Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Timeline of major famines in India during British rule" in English language version.
Despite any whimsy in implementation, the clarity of Gandhi's political vision and the skill with which he carried the reforms in 1920 provided the foundation for what was to follow: twenty-five years of stewardship over the freedom movement. He knew the hazards to be negotiated. The British must be brought to a point where they would abdicate their rule without terrible destruction, thus assuring that freedom was not an empty achievement. To accomplish this he had to devise means of a moral sort, able to inspire the disciplined participation of millions of Indians, and equal to compelling the British to grant freedom, if not willingly, at least with resignation. Gandhi found his means in non-violent satyagraha. He insisted that it was not a cowardly form of resistance; rather, it required the most determined kind of courage.
Independence also came on the heels of a disastrous famine, that killed over one million people in Bengal in 1943. This famine occurred in part because the British authorities failed to implement the provisions of the famine code -- illustrating that the most sophisticated technical system is valueless unless it is used.
The outrage caused by this famine intensified demands for immediate independence after the Second World War, and also ensured that a commitment to famine prevention would be at the top of the new government's political priorities.
India provides the best example of a country that has successfully averted famine since Independence in 1947, despite repeated droughts and enduring chronic poverty. ... Since 1947, the Famine Codes — now renamed Scarcity Manuals — have been continually updated and improved. Their provisions have frequently been implemented -- most notably in 1966, 1973 and 1987. In all cases, they have prevented severe food shortages from degenerating into famine.
All of the three interpretations - geography, manmade-as-political, and manmade-as-cultural - have been prominent in the scholarship and popular history of past Indian famines, especially for the time when detailed records of famines were kept. This starts as recently as the mid-nineteenth century, though the occurrence of famines in India has a much longer history. The years for which some systematic documentation exist were also the years when more than half of India was ruled first by the British East India Company (until 1858), and then the British Crown (1858-1947).
