Between 1876 and 1878, drought associated with a strong El Niño contributed to famine across parts of India, China, Brazil, and other regions. Colonial markets, grain policies, and rural vulnerability intensified the suffering. The event showed how climate systems and political economy could produce global hunger.

Indian, Chinese, and Brazilian famine memories survived in oral songs, local verse, and later nationalist literature. For poets, failed monsoons and empty granaries became images not only of weather but of injustice, making ecological crisis inseparable from empire and class.