Thomas Robert Malthus, a political economist, once claimed that “Famine is the last and most dreadful mode by which nature represses a redundant population.” He referred to famine as a “positive check,” a natural way of dealing with overpopulation.
His statements were not merely theoretical; they were designed to make famine appear as a natural disaster—one that was beyond the control of any colonial government. However, a troubling question lingers in the wake of such statements: who decides which population is deemed redundant or expendable, deserving to be neglected and left to die? The answer, though complex, is both simple and harsh: those who hold political power and capital are the ones who decide who lives and who does not.
The Madras Famine of 1877-1878 offers a painful example of such decisions. The famine’s origins can be traced back to October 1876 when signs of impending disaster first appeared. That year, excessive rainfall devastated the region. Robert Ellis, a junior member of the Governor’s council, was returning with his wife from a summer retreat in Coonar.
Upon encountering the heavy showers, they assumed it was the usual northeast monsoon. They felt relieved that the rains would nourish the crops and prevent drought. However, when they reached the plains the following day, they were struck by the sight of destruction: crops had been obliterated, and everything appeared withered and desolate.
This was the first alarming sign of what would become a full-scale crisis. The southwestern monsoon had already failed in other regions, and food scarcity was looming. Merchants, ever alert to market demands, started hoarding grain, anticipating the country’s soon-to-be insatiable hunger. Though the people were aware of the growing crisis—newspapers had reported crop failures in neighboring regions—their initial fears were tempered by a sense of complacency. They assumed that it was just another false alarm, and that the situation would improve.
Even as rumors of looming disaster spread, there was no official response from the government. In fact, the Governor of Madras, ‘His Grace,’ the Duke of Cambridge, chose this time to embark on a tour of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Rangoon, and Ceylon to investigate a railway project that would not be relevant for another century. With the leadership distracted and out of touch, the situation deteriorated rapidly.
By September and October, the people of Madras were beginning to understand that famine was inevitable. However, they were still hopeful that the government would step in and offer relief. That hope was shattered as the northeast monsoon failed and the situation turned critical. The price of food grains and other essentials soared. Desperation set in, and looting, riots, and violence ensued. Women and children attacked storage warehouses, scrambling for even a small portion of food.
Amid this turmoil, the British colonial government continued its grain exports to England. Under the watch of Viceroy Lord Robert Bulwer Lytton, a record 6.4 million hundred weight of wheat were shipped to Britain. This export, while financially advantageous to the colonial rulers, made the situation even worse for the people of Madras, who were already struggling to feed themselves.
The colonial government’s failure to recognise the full extent of the crisis was compounded by the shift in agriculture. Many farmers, having been encouraged to grow cash crops like cotton and indigo for export, had abandoned food crops. The land that could have provided for the people was instead used to generate profit for the empire, leaving the local population vulnerable to the famine.
By the time the situation reached its most dire, the government finally established relief kitchens and camps to help those in need. Sir Richard Temple, appointed to oversee the relief efforts, began setting up these camps, but the response was woefully inadequate. People who traveled to distant districts like Bangalore and Mysore in search of food were forced to work in the construction of railways in exchange for sustenance.
The wages offered were abysmally low, earning the cruel nickname of the “Temple wage.” For men, this consisted of just one pound of food grain and one anna—a meager amount that barely sufficed to survive, with even less provided for women and children. Temple defended the low wages, claiming that adequate compensation would create “dependency” among the poor. His justification was supported by Lord Lytton, who argued that the government’s financial efficiency should take precedence over the welfare of the people, and that every effort must be made to disburse the smallest possible amount of money.
As the months passed, the people of Madras were left to suffer in the face of an indifferent colonial administration. It is estimated that around 8.2 million people perished in the Madras Famine, many from hunger, malnutrition, and the diseases that followed. The bodies of the dead, emaciated and skeletal, were photographed by colonial photographers, who captured the suffering to send back to Britain. These photos, intended to document the “success” of British relief efforts, became harrowing symbols of a colonial system that placed profit above human life.
The story of the Madras Famine is not just one of famine, but of a broader system of exploitation that turned human lives into expendable commodities. The British colonial government’s response to the famine revealed a brutal indifference to the lives of the Indian people, treating them as mere resources to be used or discarded according to the needs of the empire. The prevailing ideology of the time, as encapsulated by Malthus’s theory of population control, painted famine as an inevitable, natural event. But it was not nature that caused this suffering—it was the political and economic decisions made by those in power.
The devastating consequences of these decisions raise an important question: who gets to decide which lives are worth saving? In colonial India, it was the British authorities who made this determination. The poor, the marginalised, and the vulnerable were left to fend for themselves, while the empire’s priorities lay elsewhere. The lives of millions were deemed expendable in the pursuit of profit, and the famine’s death toll became a tragic testament to the callousness of colonial rule.
The tragedy of the Madras Famine serves as a stark reminder that the true causes of hunger and death are not simply the result of natural events, but of systems of power that perpetuate inequality. The decisions made by those in positions of power and authority determine who lives and who dies. In the case of the Madras Famine, it was the Indian people who paid the price for a system that valued profit over human life. The famine was not an accident of nature but a direct consequence of the choices made by those who controlled the resources and had the power to act.
The lessons of this history are still relevant today. While we may no longer live under colonial rule, the structures of inequality and power that shaped the Madras Famine remain in place. Those at the top, whether in government or in business, continue to make decisions that affect the lives of millions.
The Madras Famine reminds us that the value of human life is not inherent, but is determined by those who hold power. Until we address the systems of inequality that continue to shape our world, the suffering of the past may echo into the future.
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