Earthquakes in Colonial Bengal. Environmental, Social and Political Dimensions: Bengal and Assam Region, Later Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century

This article presents a study of the environmental, social and political consequences of the devastating earthquakes that rattled the British Indian province of Bengal between 1869 and 1934. Based on four major seismic events the Cachar earthquake of 1869, the Bengal earthquake of 1885, the Great Indian Earthquake of 1897 and the Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934 – it examines how these natural disasters intersected with colonial rule, the production of scientific knowledge, social hierarchies and emergent nationalist politics. Based on archival sources, contemporary accounts and scientific reports, the article shows that earthquakes were moments of critical exposure of the fragility of colonial infrastructure, a stimulus to scientific investigation, a magnifier of social inequalities and a generator of spaces for colonial imposition as well as indigenous action. The findings illustrate the nature of the relationship between natural hazards and human systems under the tide of British imperialism in South Asia. This article was published open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .