The View from my Window

If we look up the records and consult various history books, we will notice that Lahore has faced a ‘major famine’ after almost every 100 years on the average. The worst one lasted almost six years, and things were so bad that people wanting to get into the city were shut out and starvation reached a level where people had to resort to cannibalism to survive. Such a situation is difficult to imagine today, but this has happened thrice in our history. Every time the famine crossed the four-year mark, reports of cannibalism surfaced. On the one major occasion, during the worst famine to ever hit Lahore, people stopped going out alone lest they were waylaid and “eaten up.”

We must research and record these gruesome events to understand who we are, and what we have been through. In a way it also is the underlying reason of the way we behave even today as a collective lot. Lahore is definitely about magnificent buildings, with a history a few cities on earth can parallel; it is also about gardens, about poets, about universities. But more importantly, Lahore is about people. This city is what it is because of the people who have lived, and continue to live here. That is why what befell them needs to be told so that it never happens again. We have a habit of blotting out the scars in our collective lives, and the scars left by terrible famines need to be seen, to be felt, to be believed today.

These famines have certainly not been fleeting moments in our history, which goes back thousands of years. A lot of our folk songs, our collective behaviour patterns, all flow from such terrible events. The first recorded famine to hit Lahore was in the year 650. Though famine existed throughout the subcontinent in that year, people from far and wide in the Punjab came to Lahore and surrounded it thinking that its granaries had food for them. The Hindu Rajput Raja certainly was well stocked and he helped his subjects considerably. But people were dying on the streets, of sheer hunger. The next major famine to hit Lahore was in the year 879, when the granaries inside the city were attacked, and because of the law and order collapse, the famine spread. In the process the population had to be quelled with force by the Bhat Raja. Once order was restored, food was made available.

But the worst famine to hit Lahore was in 941, and it continued till the year 1022. This hit the entire Punjab as well as the entire subcontinent, and people died by the millions. One estimate is that 35 per cent of the population of the Punjab died in that famine. In Lahore the first reported case of cannibalism was in 947 (another source puts it in 946), and as the famine raged, more and more cases were reported. People began to hide their children. The population fell drastically and every day scores of dead would be found on the streets, dead from sheer hunger and exhaustion. One gruesome account tells of people being found with major portions of their bodies missing. Lahore was at its weakest. To add to our miseries, our Afghan ‘brothers’ launched their first major invasion, ruthlessly killing whoever stood in their way. They removed to Afghanistan a major portion of our scarce wheat and rice, even though our textbooks say they came to spread Islam.

Then there was, finally, relief, and a bumper crop followed after major floods hit the city and its surrounding areas. The land was well fertilized and for many a year bumper crops were reported. The granaries remained full and life returned to normal. In a way these prosperous times led Lahore to becoming a great city. The rise and rise of Lahore owes itself to the prosperity that bumper crops brought. This remains the pattern even today.

But by 1148 another famine hit Lahore, and it continued till 1159. Though it had spread all over India, where its effect was far greater, Lahore suffered as thousands died on its streets. Two good years followed and, before confidence could return, in 1162 another famine hit the city. Foreign invasions and famines seemed to come hand in hand. In 1344-45 the Great famine in India took place, when the Moghal emperor was unable to obtain the necessaries for his own household. The famine continued for years and millions perished.

In 1396 right up to 1407, The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting 12 years, took place. Lahore was devastated. Cannibalism took hold of the people and the habit of carrying an axe to protect oneself was established. One account puts it in perspective: “Today a neighbour’s young son went missing. On search his head was found in the next mohallah. He had been eaten up by the devils that people have become.”

But then super floods followed and life again returned to normal. The granaries of Lahore were known to be the largest in the subcontinent and the Moghals for this reason took a special interest in Lahore. Then came the Great Famine of Bengal from 1769 to 1770, and a third of the population (10,000,000) perished. It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. In this time period Lahore managed well, though in 1798 it had a very dry year. But in 1783 “The Chalisa Famine” took place affecting Lahore and Jammu, where thousands died. Though the city of Lahore managed to ration its wheat and maintain law and order, it was during this famine that the Kashmiri population moved to Lahore. Today we have a major Kashmiri population because of that famine.

In 1790 ‘The Doji Bara’, or skull famine, hit India. It was so called because the people died in such numbers that they could not be buried. According to tradition this was one of the severest famines ever known. This famine lasted four years and in this also cases of cannibalism were reported, but on a much smaller scale. It was during this time period that Lahore’s Mori Gate was built to remove the hundreds of dead for cremation on the River Ravi that flowed outside its walls.

After the ’skull famine’ followed a series of major famines, which research now tell us took place because the British were taking over major stocks of our grains. This aspect of British imperialism has never been discussed. In 1838 an “intense famine hit North-West Provinces (United Provinces) of India in which 800,000 perished.”

In 1861 another major famine hit in Northwest India in which 500,000 died of starvation. In 1866 a major famine hit Bengal and Orissa in which one million perished. In 1869 a major famine affected Rajputana; one million and a half perished. In 1876 a major famine hit central and western India in which 5,000,000 died. Lahore was badly hit and its granaries were almost empty.

In 1897 yet another famine came about, while in 1899 right up to 1901 the last major famine hit Lahore. In this famine over one million people died in the subcontinent. In Lahore the last known case of cannibalism was reported from inside the Walled City.