1. Famine, though no stranger to India, increased in frequency and deadliness with the advent of British colonial rule.
2. Between 1800 and 1825, there were only four famines. But in the last quarter of the century there were 22 famines. It is estimated that over five million died. By 1901, Romesh Chunder Dutt, a former ICS officer and a staunch nationalist, enumerated 10 mass famines since the 1860s, putting the total death toll at 15, million.
3. The laissez faire (non-intervention) principles to which the colonial state was committed since 1833 was applied to famines also. For years, western educated Indians had argued that British rule was grossly impoverishing India
4. The Orissa famine, in which one third of the population died of starvation and disease, served as a patent proof of this thesis. It prompted nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji, to begin his lifelong investigations into Indian poverty.
5. Madras Famine of 1876-78: The failure of two successive monsoons caused a severe famine in the Madras Presidency during 1876-78.
6. The viceroy Lytton adopted an hands-off approach similar to that followed in Orissa. 3.5 million people died in the presidency.
7. The introduction of plantation crops and slope cultivation in Ceylon, Mauritius, Fiji, Malaya, the Caribbean islands, Natal and South Africa required enormous labour. Initially slave labour was used for this purpose. But after the Company government abolished slavery in India (1843), the system of indentured was used.

Naoroji argued that a great deal of wealth was drained to England in the form of Home Charges. The following constituted the Home Charges:
1. Incentive to the shareholders of the Company
2. Savings and the salaries of European officials, European traders and Planters remitted to England.
3. Pensions to those who retired from civil and military services.
4. The salaries of the staff and the Secretary to Home Government, India Office at London
5. Expenses on wars fought in India and interests for the loans obtained from the banks for the conduct of wars and for the building of railroads.

1. In 1815, the Governor of Madras received a communication from the Governor of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) asking for coolies to work on the coffee plantations.
2. The Madras Governor forwarded this letter to the collector of Thanjavur, who after enquiry reported back saying that the people were very much attached to the soil and hence unless some incentive was provided it was not easy to make them move out of their native soil.
3. But the outbreak of two famines (1833 and 1843) forced the people, without any prompting from the government, to leave for Ceylon to work as coolies in coffee and tea plantations under indentured labour system.
4. During 1843-1868, nearly 1.5 million people (1,444,407) had gone from Madras to Ceylon as indentured labourers.

1. The administrative head of East India Company was Governor (of Fort William or of Fort St. George) until 1772
2. Warren Hastings who was Governor of Fort William was made Governor-General of Bengal according to the Regulating Act of 1773.
3. The Charter Act 1833 designated this post as Governor-General of India and William Bentinck was appointed the first Governor-General of united British India
4. The Governor-General was selected by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to whom he was responsible.
5. After the great rebellion of 1857, when the government of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown, the title "Viceroy and Governor- General" was first used in the queen's proclamation of 1858.
6. Canning was the first Viceroy and Governor-General of India accountable to the British Parliament.

The provisions of the Subsidiary Treaty are:
1. All Indian ruler entering into Subsidiary Alliance with the British had to dissolve his own armed forces and accept British forces and a British Resident in his territory.
2. He had to pay for the British army's maintenance. If he failed, a portion of his territory would be taken away and ceded to the British.
3. The protected prince was to sever all connections with European powers other than the British, especially the French.
4. No European should be employed without the permission of the British.
5. No negotiation with any Indian power should be held without the Company's permission and
6. No other Indian power to interfere in its internal affairs.
7. Thus the states brought under the system became dependent on the Company in political and military matters, sacrificing their own sovereignty and status.