Famine in a Rice Economy: Natural Calamities, Grain Scarcity and the Company-State in Bengal, 1770–1803

Abstract

This paper analyses the conjuncture of factors that led to famines in late eighteenth century Bengal, a province in which, due to the fluvial ecology and monsoonal climate, the cultivation of rice predominated. I demonstrate that the exclusive dependence on rice crops created conditions of agricultural insecurity, which in turn was taken advantage of by merchants and hoarders of grain in a bid to profit from artificially enhanced prices. The East India Company, acquiring political authority in Bengal in the mid eighteenth century, was unable to break through the monopolies of the grain dealers. In addition, its experiment with grain storage in large public granaries (golas), intended to overcome food shortages, also failed on account of mounting costs and the irrevocable tension between laissez-faire and state interventionism, which ultimately led to the abandonment of the granary system. I argue that a combination of rice monoculture, mercantile strategies, and lack of effective state intervention was ultimately responsible for transforming natural calamities and the ensuing food shortages into full-scale famines in Bengal in the eighteenth century.