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.