How Did Millets Disappear From Our Plates?
For many of us, the architecture of an Indian meal feels almost inevitable.
Rice in one part of the country. Wheat in another.
Millets, meanwhile, can feel like something being rediscovered — an old grain returning to modern kitchens.
But that raises an interesting question.
If millets have been cultivated and eaten across India for generations, why did they need to be rediscovered at all?
The answer isn't one event, one government or one villain.
It is a story about water, economics, infrastructure, agricultural policy — and eventually, even social aspiration.
A video that sent us looking
We came across a fascinating video by food writer Krish Ashok titled How British Colonialism Destroyed Millets.
Around 7:51–10:00, Ashok turns to the historical relationship between British colonial policy, irrigation and India's changing grains.
It is a provocative argument.
And it sent us looking at the history behind it.
Start with something important: rice wasn't introduced by the British
Before going any further, one misconception is worth removing.
Rice has an ancient history in India. Colonial rule did not introduce Indians to rice.
The more interesting question is different:
Did changing systems of irrigation, economics and government policy make some crops more attractive than others?
Here, the historical record gets fascinating.
When water became an economic calculation
Historian Aditya Ramesh has studied irrigation and large dams in nineteenth-century colonial Madras.
His research describes British officials looking at India's rivers not simply as sources of water, but as resources capable of making agricultural land more productive — and increasing government revenue.
And buried inside that history is a remarkable detail.
Company officials believed that increasing irrigation could encourage cultivators to move away from dry crops such as millets and toward more lucrative wet crops such as rice.
Wet crops commanded higher market prices.
And that meant the state could potentially collect higher taxes.
Suddenly, the choice between millet and rice wasn't simply about what people preferred to eat.
It was connected to water.
And water was becoming connected to revenue.
The rise of the "productive" dam
The connection went further.
During the nineteenth century, colonial administrators wrestled with a basic problem: large irrigation projects were expensive.
Different models were tried — local financing, labour contributions and even private companies backed by British capital.
Eventually, the colonial state itself became the principal builder and financier of large irrigation works.
Some irrigation projects came to be classified as "productive works."
In simple terms, these were infrastructure projects expected to generate enough revenue to justify their investment and financing costs.
That doesn't mean dams were secretly invented to destroy millet.
History is rarely that tidy.
But it does reveal something more interesting:
Agricultural landscapes aren't shaped only by climate and taste. They can also be shaped by what governments choose to build, finance and reward.
And then came independent India
If we stopped the story with colonialism, however, we'd miss a huge part of what happened.
After independence, India faced the enormous challenge of feeding a growing population and improving food security.
The Green Revolution transformed Indian agriculture.
And two grains stood at its centre:
Rice and wheat.
High-yielding varieties, irrigation, fertilizers, procurement and other forms of institutional support helped dramatically increase their production.
It was an extraordinary agricultural transformation.
But transformations have consequences.
Research examining decades of Indian agricultural data has concluded that Green Revolution technologies and the Public Distribution System disproportionately favored rice and wheat, while crops including millets became increasingly marginalized.
The Government of India itself has noted that the area under millet cultivation shrank substantially in the decades following the Green Revolution.
What governments buy eventually affects what farmers grow
The Public Distribution System matters here too.
India's PDS developed substantially during the food shortages of the 1960s and expanded in subsequent decades as agricultural production increased following the Green Revolution. Rice and wheat became its principal food grains.
That creates a powerful economic signal.
When procurement, distribution, irrigation and agricultural infrastructure concentrate around particular crops, farmers have reasons to grow those crops.
Consumers encounter them more frequently.
Food habits begin to change.
And over decades, something remarkable can happen:
A policy choice can eventually start to feel like a culinary tradition.
Millet also acquired a social meaning
There was another force at work that can't easily be measured in hectares or irrigation canals.
Status.
In some communities, rice and wheat increasingly represented prosperity and upward mobility, while traditional coarse grains became associated with poverty or hardship.
Accounts of communities transitioning away from millets describe rice and wheat becoming increasingly accessible through rising incomes, the Green Revolution and subsidized distribution. Millet consumption subsequently declined sharply in many of those communities.
Food isn't merely nutrition.
It carries memory, class, aspiration and identity.
Once a food becomes associated with a life people are trying to leave behind, convincing the next generation to keep eating it becomes difficult.
So, did the British destroy millets?
That's probably too simple.
What we found is more nuanced — and, in some ways, more interesting.
Colonial irrigation policy created economic incentives that could favor irrigated wet crops such as rice over dry crops such as millets.
Later, independent India's Green Revolution quite understandably concentrated enormous resources on producing rice and wheat at scale.
Government procurement and distribution reinforced their position.
Changing incomes and ideas about status changed what families wanted to eat.
Processing and convenience changed things again.
There wasn't one moment when India stopped eating millets.
There were many small decisions, incentives and aspirations pointing in the same direction.
And over generations, the composition of the Indian plate changed.
Which makes today's millet revival rather unusual
Millets are now returning to government policy, restaurant menus, supermarkets and home kitchens.
Perhaps "returning" is the important word.
Because these aren't newly discovered superfoods.
They're old foods being encountered under new circumstances.
And their history leaves us with a question that goes beyond millet:
How much of what we consider our traditional diet was determined by tradition — and how much was shaped by the economic and agricultural systems around us?
That's a question worth keeping on the table.
Sources / Further Reading
For Guhaya, I would absolutely include this section on an article making historical claims.
Krish Ashok — How British Colonialism Destroyed Millets
The video that prompted our exploration, particularly the discussion beginning around 7:51.
Watch on YouTube
Aditya Ramesh — Indian Rivers, 'Productive Works', and the Emergence of Large Dams in Nineteenth-Century Madras
The Historical Journal, Cambridge University Press. Particularly useful for understanding colonial irrigation, revenue and the relationship between dry crops and irrigated rice.
Read the research
Government of India — History of Public Distribution
Useful context on the development and expansion of India's PDS.
Department of Food & Public Distribution
Millets for Food and Nutrition Security in India
Research examining the effects of Green Revolution technologies and PDS support on rice, wheat and millets.
Read the study
Guhaya Learn Note
This article explores food history through published research, historical sources and perspectives shared by independent educators. Where interpretations differ, we aim to present them as perspectives rather than settled fact. Guhaya Learn is for general educational purposes.