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Death in India, 1871–1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Ira Klein
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The British impact on India perhaps was as profound on issues of the death rate and population growth as on political and economic development, but it has been less thoroughly examined.1 And in contrast to successes by the mid-twentieth century in limiting small-pox, malaria, and cholera, there was an earlier and darker tale, almost as obscure as the lives of the millions who perished in terrible epidemics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was how new economic conditions, ineffective village sanitary practices, the impact of modern transport and irrigation works, and population pressure and poverty all helped the spread of disease, and how public health measures failed to prevent a high mortality.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , August 1973 , pp. 639 - 659
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Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1973

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References

Ira Klein is Associate Professor of History at The American University, Washington, D.C. Much of the research and writing of this article were done whde the author held a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, for which he is grateful; an earlier grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies was indirectly useful.

1 There is only one book of importance on the history of population change in South Asia, Davis, KingsleyPopulation of India and Pakistan (Princeton, 1951).Google Scholar Davis devoted only passing attention to the causes of mortality. Records of disease and death in the area for the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries are rather good, although statistics must be used warily. Recently Dr. Ian Catanach has been interested in the medical history of British India, and gave a paper on “Plague in India” to the South Asia Studies Association in Sydney, Sept. 1972. I have attempted to deal with some aspects of mortality in “Malaria and Mortality in Bengal,” Indian Economic and Social His-tory Review, IX, June 1972, 132–60, and in “Population and Agriculture in Northern India,” Modern Asian Studies, VII, Dec. 1973.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Madras Dispensary Reports, 1890, p. 16; Bombay Dispensary Reports, 1909, P 23.

3 Davis, p. 36. The figures for death rates and life expectancy given above were compiled by G. F. Hardy. Davis' figures for mortality rates are marginally higher, and he thought 1891–1901 was a more deadly decade than the following one, an idea indirectly borne out by slower population growth in the 1890's. The statistical difference docs not affect conclusions here, for it was the extraordinary mortality of 1896–1901 which boosted death rates for the 1890's as a whole.

4 Ibid., pp. 18–27.

5Knowles, L. C. A., Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire (3 vols.: London, 1924–36), I, pp. 351–52;Google ScholarCoupland, Reginald, India: A Restatement (London, 1945), pp.Google Scholar 52, 62, and passim; Anstey, Vera, The Economic Development of India (London, 1929), p.Google Scholar 474; Woodruff, Philip, The Men Who Ruled India (2 vols.: London, 1954), I, p. 109.Google Scholar

6 Parliamentary Papers, c. 7181, “General Report Departon the Census of India,” LXIV, 1893–94, p. 66. Unfilled land existed but generally was of poor quality or in inhospitable locales; or, more significantly, it was the preserve of the local village and was closed to strangers from distant villages or different regions. It was partly for these reasons that crowding occurred in some locales while thinly inhabited tracts remained in others.

7 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1919, vol. 10588, pp. u , 86, 93, 126; and 1870, Range 434, vol. 45, p. 735, India Office Library. See also Christophers, S. R., “Malaria in the Punjab,” Scientific Memoirs by Officers of the Medical and Sanitary Departon ments, new series, XLI, pp. 105–110.Google Scholar

8 Davis, pp. 26–27.

9 The term “crowding” in this essay refers to both urban crowding, the physical jamming of large numbers of people into a small geographic area; and rural crowding, the inadequacy of available land readily to support the mass of people trying to obtain a living from it. The conditions had a common denominator in the presence of too large a populace in a locale for maintenance of good health standards. Urban crowding usually has been denoted, in this essay, however, as “urban” or “physical crowding.” No term precisely defines the excesses of population in relation to land in agrarian regions, but “crowding” has been preferred to “density” since it suggests attention to such important issues as quality of soil and amount of arable rather than total land area.

10 Parliamentary Papers, c. 1349, “Memo, on the Census of British India,” 1875, LIV, p. 8. For estimates of density and cultivation in the early nineteenth century, see “Report on the Deccan,” 1819, pp. 105–110, Elphinstone Papers,Google Scholar India Office Library; “Thackeray's Report,” Sept. 1807, Selection of Papers from the Old Records oj Bellary,Google Scholar and “Letters of Thomas Munro Relating to the Early Administration of Kanara,” p. 192 and passim, Madras Record Office.Google Scholar

ll Parliamentary Papers, c. 1349, “Memo, on the Census,” p. 7; and c. 7181, “General Report,” pp. 40, 43.

12 Bombay Gazeteers, III, (1879), “Kaira,” p. 44. Agricultural conditions in Kaira illustrated the deceptiveness of statistics on cultivation. While 18 percent of “cultivable” land was not farmed, “most of the unoccupied arable land” consisted of “poor tracts” which could not return the cost of cultivation.

13 District Gazeteers, United Provinces, II, p. 41; IV, pp. 35–36; VIII, pp. 27–28; XIII, pp. 30–31; XII, p. 24; XVII, p. 30; XIX, pp. 32–33; XXII, pp. 27–28; XXIII, p. 31; XXVI pp. 31–32; XXX, pp. 29–30; see also Parliamentary Papers, c. 7181, “;General Report,” p. 24. The Quarterly Journal of the Poona Sarrajanak Sabha was among non-official publications which discussed agricultural problems stemming from crowding and disappearance of the waste; see Reports on Native Newspapers, Bombay, Oct. 1884, National Archives of India. See also Bombay Selections, new series, no. 186, p. 206; no. 405, pp. 10–11; no. 441, p. 19; no. 442, pp. 3, 28; and see Klein, Ira, “Utilitarianism and Agrarian Progress in Western India,” Economic History Review, 2d series, XVIII, Dec. 1965, pp. 576–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Census of India, 1921, XIV, Part 1, p. 26.

15 Ibid., 1921, I, Part 1, p. 37.

16 Indian statistics on the causes of death were unreliable since untutored village police or accountants attributed two of every three deaths to “fever.” Several special studies of some thousands of deaths in parts of Northern and Eastern India by medical authorities provide a rough indication, however, of the severity of various major diseases, See Ira Klein, “Malaria and Mortality in Bengal,” IESHR, IX. p. 134.

17 Census of India, 1921, I, Part 1, pp. 5, 14.

18Report of the Sanitary Commissioner, United Provinces, 1907, pp. 1–2, and 1908, pp. 2–5.Google Scholar

19 Mortality rates for Bombay city were compiled from the annual “Public Health Report,” and the appendices, published in the Bombay Municipal Reports.

20 Rates of mortality for Calcutta were compiled from the annual “Report on Public Health” and appendices to the reports, in the Calcutta Municipal Reports.

21 Bombay Gazetteers, XIX, 1885, “Satara,” pp. 179–80; X, 1880, “:Ratnagari,” p. 152.

22 For the British idea of agrarian improvement see Stokes, Eric, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959), pp. 80–101 and passim; for the breakdown of the idea see Klein, “Utilitarianism and Agrarian Progress.”Google Scholar

23 Enclosure to Railway Letter No. 65, 1869, “Note by Accountant General, Public Works Department on Capt. Filgate's Report,” June 11, 1869, Railway Letters and Enclosures from India, India Office Library.

24 Bombay Selections, n.s., no. 146, p. 9; and no. 107, p. 44; Pedder, W. G., “Famine and Debt in India,” The Nineteenth Century, II, 1887, p. 184.Google Scholar See also Metcalf, T. R., “The British and the Money Lenders in Nineteenth Century India,” Journal of Modern History, XXIV, Dec. 1962, pp. 390–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Memo, by Madras Gov't, May 27, 1888, p. 2; and Memo, on Material Condition of People of Bombay Pres., p. 9, in “Conditions of the Lower Classes of People of India,” Confidential Parliamentary Reports, India Office Library.

26 Davis, p. 8.

27 For the aims of British experts to create a transformation through railway construction, see, for example, Enclosure to Railway Letter of March 14, 1856, “Observations of the Consulting Engineer on a Letter from the Agent of the Madras Railway Co.,” Jan. 5, 1856, Railway Letters.

25 Enclosure to Railway Letter 25 of 1863, From Joint Secretary, Bengal, P.W.D., Railway, May 1, 1863; and Enclosure to Railway 16 of 1865, “Report of the Committee on Sanitary Conditions of Railway Stations,” Feb. 7, 1865, Railway Letters.

29Indian Medical Proceedings, 1873–75, pp. 507–08, 521–30, India Office Library.Google Scholar

30 Census of India, 1921, I Part 1, p. 37; Parliamentary Papers, c. 7181, “General Report,” p. 51.

31 Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 2047, “General Report on the Census of India,” 1901, 1904, LXIV, p. 47.

32Bentley, C. A. and Christophers, S. R., “Blackwater Fever,” Scientific Memoirs, XXXV, p. 32.Google Scholar

33 Christophers, “Malaria in the Punjab,” p. 83.

34 Bentley and Christophers, p. 22.

35Hehir, Sir Patrick, Malaria in India (London, 1927), pp. 45–49.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 Bengal District Gazetteers, XXVI, p. 105.

38Majumdar, S. C., Rivers of the Bengal Delta (Calcutta, 1942), p. 92.Google Scholar

39 Report of the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal, 1876, p. 103.

40 Bengal District Gazetteers, XXXIII, pp. 64–70.

41 Census of India, 1921, V, Part 1, pp. 48–55.

42Dutt, R. C., Economic History of India in the Victorian Age (London, 1904), p. 178.Google Scholar

43 Coupland, p. 52; Knowles, I, p. 366; Woodruff, II, p. 109.

44“Report of the Committee on Unhealthiness of the Delhi Canal,” pp. 4–5, in Collected Memoranda, Records of the Malaria Survey of India, I, no. 2, (March, 1930).Google Scholar

45Harris, D. G., Irrigation in India (London, 1923), p. 56.Google Scholar

46Whitcombe, Elizabeth, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India (Berkeley, 1972) deals with the impact of the canals on the environment; her main concern, however, was with soil chemistry and agricultural output. She noted health problems, though, on p. 82 of her work.Google Scholar

47Lal, R. B. and Shah, K. S., “Malaria and Waterlogging,” Malaria Survey, III, no. 4, pp. 585–86.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 633.

49 Hehir, pp. 45–49.

50 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1870, Range 434, vol. 45, p. 735.

51 Ibid., pp. 297–300; and 1871, vol. 524, pp. 199, 225.

52 Knowles, I, p. 326.

53Report of the Sanitary Commissioner jor Bengal, 1898, pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

54 Ibid.

55 The table might at first sight seem to imply a decline in cholera deaths two years before the introduction of filtered water; the immediate impact of filtered water was pronounced and dramatic, and its degree and timing can be best calculated if it is noted that 1866 was unusual for its cholera fatalities even for that era. See Calcutta Municipal Report, 1876, “Public Health,” p. 9.

56Papers Regarding the Sanitary Conference of 1908 (Calcutta, 1908), p. 5.Google Scholar

57 Sanitary Report of Bengal, 1868, p. 165.

58 Census of India, 1891, III, Part 1, p. 90.

59 There had been a heated controversy among leading public health officials about whether gencholera was transmitted by water or by air, a difference which affected several facets of public health policy. See, for example, Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1871, vol. 6714, Progs. 4–5.Google Scholar

60 Bombay Municipal Report, 1892, p. 399.

61 The statistics need to be taken with a degree of caution, for in some instances higher urban mortality may have reflected, to an extent, a gencholera erally ascending mortality in Northern India. Noneference theless, improved drinking water did not achieve the expected results of rapidly plummeting death rates. See Madras Municipal Proceedings, 1902, vol. 6463, no. 645M, May 28, 1903, India Office Library.

62 From Santo Crimp to President, Poona Municipality. Dec. 1. 1899, Bombay Local Government and Municipal Proceedings, 1902. vol. 62305. India Office Library.

63 Census of India, 1911. VII, Part 1, p. 90.

64 lbid., p. 34.

65 “Plague Commission, Bengal. 1896–98, cviii—clx.

66 Parliamentary Papers, 1897, LXIII, “Further Papers Relating to the Outbreak of Plague,” p. 68.

67 Ibid., 1902, LXXII, “Report of the Indian Plague Commission,” pp. 195–267.Google Scholar

68 The quotation referred to village conditions in tracts of Northern India in which plague long was endemic. See Plague in India 1896–97,1, pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

69Parliamentary Papers, 1897, LXIII, “Outbreak of Plague,” pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

70Report of the Madras Drainage Committee, 1913. PP. 15–19.Google Scholar

71Report of the Punjab Sanitary Conference, 1913, pp. 129, 152.Google Scholar

72 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1903, vol. 6815, p. 493.

73 Ibid., 1907, vol. 7602, pp. 1816–17.

74Parliamentary Papers, 1902, LXXII, “Plague Commission,” pp. 1, 8–12, 32, 42.Google Scholar

75 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1902, vol. 6351, p. 1750; vol. 7058, pp. 511, 708, 790; 1905, vol. 7O59; PP. 4I3–4; 1906, vol. 7325, pp. 1382–84; 1907, vol. 7601, p. 991; 1908, vol. 7886, pp. 383–86; 1909, vol. 8164, p. 563. Sec also, Parliamentary Papers, “Plague Commission,” 1902, LXXII, p. 3; Lambert, George, India, the Horror Stricken Empire, (Elkhart, 1898), pp. 365–66.Google Scholar

76 Bombay Plague Report, p. 260.

77 Christophers, pp. 105–10.

78 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1905, vol. 7059, p. 1530.

79 Significantly, of more than two thousand plague deaths in the first great epidemic wave in parr of South India, no European and only one Eurasian fell victim; but over eight hundred cases occurred among Sudras, and another eight hundred among poor Muslims. As elsewhere, the plague death rate was markedly higher for ordinary Hindus and Muslims than for Europeans or Eurasians. The most complete authentication of this pattern was found in Bombay city. During the first full year of plague, 1897, the toll among Europeans was only 1.8 per mille; among Parsccs it was under 8 per mille, The Brahman rate was 10.5 per mille, but that of ordinary Hindus was over 15 and of low castes it was 24 per mille. By 1900 the European death rate from plague had fallen below i per mille, and the Parsec rate dropped Under 4 per mille; but for non-Brahman Hindus plague mortality was over 20 per mille. Since poor and uneducated Indians, in particular, concealed plague cases, total death rates for Bombay city during the worst plague years may give a more accurate and striking picture of how plague prevailed among the impoverished and lowly: TABLE See Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1905, vol. 7059. p. 1530; Bombay Municipal Reports, 1898, p. 737; 1899 p. 416; 1900, p. 486; 1901, p. 154; 1902, p. 161.

80 Bombay Plague Report, p. 70.

81 Census of India, 1921, I, Part i, p. 12.

82Report of the Sanitary Commissioner, United Provinces, 1919, pp. 2–7, 13–14; and 1920, pp. 5, 8, 13.Google Scholar

83 Bombay Municipal Report, 1919, “Public Health,” p. 20.

84 Indian Sanitary Proceedings, 1919, vol. 10588, pp. 11, 86, 93, 123, 177.

85 Ibid., 1906, vol. 7325, p. 1382; and 1907, vol. 7601, p. 991. Sec also “Sanitary CommisProceedsioner's Notes on the Recommendations of the Public Services Commission,” Bengal Municipal (Sanitary) Proceedings, 1919, vol. 10521, India Office Library; United Provinces Sanitary Proceeding's, 1919, vol. 10716, Progs. 5a, Oct., 1919, India Office Library.

86 Census of India, 1891, III, Part 1, pp. 90–91.

87 Parliamentary Papers, c. 7181, “General Report,” p. 40.

88 Bombay Selections, n.s., no. 295, p. 2; Bombay Gazetteers, III, p. 25; Census of India, 1921, VIII, Part 1, pp. 37, xxix; and 1911, VII, Part 1, p. 4.

89 For the financial position of the poorer ryot see, for example, Census of India, 1921, VIII, Part 1, cxi; see also “Conditions of the Lower Classes of People of India.” Confidential Parliamentary Reports, passim.

90 Bombay Gazetteers, II, p. 61; IV, p. 52; p. 4. XIII, p. 284; XVI, p. 90; XVII, p. 244; XIX, p. 150.

91 Ibid., XIII, pp. 60. 307; XVI, pp. 39, 114, XVII, p. 244.

92Bombay Legislative Council Debates, 1901, pp. 185–88, 192–94, 274–82.Google Scholar