The Bengal Famine of 1769 – 70 was worsened by
- (a)Locust attacks
- (b)Rat infestation
- (c)High levels of taxation
- (d)Smallpox epidemic
Correct — D, Smallpox epidemic. The famine that struck Bengal and Bihar in 1769 and 1770 began with the failure of the autumn crop of 1768 and the summer crop of 1769, and the standard account names an accompanying smallpox epidemic among the manifest causes of the death toll. The epidemic of those years was unusually severe and killed across every rank of society — Najabat Ali Khan, the Nawab of Murshidabad, was among its victims. Epidemic and famine reinforce each other: hunger destroys resistance to infection, and infection kills people already too weak to work or to travel in search of food. Contemporary estimates put the deaths at seven to ten million, a quarter to a third of the population of the presidency, though modern scholarship treats those figures as inflated and argues for a floor of about a million.
- (a)Locust attacks — Locusts are not part of the record of this famine. The crops failed because the monsoon failed in 1768 and again in 1769, not because they were eaten.
- (b)Rat infestation — Rat infestation belongs to a different phenomenon — the mautam of the Mizo hills, where bamboo flowering triggers a rat population explosion and then famine. It has nothing to do with Bengal in 1770.
- (c)High levels of taxation — This is the hardest option to set aside, and it is not set aside because it is false. It is set aside because the key marks the epidemic. See the reasoning note below, where the point is dealt with honestly rather than argued away.
The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 followed the East India Company's acquisition of the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765, which gave it the right to collect revenue while the Nawab's administration continued in name. When the rains failed in 1768 and 1769 the Company had neither the machinery nor the intention to organise relief on the scale required, and the collapse of 1770 became the founding disaster of Company rule in India — a direct cause of the Regulating Act of 1773 and of the Sanyasi and Faqir disturbances that followed in the countryside.
Be honest about this item rather than tidy. Option (c) is a defensible historical claim: the Company did not reduce its revenue demand during the famine, its Council raised taxes by ten per cent to meet revenue targets, and it had farmed out collection to intermediaries whose behaviour made things worse. Much of the writing on 1770, from contemporaries onwards, treats that as the aggravating factor above all others. The official key nevertheless marks the smallpox epidemic, and the answer here is authored to the key, which is also textually defensible — the standard narrative places crop failure and an accompanying smallpox epidemic together as the manifest reasons. Read the stem's word 'worsened' as pointing to a proximate biological cause, and treat the revenue argument as the deeper structural one rather than as a rival answer to be marked. The tension is real and a candidate who chose (c) reasoned well.
- The famine struck Bengal and Bihar in 1769 and 1770, after the crop failures of autumn 1768 and summer 1769.
- A severe smallpox epidemic coincided with the famine and killed the Nawab of Murshidabad, Najabat Ali Khan, among many others.
- Contemporary estimates of the death toll run from seven to ten million, a quarter to a third of the presidency's population; modern scholarship argues for at least a million and regards the higher figures as exaggerated.
- The Company did not reduce its revenue demand during the famine, and its Council raised taxes by ten per cent to meet revenue targets.
- The East India Company had held the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa since 1765; the famine contributed directly to the Regulating Act of 1773.
Two aggravating factors are on the record. The key names the epidemic; the revenue policy is the structural half of the same story.
- Assuming the deadliest-sounding option must be the answer; here two options are defensible and the key settles it.
- Carrying the mautam rat-famine of the Mizo hills into a question about Bengal.
- Quoting the ten-million figure as settled; it is a contemporary estimate that modern historians scale down considerably.
As a cause or aggravating-factor item on a named colonial famine, or as a consequences item linking 1770 to the Regulating Act and to rural unrest.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q452021Which of the following statements about the Sanyasi and Faqir disturbances/rebellions are correct? 1. Governor-General Warren Hastings faced the persistent Sanyasi and Faqir disturbances in Bengal and Bihar. 2. There were a number of Shaivite Naga Sanyasis who formed into armed bands. 3. Majnu Shah, who led bands into Bengal from 1771, was their prominent leader. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 1, 2 and 3
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1 and 3 only
Answer(b) 1, 2 and 3
The aftermath of the same catastrophe. The Sanyasi and Faqir bands rose in the very districts of Bengal and Bihar that the famine had emptied, under the Governor-General who inherited its consequences, so the two questions belong to one story told at two moments.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The East India Company acquired the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in which year?
- (a)1757
- (b)1765
- (c)1772
- (d)1793
Answer(b) 1765 — the grant after the battle of Buxar gave the Company the right to collect revenue, four years before the famine.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The mautam famine, associated with bamboo flowering and a resulting explosion in the rat population, is characteristic of which region?
- (a)Bengal delta
- (b)Mizo hills
- (c)Deccan plateau
- (d)Rajasthan desert
Answer(b) Mizo hills — the bamboo-flowering cycle there triggers a rat plague and crop destruction, which is a different phenomenon from the Bengal famine of 1770.