Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land Assessments in India

The Reports of the Indian Famine Commissions, published in 1880 and in 1898, tell a melancholy tale. Excluding severe scarcities, often confined to limited areas, there were eighteen famines between 1770 and 1878 and if we add to this list the subsequent famines of 1889, 1892, 1897, and 1900, we have a sad record of twenty-two famines within a period of 130 years of British rule in India.