Status Updates From Poverty and Famines: An Ess...

the viceroy at what is about to be the beginning of a horrible famine: good news fellow government!!! the food situation in India generally is at present much improved. it's disquieting and can be treated with
guarded optimism!!! yay!!!

millions of people yet to die: no it's not please help us

government: yay! so no market control ♡ and no wage increases.

One curious aspect of the Bengal famine was that it was never officially ‘declared’ as a famine, which would have brought in an obligation to organize work programmes and relief operations specified by the ‘Famine Code’ from 1883

the Bengal famine stood exactly at the borderline of two historical price regimes. Prices had been more or less stationary for decades, and the price rises (especially of food) that started off in 1942 were to become a part of life. Institutional arrangements, including wage systems, were slow to adjust to the new reality.

while the famine killed millions, with agricultural labourers forming by far the largest group of those killed, Bengal was producing the largest rice crop in history in 1943. so

While a substantial part of the total war expenditure incurred by India was ‘recoverable’ as sterling balances owed by Britain, this did not reduce the immediate inflationary pressure, since the ‘recovery’ took place much later. The 1943 famine can be described as a ‘boom famine’ related to powerful inflationary pressures initiated by public expenditure expansion.

In Bengal, it can be argued that the availability of foodgrains was particularly bad in the earlier part of 1943; imports of rice and wheat were lower, then and rose sharply in the last quarter of 1943. While the death rate seems to have reached its peak only in December 1943, there is evidence that starvation was at its peak in the third quarter of 1943.

some famines are much more widespread than others, and Alamgir is right that the Dutch famine during 1944 was very widely shared by the Dutch population

The food consumption picture of the Tokugawa period (and earlier) is that of periodic food shortages and famine owing to the high incidence of natural calamities. It is even possible that the Japanese ate more regularly but consumed less food on average in the later Meiji era than they did in late Tokugawa before food imports became available to relieve shortages.