Researcher showcases ‘Great Famine’ through photos

Bhubaneswar: ‘Na’Anka Durbhikshya’ or the Odisha Famine of 1866 killed over a million people in eastern India. However, not much is known about this famine and it also finds no mention in even the densest tomes on Indian history. To provide an insight into the condition and the suffering of the people, an exhibition of photographs, sketches and newspaper reports was inaugurated at the state archives here in Odisha capital on Monday.

On display are newspaper reports published in the overseas media between 1866-1868 along with sketches, cartoons, drawings and photographs, sourced from British archives. The exhibition organised by INTACH, was inaugurated by state culture minister Ashok Chandra Panda. Mr Panda said that ‘Na’Anka Durbhikshya’ was a dark forgotten chapter of Odisha’s history. “Even though the events that happened have been pushed to one corner of history, it has been a part of Odia consciousness and subconscious ever since,” he added.

Anil Dhir, the curator of the exhibition, said that a suitable memorial of the Great Famine should be set up. “The famine was not an accident of nature. It was not providence; rather it was a series of mistakes. For many decades after the Great Famine, it was simply a dark and even humiliating experience which the survivors, and the survivors of the survivors, had little wish to recall, the anguish of a past in which men and women barely survived,” he said.

Mr Dhir said that we owe the dead as much respect and honour as we give to any brave action or any other defining moment of our history. “The Great Famine was a cataclysm on a scale never witnessed in this nation before. And yet people endured, survived, emigrated and above all remembered,” he said.

The Na’Anka should have been a wakeup call; several lessons should have been learnt. Every regime of Odisha has been discussing the eradication of poverty and backwardness since 1866. We are still one of the most poverty-ridden states, with our marginalised farmers bearing the brunt of misery. Crop failures still result in suicides, and there is rampant malnutrition and at times starvation deaths too, he added. The exhibition will remain open from 10 am to 5 pm till April 6.