Taste of Life: Khandesh-Poonah road helped grain access to all
Major–General John Briggs told the East India Company that good roads, like Khandesh to Poonah, to transport grain will considerably reduce its sale price
Pune: A road is more than just a way for getting from one place to another. For many communities, it is a lifeline to markets, food, and basic services. The availability, access, better utilisation, and stability of food are dependent on modes of transport. Better roads are important to curb hunger. They help food from the farmers reach markets.
In 1838, a greater portion of southern India was visited with distress from the failure of the monsoon. Streams and tanks were for the most part dried up, and crops were destroyed. In Poona, a mob went on a rampage and plundered grains sold by merchants at a much higher price. The rioters were arrested and jailed.
The price of grain had risen rapidly for some days. Complaints had been referred to the magistrate. But his reply was – “What can we do? Every man has a right to sell his property as he pleases!”
“The Bombay Gazette” joined in a tirade against the magistrate as well as the “wicked merchants”. It demanded that the rioters be released from jail immediately, and grains be provided at a subsidised rate. It also called for establishing granaries in every village near Poona.
However, a couple of letters appeared in the “Calcutta Quarterly Review” which blamed the people and the farmers for the looting. The letters did not carry the name of the writers who thought that the merchants had every right to decide their selling price. They felt that it was a “vulgar” error to suppose that the shopkeeper was interested in high prices; so far from it, that the higher the price to which grain rose, the more confined were usually his sales and the smaller consequently his profits. It was of the scarcity that the farmer very naturally took advantage, they felt, and it was he who raised the price on the merchant, and thus reimbursed himself for the loss of one portion of his crops, by the enhanced profit on the remainder.
In the debate surrounding the riots for food, the lack of good roads for the transport of grain was never mentioned. The discourse solely centred on the right of the merchant to gain profit.
A large population of India then depended on subsistence farming – only growing crops and raising livestock to meet their needs – for their survival. The lack of better roads made progressing beyond subsistence difficult since for much of the year, farmers were not able to access markets or move far outside their villages.
A few years later, in 1846, The East India Company constituted a committee to look into the growth of cotton in India. It examined several men who had a keen interest in agriculture in India. While the committee asked the respondents about various aspects of the cultivation of cotton, it also deliberated upon the “evil consequences” which had resulted from good roads not being made between certain portions of the country.
One remarkable instance, that came up during the examination of Major–General John Briggs, showed the effects of a need for a road during the monsoon, between Candeish (Khandesh) and Poonah.
Briggs was a British officer in the army of the East India Company. He took part in the Maharatta wars, serving in the final campaign as a political officer under Sir John Malcolm. He was one of Mountstuart Elphintone’s assistants in the Deccan, and subsequently served in Khandesh, and succeeded Captain Grant Duff as a resident at Satara. He was also the chief commissioner of Mysore and served in the residency of Nagpur for a while before leaving India forever.
The commission examined Briggs in London. According to him, in 1823, the grain in Khandesh, which is to the south of the Taptee River, about 300 miles from Poona, had fallen from 6s to 8s a quarter; at Aurangabad, it was 34s a quarter, and at Poona, as high as from 64s to 70s a quarter. But due to the early onset of monsoon, and there being no roads, the grain from Khandesh did not reach Poona.
Bad roads had always been a problem for the British in India. In 1817, a regiment of cavalry was kept in one spot for more than fifteen days in Khandesh, and the horses could not move due to the deep cotton ground, which was up to the horse’s knees, and they were almost afraid that they would not be able to take them down to the water.
There was a superabundance of grain in Khandesh, where grain was ruinously low, and great remissions were obliged to be made in consequence; while at Poona, where there had been a bad season, the grain was very dear.
Food prices are seen as indicative of food access. High food prices in general negatively impact food access for consumers. The high food prices decrease the demand for food and therefore availability of food per capita. The price of 64s, which was the cost of grain in Poona, was considered “high” in India.
According to Briggs, the probable cost of conveying the grain exported from Khandesh to Poona, if there had been a road on which wheel carriages could have travelled, would have been about 4d per tonne a mile; the grain might have been sold in Poona, and could very easily have been sold for about 12s a quarter.
Briggs wondered why the Company was not following the examples of native rulers. The government of Mysore had started building roads for the transport of grains in the early 1800s. The government of Satara had laid out a great deal of money on roads. Colonel Lawrence had induced the Lahore government to spend a large sum of money annually to construct roads from Lahore to cities in Sindh.
Even though The East India Company was aware of the very good roads, with rows of trees on each side for many miles, throughout the greater part of India, made in the times of the Mughal emperors, several British officers believed that the whole of these sums set aside by the different governments with a desire to make roads had been entirely from the recommendations of European residents; the natives themselves did not usually make roads in their own country.
Also, the revenues of India had seldom been equal to the expenditure. The East India Company, whenever they were required to go to war, opened loans, and they had incurred a debt of several million to make war; but had similar loans to a comparatively small amount been raised for the construction of roads, the revenue would have increased very greatly in consequence, some officers believed.
Briggs assured the commission that the natives of India would have no objection to paying an equitable toll for a good road and that they would think it only a continuation of the old toll system implemented by the earlier native governments.
He persuaded the Company to begin the construction of a road between Khandesh and Poona.
Food stability requires adequate access to food periodically. Adverse weather conditions, political instability, and other economic factors, like rising food prices, might impact the stability and thereby the food security status of people. Briggs’ testimony helped some British officers understand this.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com
