Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎533v] (191/238)

404 -An Impending Famine in India—a Forecast.
is fast becoming a vast, arid waste—so far, at least, as these provinces are
concerned.
One thing leads to another, and the result of this excessive baking and
drying of soil for some six months before the advent of the S.W. mon
soon will be that the whole volume of atmosphere over the Indian
peninsula from north to south, and from east to west, will be abnormally
heated up and deficient in humidity, which is a necessary factor in the
production of rain-bearing clouds, and this defective production of rain
bearing clouds must, in its turn, lead to the general failure of the S.W.
monsoon for 1902.
It is this abnormal local condition of an enormous volume of dry and
heated atmosphere all over India, antecedent to the advent of the S.W.
monsoon, which, I think, largely determined the total quantity of rain
which that monsoon would give. Why is it that Siam, Burma, Assam,
Manipur, Chin-Lushai, and Bengal proper seldom or never suffer from a
total failure of rains ? It is because these countries are well wooded and
their climate more or less moist all the year round. The Meteorological
Department in India, and the Indian public generally, ignore, I think, the
local condition above described, and believe that the causes of a good
or bad monsoon are entirely outside India, in the Indian Ocean and the
countries to the S.W. of that ocean. This, I think, is a mistake. It
is reasonable to suppose that the total production of rain-bearing clouds
in the Indian Ocean, and the strength of the S.W. wind that brings
these clouds from the ocean to India, are important factors in the quality
of the monsoon; but what I believe is that, no matter how favourable to a
good monsoon these factors may be, their favourable influence is rendered
negative by an unfavourable “ local condition ” obtaining in India prior to
the advent of the monsoon. If it takes two to make a quarrel, it also takes
two to produce a good monsoon in India. Both external and internal
causes must be taken into consideration. This year the heat promises to
be phenomenal and the humidity very small, so, if my theory be correct,
the S.W. monsoon will be poor and a famine may safely be predicted,
while the fact that the spring crops in the Panjab dependent upon winter
rains have almost entirely failed already will not tend to improve the
situation.
Unfortunately, this “ local condition ” of excessive heat and dryness of
atmosphere threatens to recur every year and thus become permanent, as
India is now greatly denuded of trees and the absence of protection of
shade in controlling excessive heat and dryness has likewise become per
manent. One might be led to think from this that the gradual reafforesta
tion of India (how nice it sounds !) is the one thing needful for India; in
fact, this suggestion has been publicly made, and it is to show that it is
economically unsound that I refer to it here. However fascinating the
idea may be to convert India into a primeval forest once again, a little
consideration will show that it will not be expedient to carry out the idea.
India is essentially an agricultural country—it never will be anything more
in spite of all fine talk about high education and technical industry—and
for agriculture you want open fields and not forests. It is certain that you