write about the famine of bengal 1770-1772A.D
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The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 (Bengali: ৭৬-এর মন্বন্তর, Chhiattōrer monnōntór; lit The Famine of '76) was a famine between 1769 and 1773 (1176 to 1180 in the Bengali calendar) that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India from Bihar to the Bengal region. The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of up to 10 million people.[2] Warren Hastings's 1772 report estimated that a third of the population in the affected region starved to death.[3]
The famine is one of the many famines and famine-triggered epidemics that devastated the Indian subcontinent during the 18th and 19th century.[4][5][6] It is usually attributed to a combination of reasons and the policies of the British East India Company. In The Medieval History Journal Vinita Damodaran cites Mike Davies who argues that colonized territories, such as India and Ireland, were used as experiments to understand the impacts of free market economics (there was nothing free market about the high taxes and regulations imposed upon Bengal - nor were the "roads to nowhere" and other relief projects in Ireland a free market policy). The results were famine and devastation for the people.[7] The start of the famine has been attributed to a failed monsoon in 1769 that caused widespread drought and two consecutive failed rice crops.[3] The poor infrastructure investments in pre-British period, devastation from war, and exploitative tax revenue maximization policies of the British East India Company after 1765 crippled the economic resources of the rural population.[3][8] Nobel prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sen describes it as a man-made famine, noting that no previous famine had occurred in Bengal that century.[9]
The Bengali name "Chhiattōrer monnōntór" is derived from Bengali calendar year 1176 and the word for famine ("Chhiattōr"- "76"; "monnōntór"- "famine" in Bengali).[10]