which had remained almost unchanged from the time of the "Periplus "), it would seem that they absorbed only a microscopic minority of the population. The industries were comprised under two heads : on the one hand, there was the village handicraft supplying the scanty needs of the population; and on the other hand, there were the handicrafts that ministered to the wants of the wealthy few, e.g., architecture, painting, manufactures of fine cotton and silk. India was never a
13 "I have known two entire years page with scarcely a drop of rain, and the consequences of the extraordinary drought wore widespread sioknees and famine"-Bernior, Travels in the Moghul Empire (ed. V. A. Smith), p. 431.