Talk:Famine in India/Archive 4

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Fails quite a few GA criteria

As the author of a large number of pages on famines in India (Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, Agra famine of 1837–38, Orissa famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of 1869, Bihar famine of 1873–74, Great Famine of 1876–78, Indian famine of 1896–97, Indian famine of 1899–1900, William Robert Cornish, Timeline of major famines in India during British rule (1765 to 1947)) I am very troubled by this page.

  • No attempt has been made to coordinate information in the Famine in India page with these pages; indeed often the individual famines are not even Wikilinked.
  • The references chosen are highly selective, with great preference given to polemical left-wing writers such as Mike Davis (who is the author of a trade paperback, but has no history of writing any scholarly papers on Indian famines).
  • The article is poorly written. Here are a handful of examples. (I will add the rest when I do the GA review.)
  • In the lead itself, Dorji Bara and Chalisa had nothing to do with policy failures; the Bengal famine of 1943 had little to do with a drought.
  • In the Ancient India section, the text says, "Yet other measures included construction of public works, canals, and embankments, and sinking wells." What canals and embankments? There were just a handful of (rudimentary) canals in India (almost all silted up), that is, until the British built proper ones according to modern civil engineering principles and in the process founded the first engineering college in India (Thomason College of Civil Engineering, Roorkee; now IIT Roorkee).
  • In the British rule section, it is not mentioned that in 1770, the Company only had the rights to the Diwani (ie. revenue collection), but not the Nizaamat (criminal prosecution and law and order) in Bengal. The latter still lay with the Nawab of Bengal. Furthermore, this was long before the Permanent settlement and the Company farmed out the revenue collection to the previous collectors under the Nawab using the previous Mughal-based system.
  • In the scholarly opinion section, Michelle McAlpin is mentioned at the very end, even though her work predates that of Sen or Swaminathan. Moreover, other views such as that of economic historians such as: Jeff Williamson, Stephen Broadberry, Bishnupriya Gupta, B. R. Tomlinson, Very Anstey, are not included. Tirthanker Roy is mentioned without any understanding of his work.
  • In the causes section, most of the text has nothing to do with causes.
  • In the famine code section, where is the more detailed discussion of the famine commissions? There were four commissions: Sir George Campbell’s Commission of Inquiry after the Orissa famine of 1866; Sir Richard Strachey’s Famine Commission of 1878–1880; Sir James Lyall’s Famine Commission of 1898, and the Famine Commission of 1901. Where is the discussion of the reports of these commissions? The commissions largely anticipated the entitlements approach to famine.
  • The Bengal famine of 1943 section offers a one-sided view of the famine. O Grada and Sen, themselves, say that the primary cause was the hoarding, profiteering, and speculation by Indian merchants, grain traders, and farmers. Nothing is said in the section about the circumstances of World War II, when thousands of refugees from Burma and Assam suddenly began to arrive in Bengal. Nothing is said about the thousands of soldiers from the US and Britain who began to arrive in boats, thus taking up all available water transportation. Nothing is said about the stresses created by the Quit India Uprising of 1942. Nothing is said about the Indian provisional government at was in place in Bengal and that was reluctant to prosecute the traders and farmers. Please see the references in the subpage: User:Fowler&fowler/Profiteering and hoarding in the Bengal famine of 1943.
  • In the British response section, where is the discussion of British relief efforts, in each of the famines starting in the Agra famine of 1837–38.

I'm traveling and short of time right now, but I will write a more detailed GA review in the next day or two. I should add that in skimming the article, I find that it fails many of the GA criteria. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Good work Fowler, this is a great opportunity for improving the article, we will wait for the full review. Zuggernaut (talk) 00:34, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Updates:
  • Policy failure - The block quotes you've been adding to Doji bara famine themselves indicate there was policy failure in this famine.
  • Wikilinking - All the famines mentioned by Fowler have already been linked. You just need to look carefully at the tables on the right. Linking them again in the text would be WP:OVERLINKING.
  • Canals - The source says there were canals and embankments. They may not have been of the industrial age since the industrial revolution did not happen in India. There is no need to measure everything against Western standards. Any reader, however uninitiated, knows that industrialization came to Europe before India and is capable of co-relating the facts about canals with the industrial revolution. I see no reason why this point is being brought up in a GA review unless the intention is to highlight and emphasize the fact that the Indians were unable to industrialize on their own.
  • Diwani - Details of the Mughal system of governance, revenue collection, the gradual annexation of India by the British is WP:UNDUE here. Details can be listed in the Bengal famine of 1770.
  • Indian Famine Codes - There is a separate article on the Indian famine codes. I would love a detailed study of the four commissions (especially their reports) but I it would be WP:UNDUE here again.
  • Bengal famine of 1943 - Bengal was under British occupation in 1943 and, again, separating out people by ethnicity (Indian and British) is not necessary. The final responsibility lies at the top - with the British government.

Zuggernaut (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Famine relief by Peshwa or lack thereof?

The Ancient India section claims all kinds of stalwart efforts on the behalf of the Peshwa. Desregarding the fact that this particular Peshwa lived in 1790, which was long after India was Ancient, other available evidence (both Bombay Gazetteers) points to exactly the opposite view, i.e. the Peshwa didn't do diddly-squat. See the subsection: Doji_bara_famine#Maratha_kingdom. I would like to see the full quotation from the Bombay Gazetteer, Volume 16, which has been cited for this claim. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I found the quote. It is:

But the oldest famine of which any details have been traced is that of 1791-92. This is the severest famine of which any local record remains. Liberal revenue remissions were granted by the Peshwa, the exportation of grain was forbidden, and its price was regulated. Rice was brought in large quantities from Bengal by private traders. In October, rain fell abundantly, and the late crop which throve well helped to cheapen grain and relieve distress.

You have paraphrased this as:

The oldest famine in pre-colonial Deccan with well-preserved local documentation is the famine of 1791–92. Relief was provided by the ruler, the Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao II, in the form of imposing restrictions on export of grain and importing rice in large quantities from Bengal via private trading, ...

I'm afraid that's not a very faithful paraphrase. For one the text didn't say anything about well-preserved local records. For another it didn't say that the Peshwa imported rice through private traders ... Pleased correct. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The trading was private and we do mention that. The private traders were ruled by the Peshwa and were infact encouraged by the Peshwa to import grain from Bengal. It is a normal practice to attribute such famine relief to the local administration. Were it trading taken up directly by the Maratha administration, we would have said "public trading". If details of the records were preserved, then they are well preserved though I am open to rephrasing if it leads to improvement. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
The source you have uses says nowhere that private traders had anything to do with the Peshwa, we can't use extraneous explanations to infer things here. Also, there is no mention of well-preserved local records; indeed the source only mentions "any records;" they could have been in tatters, for all we know, and required a lot of filling in the blanks. Finally, there are two other sources, both Gazetteers of the Bombay Presidency, quoted in Doji bara famine, which state clearly that the Peshwa did very little and that there were no records. In the interests of citing, "all majority and significant minority views that have appeared," and indeed theirs is the majority view since there are two of them, this contrary viewpoint needs to be mentioned as well. It could be that the picture varied from district to district within (what would later become) the Bombay presidency, and therefore its depictions in the Gazetteers, published almost a hundred years later, are different. But then this needs to be made explicit. You, for example, don't mention what district your Gazetteer volume is about. (The two volumes cited in Doji bara famine are the Dharwar and Belgaum district Bombay Gazetteers.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
PS OK, I just checked. Volume 16 is Nasik District. That needs to be mentioned. Also, the gazetteer was not published in "Pune," which in any case in 1883 would have been called "Poona," but in Bombay. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
PPS Have corrected the citation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I've added an additional citation/source that states that the Peshwa encouraged import of food grain from Bengal. I am afraid I can say only this much in the praise of the later Peshwas :-) The earlier source clearly says "But the oldest famine of which any details have been traced" so I am OK if the wording is changed from well-preserved to 'detailed' or something like that. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
So, it could be that the Peshwa tried to help out in regions closer to his home base (such as Poona itself and Nasik, as your gazetteers state), but couldn't do much in places farther away such as Dharwar, Belgaum, and Bijapur (as the three gazetteers from those districts state in Doji bara famine). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure of the geography from that era but these are border areas today. The Marathas and the British were engaged in the Third Anglo-Mysore War fighting side-by-side against Tipu (having signed a treaty to do so at the conclusion of the First Anglo-Maratha War). I doubt the Peshwa had any incentive in providing relief to those areas if they were with the enemy or even bordering areas. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Timeline Graphic

The graphic at the top right of this page seems to both have little informational value and to attempt to convey a POV. The POV communicated is that a) the 'colonial era' was a distinct period in India's history of famines, with b) the implication that colonial (i.e. British) rule was responsible for the, according to the graphic, comparatively high number of famines and the high severity of the famines in this period. This claim does have considerable support in some scholarly circles but it is by no means uncontested despite being conveyed by the graphic in an absolutist manner (graphics simply don't have the ability to frame arguments and counter-arguments, of course).

There are a few other significant problems with the graphic that are distinct from its POV nature but, I suspect, related to it. Firstly, it is deeply questionable whether this tripartite time-frame is appropriate for providing formal 'eras' for the history of famine in India. Much of India was not under colonial rule during some points of the 'colonial era' and at least two of the early famines in this period occurred primarily in areas that were not ruled by the British (a similar problem arises when clicking the 'colonial era' link which leads to a page titled 'Timeline of Major Famines in India during British Rule' but which includes a number of famines that took place outside the areas ruled by Britain). Using titles such as the 'colonial era' or 'British Rule' for periods may be fine in general but is dangerous when used in a context that also argues for the effect of actual colonial or British rule, given the the temporal periods so designated do not, in fact, coincide perfectly with the political realities. If there must be a chronology based on a before, during, and after of British Rule then if the 'during' period is to have any force it can only, surely, correspond with a period when Britain's political control extended across the whole of India (or at least all parts of India affected by famines within the time-frame) or the name for the era will be both arbitrary and also carry the danger of being very misleading (see, e.g. '... Under British Rule' on the linked page for a particularly strong version). Whilst I understand the desire to argue that British rule had a significant negative effect on the outcomes of famines, I think that this point is best confined to the text, where both side can be argued, rather than in a graphical form where a single-stranded time-line is unable to do justice to the complexities of the political divisions in India at the time.

Secondly, I have to question the value of the tripartite comparison as it currently stands. The post 1947 world is technologically very different from the period 1765-1947, so it is hard to see what value a straightforward comparison between these two periods might have. In particular, any inferences drawn on the basis of a simplistic time-line such as this will be victims of the common logical fallacy 'after that therefore because of that' (post hoc ergo propter hoc). It may well be the case that people do place weight on such a comparison but, again, that is something that I think must be expressed in text as the simplicity of the comparison cannot be nuanced in the form of a time-line. Equally, the value of comparing a list from during the colonial erea to a list from before that era seems minimal given the different quantity and quality of historical documents from the periods being compared. Again, I can't really see any reason for incorporating this comparative division into the time-line other than to convey a particular POV. The same actual information can be provided in a simple linear form without the contentious period divisions.

Thirdly, as things stand the sense that the comparisons are there for POV reasons is strengthened by the huge inbalance in research done on each period. This may well relate to the state of wikipedia's current knowledge-base for the different period with more work having been done on the colonial era but this doesn't really matter. As it stands, the pre-colonial period is pretty much absent any footnotes or figures for deaths and nor is there are reason to believe it is exhaustive, especially given the 1500 year gap between the first two listed famines. A comparative timeline is not only pointless but completely misrepresentative if only one of the elements being compared is adequately researched. Once again, I think this provides good reasons for changing from a tripartite time-line to a simple, undivided timeline.

I haven't attempted to edit this out as a) I would like to hear what others think first and b) I'm not entirely sure how :-).

Regards,

Paul — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.226.36.132 (talk) 17:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Famines, epidemics, and public health in the British Raj be merged into Famine in India. The existing British Raj article doesn't appear to extend to public health, and appears to cover only general points, all of which are applicable to Famines outwith the British Raj. It appears that the original intent was to produce a more comprehensive article, but that was 7 years ago and no progress has been made Condodetainee77 (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, the smaller article contains a long list of references on public health and epidemics, but the article itself has never contained any content on these subjects. The existing content could be merged into the "British rule" section here: Noyster (talk), 12:56, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

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Outdated information in lede

Recently, an "External Link" has been added at the end of this article, to a site http://www.vinlandmap.info/india-famine which is basically a chronological collection of historical reports of famines in the Indian subcontinent from 1500 to 1767. Given that the reports listed refer to well over 100 famines in that period, the following sentences in the lede of the article cannot be considered accurate:

Historical and legendary evidences names some 90 famines in 2,500 years of history in South Asia alone. There are 14 recorded famines in India between the 11th and 17th centuries.

The second half of the preceding sentence in the lede "and reached its numerically deadliest peak in the late 18th and early 19th centuries" is also very questionable- the site's compiler points out that there are only two famines in the period covered for which we have any contemporary estimates of overall death tolls, so no realistic comparison can be made.
I do not think the article loses anything by removing these two-and-a-half sentences from the lede. 79.75.236.16 (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Assuming good faith and removed those sentences here. I don't have an opinion yet, was just saving a version without edits of a sock. Capitals00 (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Remove new monograph

I've just removed a recent addition here. Perhaps the monograph has merit but I hope that my edit summary is self-explanatory. Ideally, we could do with finding an academic review of this monograph, should it ever actually be published. - Sitush (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

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