A famine and the cholera epidemic....1943
Everybody talked about the Great War as the summer months of 1942 scorched the southern regions of India. The eastern allied bastions fell one after
another, by February 42 Singapore had capitulated and in March 1942, Rangoon
had fallen and Port Blair in the Andamans had been taken. The overjoyed INA
factions in Malaya and Burma were waiting for directions from their new leader
Subhas Chandra Bose ensconced in Rangoon, while at the same time, hundreds of thousands of panic
stricken Indian refugees (Burmese workers) were in full flight across the seas and borders
into India, their ancestral home. Their belief was total that the British Raj
would do nothing to help them, for their brethren had not received any great support
either at Malaya or Singapore. One could hear the refrain – that
invasion was imminent, the Japanese were coming, and that the British are set
to flee India. With censor controlled war news channels focused on the action
in Europe, rumor machines in India took over and wild tales were told and retold.
The Japanese soldier, though smaller than a Burmese elephant, evoked a bigger
fear, rivaling a dragon.
Calicut should have been insulated from all this, but it was
not. Many of the youngsters from affluent families were employed in Madras and
they reported frantically that the situation there was no good either. In April a small incident involving
some air strafing at Kakinada and Vizag set off bigger alarms in Madras. There were
rumors that Jap ships had been sighted a few miles off the Machilipatnam coast.
Madras trembled and the people fled from the city in trains and every other
means of transport, inwards to villages and their ancestral homes. The Governor
left for Vellore and the Secretariat machinery left by the Blue Mountain
Express for the Nilgiris. And as Pulla Reddi mentioned ‘the Police
Commissioner, insisting that the animals might break loose if Japanese bombs
fell, refused to wait and sent a platoon of the Malabar Special Police to the Madras
zoo ’who to his great horror ruthlessly did their job in a few minutes’
Such events should and did have repercussions in our home
in Chalappuram as well (My aunt breathlessly explained how events transpired,
last week). Everything of value at Ambalakkat was locked up and boarded, dark
cloth was put over windows and the whole family left for Manjapra in Palghat,
my dad’s maternal home near Vadakkancheri. My bachelor uncle Balamama remained behind to
keep watch over the house. But it was a false alarm, nothing happened either in Madras
or Calicut. All that happened over the months which followed was the southerly trek of a forlorn stream of refugees from Burma, into Madras.
The monsoon which hit Calicut (I can’t be sure if
it was 41, 42 or 43, my aunt explains that her memory is a bit foggy these days) was particularly ferocious. She tells me that the flood waters
came right behind our house in Chalappuram and boats plied the waters to take
people and goods back and forth. As panic ensued, some burly Khalasi Mappilas
were deployed to cut the (azhimurikkal) sand banks on the mouth of the Kallayi
River and let the flood waters recede. They struggled initially, witnessed by a great mass of people on the shore, some khalasis were swept away into the raging sea, never to return again, but the others succeeded eventually and the waters ashore receded.
The war panic in Malabar too receded as the British pulled up their socks and geared up in the North East to fight the Japanese at Imphal
and Kohima. The role of the Malayali in this war is unknown to many. Strange
is the fact that the first IIL/INA subversions from Singapore to challenge the
British in India, were launched by a Malayali from Calicut (See my article on TP Kumaran Nair), and even stranger is the fact that the first roads laid in the
inhospitable mountain jungles at the far outreaches of Assam were the efforts of
a couple of Malayali platoons (together with a Tamil and a Telugu platoon). It
was this road that provided a means for the British and allied forces to launch
a counter attack on the Japanese and the INA! It is a fascinating story which I
will soon present. But for now let us get back to Malabar, briefly forgotten by
the British in the chaos of war, where the situation was becoming dire, for
other reasons.
The year 1943 is best remembered as the middle year of the
Second World War, a period when the fortunes of the Allies changed for the
better. The Axis powers were slowly driven back, from the various fronts where
they had gotten stalled. The military generals and politicians had until then focused on their
own existence and their mother countries, were more worried about events and
strategies of the war, preparing on a daily basis to save themselves from
annihilation. People ended up showing not only their best, but also their worst
behavior, in this eagerness to save themselves.
Subash Chandra Bose and his INA were sequestered in Rangoon,
trying to find common ground with the Japs. The Congress Party's Working
Committee were all under arrest, all major leaders of the INC had been arrested
and detained. The confused masses were leaderless and protests started to take a
violent turn. In large parts of the country, local underground organizations
took over. The political deadlock in the country continued throughout 1943. The
detained Congress leaders continued in jail with the exception of Mahatma
Gandhi, who was eventually released on medical grounds in May 1944. The quit India movement which had been launched, was petering out. Meanwhile
famines hit many regions in British India, Malabar, Travancore and Cochin
included.
Not many bothered about the South, especially Malabar,
Cochin and Travancore. These were usually
considered as areas typically blessed with good monsoons and had in the past managed
splendidly according to the many English administrators who passed through,
such as Innes, Evans and Logan. And so, Malabar was never seriously considered
when the famine act was prepared in the previous century. The first major
allocation of funds to Malabar was also connected with the famine act. The
money thus obtained by declaring Malabar famine prone was later diverted from
the famine insurance fund towards railway construction. In 1881, the Tirur -
Beypore rail link was laid and by 1888, Calicut and Palghat were connected.
Beypore was soon relinquished and six more lines were laid. The argument was
that with the railway, equitable distribution of supplies would keep any future
famine at bay.
During the wars, the British in general did not believe in
alleviating any Indian situation of distress and concentrated on shipping food
to war-torn Britain, sometimes even trans-shipping them out of India in full
view of starving masses. Some British leaders even mentioned, that for a future
balanced population in India, which was full of teeming breeders, some had to
die, following on Churchill’s words that India was a country with beastly
people and a beastly religion, who bred like rabbits. When told about the
famines in India, he shot back ‘if so many were dying from lack of food, why is
Gandhiji not already dead?’ Pundits
explained that a potential reason for his apathy at the growing tragedy in
India was due to his anger at Gandhiji’s efforts in taking away the jewel called
India from the British crown, which he perceived, was his duty to defend. The
lack of response in his dealings with the spreading famine was perhaps his way
of getting back at Gandhi.
But how did Malabar end up with a deficit in food? Unlike
many other places, Malabar indeed cultivated a lot of money crops those days,
but they were commercial crops such as spices, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugarcane,
castor to name a few. Of course there were coconuts, areca-nuts, jackfruits,
cashew, mango and so on, and some amount of rice (food crops) was cultivated in
Eranad and Valluvanad. With the outbreak of WWII, food prices spiraled upward
and taxation rose. Though the British failed to act in the 1941-42 years, the
situation was largely nascent because Burma, the rice bowl of undivided India
was producing the required amounts of rice and they were being shipped to
various ports in India, including Malabar, Cochin and Travancore. The Chettiars
were still in control in Burma and rice of dubious quality continued to arrive
in Malabar and Cochin ports. Problems started when the Japanese raided Burma.
The Southeast Asian campaign of WWII started when the
Japanese bombed Victoria Point during Dec 1941, cordoned off Burma and followed
up with the capture of Singapore, Malaysia and launched a land attack on Burmese
targets. The Japanese intent was to get to the oilfields in Burma, a strategic
conquest to ensure they had resources for the grand entry westwards across
India. Within a span of three months, the British in Burma were in a hasty
retreat, and Burma was in Japanese hands. The British, the Chettiar landowners
and bankers as well as many hundreds of thousands of Indian laborers fled
across the borders to mainland India. Paddy cultivation and its harvest was
forgotten and the rice fields and mills in Burma, were at the mercy of the native
Burmese and the Japanese conquerors.
With the evacuation of Rangoon in March 1942, there was now
practically no hope of some 1.5 million tons of rice imports into Malabar,
Travancore or Cochin and the industrial populations of Madras and Bengal. You
can now imagine how matters spiraled downwards in rapid fashion. The deficit was
not only in the South but in the whole of India.The wholesale price index of
rice more than doubled in India and deficit financing surged from Rs 4 crores
to Rs 438 crores in 1942-43. The Indian army increased in size 10 times to some
3 million solders and they naturally needed a lot of food, which the British
had to provide in required quantities. As rice stocks got depleted, prices
soared and the price ceiling acts did not work. As food intake reduced, malnutrition
was rampant and the region of Malabar was now facing what usually follows,
disease.
Adding to the misery was an uneven monsoon (too little and
too much and at wrong times) the previous two years, and domestic production
was some 40% lower. As imports from Burma stopped entirely and procurement from
Mysore could not take place due to wartime disruptions, speculation and
hoarding exacerbated the situation. The Gujarati and Mappila rice traders of
Calicut were also to blame for the difficult times, for many were recorded as
hoarding stocks. There were many other
reasons too, and one you may find hard to believe was that rice was diverted to
feed many European prisoners interned in India (Satara, Bangalore, the Nilgiri
hill stations etc)! It was also noted by researchers that during the war years,
workers used to work from 7 am to 5.30 pm; while post War, physical weakening
due to malnutrition had reduced it to 8 am to 12.30 pm, showing the effects of
the famine.
Interestingly the situation was brought up in the House of Lords
– Huntingdon stated in Oct 1943 - I have
no wish to give more of these harrowing figures. Those I have given are enough,
I think, to confirm the dreadful stories of starvation and misery which are
coming from India today, especially in the Deccan, and the States of Cochin and
Travancore, and even more so in Bengal. Rice has risen over 950 per cent above
pre-war prices and in some places even more. Not only is there a shortage of
grain and rice, but there is also a great shortage of milk and milk products,
and in fact foodstuffs of all kinds seem to be in great scarcity and at
exorbitant prices. And whenever food is short cholera makes its appearance. In
the Malabar districts 3,000 cases have been reported. Grim stories have come of
patients not wishing to be cured of cholera, as the only alternative would be a
slower death from starvation. There are also worse stories of parents deserting
dying children, and children deserting parents, and even of children being sold
for the price of food. But we do not need to stress these stories; I think the
figures are enough to stir our imagination and to show how appalling the
conditions in India must be.
Many others agreed, but as it appears, nothing came out of
those pithy debates!
The administration turned a blind eye and to make the
situation even worse, with agricultural work dwindling, many from the lowest
classes became destitute. The cost of living index in Calicut, doubled. Rice
cultivation in Malabar actually stabilized later in 1943, but all the produce
was shipped to Assam for the military folks amassed to fight the Japs at the
border. Meanwhile Bengal was also facing an acute famine, which got some amount
of press and attention, but hardly any support. Millions died. Bose and the INA
offered to ship rice from Burma for Bengal, but Churchill shot back that if he
saw a single merchant ship in the Indian Ocean, it would be diverted to the
Atlantic for needy Englishmen. To allies who were offering help to India, he
stated that he could neither offer ships nor escort. And he informed them,
crossly, that Indians, especially Bengalis, do not eat wheat.
In the twentieth century the import trade in rice was
dominated by the Cutchi Memons, Gujaratis and Mappila merchants, at Calicut. They preferred
Burmese rice because it was cheaper to ship them to Malabar rather than obtain
rice from other northern centers. Interestingly, superior rice grown in Malabar
was exported to other areas and the people of Malabar purchased cheaper rice
imported from Burma. Cochin imported its rice/paddy requirements from Burma,
Siam, and Indo- China. In Trichur a portion of the imported paddy was milled
and re-exported to adjoining areas in pre-war times. The superior varieties
grown in Chittur taluk were exported to Pollachi and Coimbatore markets. Cochin
also received imported paddy and rice from Burma for re-distribution to
Malabar.
Academically the situation in Malabar was starkly simple -
Owing to the stoppage of imports amounting to about 300,000 tons of rice from
Burma, the district of Malabar suffered very badly from shortage of food. The
supplies obtained by Government to replace the imported rice came to 15,000
tons a month, which was reduced in 1942 December to 10,000 tons. In reality
more than half of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore’s needs were being met by
Burmese rice imports, and a loss of this as you can very well imagine, was not
possible to counter. The results were malnutrition and disease.
Nobody was really bothered about the situation in Malabar,
which by the way was simply dire. Malabar already in the throes of acute
famine, was hit by a double whammy as resistance and disease immunity levels
dropped. Disease stuck in waves as Malaria, Cholera and plague arrived. By February
43, Cholera had become an epidemic in Calicut. By June, July and August 1943,
this virulent cholera strain dropped multitudes like flies in the heat. Initially,
Cholera appeared in early June among the street beggars of Calicut. To prevent
spreading of the epidemic in the city, these beggars were moved out to southern
camps beyond the municipal limits of Calicut. This resulted in the infection
spreading to the country villages.
 |
| Shankar - Cartoon depicting the Travancore situation |
The inoculation drive was another problem. The ill trained
vaccinators were not trained, they made the process extremely painful and used
no disinfectants, scaring people even more. Tanur was hit as Calicut residents
boarded the trains and got off there. Village officials refused to venture into
any house where an affected person lived. Collector Mc Ewan and KV
Suryanarayana Iyer the Municipal councilor tried hard in getting additional
supplies, but getting any bureaucratic machinery to work during these panic
stricken situations was perhaps impossible. The Malabar food committee had the
Nilambur raja as chairman, and political parties as we saw formed their own
helping committees. The taluks of Eranad, Ponnani and Calicut were most
affected with a daily death toll of over 50. In Calicut, VR Nayanar’s Servants
of India society, the Ramakrishna Mission, the Communist Party and the Malabar
relief committee rose up to help. The congress led Cholera relief committee set
up over 118 relief centers. Many orphanages sprung up. But one big issue in
those days was the non-adaptability of Malabar food habits. Neither would they
eat North Indian crops like Bajra, millet or wheat nor would they consume
Travancorean Tapioca. As the situation became desperate the poorest of the poor
subsisted on green leaves and grass on certain days, according to official
records. Eventually, it just became a record of sorts, and it is simply
mentioned that in 1943, in the midst of this epidemic, nearly 40,000 people
died of cholera, dysentery and diarrhea.
Why Malabar got hit with this kind of a Cholera epidemic was
an issue very much discussed in those days. While some administrators blamed
unhygienic living, improper disposal of night soil in Calicut and so on,
another story doing its rounds was that one last consignment of old Burmese
rice sent from Madras to tide over the famine, early in 1943 was unhygienic.
Some opined that the symptoms were not typical of Cholera but acute diarrhea.
Statutory rationing was started 1944 and a one pound rice
limit was fixed for ration holders in Calicut. But this was conditional on them
buying a certain amount of wheat and Ragi. Cochin interestingly led the efforts
of weaning away its hungry poor from rice by starting Cochin restaurants making
new wheat and millet dishes. Slowly the difficulties abated and matters
stabilized in Malabar.
In neighboring Travancore, similar issues cropped up, as
they were also affected by the rice export stoppage from Burma. They had an
even harsher predicament for a short while as the Madras presidency refused to
provide any rice to the kingdom of Travancore due to shortages in the Madras
State.
Interestingly landowners prospered to a certain extent, while
the Japanese attacks decimated the large food growing areas in SE Asia. South
India was the only undisturbed place and despite the 43 famine, they prospered
due to higher prices and guaranteed purchases by the government. For example
coconut prices rose three fold, rice by 450% and rubber by 750 times. So you
can imagine how these landowners fared and why that resulted in the creation of
so many small private banks in the state. And this possibility of becoming a
landowner and obtaining regular work, coupled with a linient Malabar tenancy
act made a number of Travancoreans move and resettle in Malabar’s hilly traits.
But one should also observe how different people gained or
lost from the Great War. Nelliyampathy in
Palghat is a prime example. In 1943, the State of Cochin started a farm in Nelliyampathy
to feed the British troops. Many private
entrepreneurs, inspired by the market for oranges, converted abandoned coffee
plantations to orange plantations. Though there has been a noticeable decline
in the area under orange plantations, Nelliyampathy still has orange trees
growing in about 240 acres of land.
Another classic is the story ‘Maram’ penned by NP Muhammad,
of a saw mill worker in Kallayi who quietly stole driftwood owned by others and
became a rich man, a ‘moilali’. A period short story with a love triangle, it
details the 1940’s Calicut, mentioning among other matters, itinerant Moplah
workers, demonstrating how fortunes can change a man and so on, ending with a
gentle twist. Those interested can see the movie online if you google it and
see the visuals from the old Kallayi.
All in all, it was a harrowing time. Large percentages of
population were decimated, but perhaps some good came out of it after all. Food
distribution took effect, rationing and food control came about, there was a
realization that rice was not the only form of food and many people found some
sense in education, immunizations, hygiene and being responsible for
themselves.
And there was something else, the tremendous awe which the
British were held in, rapidly dissipated. To the people the state, for once,
due to the special circumstances of war, looked brittle and the British no
longer in any semblance of control. Some of their selfish acts were exposed
during this troubled time as their true color surfaced. The government as many
saw, now looked marked for oblivion. Finally, the Indians came out of it with a
reborn vigor and a resolve to drive the colonial powers back to Britain.
Most of all, as Robin Jeffrey observes, the war broke down
many caste values, restrictions on travel, the value of education and a
possibility to work anywhere. It was a direct result of this that the Malayali decided
that he never wanted to be hungry and poor again or beg for food handouts. They
moved and traveled after this, to seek better fortunes. Many enlisted in the
army, and many joined labor battalions to work in Assam and Burma and with it
started a new Kerala economy, that of incoming remittances from these hard
workers, toiling not only in others parts of India but decades later, in
difficult terrains and conditions, abroad.
It has remained so ever since and lo and behold, a few
decades later, the Malayali food symbol morphed into the wheat (maida)
porotta. Wheat based dishes such as the Upma (salt mango tree), Poori, Chappati, and the such entered
mainstream. The traditional meal comprising a humongous heap of Burmese boiled
rice on a plantain leaf with a curry or two, slowly receded to a distant
memory.
References
State failure and human miseries – M Raghavan
Malabar Famine of 1943, a critique of the war situation in
Malabar 1939-1943 - Priya P
Food control and Nutrition surveys Malabar and S Kanara – KG
Sivaswamy and others
The Cry of Distress - K Santhanam
Politics Women & well-being – Robin Jeffrey
Food Crisis in the Malabar District 1945-47 - N Balasubramaniam
Authors Note
Initially I wanted to write a factual article, steeped in
details. As I started to peruse the dense but erudite works of KG Sivaswamy,
Kasturiranga Santhanam and the very detailed analysis of M Raghavan, as well as
some of those terrible pictures of the sufferers, I grew increasingly pensive
and angry. The initial draft had lots of statistics and reasoning which I
assumed would be terribly boring to a young reader who I hope will never see,
hear or experience a famine, ever. Their minds, I thought, steeped in modernity
and some amount of excess would never understand all this, so I dropped the
topic and deleted the old draft. But then again, it did not leave my mind, so
what I rewrote was a milder version, which you see above. I can assure you my
friends, that it was terrible in Calicut in the first three quarters of 1943,
far worse than my pen picture, it was a time when hoarding and theft was
rampant, when friends turned enemies and when hope left the masses of Malabar.
I was surprised to note that famed writers of that era did not record this in their books or stories. Basheer it seems did make some mention, but why did SK Pottekat abstain? Or am I wrong? Reader opinion solicited. Was it fear of censorship?
4 comments:
Once again thanks for this wonderful informative article .
Thanks Soorya Narayan
appreciate it..
Thanks for the well researched article.
Remarkable article. May such travails never visit India
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