Deccan famine of 1630–32
The Deccan famine of 1630–1632 was a famine in the Deccan Plateau in which some 2 million Indians died. The famine was the result of three consecutive staple crop failures, leading to intense hunger, disease, and displacement in the region.
This famine remains one of the most devastating famines in the history of India, and was the most serious famine to occur in the Mughal Empire.
A Dutch report of the famine in Surat noted that this was caused principally by the failure of rain as well as the demands of the army of Shahjahan camped at Barhanpur. About three million people died in Gujarat in the ten months ending in October 1631 while another million died at Ahmednagar. The Dutch report gives a death toll of 7.4 million which might be for the whole region.[1]
References
- ↑ Winters, R.; Hume, J. P.; Leenstra, M. (2017). "A famine in Surat in 1631 and Dodos on Mauritius: A long lost manuscript rediscovered". Archives of Natural History. 44: 134. doi:10.3366/anh.2017.0422.
- Ó Gráda, Cormac. (2007). "Making Famine History", Journal of Economic Literature, 65 (March 2007), pp. 5–38.