The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine in India under British Crown rule. It began in 1876 after an intense drought resulted in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. It affected south and Southwestern India—the British-administered presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and the princely states of Mysore and Hyderabad—for a period of two years. In 1877, famine came to affect regions northward, including parts of the Central Provinces and the North-Western Provinces, and a small area in Punjab. The famine ultimately affected an area of 670,000 square kilometres (257,000 sq mi) and caused distress to a population totalling 58,500,000. The excess mortality in the famine has been estimated in a range whose low end is 5.6 million human fatalities, high end 9.6 million fatalities, and a careful modern demographic estimate 8.2 million fatalities. The famine is also known as the Southern India famine of 1876–1878 and the Madras famine of 1877.
**Preceding events
The Great Famine was precipitated by an intense drought resulting in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. This was part of a larger pattern of drought and crop failure across India, China, South America and parts of Africa caused by an interplay between a strong El Niño and an active Indian Ocean Dipole that led to between 19 and 50 million deaths.
The regular export of grain by the colonial government continued; during the famine, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight (320,000 tons) of wheat, which made the region more vulnerable. The cultivation of alternate cash crops, in addition to the commodification of grain, played a significant role in the events.
The famine occurred at a time when the colonial government was attempting to reduce expenses on welfare. Earlier, in the Bihar famine of 1873–74, severe mortality had been avoided by importing rice from Burma. The Government of Bengal and its Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Richard Temple, were criticised for excessive expenditure on charitable relief. Sensitive to any renewed accusations of excess in 1876, Temple, who was now Famine Commissioner for the Government of India, insisted not only on a policy of laissez faire with respect to the trade in grain, but also on stricter standards of qualification for relief and on more meagre relief rations. Two kinds of relief were offered: "relief works" for able-bodied men, women, and working children, and gratuitous (or charitable) relief for small children, the elderly, and the indigent.
My grandma was absolutely obsessive about never wasting even a tiny bit of food because she grew up during the Bengal Famine of the 1940s. She was also 4ft something compared to my dad who's 6'3" and her older siblings who were 5'8+" because here growth was stunted cause of hunger.
And later she had to flee to the newly created East Pakistan in 1947. And then flee East Pakistan in 1972 because of the Bengal genocide since she was half bihari half Bengali victimized by both sides for being half the other side. One time my grandad almost had his arm hacked off while holding my infant father but survived because of my grandma begging for their lives from the lyncher in the correct language.
Once in West Pakistan she lived in a slum and dealt with my abusive grandad who straight up blamed the Bengalis for everything inexplicably (he was Bihari). Anyways, she separated and lived with my father once he got his first job in a different city. Kind of a traumatic life all told. Her kids did do very well though (Except for my uncle who joined an immigrant gang/political party that formed in response to discrimination against the 'immigrants' aka Muslims migrants from India/Bangladesh but he turned his life around after she passed) and the later half of her life was comfortable.
iwishihadnobones on August 4th, 2025 at 13:02 UTC »
That is heartbreaking
Spartan2470 on August 4th, 2025 at 13:23 UTC »
Here is a higher-quality and less-cropped version of this image.
Wikipedia adds:
WitELeoparD on August 4th, 2025 at 16:07 UTC »
My grandma was absolutely obsessive about never wasting even a tiny bit of food because she grew up during the Bengal Famine of the 1940s. She was also 4ft something compared to my dad who's 6'3" and her older siblings who were 5'8+" because here growth was stunted cause of hunger.
And later she had to flee to the newly created East Pakistan in 1947. And then flee East Pakistan in 1972 because of the Bengal genocide since she was half bihari half Bengali victimized by both sides for being half the other side. One time my grandad almost had his arm hacked off while holding my infant father but survived because of my grandma begging for their lives from the lyncher in the correct language.
Once in West Pakistan she lived in a slum and dealt with my abusive grandad who straight up blamed the Bengalis for everything inexplicably (he was Bihari). Anyways, she separated and lived with my father once he got his first job in a different city. Kind of a traumatic life all told. Her kids did do very well though (Except for my uncle who joined an immigrant gang/political party that formed in response to discrimination against the 'immigrants' aka Muslims migrants from India/Bangladesh but he turned his life around after she passed) and the later half of her life was comfortable.