| Description | The story of Chhiattor-er Monnontor is based on academic sources and research which were discussed with the artists before they began composing the narrative poem and pattern for the scroll. On that basis, Dukhushyam Chitrakar first composed a poem and set it to music. This poem narrates the historical details of the famine, with an emphasis on the vivid descriptions of William Hunter and contemporary poetry - particularly, a Bengali song popular at the time, and the eyewitness account in John Shore's moving poem about the famine. Dukhushyam incorporated these different voices into his own poem.
The Bengal famine of 1770 is popularly known as “Chhiattor-er Monnontor”, or “Famine of ’76”, since 1769-70 is the year 1176 in the Bengali calendar. The failure of the rice crop in 1768, the lack of rainfall in following years, peasant migration, and the small pox epidemic led to one of the most notorious famines in Indian history, when 10 million people are said to have died. This estimated figure is more than thrice the number of estimated deaths for both the 1630 Gujarat famine, which forms the setting for Peter Mundy’s tale, and the rather more recent, and better known, Bengal famine of 1943. For each of these famines, deaths were estimated at 3 million. The famine of 1770 has remained alive in the cultural memory of Bengal for centuries. Behind the immediate context of the famine itself, there were crucial political and environmental transformations. In 1765, the East India Company acquired authority over the Mughal provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, which would, by the 1820s, become the eastern part of Britain’s new empire in India. Throughout the eighteenth century, rural communities in Bengal saw the decline of traditional subsistence means and their ecological basis, expedited by processes of colonisation. From the perspectives of our artists, these wider transformations are brought into sharper view by the famine and its outcomes. Due to some of the infamous brutalities of the 1770 famine - such as the 10 percent rise in land tax which meant more revenue was collected in the famine year of 1770-71 than in the dearth year of 1769-70 - this story is challenging to tell and to hear. The artists, however, looked beyond sensational facts and figures, and their perspectives highlight, for example, the ecology of the predominantly rice-growing Bengal lowlands, with its specific harvest sensitivities - dependence on rainfall and lack of alternative crops - or the particular vulnerabilities of the large artisanal and merchant classes, who depended on the agricultural economy and its networks of markets and waterways. The Naya scroll painters are, in many ways, modern representatives of a vulnerable creative economy, and their paintings unflinchingly portray the devastating effects of the famine on eighteenth-century rural society and environment. Dukhushyam’s narrative poem incorporates some of the eighteenth-century poetic renderings of the famine.
The conversations about the famine took place over several days at Naya and Jadavpur University. In this conversation, the timeline of the Bengal famine was discussed first, followed by the climate and soil conditions of Bengal. By 1770 the administration of the Bengal province, comprising Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, had come under the East India company. Bengal’s agriculture and produce were largely dependent on rainfall and floods, both of which were absent during the famine years. At this time, instead of decreasing taxation, the East India Company levied a ten percent increase on land tax. Approximately, 10 million people died from the Bengal famine. The conversation with Dukhushyam Chitrakar focused on the literary outputs, the historical records, and the government’s exploitative policies during the famine, including those documented by William Hunter. Among other things, the records enumerated the ways in which starving farmers from Bengal struggled to stay alive during this time, including selling their children for profit, and at the very end, eating the flesh of the dead. Dukhushyam Chitrakar reflected on famines of varying magnitudes which have occurred throughout history. A translated summary of the research notes was given to him, based on this he wrote the first draft of the poem. Further discussions followed to improve upon the poem’s rhyme scheme and musical variations. Once the final version of the poem had been set to song, he gave an impromptu performance alongside the completed scroll painting.
[This information was taken from the project website at https://faminetales.exeter.ac.uk in 2024] |