Chhiattor-er Monnontor [The Bengal Famine of 1769-70]

The Bengal famine of 1770 is popularly known as “Chhiattor-er Monnontor”, or “Famine of ’76”, since 1769-70 is the year 1176 in the Bengali calendar. The failure of the rice crop in 1768, the lack of rainfall in following years, peasant migration, and the small pox epidemic led to one of the most notorious famines in Indian history, when 10 million people are said to have died. This estimated figure is more than thrice the number of estimated deaths for both the 1630 Gujarat famine, which forms the setting for Peter Mundy’s tale, and the rather more recent, and better known, Bengal famine of 1943. For each of these famines, deaths were estimated at 3 million. The famine of 1770 has remained alive in the cultural memory of Bengal for centuries.

Behind the immediate context of the famine itself, there are crucial political and environmental transformations. In 1765, the East India Company acquired authority over the Mughal provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, which would, by the 1820s, become the eastern part of Britain’s new empire in India. Throughout the eighteenth century, rural communities in Bengal saw the decline of traditional subsistence means and their ecological basis, expedited by processes of colonisation. From the perspectives of our artists, these wider transformations are brought into sharper view by the famine and its outcomes. Due to some of the infamous brutalities of the 1770 famine - such as the 10 percent rise in land tax which meant more revenue was collected in the famine year of 1770-71 than in the dearth year of 1769-70 - this story is challenging to tell and to hear.

Our artists, however, seek to look beyond sensational facts and figures, and their perspectives highlight, for example, the ecology of the predominantly rice-growing Bengal lowlands, with its specific harvest sensitivities - dependence on rainfall and lack of alternative crops - or the particular vulnerabilities of the large artisanal and merchant classes, who depended on the agricultural economy and its networks of markets and waterways. The Naya scroll painters are, in many ways, modern representatives of a vulnerable creative economy, and their paintings unflinchingly portray the devastating effects of the famine on eighteenth-century rural society and environment. Dukhushyam’s narrative poem incorporates some of the eighteenth-century poetic renderings of the famine. The graphic artists reflect on its social impact as well as debates around interpretation. Their story of the famine is framed within an imaginary dialogue between the graphic artists themselves and the historical figure of William Hunter, the colonial administrator who meticulously assembled and analysed historical records of this famine. Like all our other famine tales, this collection presents a wide range of work-in-progress material alongside the finally created narratives and artworks.

Chitrakar, Dukhushyam

Chitrakar, Jahanara

Chitrakar, Khaleda

Chitrakar, Lutfa

Chitrakar, Mahim

Chitrakar, Rabbani

Chitrakar, Rahim

Chitrakar, Rahman

Chitrakar, Ushiara

Manna, Argha

Mitra, Debkumar

University of Exeter

2020-01

Brock, Dan

Dutta, Shrutakirti

Fereday, Graham

Gupta, Abhijit

Halder, Bhagirath

Holding, Richard

Long, Lily

Mbedzi, Tumisang

Mondal, Sujit

Mukherjee, Ayesha

Spence, Connor

Singer, Wendy

Tupman, Charlotte

CC BY-NC

Bengali

English

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Bengal, India; 1769-70