Famines in India - Republic of India

Republic of India

Since the Bengal famine of 1943, there has been a declining number of famines which have had limited effects and have been of short durations. Sen attributes this trend of decline or disappearance of famines after independence to a democratic system of governance and a free press—not to increased food production. Later famine threats of 1984, 1988 and 1998 were successfully contained by the Indian government and there has been no major famine in India since 1943. Indian Independence in 1947 did not stop damage to crops nor lack of rain. As such, the threat of famines did not go away. India faced a number of threats of severe famines in 1967, 1973, 1979 and 1987 in Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Gujarat respectively. However these did not materialize in to famines due to government intervention. The loss of life did not meet the scale of the 1943 Bengal or earlier famines but continued to be a problem. Jean Drèze finds that the post-Independence Indian government "largely remedied" the causes of the three major failures of 1880–1948 British famine policy, "an event which must count as marking the second great turning point in the history of famine relief in India over the past two centuries".