Abstract
A major earthquake hit Bihar, in the northern parts of India and Nepal , on 15 January 1934. Besides causing major destruction and death , the earthquake triggered scientific discussions and popular interpretations on the causes of earthquakes . By looking at the confluence of interpretations and explanations found in “science” and “pseudo-science” , and those found in astrology and popular interpretations circulated in rumours , this article discusses the role of expert and popular discourses in interpreting a natural disaster .
I come from fields of fractured rock,
From regions of upheaval ,
Where split and fault and seismic shock
Attest a force primeval.
From “The Song of the Seismologist: Manchester Meeting 1911” [C. B. Hammond, “The Song of the Seismologist: Manchester Meeting, 1911,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 2, no. 4 (December 1912): 224–225].
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Notes
- 1.
“The Bihar earthquake of 1934” is also known as “the Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934.” Nepal, and in particular the Kathmandu valley, was severely affected by the earthquake . This article is based on sources relating to the India n part of the earthquake area. John Alexander Dunn , John Bicknell Auden, A. M. N. Ghosh and D. N. Wadia (Officers of the Geological Survey of India (GSI ), “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 73 (Calcutta : Geological Survey of India, 1939), 3.
- 2.
Although the news of the earthquake was received in Calcutta on the same day, the magnitude of the destruction in northern Bihar was not realised until two days later, due to interrupted communication . William Bailie Brett , A Report on the Bihar Earthquake : And on the Measures Taken in Consequence Thereof up to the 31st December 1934 (Bihar and Orissa : Superintendent, Government Printing, 1935), 10–14.
- 3.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 1–2.
- 4.
Lewis Leigh Fermor, “Geological Aspects of the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 11 (May 1934): 442. At that time , L. L. Fermor was the Director of the GSI.
- 5.
John Stewart Wilcock, Bihar and Orissa in 1933–34 (Patna : Superintendent, Government Printing, 1935), 14. Figures for the number of dead range from 7253 to as many as 25,000. The number of deaths according to the Relief Commissioner in the official report was 7253, see Brett , A Report on the Bihar Earthquake , 7. The Bihar Central Relief Committee, the major “unofficial” relief organ, estimated 20,000 dead, see Bihar Central Relief Committee, Devastated Bihar: An Account of Havoc Caused by the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934 and Relief Operation Conducted by the Committee (Patna: Bihar Central Relief Committee, 1934), 2. A later secondary source proposed a rough figure of 25,000 deaths , see Papiya Ghosh, The Civil Disobedience Movement in Bihar, 1930−1934 (New Delhi : Manak Publications, 2008), 245. According to Auden and Ghosh, the “death roll, including Nepal , was over 10,000,” see John Bicknell Auden and A. M. N. Ghosh, “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal,” Records of the Geological Survey of India , vol. 68, pt. 2, (Calcutta : Geological Survey of India , 1935), 180. Another source, critical of the government’s estimate, stated 18,557 deaths , see The Bihar Central Relief Committee, Report for the Period Ending 30th June 1934 as Adopted by the Managing Committee, vol. 1, (Patna: s.d. [probably issued July or later in 1934]), 2.
- 6.
The GSI was established in 1851 to record the geological structure of India , primarily with the intent to collect information about coal and mineral resources. See Guidoboni and Ebel, Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past, 147.
- 7.
G. C. Mukherjee, “Earthquake —Its Science and Superstitions,” The Modern Review: A Monthly Review and Miscellany 55, no. 4 (April 1934): 404.
- 8.
Mukherjee, “Earthquake —Its Science and Superstitions,” 404.
- 9.
M. K. Gandhi, “42. Speech at Public Meeting, Tinnevelly (24 January, 1934),” in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), vol. 57 (New Delhi : The Publications Division Government of India , 1974). Originally published in Harijan, 2 February 1934. Reports of the speech were published in The Hindu, 24 January 1934, and in Hindustan Times, 25 January 1934. See the reply by Rabindranath Tagore , “Appendix I: Rabindranath Tagore’ s statement (February 16, 1934),” in CWMG, vol. 57 (New Delhi : The Publications Division Government of India , 1974). Originally published in Harijan, 16 February 1934. A recent article discusses Gandhi’s and Tagore’s different perspectives in detail, see Makarand R. Paranjape, “‘Natural Supernaturalism?’ The Tagore -Gandhi Debate on the Bihar Earthquake ,” The Journal of Hindu Studies 4, no. 2 (2001): 176–204. A few scholars have commented on the discussion: Shambhu Prasad, “Towards an Understanding of Gandhi’s Views on Science,” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 39 (2001): 3721–32. However, Prasad confuses the year of the event, calling it “the Bihar earthquake of 1932” when the correct year is 1934, see Prasad, “Towards an Understanding of Gandhi’s Views on Science,” 3732. Sunil Khilnani, “Nehru’s Faith,” Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 48 (2002): 4795–96; Sukumar Muralidharan, “Religion, Nationalism, and the State: Gandhi and India’s Engagement with Political Modernity,” Social Scientist 34, no. 3/4 (Mar.–Apr. 2006): 12–13. Tagore ’s interest in science is also highlighted in different scholarly works as well as in contemporary writings, in comparison to M. K. Gandhi. See the introduction to A Difficult Friendship: Letters of Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore, 1913–1940, ed. Uma Das Gupta (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2, 10–11, 14.
- 10.
Mukherjee, “Earthquake —Its Science and Superstitions,” 404–406.
- 11.
The disciplinary transformation associated with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Enlightenment encouraged a dismissive attitude that differentiated between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge in Europe. Günther Oestmann, H. Darrel Rutkin, and Kocku von Stuckrad, “Introduction: Horoscopes and History,” in Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrolog y, ed. Gustavo Benvides and Kocku von Stuckrad (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 1–3.
- 12.
John Alexander Dunn, John Bicknell Auden, and A. M. N. Ghosh, Preliminary Report* on the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January 1934 *[Certain portions of the report have been omitted] (Patna : Superintendent, Government Printing, 1934). This report is also mentioned in Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 5. “Preliminary reports” were first submitted to the government of West Bengal and Nepal: D. N. Wadia investigated the outlying areas in northern and western Bengal and submitted a report on Darjeeling and West Bengal to the Government of Bengal in March 1934, and J. B. Auden undertook the investigation of Nepal alone and submitted a report on Nepal to the Government of Nepal in June the same year. The first reports started to appear four months after the earthquake and the second report for the public appeared approximately six months later (“early May”) in 1934. Dunn, introduction to “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 4–5. See also Auden and Ghosh, “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal.”
- 13.
J. A. Dunn, introduction to “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 5.
- 14.
Four officers had been involved in the data collection in Bihar, West Bengal, and Nepal during the initial period following the earthquake . The account was drawn up by the two “junior” officers (J. B. Auden and A. M. N. Ghosh), based on the notes of the two senior officers, D. N. Wadia and J. A. Dunn, who could not be present when the account was compiled. L. L. Fermor , prefatory note to “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal,” 178–179.
- 15.
I.e. Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934.”
- 16.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 5. Sures Chandra Roy , the director of the Burma Meteorological Department, added a chapter on the reading of seismograms, see S. C. Roy “Chapter IV: Seismometric Study,” Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 73 (Calcutta : Geological Survey of India , 1939), 49–75.
- 17.
K. S. Murty, “The Geological Sciences in India in the 18th–19th century,” Indian Journal of History of Science 17, no. 1 (1982): 164–178.
- 18.
F. de Montessus de Ballore, “The Seismic Phenomena in British India, and Their Connection with Its Geology,” Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 35 (1911 [1904]): 3, 153–194.
- 19.
Thomas Oldham lists the following earthquakes in the area in the nineteenth century: Tirhoot (Tirhut), 3 August 1819; Nepal , 29 October 1926; Nepal and “all over the centre and east of Northern India”, 26 August 1833; Kathmandu, Monghyr , and Allahabad, 4 October 1833; “Bengal,” Patna , Gya [Gaya], Jaunpur, Darjeeling, 21 May 1842; Calcutta , Darjeeling, Guwahati, Chittagong , Monghyr, 11 November 1832; Darjeeling, “felt also at Patna and in Tirhoot [Tirhut]” 10 August 1843; “Bengal & co,” Monghyr , 1866. Thomas Oldham, “A Catalogue of Indian Earthquakes: from the earliest time to the end of A.D. 1869,” ed. R. D. Oldham [published posthumously], Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 19, no. 3 (1883): 163–215. In Patna and Monghyr, the impact of the “Cachar Earthquake ” of 10 January 1869, included slight damage to the jail buildings in Monghyr and set furniture and glass windows moving in Patna. Thomas Oldham “The Cachar Earthquake of 10th January 1869,” ed. R.D. Oldham [published posthumously], Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 19, no. 1 (1882), 33.
- 20.
Baird Smith (1843) quoted in Auden and Ghosh, “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal,” 216. For an evaluation of the historical seismological evidence see Roger Bilham, “Location and Magnitude of the 1833 Nepal Earthquake and Its Relation to the Rupture Zones of Contiguous Great Himalayan Earthquakes,” Current Science 69, no. 2 (July 1995): 101–128.
- 21.
Auden and Ghosh, “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal,” 216.
- 22.
Generally this method is used to determine the location and magnitude of an earthquake by marking the strongest intensity. A seismic intensity map with isoseismals shows the physical impact of the quake on human beings and the environment. Seismologists generally do not follow exact rules in drawing the isoseismals. It is common to draw them as concentric contours or as small ovals or circles. Emanuela Guidoboni and John E. Ebel, Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past: A Guide to Techniques in Historical Seismology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009), 484. The Richter scale, invented in 1935 by Charles Richter (1900–1985), measures seismic energy and was the first magnitude scale for global earthquakes . Guidoboni and Ebel, Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past, 185–186, 480, 484; Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 7. The most severely ruined areas were categorized as isoseismal “X” and the least affected areas “I”; isoseismals VI to X were identified by gathering people’s observations and experiences in questionnaires in combination with the officers’ assessment of physical damage to buildings and landscapes. As is normally the case with the Mercalli scale , the lowest isoseismals are human impressions of the earthquake , while the higher isoseismals concern physical destruction. Isoseismal I denotes instrumental shock, that is, noted by seismic instruments only (ibid., 12–13). Three questionnaires were circulated. The first questionnaire, “the standard questionnaire” in use by the GSI until 1935, was used to draw the lower isoseismals in the earthquake area. The GSI sent out the second questionnaire through the Governments of Bihar and Orissa at the end of January 1934. It was based on experiences drawn from the field and designed to supplement the investigation of the most severely affected area. The last questionnaire was the new standard questionnaire by the GSI, to be used for future earthquakes . Dunn et al., “The Bihar -Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 7, 9–11.
- 23.
See “Chapter II, Discussion of Scales and Isoseismals,” ibid., 7. In the same volume, the authors mention yet another explanation of the scale: “[T]he scale normally adopted by the Geological Survey of India is the Rossi-Forel scale , which is pitched in such a way that R.-F. [Rossi-Forel scale] [isoseismal] X is roughly equivalent to Mercalli [scale] IX and X [isoseismals]. For a truer comparison to be made with some of the other India n earthquakes , it would be better to consider the whole of the area within Mercalli isoseismal IX as that in which the earthquake was severely felt. This area is approximately 14,000 square miles or 36,200 square km in extent” (ibid., 16). An article by Pandey and Molnar refers to the scale adopted by the GSI for the Bihar -Nepal earthquake as the “Rossi-Forel scale” and also uses Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934” as a reference. M. R. Pandey and Peter Molnar, “The Distribution of Intensity of the Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 15 January 1934 and Bounds on the Extent of the Rupture Zone,” Journal of Nepal Geological Society 5, no. 1 (1988): 24f.
- 24.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934,” 8. One theory (which is not elaborated on in this chapter) discussed so-called “underloading” in the crust to the south of the earthquake area, and “overloading” in the crust to the north, as the cause of stress beyond the elastic limits of the earth’s surface. This was also supported by scientific investigations with spirit level measures which showed a rise in land levels over the years. Hence the scientists saw the change in river courses and floods appearing after the earthquake as a sign of changes in the land levels recorded in the area since 1862. James de Graaff Hunter, “The India n Earthquake (1934) Area,” Nature 133, no. 3355 (February 1934): 236–237. In retrospect, the earthquake turned out to have a permanent impact on the flood landscape. P. C. Roy Chaudhury, “Muzaffarpur ,” Bihar District Gazzetteers (Patna : Superintendent, Secretariat Press, 1958), 173.
- 25.
Fermo r, “Geological Aspects of the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934,” 443.
- 26.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 14.
- 27.
Ibid., 159.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Nobuji Nasu , “The Great India n Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Bulletin of the Earthquake Research Institute (Tokyo Imperial University) 13, no. 2 (1935): 426. His stay in the area only lasted two weeks and he primarily relied on information provided by the officers from the GSI and his own observations of the landscape.
- 30.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar -Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 159.
- 31.
Nobuji Nasu , “Earthquakes in India (Tokyo Research Insititute Study),” The Searchlight (16 June 1934); Dunn et al., “The Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 159. Since the 1880s, Japan had conducted pioneering research in earthquake engineering and seismology , and Nobuji Nasu had come to offer advice on earthquake -safe construction. Beginning in the 1870s, British scientists, mainly from the earth sciences and engineering, had conducted research on earthquake -safe buildings and seismology in Japan. John Milne, the founding father of modern seismology , went to in Tokyo in 1876 and established Anglo-Japanese collaboration on the science of seismology which, together with North American earthquake studies, conducted mainly in California at the turn of the century, formed the basis of modern seismology . Gregory Clancey, Earthquake nation: the cultural politics of Japanese seismicity, 1868–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 63, 74; Susan Elizabeth Hough, Predicting the unpredictable: the tumultuous science of earthquake prediction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 12.
- 32.
Dunn et al., “The Bihar -Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 5.
- 33.
Ibid. However, S. C. Roy ’s chapter was received “in the latter part of 1937,” one year after the four officers had compiled their work. Based on data from the stations at Alipore, Agra, Dehra Dun, Colaba, Oorgaum, Kodaikanal, and Colombo, he located the epicentre of the “main shock” near 26° 18’ N. and 86° 18’ E., with the starting time of the “preliminary tremors” at 8:43:21 GMT. The GSI officers located the epicentre in the eastern part of the 30 km wide and 130 km long area constituting isoseismal X, a major axis of the oblong passing through Sitamarhi in the west and Madhubani in the east, the central region of the tract lying near 26° 30’ N. and 85° 40’ E. according to a map published by the GSI officers in 1934. The seismometric study thus largely agreed with the GSI officers’ survey of the landscape and information gathered by questionnaires. Roy, “Chapter IV, Seismometric Study,” 49.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
These stations used so-called Milne-Shaw instruments, for which, according to S. C. Roy , “the intensity of the light-point on the photographic paper is normally adjusted so as to be suitable for recording small earth motion.” Roy, “Chapter IV, Seismometric Study,” 49. Sudanshu Kumar Banerji also mentions that the “Milne-Shaw seismograph” at Calcutta and Agra failed; “Even as far south as Kodaikanal [Tamil Nadu], the Milne-Shaw seismograph was thrown out of action on the arrival of the secondary waves.” S. K. Banerji, “North Bihar Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 9 (March 1934): 327. However, the “Omori-Ewing” seismograph at Bombay provided “a fairly good record” (ibid.).
- 36.
Roy , “Chapter IV, Seismometric Study,” 49–50.
- 37.
Ibid., 50.
- 38.
Dunn et al. , “The Bihar -Nepal earthquake of 1934,” 5.
- 39.
See for example de Graaff Hunter, “The India n Earthquake (1934) Area.” James de Graaff-Hunter (1881–1967) was mainly employed in the fields of geodesy and trigonometry for the GSI in the period 1907–1946. See G. Bomford, “James de Graff-Hunter,” Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 13 (November 1967): 78–88; M. S. Krishnan, “The North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 9 (March 1934): 323–326; S. K. Banerji, “North Bihar Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 9 (March 1934): 326–331. Sidney Burrard, “Ground Levels in Bihar in Relation to the Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Nature 133, no. 3363 (April 1934): 582–583. Sidney Burrard (1860–1943) was a retired GSI officer. He had worked for the GSI from 1884–1919, and was Surveyor-General of India from 1910 until his retirement in 1919. C. F. A.-C., “Obituary: Colonel Sir Sidney Burrard,” The Geographical Journal 101, no. 5/6 (May/June 1943): 277–279.
- 40.
An early seismographic report appeared in February 1934. Based on the reading of a photograph from a seismograph in Mangalore, it did not place the epicentre with data “from a single station,” but situated it within a radius of 50 km from Kathmandu. D. Ferroli, “Seismographic Record of the Recent Earthquake ,” Current Science 2, no. 8 (February 1934): 296.
- 41.
In the prefatory Note by L. L. Fermor in “Preliminary Account,” he referred to his own publication. “Geological Aspects of the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 11 (May 1934): 442–445. Other publications referred to are J. Coggin Brown, Nature 133, no. 3356 (February 1934): 295, and J. de Graaff Hunter, “The India n Earthquake (1934) Area,” 266. See Auden and Ghosh, “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar and Nepal ,” 199, 221–222.
- 42.
S. C. Roy , “Focal Region of the North Bihar Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Current Science 2, no. 11 (May 1934): 419–422. “Letter to the Editor: Seismometric Study of the North Bihar Earthquake of January 15, 1934 and Its Aftershocks” (Letter sent from Colaba Observatory, Bombay , 28 December 1934), Current Science 3, no. 7 (January 1935): 298–300.
- 43.
Banerji, “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934.” Sudhansu Kumar (S. K.) Banerji (1893–1966, alternative spelling “Banerjee”) was at that time a scientist in the India Meteorological Department (IMD). He took a permanent position at the IMD in 1922, and worked at the IMD’s Colaba Observatory from 1923–1932. There “he devoted himself to geo-magnetism, seismology , atmospheric electricity and physics of monsoon” (412). Before he took this position he had been Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University College of Science, Calcutta . In 1945 he became the first India n Director-General of Observatories at the IMD. Later he became a well-known meteorologist , with many contributions to seismology , atmospheric electricity, and meteorology, and was “remembered as a ‘Maker of Modern Meteorology’ in the formative years of post-Independent India .” See D. R. Sikka, “The Role of the India Meteorological Department, 1875–1947,” in Uma Das Gupta, ed., Science and Modern India: An Institutional History, c. 1784–1947, vol. XV, pt. 4 (New Delhi : Pearson Longman, 2011), 381–428, cf. 412–421.
- 44.
Banerji, “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934,” 326.
- 45.
Roy, “Focal Region of the North Bihar Earthquake of January 15, 1934,” 422.
- 46.
Ibid., 419.
- 47.
The officers from the GSI, had demarcated the area of the epicentre at 75–80 miles, with an east-south-east alignment through Sitamarhi and Madhubani. Fermor , “Geological Aspects of the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934,” 443.
- 48.
L. L. Fermor published an article with an estimation of the epicentre in Current Science, using data from some of the same seismographs that S. C. Roy relied upon. See Fermor, “Geological Aspects of the North Bihar Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934.”
- 49.
Seeing a connection between faults and earthquakes , John Milne (1850–1913), one of the inventors of the modern seismograph, convincingly argued that fault slips might have been the cause of the earthquake in Japan in 1891. See Guidoboni and Ebel, Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past, 185. Before John Milne, Robert Mallet’s study of the Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 introduced “observational seismology ” in England , see Robert Mallet, Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857, vol. I & II (London : Chapman and Hall, 1862).
- 50.
Other theories on the nature of earthquakes also emerged in the early twentieth century, most notably the “elastic rebound theory,” which is still used in understanding the dynamics of earthquakes . Harry Fielding Reid (1859–1944) published his research on the “elastic rebound theory” in 1911. In 1922, the discovery of so-called deep-focus earthquakes by Herbert Hall Turner (1861–1930) became an important source parameter in earthquake catalogues. Guidoboni and Ebel, Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Past, 185.
- 51.
Sir Edwin H. Pascoe, “India n Earthquakes, Their Causes, and Consequences,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 82, no. 4247 (April 13, 1934): 583, 579.
- 52.
Richard Dixon Oldham continued the work of his father, Thomas Oldham (1816–1878) in establishing the GSI as an important source for seismological studies in India. R. D. Oldham’s study of the Assam earthquake in 1897, based on his father’s observations, was published in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 30, no. 1 (1901); see also R. D. Oldham , “The diurnal variation in frequency of the aftershocks of the Great Earthquake of 12th June 1897. With two appendices,” in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 35, no. 2 (1911): 117–149. Thomas Oldham, an Irishman from Dublin, had gained a distinguished professional reputation in Ireland and was appointed geological surveyor to the East India Company in 1850. He arrived at Calcutta in March 1851 and spent the following twenty-five years establishing the Geological Survey of India. See Andrew Grout, “Oldham, Thomas (1816–1878),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), accessed March 15, 2012, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20691. One year after his death , in 1879, his third son, R. D. Oldham , joined the Geological Survey of India (GSI). He conducted a number of surveys on a range of topics and edited his late father’s unpublished manuscripts, “Cachar Earthquake of 1869” (1882) and “Thermal Springs of India” (1882). “Catalogue of Indian Earthquakes” from 1883, probably first attracted his attention to seismology , see A. M. Heron, “Richard Dixon Oldham : born 30th July, 1858: died 15th July, 1936,” Records of the GSI, vol. 71, pt. 4 (Delhi: Published by order of the Government of India, October 1937), 349. The task of editing the manuscripts probably prepared him well for his record of the Assam earthquake in 1897, which established a template for subsequent earthquakes in India, see Roger Bilham, “Earthquakes in India and the Himalaya: Tectonics, Geodesy, and History,” Annals of Geophysics 47, no. 2/3 (April/June 2004): 846. Thomas Oldham’s personal scientific network can be seen as an example of the importance of “ethnic affiliation,” i.e. his Irish academic contacts, in the formation of “British” science . Assisted by “his coterie of Irish geologists ,” mostly graduates from Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s College Belfast, he transformed GSI into a “thoroughly modernized scientific institution” and an “integral branch of the new colonial administration.” Barry Crosbie, “Ireland, Colonial Science, and the Geographical Construction of British Rule in India, c. 1820–1870,” The Historical Journal 52, no. 4 (2009): 979.
- 53.
Oldham, “The Diurnal Variation in Frequency of the Aftershocks of the Great Earthquake of 12th June 1897,” 117.
- 54.
The impact of the moon on earthquakes was discussed not only in India but also in the U. S., where a persistent belief existed “outside of science ” that “lunar tides” triggered earthquakes . See Hough, Predicting the unpredictable: the tumultuous science of earthquake prediction , 11. Addressing the debate on the moon ’s influence on earthquakes , Cargill Gilston Knott, former Professor of Physics at the Imperial Unversity of Tokyo, argued that no relation could be proved between “lunar periodicities” and earthquakes . See Cargill Gilston Knott, The Physics of Earthquake Phenomena (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), 130, 131–155.
- 55.
Banerji, “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934,” 331.
- 56.
R. N. Ghosh, “Influence of moon on earthquakes ,” Current Science 3, no. 2 (August 1934): 61–62.
- 57.
Banerji, “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934,” 331.
- 58.
D. C. Nag, “Causation of North Behar Earthquake ,” Modern Review: A Monthly Review and Miscellany 55, no. 4 (1934): 400.
- 59.
Banerji, “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934,” 331. Again in 1935, he claimed that a cold wave coming in over North India , in combination with the new moon , could have triggered the earthquake . “North Bihar earthquake of January 15, 1934,” Current Science 3, no. 9 (March 1935): 412.
- 60.
For a longer account and explanation in technical terms, see Pandey and Molnar, “The Distribution of Intensity of the Bihar-Nepal Earthquake ,” 24–25.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
According to Pandey and Molnar, the GSI study lacked crucial information about the damages in Nepal. However, they also point out that J. B. Auden’s report was already completed in 1936, though not published until 1939, i.e. Rana’s book was published in Nepal long before the GSI published volume 73 in 1939, but not much before Auden wrote his section of the report (ibid., 23). The simultaneous earthquake data collection in Nepal indeed adds another interesting angle to the scientific analysis of the earthquake , but the scope of the present chapter is limited to the discussion in India. Brahma Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, Nepālko Mahābhūkamp (1990 Bikram Samvat (BS) [1934]). In Nepali (Kathmandu: Babaramahal, second ed. 1936 [1935]).
- 63.
Though of little relevance to the scientific discussion at the time of the earthquake , more recent historical seismology studies have located the epicentre almost 200 km north of the location where most historical maps have marked it. The relocated epicentre lies approximately 10 km south of Mount Everest at 27.55°N, 87.09°E. Roger Bilham and Susan E. Hough, “Site Response of the Ganges Basin Inferred from Re-evaluated Macroseismic Observations from the 1897 Shillong , 1905 Kangra , and 1934 Nepal Earthquakes,” Journal Earth System Science 117, no. 2, supplement (November 2008): 775–776.
- 64.
Mukherjee, “Earthquake —Its Science and Superstitions,” 410.
- 65.
Ibid.
- 66.
David Pingree , Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature, vol. 6 of A History of India n Literature, ed. Jan Gonda (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1981), 101.
- 67.
Ibid.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
François-Marie Arouet Voltaire , Poem upon the Lisbon disaster = Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne, ou, Examen de cet axiome “tout est bien,” trans. Anthony Hecht (Lincoln, MA: Penmæn Press, 1977).
- 70.
Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, “Introduction—The Urban Catastrophe : Challenge to the Social, Economic, and Cultural Order of the City,” in Cities and Catastrophes: Coping with Emergency in European History, ed. Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, Harold L. Platt, and Dieter Schott (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002), 19–22.
- 71.
Mukherjee, “Earthquake —Its Science and Superstitions,” 405.
- 72.
Sir Thomas H. Holland, introduction to “India n earthquakes , their causes and consequences,” 577f.
- 73.
Ibid., 587.
- 74.
Ibid., 588.
- 75.
Ibid.
- 76.
Ibid.
- 77.
As noted in a comment in Nature following the lecture, the practical real-life value of being able to predict earthquakes —“the value of a warning in saving both of life and property can scarcely be exaggerated”—was hard to deny. A. B. Broughton Edge, “Prediction of Earthquakes,” Nature 135, no. 3424 (June 1935): 997.
- 78.
Hans Singh’s occupation and education are not mentioned in the source. Param Hans Singh, “Law of Gravitation and the Recent Earthquake in Bihar ,” 1934, Political Department, Special Section, file ‘Keep With’ (KW) 33/1934, Bihar State Archives, Patna , India .
- 79.
Ibid.
- 80.
Jamuna Prasad , “The Psychology of Rumour: A Study Relating to the Great India n Earthquake of 1934,” British Journal of Psychology 26, no. 1 (1935): 2–3.
- 81.
Ibid., 2.
- 82.
This explanation appeared in different versions: sometimes with only one star , but more often all the seven planets and the moon were included. Letter to the editor, The Leader, January 22, 1934; Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 2–3.
- 83.
The Vedas and the Brāhmas give some examples of observational astronomy in early sources from before 1000 BCE, but they rarely name the stars and constellations. Audrius Beinorius, “The Followers of the Stars: On the Early Sources and Historical Development of Indian Astrolog y,” Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 4 (2003): 126.
- 84.
Ibid., 124.
- 85.
Hans Singh, “Law of Gravitation and the Recent Earthquake in Bihar .”
- 86.
The article analyses the psychological aspects of rumours and their spreading (Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour"). Fifteen years later, Prasad published one more article on rumours and earthquakes : Jamuna Prasad , “A Comparative Study of Rumours and Reports in Earthquakes,” British Journal of Psychology 41, nos. 3/4 (1950): 129–144. It is interesting to note that Ranajit Guha uses Prasad’s article from 1935 to discuss the psychology of rumour , see Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, 2nd ed. (Durharm: Duke University Press, 1999), 257. Prasad’s rumour research has recently been given new attention in social psychology, as it supports a “social” approach to rumour . Prashant Bordia and Nicholas DiFonzo, “When Social Psychology Became Less Social: Prasad and the History of Rumour Research,” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 5, no. 1 (2002): 49–61.
- 87.
Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 1.
- 88.
For a study on “rumours ” and disasters see Kitao Abe, “Levels of Trust and Reactions to Various Sources of Information in Catastrophic Situation,” in Disasters: Theory and Rsearch, ed. E. L. Quarantelli, Sage Studies in International Sociology 13 (London : Sage, 1978), 159–172; R. H. Turner, “Rumour As Intensified Information Seeking: Earthquake Rumours in China and the United States,” in Disasters, Collective Behaviours, and Social Organization, ed. R. R. Dynes and K. J. Tierney (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994), 244–256.
- 89.
Massard-Guilbaud, “Introduction—The Urban Catastrophe ,” 23–25.
- 90.
Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 7.
- 91.
Ibid., 1–4, 13.
- 92.
Ibid., 7.
- 93.
For the common understanding of rumour as a text without an author, see Arun Kumar, Rewriting the Language of Politics: Kisans in Colonial Bihar (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2001), 85.
- 94.
Guha , Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Csolonial India, 250–251.
- 95.
Varāhamihira , the son of Ādityadāsa, was a Magha Brahman, a descendent of Persia n Zoroastrians who arrived in India towards the beginning of the Christian era. He lived in Avanti or Western Malwa, and most likely composed texts such as the Pañchasiddhāntikā (his other major work on astrolog y), Bṛhajjātaka (which to a large extent deals with birth horoscopes), and the Laghujātaka in the sixth century. Varāhamihira , The Pañcasiddhāntikā, pt. 1, ed. Otto Neugebauer and David Pingree , Historisk-filosofiske skrifter 6.1 (København: Munksgaard, 1970), 7. Varāhamihira’s astronomical-astrological scholarship, in combination with his talent for the trade, outdid his predecessors in the field, and established him as the expert in jyotiḥṣā. Beinorius, “The Followers of the Stars,” 136. See also Varāhamihira, Bṛhat Saṁhitā , ed. G. Thibaut, Vidyābhavana prācyavidyā granthamālā 156 (Benares: Chaukhambā Vidyābhavana, 2005).
- 96.
Varāhamihira , Bṛhat Saṁhitā, 149–154. Also in Europe, research on the conceptual history of disaster terminology reveals the link with a prehistory in astrology. Constellations of stars were held responsible for natural events: Desaster, the German word for “disaster,” means “under the wrong star .” Variants of the word disaster/Desaster appear also in the Romanic languages, i.e. French désastre, Italian disastro. Gerrit Jasper Schenk, “Historical Disaster Research: State of Research, Concepts, Methods , and Case Studies,” Historical Social Research 32, no. 3 (2007): 12.
- 97.
Thomas Oldham recorded a similar incidence after the Cachar earthquake in 1869: “among the natives” the earthquake was “considered additional evidence of the famine that is to be in 1870.” Oldham, “The Cachar Earthquake of 10th January 1869,” 32–33.
- 98.
“The moon has left the other planets . This is a bit favourable, but still the six planets conspire, and more disasters will happen.” “There will be a severe earthquake on the lunar eclipse day.” See Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 2–4.
- 99.
The variations of the rumours appeared in the following forms: “January 23, 1934, will be a fatal day. Unforeseeable calamities will arise”, “a Pralaya (total deluge and destruction) on February 26th”, the event of a cyclone “coming from Southern India”, or announcement by an astrologer that “Patna will cease to exist” (also on February 26th), similarly “a capital town on the banks of the Ganges will be destroyed on February 26th” (probably referring to Patna) and “Astrologers have predicted evil days for the world from the beginning of 1934 to the end of the year” (Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 3–4; 10). Another cyclone prediction was “believed to have emanated from a report from Samastipur,” in Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 100.
‘No. 2628-P.R.’, untitled report (printed), 15 pages, P. C. Tallents to The Secretary to the Government of India (Home Dept., Simla), Political Department, Ranchi, 17 August 1934. Home Department, Public Branch. File: 34/1/34, National Archives of India, New Delhi .
- 101.
Occurred on 17 January 1934. Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 3.
- 102.
Circulated 16 January 1934. Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 3.
- 103.
Ibid. A peculiar prediction of yet another disaster concerned the local colonial authorities, who recorded an instance of “short-lived panic” in the Secretariat in Patna . The rumour was that another earthquake would occur on February 27th and “the sex of the survivors changed.” In “Fortnightly report for the Second half of February 1934,” Bihar and Orissa Local Government’s Reports.
- 104.
17 January 1934. Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 3. Section “By the way” in Amrita Bazar Patrika also reports that “in Bengal the earthquake was immediately followed by appearance in local papers of prognostications by astrologer s prophesying further calamities.” Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 105.
Wilcock, Bihar and Orissa in 1933–34, 15–16.
- 106.
Prasad, “The Psychology of Rumour,” 3.
- 107.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934. “Bhadralok” refers to a social group, loosely translated as “respectable people.” It was, and to some extent still is, used for a landed affluent group of “educated middle class,” or “educated community,” often with western education. For a comprehensive overview of the term and its various uses, see Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1–17.
- 108.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 109.
The Leader, January 21, 1934.
- 110.
“By the way,” in Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 111.
Ibid.
- 112.
Ibid.
- 113.
“Rumours” were established in Indian historiography with Ranajit Guha ’s Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgencies in 1983. He draws upon Lefebvre’s work on rumours among the French peasantry during the French Revolution. Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France (New York: Vintage Books, 1973 [French original 1932]). For a detailed account and analysis of Guha’s understanding of rumours as well as overview of the rumours in history writing see chapter 3 “Rumour: Beyond Muffled Murmurs of Dissent,” in Arun Kumar, Rewriting the Language of Politics: Kisans in Colonial Bihar (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2001). Sumit Sarkar also acknowledges “the role of rumour in a predominantly illiterate society.” Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947, 2nd ed. (1983; Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), 181–183.
- 114.
Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, 251, 256–257, 264. The importance of rumour as a powerful insurgent medium can also be determined from the effort exerted by the authorities to control, suppress, and record the medium and its message in market places and other arenas for “subaltern” communication (Ibid., 251–254.). Arun Kumar writes that it is difficult to work with rumours as a valid source for historians interested in a deeper history: the format of rumour , its anonymity, and oral circulation made it elusive for scribes until the 1920s when print culture became more prevalent in Bihar. Kumar, Rewriting the Language of Politics, 79.
- 115.
A. R., “An Eyewitness’s Impressions: The Bihar Earthquake ; A Personal Narrative,” The Asiatic Review 30, no. 2 (1934): 276–281. The account is the edited version of a “young engineer’s” account of “a tour” in the affected region, recorded in letters home to his parents in England . It was compiled by “A.R.” and the first description dated Sagaul 29 January 1934 (see 276).
- 116.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 117.
What turned out to be a gust of wind making a fan vibrate led the people present in court, “including the Magistrate”, to assume that an earthquake was occurring and rush out of court in panic. After the meteorologist in Alipore had confirmed that it had indeed been a false alarm, people returned to the building and “panic subsided.” Although an astrolog ical prophecy had triggered the rumour of an earthquake , the “normal” irregularity of the fan set off a panic in court. Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 24, 1934.
- 118.
See for example: “Earthquake Again–A German Scientist’s Forecast? (London, August 3, 1934). The London correspondent of The Leader writes as follows: A German Professor forecasts another earthquake in India for Feb. 15 next year.” “Earthquake Again–A German Scientist’s Forecast? (London , August 3, 1934),” The Searchlight, August 17, 1934.
- 119.
Brett, A Report on the Bihar Earthquake , 30.
- 120.
“North Bihar Seismic Belt: Earthquakes Certain in Future; Geological Expert’s Lecture (Calcutta , September 8)”, in The Searchlight, September 9, 1934.
- 121.
Amrita Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
- 122.
Ibid.
- 123.
Government of India, Bureau of Public Information, Quetta Earthquake : Collection of Information Made Available to the Press in the Form of Communiqués, Statements, and Reports Regarding the Situation and of Measures Taken in Connection with Relief, Supplies, Evacuation, and Salvage (Simla: Government of India Press, 1935), 54.
- 124.
Ibid., 24.
- 125.
Shambhoo Nath, Manager, Indian Nation, to W. B. Brett, Chief Secretary to the Government of Bihar and Orissa , D-O letter, 11 February 1936, Patna , “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing,” Political Department, Special Section, File 62/1936, Bihar State Archives, Patna, India. Extract translated from Basumati which occurred in the above D-O letter: “There will be earthquake at 6.15 P. M. on the 3rd March next in Bihar, Orissa , Assam , Nepal , Central India, Quetta and Baluchistan . Shocks will be felt at many places from 4th to the 8th March and at some places continue up till 22nd. On the 3rd March when it is 6 P.M. at Benares there will be volcanic eruption accompanied with earthquake in Japan, Formosa and Italy . There may be shocks of earthquake felt at certain places on the 12th February (this month) from 11 P.M. to 3 A.M., etc. There are other predictions about a communal riot.”
- 126.
Indian Nation, a daily newspaper published in English, established in 1932, and owned by the Darbhanga Raj’s publishing house Newspapers & Publications Pvt. Ltd. which later published Aryavarta, the daily Hindi version of Indian Nation. Ram Ratan Bhatnagar, The Rise and Growth of Hindi Journalism (1826–1945), ed. Dhirendranath Singh (Varanasi: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, 2003).
- 127.
This was denied by the Chairman of the District Board. Shambhoo Nath, Manager, Indian Nation, to W. B. Brett, Chief Secretary to the Government of Bihar and Orissa , D-O letter 489-C, February 11, 1936, “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing.”
- 128.
Shambhoo Nath, Manager, “Indian Nation,” to W. B. Brett, Chief Secretary to the Government of Bihar and Orissa , February 11, 1936, Patna ; W. B. Brett, Chief Secretary to the Government of Bihar and Orissa, to R. E. Swanzy, District Magistrate, Patna, 12 February 1936, “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing.”
- 129.
J. D. Sifton to Legal Remembrancer, 14 February 1936, “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing.”
- 130.
A. C. Davies to J. D. Sifton, 16 February 1936, “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing.”
- 131.
Deputy Inspector-General, Criminal Investigation Department, Extract from memo no. 1514-17-S. B., February 22, 1936, “Predictions of earthquakes , etc.—question of prosecution of persons publishing.”
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Marcussen, E. (2017). Explaining the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake: The Role of Science, Astrology, and “Rumours”. In: Schenk, G. (eds) Historical Disaster Experiences. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_12
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