ABSTRACT
It has been asserted that the remittance of railway capital to India in this period did not take the form of consumer goods. Export calculus spiralled by almost 500 per cent between 1880 and the First World War in 1914. The first exception was the Great Famines of 1896-1900 and the second the Bengal famine of 1943. In particular, the famines of 1896-1900 demonstrate the folly of dogmatic refusal on the part of government to intervene in the grain market. The export of the food grains depleted the stock rapidly. Peasants were already in debt and they were unable to store grains in the case of famines because they had to turn over the entire stock to the money lenders. In both series there is a fall in prices after the First World War to a plateau level above the pre-war experience and then, subsequently, a sharp fall in prices between 1929 and 1931.
