Great Bengal famine of 1770

The Great Bengal famine of 1770 was a famine that struck Bengal and Bihar between 1769 and 1770 and affected some 30 million people. It occurred during a period of dual governance in Bengal. This existed after the East India Company had been granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue in Bengal by the Mughal emperor in Delhi, but before it had wrested the nizamat, or control of civil administration, which continued to lie with the Mughal governor, the Nawab of Bengal Nazm ud Daula (1765-72).

Quotes

Matthew White - Atrocitology, 2011

White, Matthew - Atrocitology _ humanity's 100 deadliest achievements-Canongate Books (2011)

• With their victory at Plassey (see “Seven Years War”), the British (in the form of the East India Company) ended up ruling Bengal, but right away they got off to a bad start. In 1769, the seasonal rains failed to come to India, and the resulting famine of 1769–70 killed some 10 million people, a quarter of the population of Bengal.
• Whose fault was it? A Dutch naval captain in the area at the time wrote, “This famine arose in part from the bad rice harvest of the preceding year; but it must also be attributed principally to the monopoly the English had over the last harvest of this commodity, which they kept at such a high price that the most unfortunate inhabitants . . . found themselves powerless to buy the tenth part of what they needed to live.”4
  • White, Matthew - Atrocitology _ humanity's 100 deadliest achievements-Canongate Books (2011)