Doji bara famine

[1] Recorded by William Roxburgh, a surgeon with the British East India Company, in a series of pioneering meteorological observations, the El Niño event caused the failure of the South Asian monsoon for four consecutive years starting in 1789.

[2] The resulting famine, which was severe, caused widespread mortality in Hyderabad, Southern Maratha Kingdom, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar (then all ruled by Indian rulers).

[3] In regions like the Madras Presidency (governed by the East India Company), where the famine was less severe,[3] and where records were kept, half the population perished in some districts, such as in the Northern Circars.

In 1791-1792 there was a terrible famine, the result of a series of bad years heightened by the depredations caused by the Marathas under Parashuram Bhau.

The distress seems to have been great in Hubli, Dambal, and Kalghatgi, where the people were reduced to feeding on leaves and berries, and women and children were sold.

According to the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Belgaum (1884), In the following year 1791-92 the complete failure of the early rain caused awful misery.

A story remains that a woman in Gokák under the pangs of hunger ate her own children, and in punishment was dragged at the foot of a buffalo till she died.

He stated that owing to the famine, which had recently occurred many parts of the country had been depopulated, and that in consequence agriculture and cultivation generally were at a low ebb in the Nizam's Dominions.

Some idea of its extent and severity may be gathered from the circumstances communicated to Sir John Kennaway by the Minister, Mir Alam: first, that in the space of four months 90,000 dead bodies had appeared by the Kotwal's account to have been carried out from Haidarabad and its suburbs, in which those who perished in their houses and enclosures were not inserted; and second, that of 2,000 weavers' huts which were full of families in a district of Raichur before the famine broke out, only six were inhabited at its close.

The Resident, Sir John Kennaway, referred to the ruin and mismanagement by which the Minister was surrounded, and it is evident that the country was in a very wretched condition.

In April 1791, it was stated, that 1,200 persons had died of starvation in the neighbourhood of Vizagapatam, and early in 1792, the district of Ganjam was in great straits for food, and those of Ellore, Rajamundry, and Condapilly, in serious distress.

From Masulipatam, it was reported, that there had been numerous deaths from starvation in all quarters of the neighbouring country, and the greatest difficulty was felt in supplying the inhabitants of the town with food, though the consumption had been at one time restricted to 1/4 seer, or half a pound, per head, per diem.

In addition to these measures of relief, the Government found it necessary at the latter part of 1791, to prohibit the export of rice from Tanjore, until June 1792, except to the distressed districts, to permit 50 bags (about 7,500 lbs.)

The pressure became at last so severe in this district, that Mr. Snodgrass, the Resident at Ganjam, collected local subscriptions for the relief of the poor, and employed 2,000 of them on public works, paying them their wages in grain from the Government stores.