Why India’s grandest famine-relief granary never stored grain as intended

Golghar was built in 1786 by Captain John Garstin, an architect and engineer of the East India Company, on the orders of the then governor general of India, Warren Hastings. The structure was conceived in the aftermath of the devastating Bengal famine of 1770, one of the deadliest famines of the colonial era, in which historians estimate nearly one crore people died.

When another, less severe famine struck Bihar in 1783, John Shore, then president of the Committee of Revenue, recommended the construction of a massive grain store in Patna as a safeguard against future famines. The proposal was approved in January 1784.

Designed to store up to 1,40,000 tonnes of grain, the granary was built entirely of brick and lime mortar without a single supporting pillar, rising 29 metres high with walls 3.6 metres thick at the base. But all four of its doors were designed to open inwards. ‘If the granary had ever been filled to capacity, the enormous pressure of the grain would have made it impossible to open the doors,’ said Indologist Prabuddh Biswas.

After Independence, the Food Corporation of India used Golghar as a godown till 1998 before vacating it. Today, the protected monument stands as a reminder that even history’s grandest ideas can be undone by the smallest design mistake.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Kumartheharshit