A 7 year sham at the end of which he was acquitted of all charges. Warren Hastings presided over the 1769-1773 Bengal famine that lead to the death of 10 MILLION PEOPLE. the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768.

I am curious to know how figures like "10 million" are arrived at. Often wonder how one can clearly delineate famine deaths from natural deaths

The only rational way of doing it would be to benchmark the deaths during famine period with the death volumes from a pre-famine / post-famine period in the same region.

The other perplexing point is the collection of the data for these 18th cen famines. Who did it? How rigorous was the process? What is the authenticity? As far as I know a systematic census system was instituted in the 1860s/70s. So this begs the question where do we get data for the famines of 1770s. I suspect the figures we rely on come from the Imperial Gazetteer prepared by WW Hunter or other works of the same author like "Annals of Rural Bengal" - works published in late 19th cen, some 100 years after the impeachment of Hastings! It would be nice if there's anybody who owns these works who can illuminate the data sources and methodology used for the collection of these figures which keep getting bandied about with ostensible certainty some 250 years after the event :)

Another point - Very often the knee jerk criticism is that "free trade" policies of the East India Company caused famine. This is interesting because free trade, if anything, should reduce food prices and prevent famines. In Britain, Peel's free trade policies of the late 1840s helped partly arrest the food shortages and put an end to the era of the "Hungry Forties". Even Economics 101 teaches us that free trade is a good thing for consumers, though not necessarily a good thing for farmers who may seek protection for their produce. So if free trade didn't help in the 1770s, it implies two things - a) Maybe there wasn't enough free trade that could've helped alleviate the distress. b) Maybe there were other factors like poor transport infrastucture, poor roads among other things which made importation of food a practical difficulty. Now this is something for which not just the EIC but previous administrations are equally culpable as public goods like roads can't be set up overnight.

The economic impact of British colonization is a subject which has been researched well in recent years. The negative impact is well documented. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, professor of history at JNU & Shantiniketan , and subsequently chairman of ICHR ( Indian Council of Historical Research) had commissioned a special issue on the "Economic History of India" with articles by Bipan Chandra, Amiya Bagchi, S Sarkar etc., in August 2007. The magazine can be read online & should provide some context to the bizarre propaganda of colonial British Raj economic benefits which Shrikanth is repeatedly pushing on this FB page. ( http://yojana.gov.in/CMS/%28S%28hw52ruejer2swgzd5hficn45%29%29/pdf/Yojana%5CEnglish%5C2007/Aug_Vol51_No8.pdf )

See - AUGUST 2007 - special issue, downloadable as a pdf file , if above link doesnt work for you. ( http://yojana.gov.in/CMS/%28S%28hw52ruejer2swgzd5hficn45%29%29/Default.aspx )

Mr Mathur - I am hardly trumpeting any "economic benefits" here. I am just being curious and seeking some clarifications on the sources of bizarre-sounding figures like 10MM.

Authenticity of Indian deaths during British period records ? WWI records of deaths in Europe have always been tough to get. Even last week, see what was unearthed from 1857 ( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Skulls-of-282-killed-in-1857-war-found-in-well/articleshow/31305039.cms )

Trial of the century

Not sure why we are discussing 1857 war casualties all of a sudden. What I would like to know is the way famines were documented in India - be it in the 18th cen, 19th cen, or for that matter in the Mughal period. Is there any consistency in the methodology used to size the impact of these disparate famines. What is the confidence level in these figures? This has very little to do with whether one is pro-EIC, anti-EIC, pro-Raj or anti-Mughal. I feel enough time has passed now for us to leave aside historical wounds and grudges and analyze these things dispassionately. Instead of reducing every debate into a racial clash between "brown man" and "white man", or "hindu subjects" vs "moslem rulers".

And the idea behind understanding more about these famines is not to "denounce" EIC or mughal dispensations or the "Raj". I hate to judge these administrations by modern 21st century notions of "good governance". What matters to me is an attempt to understand some basic things - a) Do we know enough to even talk about specific famines with great confidence? b) If yes, what are the sources that make us confident to discuss these matters in such specific terms c) If the sources are indeed perfectly authentic, are there specific lessons to be learnt by these episodes of past policy failure? And are these learnings relevant at all to our present times. I don't have the answers to these questions. And I don't think there's any single person out here who will have the answers. Which is why we need a debate among people with diverse views and ideological inclinations to fill up the jigsaw puzzle and make something out of these obscure historical episodes.

And back to the original post, I must say this is a moving pic! A tribute to the spirit of 18th cen Enlightenment. A tribute to the culture of parliamentary leg-pulling and back-biting :) And interestingly two giant figures of British politics - Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox - both ganged up against Hastings in this episode. Remarkable because these two figures didnt always see eye to eye on a number of issues. Today Fox is regarded as a forerunner of modern Liberalism while Burke is regarded as the godfather of modern conservatism!

Not sure about the co-relation between 1857, Warren Hastings & his trial stance about " the British had to maintain their control over India by the sword" & the economic history of India ? Read the short introduction by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya in the Yojana link provided above. Economists like Amiya Bagchi have provided their email contact details for your queries. Here , on this forum when you ask - " Do we know enough ..." , who is this "we" ? There are so many folks on this forum, all at different levels of understanding on different topics. At best someone can refer you to the right authority on the subject of your query. Its probably best that you email an economist of repute like Bagchi. Alternatively, since your public profile indicates that you live in Gurgaon, get in touch with historian Dr KC Yadav who heads Gurgaon based Haryana state govt. Center of History ( at HIPA - hipa.nic.in website ). He has good knowledge on the subject & can offer you the right books of recent research on this, in the public library he manages or even organize a debate on this topic, for you. FB comments dont offer space for debate on such a vast & complex topic. Here its probably best to offer value-adding/tidbits of information as comments, just as your last one on Burke & Fox does. Of course if some value-adding comment generates an inadvertent debate then, so be it.

Mathurji : I did not bring 1857 into this thread at all. One of your links did. Thanks for the names you have referred me to. Having said that, the historical truth is nobody's monopoly. For all we know there may be people without the formal "credentials" you mentioned, who have undertaken independent research on this subject who may be reading these posts. They can definitely chip in. And the only reason why I chipped in on this thread was because a previous commenter dropped a figure on 10MM without qualification. With all due respect, I have reservations about that figure. Or for that matter most figures pertaining to specific historical episodes that are over 150 years old. It is important that people retain an air of scepticism on matters such as these that are used even today to whip up communal/racial passions.

What I could rapidly glean from the www shows that the figure '10 million' was popular long ago also. The excellent book 'Annals of Rural Bengal' by William Wilson Hunter, published in 1868 in London, guesstimates the above figure. The first para p34 below says it all. link below: https://archive.org/stream/annalsofruralben00huntuoft#page/34/mode/2up History is not my subject therefore the estimates put in this book may have been superceded by modern views - I have no idea...

Thank you Devashish Deb! ...for your timely research. The 10 million deaths were true after all... and this cannot be dismissed as nationalist propaganda anymore.

Mr Deb : There you go. My guess was right. This figure indeed comes from Mr Hunter - a most honourable man for whom I have a lot of time, having read his excellent work "Indian Empire". Having said that even Mr Hunter is relying on a guesstimate provided by none other than Hastings! So we only have Hastings' word on this 10MM figure. Now it's interesting that Hastings did not attempt to doctor the figures or portray it as less severe than it actually was Questions remain unanswered. While it may be true that the inhabitant count may have dropped by several million, the casualty count may be exaggerated because a lot of affected bengalis may have migrated to neighboring regions. These are not sacrosanct figures.

RBSI : No. This doesn't tell us a lot incrementally. Even in an earlier post of mine, I did clearly hint where this figure of 10MM is coming from. And in fact I mentioned the "Annals of Rural Bengal" as a possible source. What I was seeking was greater clarity on the methodology which is still not clear based on the gleaning of these few pages. We need to investigate more. It is clear that the figure comes from Hastings who "instituted" some research to get these numbers. We have no idea how accurate this research was. Also we have no way of benchmarking the 1770 famine with previous Mughal period famines where estimates weren't generated by British officials but by Mughal officials who probably followed a very different approach to arrive at the figure Also we need greater clarity on what were the exact policy failures in 1770. Why did so many people die. Why didn't free trade work. There's a lot of things that still need to be understood.

Shrikanth Krishnamachary: I understand your purpose is to seek out a scientific basis for these claims and not to take a partisan stand on this issue. But lets face it... it is necessary to contest this figure when it is based on hearsay or mentioned by opponents. Not when written by someone who is an otherwise responsible writer and that too - when they are indicting themselves. It therefore must have been such an obvious fact in those times...long before mass propaganda took over that they mentioned it so brazenly. How does it matter whether 10 million people died or 5 million or even 1 million people died. The fact is a huge number of innocent people died as result of mismanagement, greed and irresponsibility. Taking a moral stand over that catastrophe today makes absolutely no difference and is therefore a waste of time. The oppressors and the victims both have died. Hence it needs to be taken at face value and left at that.

RBSI : I feel we ought to move beyond the stage where we trust a figure just because it is very old and it emanates from a party who is supposedly adversely impacted by the figure. By the way, Hastings was not put on trial for reasons remotely connected with the Bengal famine, to the best of my knowledge. A friend pointed out that he was in Madras till 1772 and became Gov General of Calcutta only in 1772-73 by which time the worst of the famine would've been over. And he would've undertaken his "research" on the region's population and benchmarked it with an earlier figure conducted by somebody else to arrive at the impact of the famine in terms of mortality. And no. Not all official/non official sources of the time had an interest to understate the figures. We are talking about a period in history where there was little accountability in these matters. Hunter mentions the corroboration of these figures by James Mill who wrote his history of British India some 40 years after this famine sitting in London. James Mill is that peculiar chap who chose to write a huge history of India without visiting India!! Again, Mr Mill was one of the most eminent Englishmen of his time and an honorable man. But decidedly an extreme radical whose pastime it was to attack the government, EIC persistently for all sorts of reasons. At any rate it is interesting that we ended up discussing Bengal famine on a thread linked to Hastings trial which had nothing to do with it. Hastings was put on trial more than a decade later for totally different reasons.

Shrikanth....This outpouring of yours is one of the worst Methodological Solipsism that I have seen. I will be brief. Would it matter to you if the deaths were 1 Million instead of 10 Million. Would you be happier? Please check out.. http://historum.com/blogs/gile+na+gile/160-great-bengal-famine-colonial-rapine-east-india-company.html A cut and paste from the web...Fortunately, the records for this period have been meticulously kept by the India Office and can be viewed in the British Library. A five minute sitting there will reveal to anyone who cares to look that the average tribute prior to 1764 was 10-15% of a household's gross agricultural produce. Under the EIC this was raised to 40-50%. It was still called a 'tribute' as opposed to a 'tax' for the British wished to ensure that the peasantry were not aware that it was the East India Company and not the Emperor Shah Alam who were in ultimate receipt of the inflated tax/tribute. To further this illusion of a dual power-sharing agreement they ensured that Shah Alam was kept in the luxury he was accustomed to but under virtual 'house arrest' at his palace in Allahabad. The amount of caution that was taken to ensure that this state of affairs did not not become generally known can be glimpsed in a letter written by Clive to the directors of the EIC as he finally left India in 1767; "We are sensible that, since the acquisition of the dewany, the power formerly belonging to the Soubah of those provinces is totally, in fact, vested in the East India Company. Nothing remains to him but the name and shadow of authority. This name, however, this shadow, it is indispensably necessary we should seem to venerate." ****** And so it was that wherever it was possible the planting of cash crops such as indigo and cotton were made compulsory. Likewise, because the raised tax had to be collected in cash and at the point of a bayonet if necessary the 'hoarding' of rice was forbidden, and so with little option this was sold on and a thriving grain market came into being which was of course eventually monopolised by the company. Thus it was that the peasants lifeline, the stock of surplus staples, was drastically reduced and were in fact no longer available to tide them over when the partial failure of crops (itself nothing out of the ordinary) came in 1768. With the sudden cessation of the September rains in 1769 reports began to emerge of a widespread famine gripping the countryside. These were duly ignored until it was too late. Estimates vary as to the death toll. Some place it as high as 10 million and it appears that at the very least four million lives were claimed. In 1771 the company raised the land tax to 60%. Again this is perfectly logical from a business perspective as this would make good the regrettable shortfall in income occasioned by the deaths of some two million tenants. ******** Hastings was part of the ruling elite..1in 1771, he was the Governor of Calcutta....that is in the middle of the famine.There was no Governor General then. he was the highest officer!!!

Shrikanth, interesting that you admit, however inadvertently, that both Edmund Burke and Charles James took issue with Hastings' sudden enrichment. If the 10MM figure indeed comes from Hastings himself, with regard to the disastrous famine that occurred just before his term, do you think he would have exaggerated the number of deaths- or if you prefer, deaths and mass evacuations- that preceded his tenure in Bengal?

Jai Shankar : 1771 is not the middle of the famine. The famine started abating as early as late 1770. The idea here is not to question whether there indeed was a famine. We've had famines throughout Indian history. This one being one of the early ones to be documented. The fact is Hastings had very little to do with the EIC's management of the famine as the man was not in charge when the famine was at its peak. So holding him culpable for this famine is plain wrong. That's all. Hastings was indeed tried well over a decade later for different reasons. Amrita : The impeachment left Hastings deeply in debt which suggests he didn't really make a big fortune while in India. At any rate, Hastings' legacy is a complex one. A man who used questionable means to further the expansionist vision of his predecessors, while at the same time a pioneer in setting up the administrative apparatus in an alien land and also a pioneer in encouraging a deeper western understanding of Indian culture and circumstances. This chap isn't a straightforward Attilla like villain to pour scorn over

Jai Shankar : With regard to tax collection and governance during the famine, here's a very interesting piece on the same. Not relevant to this thread at all but recommended reading for anyone keen to learn more about the famine of 1770 http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fiske/john/f54u/chapter9.html Here is an extract : "The administration of local affairs was still, at that date, intrusted to native officials. The whole internal regulation was in the hands of the famous Muhamad Reza Ehan. Hindu or Mussulman assessors pried into every barn and shrewdly estimated the probable dimensions of the crops on every field; and the courts, as well as the police, were still in native hands. “These men,” says our author, “knew the country, its capabilities, its average yield, and its average requirements, with an accuracy that the most painstaking English official can seldom hope to attain to. They had a strong interest in representing things to be worse than they were;..... Every consultation is filled with their apprehensions and highly-coloured accounts of the public distress;.... The character of the Bengali people must also be taken into the account in explaining this strange action on the part of the government. “From the first appearance of Lower Bengal in history, its inhabitants have been reticent, self-contained, distrustful of foreign observation, in a degree without parallel among other equally civilized nations. The cause of this taciturnity will afterwards be clearly explained; but no one who is acquainted either with the past experiences or the present condition of the people can be ignorant of its results. Local officials may write alarming reports, but their apprehensions seem to be contradicted by the apparent quiet that prevails. Outward, palpable proofs of suffering are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770, such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken...... During the famine of 1866 it was found impossible to render public charity available to the female members of the respectable classes, and many a rural household starved slowly to death without uttering a complaint or making a sign." It makes fascinating reading. Just goes to show that this calamity was not a straightforward case of a few white men with bayonets extracting revenue from starving hordes.......The reality is more complex. What 1770 teaches us is the tragedies that ensue when there exists an anarchic situation where the "powers that be" understand the subjects very poorly......Culture matters. And when the administration misunderstands peculiarities of local culture, middlemen exploit the ignorance and havoc ensues.

Re: " Hastings was part of the ruling elite in 1771, he was the Governor of Calcutta " Not so. Warren Hastings was living in England between 1764 and 1769. He employed by the E.I.C. in Madras from 1769 until his promotion to Calcutta in April 1772. He was appointed Governor-General in 1773. Just for the record you understand.

Mr Craig : 5MM pounds (in today's money) does seem fairly modest. Especially as this is a "wealth" estimate. Not an "income" estimate. And we're talking about the head honcho of the biggest corporation of the 18th century here!

Shrikanth Krishnamachary : Re: £ 5 million This is a figure that I had locked away in the filing cabinet of my mind ; I did not double check the amount, I must admit, before including it in the jottings above - but - I am fairly certain that it is accurate. Prof. P.J. Marshall has undertaken a great deal of research into Hastings and his finances, both pre and post trial, and this is the figure that he cites regularly in his own work .If you are interested I will dig out the relevant references - although this might have to wait until tomorrow, when time permits. The essential point is : Hastings WAS certainly a wealthy man by the standards of his own time (and indeed, of our own) - but - he did not have access to bottomless financial resources. The huge legal costs of his trial, combined with his acquisition of Daylesford House in Gloucestershire ( which had passed out of his family a generation or two previously and which he was determined to regain, come hell or high water ) almost resulted in his personal bankruptcy. He was only able to retain his estate and some shred of his status as a result of direct intervention on the part of his former employers - after his acquittal and exoneration, the E.I.C settled some of his debts and agreed to pay him a generous annual pension.

Julian Craig Ofcourse I wasn't doubting the veracity of the 5MM figure or your sources :) I just thought it isn't a particularly enormous fortune even by 18th cen standards for a man of his standing. Definitely a wealthy man as one would expect him to be. But not obscenely rich.

Re: " I wasn't doubting the veracity of ... your sources " Well - I should certainly hope not, Sir ! ... Ha ha ha etc... in truth : my memory is far from infallible. As I say, I will double check the figures for you tomorrow. Hastings was, according to all the accounts, not particularly interested in making money, nor was he a particularly shrewd business man. Not all of the ventures into which he invested his own money were successful - several went ' belly up ' (as they say) - and he seldom ran a careful eye over his accounts. He was only ever really the ' nominal ' leader of the ' Nabobs ' - many of whom, such as his close friend, Sir Francis Sykes, made considerably larger fortunes in ' India ' than Hastings ever did. His interests and his talents lay elsewhere. I must be off...

Re: The personal finances of Warren Hastings 1769 - 1795 Mr Krishnamachary - it seems that my reference to Hastings and his ' modest ' 5 million pound fortune were not too wide of the mark – viz : " At the end of his trial [ Hastings ] was required to give a full accounting of his finances almost to the last penny, he revealed that he returned from India [in 1785] with about 70,000 pounds." see - Jeremy Bernstein " Dawning of the Raj " (2000, p.175) 70,000 pounds in 1780, expressed in modern terms, is the equivalent of about £ 4.4 million. Keith Feiling – whose biography of Hastings, published as long ago as 1954, remains the standard reference work – puts his individual wealth at 74,000 pounds in 1785 - see " Warren Hastings " (1954, p.334) 74,000 in 1780, expressed in modern terms = £ 4.6 million So then , Hastings was pretty well off in 1785 – but – not as well off as he could or should have been it would seem ; for a good deal more money had passed through his hands over the course of the proceeding fifteen years – viz: "…by the time his administration ended , Hastings had been able to remit 218,000 pounds to England, which had shrunk to about 75,000 once he returned there. The rest had been spent." Bernstein (p.272) 218,000 in 1780, expressed in modern terms = £ 13.7 million This much larger figure is probably a more accurate reflection of the amount of money that Hastings actually earned (or otherwise acquired) during his second period on the sub-continent. This sum does not include, of course, his personal day-to-day or annual expenses (which would have been considerable). A lot of this money was gobbled up by agents and solicitors acting on his behalf in London, or was remitted to various members of his extended family. Hastings bought Daylesford House and estate for 54,000 pounds in 1789 – which, as I mentioned above, put him under considerable financial pressure. Furthermore, the enormous legal expenses that Hastings acquired post-1788 were greater than his personal means could adequately keep pace with - and he was reduced to a dangerous state of insolvency – if not, quite, actual bankruptcy - viz : " The trial cost [ Hastings] 71,000 pounds, of which 40,000 was still outstanding [ in 1795], on a bond carrying 5 per cent interest per annum. His total debts [at that time] amounted to at least 85,000 …" – Feiling (p.370) 85,000 pounds in 1795, expressed in modern terms = £ 4.7 million. The definitive work on Hastings and his finances – and those of other E.I.C. employees during the 1770s & 1780s – is : " East Indian Fortunes : The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century " (Oxford, 1976) by Prof. P.J. Marshall - who is probably the leading authority on the period in the U.K. Marshall's books can be quite difficult to obtain, and are quite expensive to purchase – as is often the case with academic texts (small circulation) – but contain an astonishing wealth of very detailed information.

Thanks for the very detailed reply! And also for bringing this thread back on track after a long digression on 1770 famine with which Hastings had little connection!