Hazards, Vulnerability and Resilience in Colonial India

The aim of this project is to deepen our understanding of the possible causes of famines. Why does a drought in one case lead to a massive famine with thousands of deaths, while in another case the crisis is survived relatively unscathed? How do societies deal with droughts and what factors improve or worsen the chances of survival? In the context of advancing climate change and increasingly frequent periods of drought, these questions and possible answers to them are more relevant and topical than ever. To answer this question, the project compares and analyses three famines in colonial India. Under British rule, India experienced many severe famines, some of which claimed millions of lives. Nineteenth-century India was the global epicentre of such crises. A look at this period and region is therefore particularly suitable for researching the causes of famines. In a first step, the project aims to reconstruct the extent and severity of the droughts that triggered the respective famines. Today, modern instruments or satellites are used for such measurements. Until recently, reconstructions for the nineteenth century had to rely on written archival records. However, we can now also use the findings of palaeoclimatology to reconstruct the climate and weather extremes of the past. As part of this project, we are collaborating with a leading palaeoclimatologist at Columbia University in New York. The extent to which a society is affected by drought also depends on economic, social and political factors. These will be analysed in more detail in the second part of the project. For example, how does an increasingly export-oriented agriculture affect the food security of the population? Which government measures protect particularly vulnerable groups? Ideally, governments protect the people through preventive measures and an effective crisis management. In the worst case, they exacerbate the crisis and thus contribute, at least indirectly, to high mortality rates. The period under investigation (1860-1890) is particularly well suited to analysing these factors. India changed rapidly in these decades: through the construction of the railway, which also integrated rural regions more strongly into the world market; through the increase in cash crops such as cotton, opium or indigo, which were cultivated at the expense of traditional cereals; or through liberal economic ideas that shaped the crisis management of the colonial government. This project examines famines of the past in order to gain a better understanding of pressing problems of the present.