Agra famine of 1837–1838

There had been a number of droughts and near-famines in the region in the first third of the nineteenth century. The years of scarcity included: 1803–1804, 1813–14, 1819, 1825–26, 1827–28, and 1832–33. The 1837 summer monsoon rains failed almost entirely in the region of the Doab lying between Delhi and Allahabad as well in the trans-Jumna districts. During August and September 1837, reports of both severe drought and the failure of the kharif (or autumn) harvest rushed in from different parts of the region. Other nineteenth-century accounts also spoke of distress, chaos, and migration southwards: "Grain merchants closed their shops, the peasantry took to plunder; cattle starved and died; in the part of the Mathura district west of the Jumna, the village thatches were torn down to feed the starving beasts. There was a general move of the people in the direction of Mâlwa, that Cathay or land of plenty, where, in the imagination of the North Indian rustic, the fields always smile with golden grain and poverty is unknown." Auckland found the conditions in these districts to be so distressing that, in his words, "the largest expenditure" was required "in order to palliate the evil, and prevent the total depopulation of the country by starvation and emigration." ==Relief==

Although some relief was provided in the last few months of 1837, famine relief on a large scale did not begin until February 1838. In his report to the Governor-General of February 1838, Mr. Rose, the Deputy-Collector of Cawnpore observed that while the relief was still insufficient, it had nonetheless lessened the distress somewhat, and had, according to him, stemmed the tide of emigration to other regions. From the onset of the scarcity, the Government provided only "work-relief" for able bodied persons. "Charitable relief," or relief for the old and indigent, was left to private efforts. Soon, however, it was discovered that the merchants were adulterating the grain rations to fully half their weight with "sand or powdered bones." In April 1838, therefore, the Government took over the distribution of the rations. The table below gives the expenditure in the relief works in one district, Farrukhabad, for the duration of the scarcity. According to , a total of Rs. 2,300,000 was spent on relief throughout the famine-afflicted region. ==Merchants==

Merchants as a class were variably affected by the famine, with some wealthier merchants, who had sufficient capital to diversify their holdings, profiteering, even as the poorer ones suffered much distress. At the onset of the famine, the rich salt merchants of the middle Doab were immediately able to switch from salt to grain and make windfall profits. The small salt merchants, especially the itinerant merchants, however, did not have such flexibility. According to , a British military officer observed Banjara merchants—who had traditionally traded salt from their region in Rajputana for grain from Rohilkhand to the north-east—returning "from the northern markets of Farrukabad and Shahjahanpur" with no loads of grain on their cattle; the price of grain had been too high for them to turn a profit. Similarly, the intermediate salt merchants, who had traditionally bought salt in bulk from the big merchants and offered it on credit to the small ones, now found themselves with nothing to buy or sell. The Agra region, had in fact had a serious economic downturn in the decade before, as bullion had become scarce. The smaller merchants, such as those selling "brass vessels, low grade cloths and liquor" had already been in considerable distress, since their patrons, the small farmers, had no surplus income to buy their goods with. ==See also==