lectura de planos de instalaciones sanitarias

In the 1890s, different provinces came out with provincial famine codes in line with the suggestions made in the first Famine Commission report of 1880. This subsection will further discuss how the responses mobilised after the adoption of famine codes by the colonial state reflects a surveillance of the native „other‟ and as such constitutes the politics of rights.

Famine again stuck various parts of India in 1896-97 and was particularly hard felt in the Central Provinces, Northwest and Oudh, Bengal, Bombay and Madras provinces. Already between August 1896 to July 1897 mortality had risen in excess in all these provinces by 5 million as compared with the average death for previous years. Of all these excess death rates, Central province recorded more than 1.5 million; North-West and Oudh Province more than 1 million; and Bengal Province also with more than 1 million (Holderness, 1897). Thus notwithstanding the provisions of famine codes, the mortality in these provinces was very high.

The main responses to the famine were in the form of poor houses, test works, relief works and gratuitous relief on the basis of village inspections. The test works were to be started by either new works or by converting some ongoing existing works into „test works‟ when the authorities believed that famine had arrived: with the strict implementation of the famine wages and conditions on such works. Once famine was declared in the area, these

106 works would be called „relief works‟. This experimentation on such famine relief works continued in different parts, in terms of observing the behaviour of the people in response to certain government deterrence tests. In the North-West provinces and Oudh, for example, Anthony Mc-Dowell, the Lieutenant Governor for the N.W and Oudh provinces, grouped people as „carriers‟ which mostly consisted of women and children who were treated as doing light works and therefore given the wages in accordance with the code for „weakly‟ people, in fact this resulted in the weakening of the healthy women and children who came to such works. Further, for diggers, a penal ration-wage, which was half of full ration, was introduced for those who were „fined‟ for „short tasks‟. Following this experiment by the Northwest and Oudh provinces this mode of differential payments to carriers and diggers including the imposition of a “penal wage” were adopted almost universally in different provinces: such as Bengal and the Central Provinces (Indian Famine Commission 1898, pp. 58-68). When the number of people arriving at such works increased in-spite of these „deterrence‟ tests, new „tests‟ were invoked claiming that these tests had not given clear indications of famine. For example, on 15th May 1897(when already there were considerable mortalities in the Central provinces) new tests were demanded that wage work be replaced by „piecework‟. The instructions said:

“Nothing like an adequate task has been obtained on works conducted on the task- work principle ... In practice it has occurred that numbers often flocked to the work far more rapidly than it has found possible to arrange suitable fresh employment for them or establishment to effectively supervise them. The natural result of such failure to insist on any adequate task is for the crowd to grow with almost arithmetical progression, until it is apt to generate into a mob of persons doing a minimum of work. The numbers returned on such works cannot, therefore, be always accepted as a safe measure of the amount of distress prevailing in a district”(Indian Famine Commission, 1898 p. 70)

The instructions further noted that it became:

“more than ever necessary to make sure, by an effective test, that those remaining are bona fide people for whom relief work is a necessity. This can be most readily ascertained by a strict test under the piece-work system, the rates being lowered to a mere subsistence wage” (ibid, pp. 70-71)

This measure became very unpopular but the district administration stuck with it on the grounds that the inefficient were now to be treated as infirm gangs and provided with very low wages meant for the „weakly‟ people. This however led to dangerously low wages for several people who came to works in an already “reduced condition” (Indian Famine Commission, 1898 p 168). In Madras too the „fine‟ test was instituted for „short work‟,

107 workers sometimes earning even less than the „minimum wages‟. During this period, according to a report of Dr Hutcheson, the Sanitary Commissioner, the mean death rate had increased in 1897 to 69.34 per thousand from 49.31 in 1896 as compared to the average death rate of 33.76 per thousand over the period in 1891-95 (See Indian Famine Commission, 1898 p. 173). His report also showed that several people had died on relief works or after leaving them. In-spite of increased mortalities, the Madras government had gone ahead with the classification of workers into four categories (A,B,C,D) each one representing a differential rate of rations, wages and the system of fining for less performance. The Sanitary Commissioner noted that due to an excessive fining, some of the workers had very low wages and were found to be in a deteriorating condition (See Indian Famine Commission, 1898 pp. 77-78).

The other tests, such as compulsory residence in the relief camps in Bombay presidency, also led to several thousand deaths, as the concentration of people in one place with a scarcity of food and water led to conditions for the outbreak of cholera: the disease taking its toll amongst the people already weakened by the famine. Several people preferred to starve than stay in such camps which also led to suffering and mortality (Indian Famine Commission, 1898).

Famine struck again in several parts of the country in 1899-1900, and again the deterrence and self-acting „tests‟ resulted in great mortalities. In Gujarat, for example, the Chief secretary to the Government ordered the wages to be given to the people on relief work to be reduced to such an extent that the people working on them were reduced to a state of “physical deterioration”: with the result that large numbers were leaving the works altogether (Indian Famine Commission, 1901 p. 24). Amongst all the provinces in the famine of 1899-1900, “relief was less successful” in Gujarat which noted the highest “mortality” (ibid, pp 147-148). The overall famine mortality was at least “one million excess deaths” with several provinces experiencing a reduction in its population in 1901, as compared to 1891 (ibid, p. 71).

The colonial government also evoked a selective understanding of „customary practices‟ appropriate to their governing interests. Thus the 1901 Indian Famine Commission suggested that the sex-based distinction of wages, with women getting much lower wages on relief work, was necessary for disciplinary interests and that “in famine relief administration no avoidable step should be taken, which conflicts with the custom of the

108 country, or might tend to disorganize the labour market” (ibid, p. 39). The report also showed that famine had also dispossessed one fourth of the cultivators in the Bombay presidency who were unable to give the land revenue to the government, and 80 percent of its cultivators were in deep debt.

The next widespread famine in India was in 1907-08 and mainly covered the United Provinces and Oudh, where both Kharif and autumn harvests had failed after the inadequate rainfalls. Bengal, the Central Provinces and Berar were also affected to some degree. In this famine, the district of Bahraich was also very severely affected, and its effects were felt in the villages researched by this thesis. The relief was organised around the same pattern: namely, poor houses, test works, relief works and the distribution of gratuitous doles in these areas (Parliamentary Papers, 1909). I was told about the effects of this famine by Natharam, aged 70 years who had heard about the famine effects from his mother. Natharam recounted:

“My mother told me a story about a family of six sisters, all of whom died one by one in that Akaal (famine). There was nothing to eat. She would say: I don‟t want to think about those days. When I think about it, my body trembles ... We somehow survived” (Natharam, November 2008)

Another woman Vimla, aged 65 years recounted what she had heard from her late mother in law:

“I have not seen this but have heard about the „Bhukmarri‟ (famine/dying of hunger) from my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law use to say those days we made roti (Indian Bread) from the pounding of the Khali Chilka of Gullar (the outer layer of the trunk of local tree called Gullar). There was nothing. There was sukha (drought). We don‟t know about it ... my mother in law use to tell me about it” (Vimla, November 2008).

Whilst there were intermittent famines after 1907-08, the next major famine was in Bengal in 1941-43 which led to 3 million deaths, despite the famine relief codes (Sen, 1983).

What the above discussion shows is the colossal effort that the colonial regime had put into working out an intricate network of institutionalised surveillance and building a systematic knowledge of the colonized other. It also shows the politics of famine codes and in that sense the politics of rights: insofar as the famine codes were the main instruments for claims to famine relief by the famine affected populations.