Deccan famine of 1832-34
Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
This was a severe famine in the Bombay Deccan in 1832–34. NCERT says it killed one-third of the region's cattle and half of its human population. It came just as farm prices began falling sharply after 1832, while the ryotwari revenue demand stayed high. Peasants could not pay their revenue, so arrears (unpaid dues) piled up. Many had to borrow from moneylenders just to pay the state.
Example
By the 1840s, after this famine and more than ten years of low prices, officials in the Bombay Deccan reported alarming levels of debt among peasants. This debt later helped spark the Deccan Riots of 1875.
Don't confuse with
- Great Famine of 1876–78: this also hit mainly the Deccan, killing up to 8 million people. It came under Viceroy Lytton, more than forty years later.
Related concepts
- David Ricardo
- Ricardian theory of rent
- Rentier
- Bombay Deccan
- Thomas Munro
- Ryotwari system
- Temporary settlement
- Mahalwari system
- Malguzar
- Peasant indebtedness