Timeline of major famines in India during British rule Timeline of major famines in India during British rule This is a timeline of major famines on the Indian subcontinent during British rule from 1765 to 1947. The famines included here occurred both in the princely states (regions administered by Indian rulers), British India (regions administered either by the British East India Company from 1765 to 1857; or by the British Crown, in the British Raj, from 1858 to 1947) and Indian territories independent of British rule such as the Maratha Empire. Despite the droughts and famines, the Indian population increased drastically throughout the British period, from 249 million in
Political warfare in British colonial India required replacing of pre-existing political institutions and replacing them with centralised, territory-wide, and bureaucratic legal-administrative institutions that were controlled by colonial officials. Indirect rule was a form of colonial domination via collaboration with indigenous intermediaries who controlled regional political institutions. Colonial India was a mix of the two types of rule. While the Civil Service ran a large portion of the country, "in peripheral regions, chiefs, princes, sultans, and other indigenous leaders controlled "customary" legal-administrative institutions that were organised along patrimonial lines." Leading colonial officials believed indirect rule was more adaptive and culturally sensitive, far superior to direct rule, in