Subsistence Crises in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Bihar

Subsistence crises in the late eighteenth-century agrarian economy of eastern India have commonly been interpreted in terms of a breakdown of the traditional system of subsistence security. The argument put forward by Paul Greenough, for example, regards famine as a shock to the traditional system of subsistence security. The traditional society of rural Bengal, he has argued, developed a system of subsistence security in which the king/ zamindar or the patron played the role of annadata. The cultural expectation was that it was the king’s duty to provide food to all subjects, particularly during a period of shortage, and this expectation was generally fulfilled by the king/zamindar as otherwise they were likely to find their tenants fleeing from the land.