Famine has been a recurrent feature of life in the Indian subcontinent countries of India and Bangladesh, most commonly cited as a feature of British rule. Famines in India resulted in millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long-term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.