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Notes -
"Carts belonging to banjaras (carriers) transporting grain from the more productive regions of Malwa were intercepted and supplies diverted to feed Shah Jahan’s [Mughal Emperor] royal army in Burhanpur, who were fighting territorial wars in the Deccan (southern) provinces." - Peter Mundy, a firsthand observer
Not so different. Here's another, this time caused by a combination of bad years plus Maratha armies devastating all the cropland on their way to Mysore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doji_bara_famine
That's the story of most famines around the world, at least since the early modern period - bad weather combined with bad policies, e.g. looting grain carts and trampling fields.
As for the Mughals, I didn't say they were less "oppressive" and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I said they were terrible.
They are generally accepted to have average tax rates on the poor of approximately 50%. That's a lot of money going into state coffers and significantly exceeded other empires, including the British. Where did the money go? Traveling as a tourist shows us many opulent palaces and tombs built by the Mughals, and history books also tell us of the opulence of their courts. History books also tell us of their many wars.
Put aside the historical romanticism - that's a story of warlords looting a nation, building very little, and spending the proceeds on luxuries for themselves. And it still wasn't enough - Shah Jahan's fundamental problem was that money spent on luxuries for the rulers was growing faster than the economy, and his empire was so corrupt that he couldn't stop it. Slapping a rainbow flag with a brown stripe on top of this - I mean a "we love hindus too" flag - doesn't change it. (Yes, I'm throwing in a western culture war reference since America is waking up soon.)
The British did not have that problem. Their stated goal, which they do seem to have acted on, was to grow the economy of India faster than the fraction they extracted. Kill the thuggees because the hurt trade. The Nizams of Hyderabad, with whom they were closely aligned, felt similarly. Hyderabad became so rich that India eventually conquered them to capture that wealth.
And if you travel to Bombay as a tourist you see this. There is no British palace, but there is a a British train station. It's nice and you don't need to be royalty to use it.
I don't see much evidence the Marathas thought things through at that level - there is certainly no Maratha equivalent of John Stewart Mill writing essays for them - but at the same time their culture did not seem as corrupt as the Mughals.
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