FAMINES IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT, 1500 to 1767

1750 (a) [borderline]: Madras area
Documented causes: drought
Documented effects: import just in time to avoid serious famine

Fort St. George, "Diary and Consultation Book, 1749-50" [starts 11 Nov 1749] (1931)

p103 (consultation of 4 Apr 1750): [to revive trade following the East India Company's return to Madras, most customs duties had been removed] ... our Poorer Inhabitants, who were principally consider'd in the Dispensation of the Land Customs, complain that in respect to Cloth they feel it an Inconvenience instead of a Relief as the Merchants have an Opportunity and do now charge more for their Goods than if the Duty was imposed, when an exact Register of their Value would be kept and the Prices thereby ascertained; And That on the whole it would be better to levy Land Customs on all Articles except Grain & Provisions. The Export Warehousekeeper acquaints the Board that the Bengal Rice being exposed to Sale in the Buzars as directed produces no more than Fifty 50 Pagodas Pr. Garce and that the most he can vend Pr. Diem is a Garce and a half. p138 (consultation of 9 Jul 1750): [summary of letter from Major Stringer Lawrence, at Fort St. David, 6 Jul] ... Intimating the Scarcity of Provision in the Camp & of it's being a good Opportunity for us to dispose of our Rice for which purpose he had procur'd it a Conveyance that would be here in few days ... p151 (consultation of 13 Aug 1750): As We have too much Reason to expect a famine in the Place, It is resolved to Purchase Nine Garce of Sunca Ramah's Rice being all he can Spare and to give him Seventy five (75) Pagodas a Garce for it. Likewise to look out for any other Parcels of Rice or Paddy that may be to be Sold. Order'd that the Military have Three Quarters of a Pagoda's worth of this new Rice deliver'd to each Man monthly, computing it at Eighty Pagodas Pr. Garce, and that the Coffrees be supplied from the same but that the Seepoys & Boatmen be served with the Old Bengal Rice on hand and that a Garce be retailed each Day in the Buzars for the Sustenance of the Poor. p154 (consultation of 16 Aug 1750): The Famine increasing daily at this Place it's agreed to load only Two thousand five hundred Bags of Rice on the Don Carlos for Fort St. David ... p165 (consultation of 19 Sep 1750): The Bengal Ships having Imported a large Quantity of Grain into the Place, the Warehousekeeper is order'd to reduce the price of the Company's old Rice now retailing in the Buzars to 80 Pagodas Pr. Garce and to lay in a Store of 20 Garce of the New Rice against the ensuing Months.

1750 (b) [to 1751]: Bellary / Ballari area

Documented causes: drought?

Documented effects: "a most disastrous year"

John Kelsall, "Manual of the Bellary District" (1872)

p73: "With the exception of a passing notice of a series of bad seasons culminating in a most disastrous year in 1751, the earliest famine of which we have any record was in 1792 ..."