Explaining The 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake: The Role of Science, Astrology, and "Rumours"

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Explaining the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake: The Role of Science, Astrology,

and “Rumours”
Chapter · March 2017

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_12
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Explaining the 1934 Bihar-Nepal
Earthquake: The Role of Science, Astrology,
and “Rumours”
Eleonor Marcussen
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].
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 earth-
quakes. By looking at the confluence of interpretations and explanations found in
“science” and “pseudo-science”, and those found in astrology and popular inter-
pretations circulated in rumours, this article discusses the role of expert and popular
discourses in interpreting a natural disaster.
The Bihar, or Bihar-Nepal, earthquake, which occurred at 2:13 pm on 15 January

1934, was followed by a surge of explanations as to its cause.1 In the chaos of
interrupted communication, ruined infrastructure, death and injuries, there seemed
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 Indian 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.
E. Marcussen (*)
Department of History, South Asia Institute, History of South Asia, Universität Heidelberg,
Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: marcussen@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de; eleonor.marcussen@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 241

G.J. Schenk (ed.), Historical Disaster Experiences, Transcultural
Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_12
242 E. Marcussen
to be no dearth of explanations of the direct or indirect cause of the earthquake.2

The movements of the ground were felt during a period of five minutes in the
central tract; within the limits of British India the shock was perceived up to 1000
miles away: over almost the whole of northern and central India, as far as
Peshawar (Pakistan) in the northwest, Fort Hertz (Burma) in the east, Akyab
(Burma) in the southeast, Bezwada and Ongole (Andhra Pradesh) in the south,
and Bombay in the southwest.3 Its magnitude was compared to relatively recent
“great” earthquakes in the Himalayas, namely Shillong (Assam) 1897 and Kangra
(Himachal Pradesh) 1905.4 Over an area of approximately 100,000 square miles,
buildings, bridges, railway lines, and roads were left in ruins, and water and sand
emerged through fissures wide enough to swallow cars and covered large tracts of
agricultural land. For the first three to four days after the earthquake no admin-
istration or government existed in the area and reports from air surveys provided
scant information.5
While the observations recorded above show the scope of the earthquake in
terms of its broad impact and tragic losses, this article dwells on the wide array of
interpretations and explanations that emerged after the earthquake. By juxtaposing
a range of explanations found in official reports, scientific journals, and newspa-
pers, the article shows how various discourses evolved in the aftermath of the
earthquake, and in particular the role of expert discourse and popular discourse in
explaining the earthquake. Thus it discusses the multiple contemporary
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, 19301934 (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.
Explaining the 1934 Bihar-Nepal Earthquake: The Role of Science, Astrology. . . 243
understandings of earthquake “science” and its opposites, namely explanations in

the form of “pseudo-science,” “superstitions” and rumours.
Members of the scientific community proposed various theories on the geolog-
ical causes of the earthquake in the popular science journals Current Science and
Nature, and officers from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) published official
reports.6 The GSI conducted the most comprehensive geological survey, substan-
tiated with seismological data, presented in various publications for the local
governments and the general public, as well as in brief statements in the newspa-
pers. Parallel to these official scientific reports, astrologers or “Fortune-tellers,” as
the “scientist” G. C. Mukherjee wrote in 1934, “rushed to print” prophecies, and
“pseudo-scientists apparently educated and holding responsible positions”
published “curious mixtures of mysticism and ill-digested modern scientific knowl-
edge.”7 These “curious mixtures” were, together with astrological predictions, part
of what he described as “a mist of superstitions” that had “flooded the country.”8 A
famous example from the discussion on “superstition versus science” in the after-
math of the 1934 earthquake can be found in the discussion between Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). In pub-
lic speeches Gandhi stated that the earthquake was a “divine chastisement” of Bihar
for the “sin of untouchability,” and Tagore, in his subsequent refutation of the
statement as “unscientific,” gained widespread support in the contemporary climate
of a belief in “science.”9 Noted among the “unscientific” ideas, according to
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, Earth-
quakes 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.
244 E. Marcussen
Mukherjee, were the influence and widespread acceptance of the flourishing astro-
logical predictions.10 The sources on the scientific theories and astrological pre-
dictions show that astrology was widely circulated among the general public but
heavily discredited by the scientific community. While scientific reports by geolo-
gists and seismologists concentrated on the why and how in their attempts to explain
the occurrence of the earthquake, the astrological predictions concerned when an
earthquake would occur, a domain hard for science to challenge. For a historian the
point of interest is not whether astrological predictions on earthquakes “work” or
not, but rather what that source reveals about people’s perceptions of such inter-
pretations. Astrology is generally considered unworthy of serious consideration.
Left behind by its “modern” relatives, astronomy and astrophysics, it has been
defined as “pseudo-science” and “superstition,” as opposed to “science” and “ratio-
nality” respectively.11 The framing of the discourses on science and non-science
can, after the earthquake in 1934, be seen as running along the same lines;
astrological predictions were referred to as “rumours” and “superstition,” as
opposed to science.
Official Scientific Explanations: Possible Causes
The first reports to emerge, after two months of investigations, came as preliminary
reports for the local governments of the affected regions.12 The object of these
reports was, however, not to give a scientific description of the earthquake but to
advise the government on “fundamental questions of reconstruction.”13 The publi-
cation “Preliminary Account of the Earthquake of the 15th January, 1934, in Bihar
10
Mukherjee, “Earthquake—Its Science and Superstitions,” 404–406.
11
The disciplinary transformation associated with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Enlight-
enment encouraged a dismissive attitude that differentiated between legitimate and illegitimate
knowledge in Europe. Günther Oestmann, H. Darrel Rutkin, and Kocku von Stuckrad, “Introduc-
tion: Horoscopes and History,” in Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of
Astrology, 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.
and Nepal” provided some scientific data while anticipating the later publication in
the Records of the GSI and “a full report” in the Memoirs of the GSI.14 It would take
four years for the GSI to compile a volume with the results of all investigations
conducted since the earthquake.15 Although the volume was compiled at the end of
1936, including the questionnaires and geographical surveys from the initial stage
of the investigations, the final Memoir of the GSI was first published in 1939.16 This
meant that an official scientific conclusion on the plausible cause was until then
tentative, leaving ample space for alternative explanations. The final publication in
1939 also reflects the GSI’s problems with interpreting data and struggling with
alternative interpretations.
It is interesting to note that, when the earthquake took place, so-called “modern
earthquake science” had existed since the 1850s.17 Early on, the GSI took special
interest in northern India, with the Himalayas, Assam, and Burma frequently
experiencing major earthquakes.18 Thus the area of the 1934 earthquake is men-
tioned several times in Thomas Oldham’s “A Catalogue of Indian Earthquakes:
from the earliest time to the end of A.D. 1869.” Earthquakes of various strengths
had affected the area throughout the nineteenth century.19 After the earthquakes of
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; “Ben-
gal,” 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 posthu-
mously], Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 19, no. 1 (1882), 33.
246 E. Marcussen
1833 and 1842, Baird Smith noted that Monghyr, the town worst affected by the
earthquake in 1934, “seems to suffer more from earthquake shocks.”20 Based on
previous records and with data collected predominantly during the nineteenth
century, the geologist in the GSI defined the worst affected area in Nepal and
Bihar as “one of seismic activity.”21
The purpose of the GSI investigations was to delineate the zones of intensity
during the earthquake.22 The GSI used “the Mercalli modification of the Rossi-
Forel scale” to classify the earthquake’s intensity, also referring to it as “the
Mercalli scale [. . .] with certain additions and modifications.”23 The GSI adjusted
the scales to local building techniques and the soil formation of Bihar, though not
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 Indian 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
without difficulties because of the varying geological conditions and types of

constructions. The earthquake was treated as a particular case since three types of
geological units had been affected, namely the “Peninsula, the Gangetic alluvium,
and the Himalaya.” In addition, also within these large areas, geological disparities
resulted in various effects such as fissuring and water emerging from under-
ground.24 For instance, the damage to towns such as Jamalpur and Monghyr,
located on alluvial soil along the Ganges, was much more severe than in the areas
of solid rock situated around the assumed epicentre.25 On top of that, the building
constructions ranged from “huts of mud and mud-plastered bamboo,” “kutcha-
pucca houses” (i.e. houses built with mixed materials such as bamboo, mud, or
unbaked bricks, as well as solid materials such as bricks, cement, and timber), to
larger structures such as government buildings and sugar factories. Apparently, the
variety of destruction made an impression on the officers, who were “confronted
with rapid and often inexplicable changes in intensity throughout even the area of
maximum damage.”26 Despite difficulties with reading the landscape because of the
peculiar geological features, the geologists from the GSI team delineated the
isoseismals in the earthquake affected area.
Based on field investigations and examination of seismograms, it was concluded
that “the origin of the Bihar earthquake [. . .] does not lie in the Himalaya, but below
the Gangetic alluvium.”27 However, at the same time, “the uplift of the Himalaya
and Peninsula and the depression of the Gangetic basin should all be regarded as
related, and the origin of the shock in the depressed zone is significant. It is in this
zone that a state of strain or potential fracture must be presumed to exist.”28 Two
important physical indications for situating the epicentre of the earthquake were the
“slump belt” and “sudden changes in gradient,” which “may correspond to faults
which were in movement during the earthquake.” Still, the accumulated reports
from 1939, published five years after the earthquake, needed “more data [. . .]
before a proper correlation between sub-alluvial contours and the surface earth-
quake effects is possible.” However, the GSI did “not favour the opinion put
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 Indian 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
Fermor, “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.
248 E. Marcussen
forward by Dr. [Nobuji] Nasu,” the Japanese earthquake expert deputed by the
Earthquake Research Institute at Tokyo Imperial University to study phenomena
around the earthquake. He found another explanation “nearer the truth,”29
suggesting instead that “the shock originated beneath the Himalaya,” and the
formation of the slump belt was the result of “particularly weak sediments lying
to the south,” and not the outcome of movements in faults as argued by the GSI.30
His conclusion seems to suggest the reverse causal relation between the movement
of faults and the movement of the Gangetic alluvium: the earthquake had not been
caused by a push of faults triggered by movements in the alluvium along the
Ganges, but a change in the masses under the Himalayas had in effect resulted in
a “slump belt” along the Ganges.31
The reading of seismometric data located the epicentre in the same area that the
GSI officers had marked out with isoseismals, and was thus seen as confirming the
results of the field survey. In the final report published in the GSI Memoir of 1939,
the “specialist” Sures Chandra Roy contributed the seismometric data analysis,
which would “help this memoir to assume a more authoritative note,” according to
the geologist J. A. Dunn.32 Even though Sures Chandra Roy had not discussed the
“viewpoints” of the officers as expressed in the geological surveys, J. A. Dunn
found it “most gratifying to find how closely Dr. [Sures Chandra] Roy’s indepen-
dent results so completely agreed with our conclusions [. . .] we had scarcely
expected such close confirmation of each other’s work.” The position of the
epicentre was “well within the areal limits expected by us.”33 S. C. Roy, contrary
29
Nobuji Nasu, “The Great Indian 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
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 Cali-
fornia 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
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
to Dunn’s approval of his research, makes a rather strong disclaimer on the validity
of the “seismometric” results: “the records of the main shock of 15 January are
incomplete and unsatisfactory in many respects for a detailed study.”34 This was
due to the fact that the seismographic instruments used “failed [. . .] to register at
Alipore [West Bengal] only a few seconds after the incidence of the first prelim-
inary tremors [. . .], and at Colaba [Mumbai] [. . .], Kodaikanal [Tamil Nadu] [. . .],
and Colombo [Sri Lanka] shortly after the arrival of the secondary wave.”35 “The
movements were, however, so great that even the Omori-Ewing type of instru-
ments, in spite of their low magnifications, could not record the earthquake
completely at any of the Indian stations except at Oorgaum [Tamil Nadu].”36 He
continues; “The immensity of the earth motion can be judged from the fact that the
string-stops used in these instruments to prevent the writing pen to go off the
recorder, broke down at such a distant station as Colaba [Mumbai] in the case of
the N–S [North–South] component.” Most of these records were “too faint;” the
images used had to be magnified and traced with ink in order to be readable. Due to
this, they most probably contained “inaccuracies and distortions,” but according to
Roy, were “not without value and interest and an attempt has been made to correlate
them as well as possible.”37 The data, although admittedly containing “inaccuracies
and distortions,” was an important source of information for the GSI’s scientific
analysis.
The “seismometric” results can hardly have been news to the GSI officers—even
the publication from 1939 mentions that “short popular articles describing the
earthquake [. . .] from the pen of some of the Geological Survey officers at head-
quarters” appeared in “several of the Indian papers” before the GSI managed to
publish an official report.38 These accounts, and a range of similar short reports
from meteorological stations and scientists, appeared in the science journals Cur-
rent Science and Nature.39 The GSI officers are likely to have been well aware of
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
39
See for example de Graaff Hunter, “The Indian Earthquake (1934) Area.” James de Graaff-
Hunter (1881–1967) was mainly employed in the fields of geodesy and trigonometry for the GSI in
250 E. Marcussen
the scientific discussions and disagreements during the time that elapsed between
the earthquake and publication of the volume in 1939, particularly since they were
written by GSI staff, or with the approval of the GSI’s director.40 The “Preliminary
Account” by the GSI, from 1935, had in fact already mentioned several publications
that had appeared in Nature and Current Science, and that discussed the cause of the
earthquake.41 In May 1934 and January 1935, S. C. Roy had published his analysis
of various seismic records, readily available in the journal Current Science.42 His
first publication came as a reaction to fellow GSI employee Sudanshu Kumar
Banerji’s estimation of the “epicentral tract”, published in the March 1934
issue.43 According to Banerji’s preliminary readings of the seismograms and
reports, the epicentre tract was a rough ellipse encompassing a rather wide area
around Darbhanga, though he stressed the need to wait for the isoseismals to be
drawn by the GSI officers conducting the survey of physical impact in order to
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 Indian
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 Meteorolog-
ical 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 Indian 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.
establish the epicentre.44 Roy’s reply, in May 1934, pointed out that “a preliminary
examination of the available Indian seismograms does not suggest that the focal
region of the principal shock [. . .] was very abnormal in extent,” and that a
“detailed discussion of the seismograms” was forthcoming.45 According to him,
it was “premature” to say anything about the extent of the focal region, which
Banerji had suggested in his article, especially without taking into account
seismograms from “all Indian stations.”46 L. L. Fermor, the director of the GSI,
published an article in Current Science in May 1934, the same month as Roy’s first
article appeared; he also estimated the epicentre’s location, using data from some of
the same seismographs S. C. Roy relied upon. Before Fermor’s article went to press,
the GSI officers had returned from their isoseismal mapping of the area and shared
their results with him. According to Fermor, the GSI data confirmed that the
earthquake’s cause had been “some movement below the alluvium of North
Bihar,” and “not due to a movement along the Great Boundary Fault.”47 The
scientific discussion continued with tentative estimates of the depth of the earth-
quake’s focus, the geological conditions that had caused it, and reasons for its
varying impact on alluvial lands and rocks respectively.48
The apparent disagreements in the scientific community on the nature of faults
and the cause of the earthquake may have been partly due to the novelty of fault
theory. A number of discoveries in the geological sciences had changed the theories
on the cause of earthquakes in the forty years preceding the earthquake in Bihar.49
Though fault theory was accepted in the broader scientific community of geologists,
theories of volcanic eruptions and atmospheric pressure changes were still accepted
as possible explanations of the cause of earthquakes.50 Others suggested theories
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 Earth-
quake 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.
252 E. Marcussen
that were less widely accepted in the scientific community, but at the same time
shared the astrologers’ opinion that the planetary bodies had an influence on
earthquakes. One theory attributed Himalayan earthquakes to the monsoon’s and
floods’ “lightening effect” on the mountain range, in combination with the plains
growing “heavier and heavier” with silt and melted snow, though it conceded that
the “great majority” of earthquakes were thought to be of tectonic origin.51 In 1911,
the Superintendent of the GSI, Richard Dixon Oldham (1858–1936), listed several
alternative scientific explanations for earthquakes in his study of aftershocks after
the “great” earthquake in Assam in 1897.52 Although he published these ideas more
than twenty years before the earthquake in 1934, the uncertainties expressed
regarding the geological origin of earthquakes seem to have prevailed. As Oldham
pointed out, though earthquakes were generally accepted as “purely geological
phenomena, yet there is a constant tendency, and have been repeated endeavours
to trace the influence either of the sun and the planets, or, in more recent years, of
changes of barometric pressure or temperature, on the time of occurrence of
earthquakes.”53 In 1934, similar scientific speculations discussed the impact of
51
Sir Edwin H. Pascoe, “Indian 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.
the new and full moon on earthquakes, though nothing could be proved.54 Such
ideas of astronomical or metrological causation behind earthquakes were also given
space in scientific publications. Articles in popular scientific journals such as
Current Science argued that the movements of the moon may have impacted on
earthquakes; the new moon could have intensified both its force and extent.55 The
fact that the earthquake had happened while a new moon was rising—as had the
Kangra earthquake in 1905—was more than a coincidence, Ghosh suggested.56 The
argument used in favour of the new moon’s impact was that it produced “maximum
‘body tide’ in the elastic solid material of the earth.”57 The position of the moon and
the stars produced “tidal effects,” a force which could “cause crustal movements
and fractures” in the geology of the earth.58 In most cases, planetary constellations
had “minor importance” and were probably insufficient to cause the earthquake, but
because of the “coincidence” of the earthquake and the new moon, Banerji argued
that it was difficult for scientists to dispute the possibility of an influence on the
“load” and shift of “pressure” acting as a “trigger” in producing a sudden release of
stress.59 Such varied suggestions on the origin of the earthquake added to the
confusion over a scientific opinion on the cause of the earthquake.
In 1988, when yet another powerful earthquake shook Bihar, Pandey and Molnar
published an article revaluating the location of the 1934 epicentre, with additional
sources from Nepal.60 The geological re-evaluation of the historical sources from
the 1934 earthquake supports Nobuji Nasu’s theory, presented in 1934: the earth-
quake is likely to have been caused by fault movements under the Himalayas, rather
than triggered by movements in the alluvium along the Ganges.61 Pandey and
Molnar’s theory is, however, based on the inclusion of data from Nepal collected
and published by Major Brahma Sumsher J. B. Rana in 1935. According to this
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 Earth-
quake Phenomena (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), 130, 131–155.
55
56
R. N. Ghosh, “Influence of moon on earthquakes,” Current Science 3, no. 2 (August 1934):
61–62.
57
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 Distri-
bution of Intensity of the Bihar-Nepal Earthquake,” 24–25.
61
Ibid.
254 E. Marcussen
source, the “greatest destruction lay in the part of Nepal that Auden did not visit.”62
When the GSI volume was published in 1939, Dunn, who was responsible for the
investigation in Nepal, was apparently unaware of or ignored information about the
area which was inaccessible to him for political reasons.63
Astrology and the Art of Prediction
If scientific speculations and blends of various theories show us some of the

uncertainties among scientists regarding the causes of earthquakes, astrological
theories—and most notably predictions—added another layer to the discussion.
Unlike scientists, astrologers claimed to be able to point to the time of the next
disaster. G. C. Mukherjee noted how the interest in preventing a recurrence of the
disaster and subsequent loss of lives had made “everybody” ask for ways to protect
themselves from earthquakes. According to him, the astrologers had come forth to
profit from the situation:64 “The astrologers have a ready answer. If something is
paid them, the self-constituted agents of planetary gods, they would intercede with
the gods on behalf of mankind.”65
The apparent need to know about future earthquakes had become an opportunity
for astrologers to make predictions. The output and spread of astrological pre-
dictions were, however, also produced regularly in Hindu calendars listing
favourable dates of the year. They provided not only disaster forecasts, but also
dates of “auspicious periods,” of days regarded as more favourable for rituals or
important events such as weddings or laying the foundation stone for a new house.66
The everyday use of astrological almanacs, or “encyclopaedias of superstition”,
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 Mahābh ukamp (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
65
Ibid.
66
David Pingree, Jyotihśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature, vol. 6 of A History of Indian
Literature, ed. Jan Gonda˙ (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1981), 101.
according to G. C. Mukherjee, had considerable influence on the thinking of “the

superstitious public.”67 In his support of science, Mukherjee refuted the beliefs of
the superstitious:
The absurd methods and ridiculous beliefs of the almanac-makers are, however, far below
being honoured with scientific criticism. Scientists, unlike astrologers or almanac-makers,
are keenly conscious of their limitations. They have to confess that in spite of their best
efforts the prediction of earthquakes has not yet been achieved.68
Mukherjee apparently saw objectivity as the mark of science; it was critical and
aware of its own limitations, while the astrologers based their work on belief.
Disturbed by the numerous astrological predictions, Mukherjee paraphrased
Voltaire’s famous words after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, depicting the astrol-
ogers as just as unscientific and irrational as Voltaire had portrayed the clergy.69
Voltaire’s poem on the Lisbon earthquake came to represent the final blow to
theological explanations of disasters, and it also triggered a philosophical debate
in Europe on the existence of evil.70 Expressing his dislike for astrologers,
Mukherjee replaced Voltaire’s “priesthood” with “the art of divination:” “It arose
when the first hypocrite met the first credulous fool, and we have too many of both
classes in our country.”71
As Mukherjee rightly pointed out, scientific theories made no claims on the
ability to predict when major earthquakes would occur, and although scientists
claimed it was impossible to predict their occurrence “even by an hour,” predictions
were sometimes looked upon with curiosity.72 Edwin H. Pascoe, previously director
of the GSI from 1921 to 1932, in his talk, “Indian Earthquakes, their Causes and
Consequences” at the Royal Society of Arts in London, voiced his concern regard-
ing predictions after the earthquake in 1934:
Is it possible to foretell them? Definitely we may answer: No. We may surmise that a
certain section of a large fault is in a state of strain and that an earthquake is, as it were, due.
But it is not only impossible to foretell when the shock is likely to occur, but also to say
whether or not the strain will be dissipated by numberless infinitesimal shocks of a harmless
nature, spread over a period of many years (. . .).73
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
69
François-Marie Arouet Voltaire, Poem upon the Lisbon disaster ¼ 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
72
Sir Thomas H. Holland, introduction to “Indian earthquakes, their causes and
consequences,” 577f.
73
Ibid., 587.
256 E. Marcussen
He would later contradict himself later in the same talk, with a small anecdote
for the audience which he described as “not composed entirely of cold-blooded
scientists.”74 After the Kangra Earthquake of 1905, Pascoe had himself experienced
what he referred to as a “correct prognostication:”75
In the town of Jammu I was taken to an old Sadhu who was said to have foretold, not only
the earthquake, but the month, the day and the time when it was to take place. My amused
incredulity was silenced by his production of a newspaper, printed in English and dated
some days before the earthquake, in which his prognostication appeared. In black and white
there was the prophecy, correct to the minute! There may be more things in Heaven and
earth than are dreamt of in our Western philosophy. All I can say is: were that old man to
foretell an earthquake here in London to-morrow morning, I should take an early train to a
quiet spot in the country!76
Even though he struck a worldlier note to entertain his audience, Pascoe

represented a “scientific” community of geologists in his lecture in London, six
weeks after the earthquake in Bihar. With science unable to predict earthquakes,
alternative answers were presented as the only options. While waiting for “science”
to master earthquake prediction, Pascoe could only advise the audience to turn to
non-science.77
An ingenious attempt at blending various theories was put forth by one Param
Hans Singh at the Civil Courts in Ghazipur.78 He claimed to be able to identify the
exact location of the earthquake in North Bihar by combining the Newton’s law of
gravitation with the position of the planets.79 He first refuted a number of “scien-
tific” postulates which had circulated in the newspapers: (1) “the existence of
seismic belt,” (2) the “rising of the Himalayas,” and (3) “movement of molten
mass in the lower strata or volcanic eruption,” and instead proposed an explanation
based on “the conjunction of Seven Stars. 80” The conjunction, which many
astrologers had referred to, was an alignment of the planets Mercury, Venus, the
Earth, Mars, Saturn, and probably Neptune with the sun. According to Hans Singh,
at exactly 2.15 pm (during the earthquake), the Earth’s moon crossed the straight
line. Since it was the Amawasya day, or the day of the new moon, its position
between the earth and the sun caused the strongest gravitational force.
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 Indian Earthquake
of 1934,” British Journal of Psychology 26, no. 1 (1935): 2–3.
Six planets had already assembled together before January 15th, and then a seventh, namely
the moon, also entered the congregation at 2 p.m., and the earthquake immediately
followed.81
The positioning of the planets and the moon’s role was the most common
astrological explanation for the cause of the earthquake.82 Similar interpretation
patterns can be found in astrological sources stemming from the Vedic period,
when prognostications and omens (adbhuta, utpāta, nimitta) were used to predict
the future.83 In the texts, the conjunction of the moon with celestial constellations
was regarded as either auspicious or inauspicious for performing certain rites.84
Hans Singh had further information to add in order to explain the influence of the
“conjunction of seven stars” on the earthquake: The moon’s movement had trig-
gered an excessive gravitational force, which pulled “the Earth towards the Moon
like the tides.” This effect in that specific area of the Himalayas was supported by
scientific data, according to Hans Singh, since it was located at the highest altitude
at longitude 86 east of Greenwich, which faced the moon at 2.15 pm. The earth-
quake was thus caused by a rise in land levels when the Himalayas was pulled
toward the moon, and as a result the lower lying areas close to the mountain chain,
i.e. North Bihar, came to suffer the most. In the conclusion he wrote:
Thus, we see that our future depends mainly on the movement of the heavenly bodies which
work under the law of gravitation. Their movements are certain and unmodified but their
effect is quite unknown to us. It lies in the scope of astronomy to predict that.85
To Hans Singh, the constellation of the stars was paramount in causing the
earthquake. It is, however, interesting to note that at the same time, he invoked
scientific theories like the law of gravitation to support his explanation. The three
views on science and the non-scientific, expressed by Mukherjee, Pascoe, and
Singh, illustrate some of the disparate outlooks prevalent after the earthquake in
1934. The circulation of astrological explanations and predictions had received
critical scrutiny by Mukherjee’s sceptical acknowledgement of the influence of
astrologers and those who believed in them. In general, as the next section shows,
astrological predictions had a strong influence, which would increase as “rumours”
spread in the wake of the earthquake.
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 Astrology,”
Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 4 (2003): 126.
84
Ibid., 124.
85
Hans Singh, “Law of Gravitation and the Recent Earthquake in Bihar.”
258 E. Marcussen
Astrological Predictions as Rumours
Astrological explanations and predictions of the earthquake, or other disasters to

come, spread orally and in news papers. Government reports and an important
secondary source, “The Psychology of Rumour: A Study of the Great Indian
Earthquake of 1934,” written by Jamuna Prasad in 1935, referred to such astrolog-
ical theories as rumours.86 Prasad collected interviews, observations, and newspa-
pers in the days following the earthquake in an attempt to understand the
psychological factors underlying rumours after a disaster.87 The emergence of
rumours after a disaster is a well-known phenomenon: rumours, scientific specula-
tions, or bold new theories on metaphysics can be said to stem from both the out-of-
the-ordinary experiences that comprise a disaster and the chaos of distorted com-
munication and governance.88 Rumours are even argued to be a universal response
in the aftermath of a catastrophe; most commonly they identify scapegoats or blame
the authorities for hiding information.89
In Prasad’s list of rumour types, the numerous astrological predictions were
grouped as astrological forecasts and classified as a form of group warning used to
guard against sudden disaster. Since, according to Prasad, the causes of earthquake
were not known to these people, the predictions were attempts to rationalize the
event. For the “popular mind,” or the general public, the astrological predictions
were explanations for the earthquake:
The second class of rumours [. . .] about the congregation of planets, the indignation of the
deity of the Himalayas, the prediction of Dalai Lama, etc., all find their psychological
justification here—they are attempts on the part of the popular mind to comprehend a
strange phenomenon in such forms of thought as are inherited by and prevalent in the group,
and acceptable to all its members. A fact which is psychologically very remarkable is that
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.
even the people of scientific training and high intellectual abilities entertained these
rumours, if they did not entirely believe in them.90
According to Prasad’s study, the rumours carried meaningful explanations to

large numbers among the population; not only the “superstitious” believed in
astrology, as Mukherjee had claimed. The general public had accepted the expla-
nations in a series of rumours which he categorized as of “explanatory character,”
drawing upon “legend, socially important beliefs, and superstitions.”91 The
rumours appeared in a language of the common traditional and cultural heritage
found in astrology and mythology.92 Contrary to the common understanding of
rumour as “a text without an author,” many of the rumours announcing astrological
predictions of an imminent earthquake claimed unknown but authoritative written
sources, or referred to statements made by astrologers.93 This can be seen as a
strategy for rumours to claim legitimacy from an authored genre rather than
asserting an anonymous origin.94
As Prasad pointed out, astrological constellations frequently featuring in the
rumours, such as that of the seven stars, were indeed part of the cultural heritage.
Varāhamihira (505–587), author of Bṛhat Saṁhitā, and one of the most influential
astrologers in Indian astrology, mentioned several star constellations as commonly
known to cause earthquakes.95 The stars could either serve as prognostications
preceding an earthquake or, if coinciding with an earthquake, serve as a portent for
coming disasters. In some earthquakes, men of certain stature, or of a particular
region or profession, perish, while other earthquakes bring failed harvests, dried up
tanks and wells, war, and diseases. Heavenly portents, or omens, foretelling a
disaster, i.e. constellations, meteors, and other celestial portents, were regarded as
90
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 Persian Zoroas-
trians 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 Pa~ nchasiddhāntikā (his other major
work on astrology), Bṛhajjātaka (which to a large extent deals with birth horoscopes), and the
Laghujātaka in the sixth century. Varāhamihira, The Pa~ ncasiddhāntikā, 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 jyotihsā. Beinorius,
“The Followers of the Stars,” 136. See also Varāhamihira, Bṛhat Saṁhitā, ed. ˙ ˙ G. Thibaut,
Vidyābhavana prācyavidyā granthamālā 156 (Benares: Chaukhambā Vidyābhavana, 2005).
260 E. Marcussen
more difficult to perform penances for, compared to terrestrial signs.96 Following

Varāhamihira’s and subsequent astrologers’ interpretation of constellations, astrol-
ogers in 1934 also interpreted the earthquake as a portent for impending disasters.97
Hence, the constellation had not only triggered the earthquake: the disaster under
the present constellation was interpreted as a bad omen. Lunar eclipses were
normally held as inauspicious events and under the present constellation, another
rumour of an earthquake on the day of a lunar eclipse circulated in the bazaars and
in the newspapers.98 Though some of these rumours predicted more earthquakes,
they commonly generalised the prediction to include disasters of social or “natural”
character.99
The belief in astrologers’ abilities to predict earthquakes was thought to be
further strengthened by a rumoured, or actually published, newspaper article from
December 1934. Similar to the prediction mentioned by Pascoe in a newspaper after
the Kanga earthquake in 1905, an article about an astrologer predicting an earth-
quake on 15 January 1934 in northern India was said to have been published. After
the earthquake, prediction was circulated again, to the annoyance of the
government:
This prediction gained great publicity, and in response to popular demand, the astrologers
foretold all manner of further catastrophies [sic]. Rumours spread like lightning, and on
certain days it was extremely difficult to do any serious work. The alarm lasted for several
months and is only now beginning to subside.100
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.
The rumour of the astrological prediction, or slightly varying versions thereof,

received wide publicity in the newspapers.101 In one variant of the presumably
fulfilled prophecy, which Prasad claimed had appeared in the newspapers before the
earthquake, the prediction was of a general kind without giving specifics regarding
time or place: “Astrologers have predicted evil days for the world from the
beginning of 1934 to the end of the year.”102 The following day, a slightly more
exact prediction appeared in several newspapers. According to Prasad, it was
“widely believed” and gave further details on attempts by astrologers to mitigate
the impending disaster: “Curiously enough, an earthquake was exposed by the local
astrologers, as many of them were offering prayers in certain temples for mitigation
of disastrous effects, when the shock actually occurred.”103 The same day, yet
another version of the rumour gave more details regarding the prophecy:
The terrible earthquake had already been foreseen by astrologers, and their prediction, that
it would take place between the period January 14th–15th between 2 and 4 p.m., and would
be severe in Bihar, had appeared long before in some vernacular and English
newspapers.104
People’s belief in astrologers’ predictive abilities found support in the “fact” that
the earthquake prediction(s) had come true, which both the repeated accounts in the
newspapers as well as Prasad’s contemporary collected records suggest. The pre-
diction served as an evidence of the astrologers’ skill; a government publication
verifies how it gave birth to a “fertile crop of similar prophesies.”105 On 17 January
1934, a prediction was made for 23 January 1934, described as “a fatal day” when
“unforeseeable calamities will arise.”106 23 January 1934 also marked the last day
of “the inauspicious time”, according to the Hindu calendar. Prasad described the
people as “panic-stricken,” and though the danger of living in damaged houses did
play a role, the fear of yet another earthquake made “even ladies of ‘bhadralok’
families” camp in improvised tents in the maidan (open field or place).107 The
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 appear-
ance in local papers of prognostications by astrologers prophesying further calamities.” Amrita
Bazar Patrika, January 23, 1934.
105
Wilcock, Bihar and Orissa in 1933–34, 15–16.
106
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 compre-
hensive 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.
262 E. Marcussen
“inauspicious time,” coupled with the shock and pain inflicted by the earthquake,
brought the bazaars to a halt and made it difficult to find labourers to clear the
debris.108
These rumours of astrological predictions lingered for months after the earth-
quake in 1934. As they spread throughout the area, they caused administrative
inconveniences and panic in villages and towns as far as Lucknow in northern
India.109 The earthquake had left people in the neighbouring provinces too “in a
state of anxious suspense,” according to the author of one article.110 Predictions of a
second earthquake or other impending disasters caused such problems that the
District Magistrate in Lucknow felt it necessary to issue an order for “gossip-
mongers” to be prosecuted for spreading “false and alarming rumours” in the
city.111 He was commended for the “proper” and “timely” order; authorities in
other parts of the country were urged to follow his example “against the spread of
such rumours.” The precaution was widely approved, since “the mischief which a
rumour of this kind is calculated to cause by creating panic in the public mind can
hardly be overestimated.”112 People caught repeating astrological predictions of
further disasters were seen as consciously trying to instigate panic. In Indian
historiography, rumours in general are treated as a valuable source of information,
especially to discern popular mentalities and flows of information, a significant
carrier for resistance and communication in colonial India.113 Within a very short
period, rumours have the power to trigger a rapidly spreading panic which in turn
could cause revolts, as demonstrated by Ranajit Guha.114 In one of the worst
affected and most difficult to reach areas, the authorities had resorted to publishing
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.
pamphlets asserting that the earthquake had a scientific cause in order to stem the
panic:
In Darbhanga, which I passed through today, the district officer, endeavouring to allay the
fears of the panic-stricken people, had printed a pamphlet in which it was stated that the
cause of the earthquake was the gradual movement of the Indian Peninsula towards the
Himalayas. This was squeezing up the Gangetic plain and had caused the earthquake. The
crack, it was stated, extended from Sitamarhi to Monghyr. There was an earthquake in
1833, and it is predicted there will be another in one hundred years.115
Both in Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur the panic disrupted relief work, which
could only be resumed with difficulty. Another problem were people whose houses
were “perfectly sound,” but who still preferred to sleep outside in fear of further
shocks.116 The “wild rumour of another earthquake shock” also created ripples in
Calcutta on 23 January 1934; The rumours not only disrupted life in the towns and
villages of northern Bihar—they were also reported to have “caused much panic”
among lawyers and litigants in the Police Court in Bankshall Street in Calcutta.117
However, astrological rumours were not alone in predicting future earthquakes,
according to brief statements in the newspapers. These accounts echoed scientific
claims which portrayed future earthquakes as inevitable. Concisely and sensation-
ally put, it seemed as if scientists, like astrologers, also anticipated more earth-
quakes in the future. The statements were often taken out of context and falsely
portrayed how scientists forecast future earthquakes.118 Such scientific claims
found further support from GSI, which referred to the Himalayas’ geological
formation as an earthquake area. As established by previous experience, the seismic
activity in or along the Himalayas was a historical fact to be trusted. The govern-
ment official and relief officer William Bailie Brett said the area between the
Ganges alluvium and the Himalayas had been “long regarded a seismic region,”
and future earthquakes were to be expected:119
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
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 astrological prophecy had
triggered the rumour of an earthquake, the “normal” irregularity of the fan set off a panic in court.
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.
264 E. Marcussen
“North Bihar Seismic Belt. Earthquakes certain in future. Geological Expert’s lecture
(Calcutta, Sept. 8, 1934)”
In the course of a lecture in [at?] the Asiatic Society of Bengal last [?] night, Dr. J. B. Auden
of the Geological Survey of India, said that North Behar and Assam lie along the seismic
belt and earthquakes must certainly be expected in the future.120
Science hardly had a calming effect on the spread of rumours and speculative
accounts, as a journalist stated: “If a meteorologist is to issue a statement he should
not be expected to be more definite than astrologers and soothsayers!”121 The
meteorologist, Dr. S. N. Sen at Alipore observatory in Calcutta, had—in an attempt
to re-assure the general public of the futility of earthquake prediction—described
the milder aftershocks as a common feature of earthquakes.122 While his intention
was to calm people by saying that mild aftershocks normally occurred following
earthquakes, the statement was instead interpreted as announcing more shocks to be
expected.
The authorities took note of the spread of rumours after the earthquake in 1934.
After the Quetta earthquake in June 1935, the government issued “a very satisfac-
tory communiqué for the press in correction of various myths, false hopes, or alarms
and excellent, but misleading intentions.”123 This indicated the need to control the
flow of information spread by the press and, in particular, to rapidly hinder the
spread of rumours. In Quetta in 1935, the spread of rumours was also hindered by
the declaration of martial law, by which a “mild censorship of news was imposed to
prevent the dissemination of alarmist rumours.”124
Again in Bihar in February 1936, the local government faced another earthquake
prediction published in the local Bihari newspaper Basumati and in leaflets.125 A
local astrologer named Sri Rasbiharilal from Aligarh, who claimed to have
predicted the 1934 earthquake in Bihar, now predicted a terrible earthquake on
120
“North Bihar Seismic Belt: Earthquakes Certain in Future; Geological Expert’s Lecture (Cal-
cutta, September 8)”, in The Searchlight, September 9, 1934.
121
122
Ibid.
123
Government of India, Bureau of Public Information, Quetta Earthquake: Collection of Infor-
mation 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.”
3 March 1936. Shamboo Nath, the manager of the Indian Nation, called the local
government’s attention to the article.126 The author of the article claimed to have
obtained the prediction from a government office where allegedly several copies
had been typed.127 Having passed through the hands of the District Magistrate in
Patna,128 the communication on the trouble with earthquake predictions and the
article in Basumati reached the Governor of Bihar and Orissa, who subsequently
asked the Legal Remembrancer: “Do you see any way of dealing with astrologers
and others who spread rumours of earthquakes coming, and cause a general panic?”
This earthquake prediction had accordingly given rise to “a great deal of mischief,”
with hospital patients insisting on vacating the upper storeys and town residents
falling ill from sleeping out in the cold weather for fear of collapsing houses.129
They could not find a way to prosecute “these pests”, since the new Criminal Law
Amendment Act of 1935 had repealed the same Act of 1932 where, under section
6, it had been an offence “to publish without reasonable ground any rumour likely
to cause fear or alarm to the public.”130 Instead, in a memo by the Deputy Inspector-
General of the Criminal Investigation Department following the above communi-
cation, the superintendents were asked to take action against the printing presses
under section 3 and 4 of the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act of 1931, “in
respect of those leaflets in which are included predictions of widespread distur-
bances during the ensuing Bakr-Id.”131
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.”
266 E. Marcussen
Conclusion
In conclusion, we may draw a few inferences from the present discussion. In the
first place, it is interesting to note that, in the aftermath of the earthquake, the
government took time to come up with its official report on the cause of the
earthquake. It would take four years for the GSI to compile a volume with the
results of its investigations. As a result, an official scientific conclusion on the
plausible cause was until then tentative, allowing space for alternative suggestions
based on preliminary investigations. There were disagreements about the location
of the epicentre, as well as the geological features which may have caused the
earthquake. In contrast with the scientific reports, the astrological predictions were
immediate. They claimed to have predicted the earthquake of 1934 and prophesied
more to follow. Also, unlike the scientific explanations, there was a consensus of
opinion amongst these astrological predictions. The other interesting thing to note
in this context is that while most of the scientists were highly critical of the
astrological methods and predictions, Pascoe, for example, could not help but
acknowledge the fact that science had no ready answer to when an earthquake
would happen. Secondly, astrological predictions did not necessarily compete with
the scientific theories on the cause of the earthquake; the predictions’ main concern
was to tell when a disaster would strike, while science, on the other hand, aimed to
answer why and how the earthquake had occurred. Thirdly, one can easily discern a
pattern in the public’s reaction the government’s response. There was a dearth of
official reports offering explanations of the earthquake, on the one hand, while
prophesies of the coming of subsequent earthquakes or disasters led to rumours. In
fact, the official scientific reports claimed that the area’s geological features and
preceding earthquakes made it rather likely that another earthquake would indeed
occur. Such scientific statements were not meant to support astrological predictions,
but they reinforced rumours that future earthquakes were bound to happen.
Rumours of impending disasters, flourishing in the bazaars and through the news-
papers, played a significant role in the spread of panic. The government had a hard
time dealing with these rumours, due to the paucity of adequate counter-
explanations. As a precautionary measure, they had to resort to various punitive
measures and keep an eye on publications for astrological predictions that could
spark rumours and cause panic.
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I come from fields of fractured rock,

The Bihar, or Bihar-Nepal, earthquake, which occurred at 2:13 pm on 15 January

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 241

to be no dearth of explanations of the direct or indirect cause of the earthquake.2

understandings of earthquake “science” and its opposites, namely explanations in

Official Scientific Explanations: Possible Causes

without difficulties because of the varying geological conditions and types of

Astrology and the Art of Prediction

If scientific speculations and blends of various theories show us some of the

according to G. C. Mukherjee, had considerable influence on the thinking of “the

Even though he struck a worldlier note to entertain his audience, Pascoe

Astrological Predictions as Rumours

Astrological explanations and predictions of the earthquake, or other disasters to

According to Prasad’s study, the rumours carried meaningful explanations to

more difficult to perform penances for, compared to terrestrial signs.96 Following

The rumour of the astrological prediction, or slightly varying versions thereof,

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