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If this article continues to get worse on the neutrality front i may have to add a second POV template just for the sake of it because this is now becoming a joke. We have these new tables at the top of the article reproducing data in a table already on the article, with the deaths on one table almost completely empty (if we dont know the estimates of how many died in the 13th century how do we know there was only one famine?). Now i see someone (i wonder who) has chosen to "hide" the pre British Rule and post British rule, but kept the British Era displayed. Presentationally the show/hide feature for tables there (if they are needed right at the top of the article) makes sense, but you do not get more blatant POV crap than applying it to two of the tables and leaving the other one. Also we have the scenario that sees "Theories on famine" basically focusing on one guys POV today about what causes famine above the details of the actual famine. If "Theories" belong anywhere on this article they belong at the bottom.
This article is a disgrace thanks to changes that have taken place over the past few weeks. I continue to oppose the removal of POV tag. Nothing has been solved, infact things have got worse. BritishWatcher ( talk) 12:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Zuggernaut ( talk) 15:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I've challenged the following content:
I could not verify these claim in the cited sources or there was no citation (fact tag has been added). Perhaps I did not look thoroughly, can anyone else help verify? Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Let's try this shorter version:
The conventional food availability decline theory attributes the cause of famine to a single factor, i.e., the decline in food availability. [1] [2] However this does not explain why only a certain section of the population such as the agricultural laborer was affected by famines while others were insulated from famines. [3] Other limitations of this theory include attributing the cause of famine to "an act of God", disregarding the failures of access to food and taking in to account only one component of famine, that of food production shocks. [4] [5] Sen's entitlement theory proposes that the causal mechanism for precipitating starvation from famines includes many variables other than just decline of food availability such as the inability of an agricultural laborer to exchange his primary entitlement, i.e., labor for rice when his employment became erratic or was completely eliminated. [6] [3] The entitlement theory has been seen as an intellectual progression leading to a major paradigm shift in the way famines have been seen. While the entitlement theory explained that famines could occur without food shortages, the theory failed to explain the cases of famines where triggers were gross violations of entitlements stemming from conflict and catastrophic government policies or failures of humanitarian relief. [7] [6]
It gets rid of the "two theories" statement you have problems with. The sources are all external - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Devereux, Caplan, Banik and Chaudhari.
BTW, the re-insertion you claim in your edit summary isn't accurate. The content (starting with "According to Michael Massing writing in the New York Times in 2003...") has been there for a while and I thought we were in agreement about adding 1 line about the definitions of famine. Also you are right about this content being in a different section. I will move it there. Sources for the above content are the same:
Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I've created a new infobox template that can potentially be used in every famine article on Wikipedia. For a list of articles where it can be used, see the categories famines in India, famines and other relevant categories. The usage documentation still needs some improvement and the template might undergo minor teaks further - all feedback/suggestions for improvement are welcome! Feel free to link to or re-post this message in relevant places. Zuggernaut ( talk) 17:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Agree, that malnutrition is a constant feature of Indian life. However, during the 1972-73, there were no deaths directly attributed to the famine. As a teenager, I lived in the drought stricken area during that period and did not see any evidence of the emaciated bodies ones often sees during African famines. Occasionally, the local press used to report sporadic "Hunger deaths" (bhukbali in the local Marathi language), however, subsequent reports used to refute the deaths being due to the famine. The government of the day had Keynesian employment schemes for the rural population to mitigate the worst effects of the famine. these included road building as well as building reservoirs to catch rain water. The boarding school I went to had a lot of kids from farming families. They were given exemption from tuition, lodging and boarding charges during the famine period. The government also had a subsidized "ration" food and fuel program even before and after the famine. I had seen the report you mention on the 70,000 excess deaths, however, I find it difficult to pin them down to the famine. 74.9.96.122 ( talk) 21:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC). I spent best part of the monsoon season of 1973 in a government hospital in the largest city in the drought stricken area. Again, no signs of anyone patients there due to malnutrition or drought related causes. Editors will say what I write above is OR, however, these are first hand experiences of someone who lived in that area during the drought. I am sure, given time, I should be able to come up with references which challenge the 70,000 "excess deaths". JamesinDerbyshire, For your information, I have had several disagreements with Zuggernaut on a different article, however, he is right about the Maharashtra drought. Incidentally, I am an East Midlander like you. 74.9.96.122 ( talk) 22:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, every morning it seems we see a mass of edits from you. Many of these are very good, but there are always a significant number that take a clear POV. Please reverse these out and discuss on the talk page. Going through all your edits every morning to remove the POV position is becoming an unreasonable burden and I am simply going to mass revert if it carries on. -- Snowded TALK 05:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Author requested copyedit assistance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Requests. Completed through section on Famine Codes. I will continue tomorrow. jsfouche ☽☾ talk 07:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: SBC-YPR ( talk) 17:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
While I go through the article and assess it against the good article criteria, here are some preliminary issues that need to be addressed:
I will continue assessing the article in the meantime. Regards, SBC-YPR ( talk) 17:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
There is an ongoing content dispute in the article over the alleged use of certain sources to represent facts in a particular manner. Consequently, it fails criteria 5 (and possibly 4) of the good article criteria and I have to, regretfully, declare this nomination a failure. I have deferred this review in the hope of some consensus being arrived at through the talk page discussions, but that clearly doesn't seem to be happening. The article is otherwise well-written and should not have much difficulty in meeting the other criteria. I suggest that the existing dispute be resolved first, involving community processes if need be, before re-nominating the article at GAN. If you disagree or have any objections regarding this assessment, feel free to request a reassessment. Regards, SBC-YPR ( talk) 09:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
What were the "Temple tests"? This is mentioned in the section "British response." -- Diannaa ( Talk) 01:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I've reverted back User:Jamesinderbyshire's deletion of the Maharasthra famine success story because it is a landmark in the elimination of famines in India. This is a universally known fact but I've added back the content with sources. Feel free to discuss here. Zuggernaut ( talk) 05:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I am replacing User:Jamesinderbyshire's claim of 200,000 deaths in the Bihar famine of 1966-7 with a subjective "very small number". The Government of India claims a number as less as 0.00117 million and the Indian media at that time contested this number. It is very possible that the Government of India wasn't accurate in reporting the numbers, to put it mildly. But the Indian media isn't accurate either given their habit of sensationalizing issues. It is very likely that the reality was somewhere in-between. This fact is reflected in the majority of sources which refrain from taking an objective view. They simply use words like "very small", "relatively few", "small", "no significant increase in infant mortality", etc. This is because there isn't consensus in academia about the number of deaths in that famine. We at Wikipedia should stick to following the majority view of describing the deaths in a subjective manner. A detailed discussion with a listing of sources is at the talk page of the relevant template. - Zuggernaut ( talk) 15:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Paraphrased quote/Data | Source/Publication/Book |
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Government statistics for the number of estimated deaths for Bihar famine: 1177 | Drèze, Jean (1991), "Famine Prevention in India", in Drèze, Jean; Sen, Amartya, The Political Economy of Hunger: Famine prevention, Oxford: Oxford University Press US, p 59, ISBN 9780198286363 |
Dyson and Maharatna (1991) did not find any significant increase in infant mortality during the Bihar famine. | Population And Poverty in Naunihal Singh, Mittal Publications, 2002, ISBN 9788170998488 p. 112 |
"There were very small number of starvation deaths in even Bihar." | Population Challenge And Family Welfare, S.M. Mehta, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 2001, ISBN 9788126109692 p. 143 |
"There were relatively few deaths in the Bihar famine." | Lancaster, H.O (1990), Expectations of life: a study in the demography, statistics, and history of world mortality, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 9780387971056 |
"The Bihar famine was averted by employing various famine prevention measures such as improving communication abilities, issuing famine bulletins over the radio, offering employment to those affected by famine in government public works projects and by importing food from other states and from the United States." | London School of Economics and Political Science; Gupta, S.P.; Stern, N.H.; Hussain, A.; Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (1995), Development patterns and institutional structures: China and India, Allied Publishers, ISBN 9788170234197 |
"The number of deaths in the Bihar famine were small compared to the previous famines of the British era." | Maharatna, A (1996), The demography of famines: an Indian historical perspective, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195637113 |
"The number of deaths in the Bihar famine was very small and it demonstrated the ability of the Indian government to deal with the worst of circumstances." | Mehta, S.M (2001), Population Challenge And Family Welfare, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd, ISBN 9788126109692 |
1970-73.” Economic and Political Weekly 27 (26): 1325-1332[/i]-130,000; not likely more than one million -Population and food: global trends and future prospects By Tim Dyson (Routledge 1996). I think it is only fair that they be mentioned. REGARDS-Led125 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.19.250 ( talk) 03:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Recent edits by Jamesinderbyshire are begining to look disruptive.
The article is undergoing a good article review and these disruptive edits along with the "edit warring" can potentially be seen as an attempt to preclude meeting of criterion #5 of the good article criteria. Such behavior could be an attempt to game the system to prevent this article from achieving good article status.
In the past I had to utilize ANI against Jamesinderbyshire for the use of ficticious references which I thought was also an attempt to game the system.
I am bringing back the Bihar famine section and will assume good faith one last time but if this pattern of editing continues without initiating a talk page discussion for deletion of sourced content and without attempting to revolve issues on talk pages or without displaying competence, we will have to reluctantly re-visit ANI. Zuggernaut ( talk) 00:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The paragraph below was deleted in October 2010 but it's a substantial piece of new information on the Bengal famine of 1943 that can enhance the article.
“ | According to a book authored by Madhusree Mukherjee, Winston Churchill deliberately ignored pleas for emergency food aid for millions in Bengal and left them to starve causing the deaths of millions. Mukherjee attributes Churchill's behavior to his racist views, who is known to have made statements like "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." Mukherjee suggests that Churchill's racist hatred toward Indians was due to his loving for the British Empire which he would rather destroy than let go.(Nelson:2010:p 1) | ” |
Does anyone have any objections in bring it back with or without modifications? Zuggernaut ( talk) 01:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Bengal famine of 1943 includes more UNDUE factoids mentioning Churchill but with no hint that World War II might have been influencing Churchill's decisions. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Media organization | Source type | Highlight/Summary |
---|---|---|
Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Non-Mukherjee | The famine in British-ruled Bengal in 1943-44 ultimately took the lives of about 4 million people. The speaker talks of how this man-made famine is absent from the history books and virtually unknown to most people. |
Time Magazine | Book review | Churchill's only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine was to ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet. |
Rediff News | Book review | Could a man applauded for his courage in standing up to Adolf Hitler have had such contempt for another race that he did not change policies that led to starvation and death of at least three million? |
Zee News | Book Review | The book notes that Churchill had a profound contempt of native Indians especially Mahatma Gandhi who for him came to represent a "malignant subversive fanatic" and a "thoroughly evil force." He had remarked in a conversation, "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." |
The Telegraph (Calcutta) | Book Review | While it is known that the British prime minister during World War II nursed a hatred towards Indians “who bred like rabbits”, it still comes as a shock that shiploads of wheat from Australia bypassed the Indian subcontinent to head for the Balkan states to add to the stockpile of foodgrain there. |
BBC - The Open University | Non-Mukherjee | Audio |
The Independent | Book Review | Mukerjee has researched this forgotten holocaust with great care and forensic rigour. Mining an extensive range of sources, she not only sheds light on the imperial shenanigans around the famine, but on a host of related issues, such as the flowering of nationalism in famine-hit districts, Churchill's fury about the sterling credit that India was piling up in London, or the dreadful situation in the villages even after the famine was technically over. |
NPR | Book Review | The British government had drawn up the Indian Famine Codes during the 1880s to help avoid famine and food scarcity following natural disasters. In October 1942, when there were signs of food scarcity following a cyclone, these codes were not invoked. As economists Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have said earlier in their book, the famine was "simply not declared" by the British government. |
The Sydney Morning Herald | Book Review | The "man-made" famine has long been one of the darkest chapters of the British Raj, but now Madhusree Mukerjee says she has uncovered evidence that Churchill was directly responsible for the appalling suffering. |
The Hindu | Book Review | He was bitterly determined to hold on to India; he hated Indians, and intended that they remain subjects for all time. With sources ranging from official documents to first-hand accounts of the Bengal famine, Madhusree Mukerjee brings out the consequences for India, and thereby for hundreds of millions of people. |
Outlook | Book Review | Mukerjee holds Churchill responsible for “deliberately deciding to let Indians starve”. |
The Hindu | Non-Mukherjee | On August 4, 1944, after four years of suffering these outbursts, Amery wrote that "I am by no means sure whether on this subject of India he (Churchill) is really quite sane ... ". |
BBC | Book Review | "Apparently it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in this country," writes Sir Wavell in his account of the meetings. Mr Amery is more direct. "Winston may be right in saying that the starvation of anyhow under-fed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks, but he makes no sufficient allowance for the sense of Empire responsibility in this country," he writes. |
Hindustan Times | Book Review | He saw himself as the lion hunting rabbits — in this case Indians who bred like rabbits. With his advisors and the distorted wisdom of a Victorian-era racism that should have been long past, Churchill blamed the famine on fecund Indians, invoked both Malthus and social Darwinism, and disparaged India as a society that sat out the war while Britain sacrificed blood and treasure. |
The Independent | Non-Mukherjee | Many of his colleagues thought Churchill was driven by a deep loathing of democracy for anyone other than the British and a tiny clique of supposedly superior races. |
The New York Times | Non-Mukherjee | He later added: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. In 1943, to give just one example, a famine broke out in Bengal, caused, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proven, by British mismanagement. |
The New York Times | Non-Mukherjee | At the same time, his rhetorical exertions (he claimed that Indians were “a beastly people with a beastly religion”) were backed up by policies nothing short of criminal. Gandhi and Nehru were both imprisoned in 1942. The following year a calamitous famine in Bengal left three million people dead. |
Wall Street Journal | Letter | "...They hold the British in general, and Mr. Churchill in particular, responsible for the tragic deaths of millions in the great Bengal famine of 1943..." |
The Pioneer | Book Review | The high point of Mukherjee’s indictment — and the lowest point of imperial rule — is the Bengal Famine when an estimated three million people died. Haunting memory of that man-made tragedy, there hangs before me as I write one of M Braun’s tinted sepia photographs of eight skeletal forms in attitudes of abject despair. |
The Times of India | Book Review |
Her book, "Churchill's Secret War", quotes previously unused papers that disprove his claim that no ships could be spared from the war and that show him brushing aside increasingly desperate requests from British officials in India. |
HNN | Book Review | It decided instead that around 75,000 tons of Australian wheat would be transported to Ceylon and the Middle East each month for the rest of 1943, to supply the war effort; and a further 170,000 tons would pass by famine-stricken India en-route to a supply center in the Mediterranean region, there to be stored for future consumption in southeastern Europe. |
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help)“...I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. In 1943, to give just one example, a famine broke out in Bengal, caused, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proven, by British mismanagement. To the horror of many of his colleagues, Churchill raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits” and refused to offer any aid for months while hundreds of thousands died.
Scholars imply that rejection of pleas of emergeny food aid was due to Churchill's racist hatered towards Indians. However, according to Christopher Baily of Cambride University, it is difficult to blame Churchill alone since these were Cabinet decisions.
Snowded undid some recent changes and asked to discuss this on the talk page, hence this post. I cannot make sense of or grasp Snowded's terse explanation of the undoing in his edit summary - "slanting the article to a political perspective without context". I'm seeking feedback from other editors as to whether these well sourced edits should or should not be there in the article. I made the edits to:
Here's a brief explanation of why I added the content.
However, K. V Narayana argues that a new class of an "agricultural labor" emerged in rural India due the destruction of centuries old village economy by the British. [8] British economic policy had a devastating effect on the agricultural population causing famine after famine in the 19th century, particularly towards the end of that century. [fn 2] [9] Jawaharlal Nehru in his Discovery of India cited import of cheap industrial goods from England as the cause of unemployment of the agricultural laborer and artisans, the population most affected by famines. [10]
However the economist Dr. Daniel Keniston at MIT cites two models that have advanced arguments suggesting that the railways of British India actually increased famine mortality. [11] He goes on to state that such arguments do not have strong supporting evidence, instead concluding that railways of that era did not have a major impact on decreasing famine mortality. [12]
I'm asking other editors to take a look and provide feedback on whether this looks like "slanting the article to a political perspective without context". Zuggernaut ( talk) 05:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Famine in India was nominated for good article status. It failed to achieve GA status for failing criterion 5 of good article criteria (article stability). A discussion regarding the issue can be found on the good article review page of the article. I am renominating because the article history shows it is stable. Zuggernaut ( talk) 13:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
I was reading the various comments here about POV in the article and this section struck me as one needing some improvement. I have some points I would like to make:
Regards,
Andrew
Zuggernaut, thank you for your response and kind words. I will accept that Nightingale would count as a scholar is she published scholarly works on the famines at the time. I was not aware that she did so I am will to accept this one. I am not sure that mentioning R.C. Dutt, William Digby or C.W. McMinn would be undue weight as, in the 19th century, they were mainstream discourse. Certainly if Nightingale counts as mainstream discourse then they would as well, no? I also do not agree with you on the pre-British famines. This article shows that several famines were quite bad, as bad as some under the British (the one in the 1630's killed four million people). And what period is Sen talking about? Is he talking about the 1940's, when famines were easier to relieve, or the 1870's, or 1830's, or 1770's? Given that he does not make clear, I think the best thing to do would be to assume that Amartya Sen's comment is applicable to all famines regardless of the regime. Incidentally, Michelle Burge McAlpin, in her book 'Subject to Famine: Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920' (Princeton: 1983) devotes several pages analysing whether or not famines were actually worse in the pre-British period before concluding that it is likely they were just as bad. Finally, what I mean by my third point is that the source doesn't support what it is attributed to it. At no point does it state that the Bengal famine of 1770 is one of the reasons why Britain doesn't have a positive legacy. In fact, the final sentence, by stating that by remaining silent on colonialism, Cameron might be able to reap some of its benefits, implies that there is a positive legacy.
Regards, Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.164.170 ( talk) 20:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad you have agreed with me about Will Heaven's article so I shall remove that content and not worry about our dispute over that article itself. Moving onto sources, as far as I am aware (and all I am going on is the wikipedia article) is that R.C. Dutt was never imprisoned in his life. Consequently I fail to see your point about the need for caution over the use of contemporary sources: R.C. Dutt speak out against government policies, quite publicly, and as far as I know he was never imprisoned. But even if, so what? He still made the arguments he did. I agree that now, McMinn is not as well known as R.C. Dutt is, although given that his book was written as a direct response to R.C. Dutt I think its fair to mention him (he is not completely forgotten either, there are several modern works that cite him). Finally, I think the debates about pre-British famines are getting us away from the issue of the A.K. Sen quote; you are reading into it that he damns the British administration whilst letting the Mughal's off. This is based not on what A.K. Sen actually says in the quote, but what has been argued by other authors (and disputed by others; this article already cites several authors a little less optimistic about famine relief in the pre-British era and a little less pessimistic about the Indian economy in the 19th century). I think that is wrong, and the way it is Sen's statements apply equally to Mughal and British famines.
Perhaps other people on here can weigh in?
Regards,
Andrew
Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.15.71.25 ( talk) 11:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
A few reasons why McMinn may not be a reliable source:
1. Other than Wikipedia articles, I could not find any other academician citing McMinn's work.
2. Can you cite accomplished authors, scholars supporting and speaking favorably of his work?
3. His works seem to be emotive with outbursts supporting the British rule in India.
4. He states the following in the preface and then bases his work on that
In other words the three hundred millions of India (sic) are are informed that they have only to revert to the rule and customs of their ancestors, getting rid somehow of the British incubus, then they will find peace, plenty, and bliss of every kind.
5. Then on pages 106-107 he discredits the work of successive Famine Commissions which where the cornerstone of the Indian Famine Codes.
Yet in the twenty-three folios of reports and appendices there is comparatively little of any value to the student; what there is is overloaded with detail, and is buried in masses of figured statement and comment which could only be of use once, as a check in the account department.
6. On page 129 he states that
The Rajas, the Independent Chiefs of India know that the British rescued them long ago from the most cruel bondage to Maratha or Moghul Empire, they agreed to pay half their revenues to the British...
7. On page 130, he concludes
To conclude, I see nothing but prosperity before India, the lookout is far better than when I came here in 1862; all will be well if the people will only labor and learn, listening to no false prophets, if also Government continues to introduce reform, steadily progressing towards the satisfaction of just national aspirations.
All of these are non-mainstream views, some of which if true would mean that the Indian Independence Movement was a freak accident and would/should not have happened. Zuggernaut ( talk) 04:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Regards Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.15.71.25 ( talk) 11:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
The article does not appear to mention the famine in Madras in 1952. MilborneOne ( talk) 18:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
It looks like this was a drought, probably not worthy of mention in the article but I am open to mention it in the post-independence section if the majority feel so. Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
If this article continues to get worse on the neutrality front i may have to add a second POV template just for the sake of it because this is now becoming a joke. We have these new tables at the top of the article reproducing data in a table already on the article, with the deaths on one table almost completely empty (if we dont know the estimates of how many died in the 13th century how do we know there was only one famine?). Now i see someone (i wonder who) has chosen to "hide" the pre British Rule and post British rule, but kept the British Era displayed. Presentationally the show/hide feature for tables there (if they are needed right at the top of the article) makes sense, but you do not get more blatant POV crap than applying it to two of the tables and leaving the other one. Also we have the scenario that sees "Theories on famine" basically focusing on one guys POV today about what causes famine above the details of the actual famine. If "Theories" belong anywhere on this article they belong at the bottom.
This article is a disgrace thanks to changes that have taken place over the past few weeks. I continue to oppose the removal of POV tag. Nothing has been solved, infact things have got worse. BritishWatcher ( talk) 12:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Zuggernaut ( talk) 15:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I've challenged the following content:
I could not verify these claim in the cited sources or there was no citation (fact tag has been added). Perhaps I did not look thoroughly, can anyone else help verify? Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Let's try this shorter version:
The conventional food availability decline theory attributes the cause of famine to a single factor, i.e., the decline in food availability. [1] [2] However this does not explain why only a certain section of the population such as the agricultural laborer was affected by famines while others were insulated from famines. [3] Other limitations of this theory include attributing the cause of famine to "an act of God", disregarding the failures of access to food and taking in to account only one component of famine, that of food production shocks. [4] [5] Sen's entitlement theory proposes that the causal mechanism for precipitating starvation from famines includes many variables other than just decline of food availability such as the inability of an agricultural laborer to exchange his primary entitlement, i.e., labor for rice when his employment became erratic or was completely eliminated. [6] [3] The entitlement theory has been seen as an intellectual progression leading to a major paradigm shift in the way famines have been seen. While the entitlement theory explained that famines could occur without food shortages, the theory failed to explain the cases of famines where triggers were gross violations of entitlements stemming from conflict and catastrophic government policies or failures of humanitarian relief. [7] [6]
It gets rid of the "two theories" statement you have problems with. The sources are all external - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Devereux, Caplan, Banik and Chaudhari.
BTW, the re-insertion you claim in your edit summary isn't accurate. The content (starting with "According to Michael Massing writing in the New York Times in 2003...") has been there for a while and I thought we were in agreement about adding 1 line about the definitions of famine. Also you are right about this content being in a different section. I will move it there. Sources for the above content are the same:
Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I've created a new infobox template that can potentially be used in every famine article on Wikipedia. For a list of articles where it can be used, see the categories famines in India, famines and other relevant categories. The usage documentation still needs some improvement and the template might undergo minor teaks further - all feedback/suggestions for improvement are welcome! Feel free to link to or re-post this message in relevant places. Zuggernaut ( talk) 17:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Agree, that malnutrition is a constant feature of Indian life. However, during the 1972-73, there were no deaths directly attributed to the famine. As a teenager, I lived in the drought stricken area during that period and did not see any evidence of the emaciated bodies ones often sees during African famines. Occasionally, the local press used to report sporadic "Hunger deaths" (bhukbali in the local Marathi language), however, subsequent reports used to refute the deaths being due to the famine. The government of the day had Keynesian employment schemes for the rural population to mitigate the worst effects of the famine. these included road building as well as building reservoirs to catch rain water. The boarding school I went to had a lot of kids from farming families. They were given exemption from tuition, lodging and boarding charges during the famine period. The government also had a subsidized "ration" food and fuel program even before and after the famine. I had seen the report you mention on the 70,000 excess deaths, however, I find it difficult to pin them down to the famine. 74.9.96.122 ( talk) 21:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC). I spent best part of the monsoon season of 1973 in a government hospital in the largest city in the drought stricken area. Again, no signs of anyone patients there due to malnutrition or drought related causes. Editors will say what I write above is OR, however, these are first hand experiences of someone who lived in that area during the drought. I am sure, given time, I should be able to come up with references which challenge the 70,000 "excess deaths". JamesinDerbyshire, For your information, I have had several disagreements with Zuggernaut on a different article, however, he is right about the Maharashtra drought. Incidentally, I am an East Midlander like you. 74.9.96.122 ( talk) 22:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, every morning it seems we see a mass of edits from you. Many of these are very good, but there are always a significant number that take a clear POV. Please reverse these out and discuss on the talk page. Going through all your edits every morning to remove the POV position is becoming an unreasonable burden and I am simply going to mass revert if it carries on. -- Snowded TALK 05:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Author requested copyedit assistance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Requests. Completed through section on Famine Codes. I will continue tomorrow. jsfouche ☽☾ talk 07:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
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Reviewer: SBC-YPR ( talk) 17:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
While I go through the article and assess it against the good article criteria, here are some preliminary issues that need to be addressed:
I will continue assessing the article in the meantime. Regards, SBC-YPR ( talk) 17:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
There is an ongoing content dispute in the article over the alleged use of certain sources to represent facts in a particular manner. Consequently, it fails criteria 5 (and possibly 4) of the good article criteria and I have to, regretfully, declare this nomination a failure. I have deferred this review in the hope of some consensus being arrived at through the talk page discussions, but that clearly doesn't seem to be happening. The article is otherwise well-written and should not have much difficulty in meeting the other criteria. I suggest that the existing dispute be resolved first, involving community processes if need be, before re-nominating the article at GAN. If you disagree or have any objections regarding this assessment, feel free to request a reassessment. Regards, SBC-YPR ( talk) 09:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
What were the "Temple tests"? This is mentioned in the section "British response." -- Diannaa ( Talk) 01:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I've reverted back User:Jamesinderbyshire's deletion of the Maharasthra famine success story because it is a landmark in the elimination of famines in India. This is a universally known fact but I've added back the content with sources. Feel free to discuss here. Zuggernaut ( talk) 05:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I am replacing User:Jamesinderbyshire's claim of 200,000 deaths in the Bihar famine of 1966-7 with a subjective "very small number". The Government of India claims a number as less as 0.00117 million and the Indian media at that time contested this number. It is very possible that the Government of India wasn't accurate in reporting the numbers, to put it mildly. But the Indian media isn't accurate either given their habit of sensationalizing issues. It is very likely that the reality was somewhere in-between. This fact is reflected in the majority of sources which refrain from taking an objective view. They simply use words like "very small", "relatively few", "small", "no significant increase in infant mortality", etc. This is because there isn't consensus in academia about the number of deaths in that famine. We at Wikipedia should stick to following the majority view of describing the deaths in a subjective manner. A detailed discussion with a listing of sources is at the talk page of the relevant template. - Zuggernaut ( talk) 15:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Paraphrased quote/Data | Source/Publication/Book |
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Government statistics for the number of estimated deaths for Bihar famine: 1177 | Drèze, Jean (1991), "Famine Prevention in India", in Drèze, Jean; Sen, Amartya, The Political Economy of Hunger: Famine prevention, Oxford: Oxford University Press US, p 59, ISBN 9780198286363 |
Dyson and Maharatna (1991) did not find any significant increase in infant mortality during the Bihar famine. | Population And Poverty in Naunihal Singh, Mittal Publications, 2002, ISBN 9788170998488 p. 112 |
"There were very small number of starvation deaths in even Bihar." | Population Challenge And Family Welfare, S.M. Mehta, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 2001, ISBN 9788126109692 p. 143 |
"There were relatively few deaths in the Bihar famine." | Lancaster, H.O (1990), Expectations of life: a study in the demography, statistics, and history of world mortality, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 9780387971056 |
"The Bihar famine was averted by employing various famine prevention measures such as improving communication abilities, issuing famine bulletins over the radio, offering employment to those affected by famine in government public works projects and by importing food from other states and from the United States." | London School of Economics and Political Science; Gupta, S.P.; Stern, N.H.; Hussain, A.; Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (1995), Development patterns and institutional structures: China and India, Allied Publishers, ISBN 9788170234197 |
"The number of deaths in the Bihar famine were small compared to the previous famines of the British era." | Maharatna, A (1996), The demography of famines: an Indian historical perspective, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195637113 |
"The number of deaths in the Bihar famine was very small and it demonstrated the ability of the Indian government to deal with the worst of circumstances." | Mehta, S.M (2001), Population Challenge And Family Welfare, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd, ISBN 9788126109692 |
1970-73.” Economic and Political Weekly 27 (26): 1325-1332[/i]-130,000; not likely more than one million -Population and food: global trends and future prospects By Tim Dyson (Routledge 1996). I think it is only fair that they be mentioned. REGARDS-Led125 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.19.250 ( talk) 03:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Recent edits by Jamesinderbyshire are begining to look disruptive.
The article is undergoing a good article review and these disruptive edits along with the "edit warring" can potentially be seen as an attempt to preclude meeting of criterion #5 of the good article criteria. Such behavior could be an attempt to game the system to prevent this article from achieving good article status.
In the past I had to utilize ANI against Jamesinderbyshire for the use of ficticious references which I thought was also an attempt to game the system.
I am bringing back the Bihar famine section and will assume good faith one last time but if this pattern of editing continues without initiating a talk page discussion for deletion of sourced content and without attempting to revolve issues on talk pages or without displaying competence, we will have to reluctantly re-visit ANI. Zuggernaut ( talk) 00:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The paragraph below was deleted in October 2010 but it's a substantial piece of new information on the Bengal famine of 1943 that can enhance the article.
“ | According to a book authored by Madhusree Mukherjee, Winston Churchill deliberately ignored pleas for emergency food aid for millions in Bengal and left them to starve causing the deaths of millions. Mukherjee attributes Churchill's behavior to his racist views, who is known to have made statements like "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." Mukherjee suggests that Churchill's racist hatred toward Indians was due to his loving for the British Empire which he would rather destroy than let go.(Nelson:2010:p 1) | ” |
Does anyone have any objections in bring it back with or without modifications? Zuggernaut ( talk) 01:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Bengal famine of 1943 includes more UNDUE factoids mentioning Churchill but with no hint that World War II might have been influencing Churchill's decisions. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Media organization | Source type | Highlight/Summary |
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Non-Mukherjee | The famine in British-ruled Bengal in 1943-44 ultimately took the lives of about 4 million people. The speaker talks of how this man-made famine is absent from the history books and virtually unknown to most people. |
Time Magazine | Book review | Churchill's only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine was to ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet. |
Rediff News | Book review | Could a man applauded for his courage in standing up to Adolf Hitler have had such contempt for another race that he did not change policies that led to starvation and death of at least three million? |
Zee News | Book Review | The book notes that Churchill had a profound contempt of native Indians especially Mahatma Gandhi who for him came to represent a "malignant subversive fanatic" and a "thoroughly evil force." He had remarked in a conversation, "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." |
The Telegraph (Calcutta) | Book Review | While it is known that the British prime minister during World War II nursed a hatred towards Indians “who bred like rabbits”, it still comes as a shock that shiploads of wheat from Australia bypassed the Indian subcontinent to head for the Balkan states to add to the stockpile of foodgrain there. |
BBC - The Open University | Non-Mukherjee | Audio |
The Independent | Book Review | Mukerjee has researched this forgotten holocaust with great care and forensic rigour. Mining an extensive range of sources, she not only sheds light on the imperial shenanigans around the famine, but on a host of related issues, such as the flowering of nationalism in famine-hit districts, Churchill's fury about the sterling credit that India was piling up in London, or the dreadful situation in the villages even after the famine was technically over. |
NPR | Book Review | The British government had drawn up the Indian Famine Codes during the 1880s to help avoid famine and food scarcity following natural disasters. In October 1942, when there were signs of food scarcity following a cyclone, these codes were not invoked. As economists Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have said earlier in their book, the famine was "simply not declared" by the British government. |
The Sydney Morning Herald | Book Review | The "man-made" famine has long been one of the darkest chapters of the British Raj, but now Madhusree Mukerjee says she has uncovered evidence that Churchill was directly responsible for the appalling suffering. |
The Hindu | Book Review | He was bitterly determined to hold on to India; he hated Indians, and intended that they remain subjects for all time. With sources ranging from official documents to first-hand accounts of the Bengal famine, Madhusree Mukerjee brings out the consequences for India, and thereby for hundreds of millions of people. |
Outlook | Book Review | Mukerjee holds Churchill responsible for “deliberately deciding to let Indians starve”. |
The Hindu | Non-Mukherjee | On August 4, 1944, after four years of suffering these outbursts, Amery wrote that "I am by no means sure whether on this subject of India he (Churchill) is really quite sane ... ". |
BBC | Book Review | "Apparently it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in this country," writes Sir Wavell in his account of the meetings. Mr Amery is more direct. "Winston may be right in saying that the starvation of anyhow under-fed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks, but he makes no sufficient allowance for the sense of Empire responsibility in this country," he writes. |
Hindustan Times | Book Review | He saw himself as the lion hunting rabbits — in this case Indians who bred like rabbits. With his advisors and the distorted wisdom of a Victorian-era racism that should have been long past, Churchill blamed the famine on fecund Indians, invoked both Malthus and social Darwinism, and disparaged India as a society that sat out the war while Britain sacrificed blood and treasure. |
The Independent | Non-Mukherjee | Many of his colleagues thought Churchill was driven by a deep loathing of democracy for anyone other than the British and a tiny clique of supposedly superior races. |
The New York Times | Non-Mukherjee | He later added: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. In 1943, to give just one example, a famine broke out in Bengal, caused, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proven, by British mismanagement. |
The New York Times | Non-Mukherjee | At the same time, his rhetorical exertions (he claimed that Indians were “a beastly people with a beastly religion”) were backed up by policies nothing short of criminal. Gandhi and Nehru were both imprisoned in 1942. The following year a calamitous famine in Bengal left three million people dead. |
Wall Street Journal | Letter | "...They hold the British in general, and Mr. Churchill in particular, responsible for the tragic deaths of millions in the great Bengal famine of 1943..." |
The Pioneer | Book Review | The high point of Mukherjee’s indictment — and the lowest point of imperial rule — is the Bengal Famine when an estimated three million people died. Haunting memory of that man-made tragedy, there hangs before me as I write one of M Braun’s tinted sepia photographs of eight skeletal forms in attitudes of abject despair. |
The Times of India | Book Review |
Her book, "Churchill's Secret War", quotes previously unused papers that disprove his claim that no ships could be spared from the war and that show him brushing aside increasingly desperate requests from British officials in India. |
HNN | Book Review | It decided instead that around 75,000 tons of Australian wheat would be transported to Ceylon and the Middle East each month for the rest of 1943, to supply the war effort; and a further 170,000 tons would pass by famine-stricken India en-route to a supply center in the Mediterranean region, there to be stored for future consumption in southeastern Europe. |
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help)“...I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. In 1943, to give just one example, a famine broke out in Bengal, caused, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proven, by British mismanagement. To the horror of many of his colleagues, Churchill raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits” and refused to offer any aid for months while hundreds of thousands died.
Scholars imply that rejection of pleas of emergeny food aid was due to Churchill's racist hatered towards Indians. However, according to Christopher Baily of Cambride University, it is difficult to blame Churchill alone since these were Cabinet decisions.
Snowded undid some recent changes and asked to discuss this on the talk page, hence this post. I cannot make sense of or grasp Snowded's terse explanation of the undoing in his edit summary - "slanting the article to a political perspective without context". I'm seeking feedback from other editors as to whether these well sourced edits should or should not be there in the article. I made the edits to:
Here's a brief explanation of why I added the content.
However, K. V Narayana argues that a new class of an "agricultural labor" emerged in rural India due the destruction of centuries old village economy by the British. [8] British economic policy had a devastating effect on the agricultural population causing famine after famine in the 19th century, particularly towards the end of that century. [fn 2] [9] Jawaharlal Nehru in his Discovery of India cited import of cheap industrial goods from England as the cause of unemployment of the agricultural laborer and artisans, the population most affected by famines. [10]
However the economist Dr. Daniel Keniston at MIT cites two models that have advanced arguments suggesting that the railways of British India actually increased famine mortality. [11] He goes on to state that such arguments do not have strong supporting evidence, instead concluding that railways of that era did not have a major impact on decreasing famine mortality. [12]
I'm asking other editors to take a look and provide feedback on whether this looks like "slanting the article to a political perspective without context". Zuggernaut ( talk) 05:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Famine in India was nominated for good article status. It failed to achieve GA status for failing criterion 5 of good article criteria (article stability). A discussion regarding the issue can be found on the good article review page of the article. I am renominating because the article history shows it is stable. Zuggernaut ( talk) 13:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
I was reading the various comments here about POV in the article and this section struck me as one needing some improvement. I have some points I would like to make:
Regards,
Andrew
Zuggernaut, thank you for your response and kind words. I will accept that Nightingale would count as a scholar is she published scholarly works on the famines at the time. I was not aware that she did so I am will to accept this one. I am not sure that mentioning R.C. Dutt, William Digby or C.W. McMinn would be undue weight as, in the 19th century, they were mainstream discourse. Certainly if Nightingale counts as mainstream discourse then they would as well, no? I also do not agree with you on the pre-British famines. This article shows that several famines were quite bad, as bad as some under the British (the one in the 1630's killed four million people). And what period is Sen talking about? Is he talking about the 1940's, when famines were easier to relieve, or the 1870's, or 1830's, or 1770's? Given that he does not make clear, I think the best thing to do would be to assume that Amartya Sen's comment is applicable to all famines regardless of the regime. Incidentally, Michelle Burge McAlpin, in her book 'Subject to Famine: Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920' (Princeton: 1983) devotes several pages analysing whether or not famines were actually worse in the pre-British period before concluding that it is likely they were just as bad. Finally, what I mean by my third point is that the source doesn't support what it is attributed to it. At no point does it state that the Bengal famine of 1770 is one of the reasons why Britain doesn't have a positive legacy. In fact, the final sentence, by stating that by remaining silent on colonialism, Cameron might be able to reap some of its benefits, implies that there is a positive legacy.
Regards, Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.164.170 ( talk) 20:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad you have agreed with me about Will Heaven's article so I shall remove that content and not worry about our dispute over that article itself. Moving onto sources, as far as I am aware (and all I am going on is the wikipedia article) is that R.C. Dutt was never imprisoned in his life. Consequently I fail to see your point about the need for caution over the use of contemporary sources: R.C. Dutt speak out against government policies, quite publicly, and as far as I know he was never imprisoned. But even if, so what? He still made the arguments he did. I agree that now, McMinn is not as well known as R.C. Dutt is, although given that his book was written as a direct response to R.C. Dutt I think its fair to mention him (he is not completely forgotten either, there are several modern works that cite him). Finally, I think the debates about pre-British famines are getting us away from the issue of the A.K. Sen quote; you are reading into it that he damns the British administration whilst letting the Mughal's off. This is based not on what A.K. Sen actually says in the quote, but what has been argued by other authors (and disputed by others; this article already cites several authors a little less optimistic about famine relief in the pre-British era and a little less pessimistic about the Indian economy in the 19th century). I think that is wrong, and the way it is Sen's statements apply equally to Mughal and British famines.
Perhaps other people on here can weigh in?
Regards,
Andrew
Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.15.71.25 ( talk) 11:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
A few reasons why McMinn may not be a reliable source:
1. Other than Wikipedia articles, I could not find any other academician citing McMinn's work.
2. Can you cite accomplished authors, scholars supporting and speaking favorably of his work?
3. His works seem to be emotive with outbursts supporting the British rule in India.
4. He states the following in the preface and then bases his work on that
In other words the three hundred millions of India (sic) are are informed that they have only to revert to the rule and customs of their ancestors, getting rid somehow of the British incubus, then they will find peace, plenty, and bliss of every kind.
5. Then on pages 106-107 he discredits the work of successive Famine Commissions which where the cornerstone of the Indian Famine Codes.
Yet in the twenty-three folios of reports and appendices there is comparatively little of any value to the student; what there is is overloaded with detail, and is buried in masses of figured statement and comment which could only be of use once, as a check in the account department.
6. On page 129 he states that
The Rajas, the Independent Chiefs of India know that the British rescued them long ago from the most cruel bondage to Maratha or Moghul Empire, they agreed to pay half their revenues to the British...
7. On page 130, he concludes
To conclude, I see nothing but prosperity before India, the lookout is far better than when I came here in 1862; all will be well if the people will only labor and learn, listening to no false prophets, if also Government continues to introduce reform, steadily progressing towards the satisfaction of just national aspirations.
All of these are non-mainstream views, some of which if true would mean that the Indian Independence Movement was a freak accident and would/should not have happened. Zuggernaut ( talk) 04:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Regards Andrew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.15.71.25 ( talk) 11:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
The article does not appear to mention the famine in Madras in 1952. MilborneOne ( talk) 18:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
It looks like this was a drought, probably not worthy of mention in the article but I am open to mention it in the post-independence section if the majority feel so. Zuggernaut ( talk) 02:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
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