Thread by @shrikanth_krish

We often hear of the great famines of the British Raj because they are not too distant in our historical memory

But what were famines like in the old days before the Raj?

Here's Fernand Braudel, the French historian on the same -

"The famine of 1472, which hit the Deccan...., caused large numbers, who had escaped its consequences to emigrate to Gujerat and Malwa. In 1555 and again in 1596, violent famine throughout north west India, resulted in scenes of cannibalism according to contemporary chroniclers"

Braudel again on 17th century famines -

There was another terrible famine, almost everywhere in India, in 1630-31. A Dutch merchant has left us an appalling description of it.

"Men abandoned towns and villages and wandered helplessly......."

(Contd..)

wives and children abandoned, children sold by parents, who either abandoned them or sold themselves in order to survive...then came the stage when the starving split open the stomachs of the dead or dying and "drew at the entrails to fill their own bellies"

"...in the village of Susuntra..human flesh was sold in the open market".

In 1670, a Persian ambassador went to pay his respects to the Great Mogul, Aurangazeb. He returned home accompanied by "innumerable slaves" whom "he had had for almost nothing because of the famine"

This is from Braudel's fine work

"The Structures of Everyday Life" - the first volume of his trilogy - "Civiliazation and Capitalism - 15th to 18th century"

The sources referred to by Braudel are these

A Appadorai - Economic Conditions in Southern India (1000-1500AD)
Francois Bernier, Voyages..contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogul (1699)
WH Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangazeb (1923) (quoting the dutch traveler Van Twist)