Report by Shelley Kasli
Educated Indians are aware of the ghastly 2-century imposition of British colonialism on India. However, because history is generally written by non-scientists, most Indians are utterly unaware of the horrendous human cost (1.8 billion violent and non-violent avoidable deaths in the period 1757-1947).
Under British rule, Indian cultivators were forced to produce for export, and heavily taxed while denied necessary infrastucture, like roads, to move their products to market. As one observer noted, “In this predicament, the cargo of cotton lies sometimes for weeks on the ground, and the merchant is ruined.” Shown: Indian and European merchants trade at the Bombay cotton market, ca. 1870.
Th British deliberately caused famines in India, in order to force the indigenous population into relief works, such as road-building. The tenant-laborer, writes Carey, “is mercilessly turned from his land and his mud hut, and left to die on the highway.” Here, Indians on their way to the relief works, published in the LondonNews, 1874.
Queen Victoria, Empress of India, ruled over a people broken by poverty, inhumane treatment, famines, and despair. As one British author wrote: “And this occured in British India—in the reign of Victoria the First. Nor was the event extraordinary and unforeseen. Far from it: 1835-36 witnessed a famine in the northern provinces; 1833 beheld one to the eastward; 1822-23 saw one in the Deccan. They have continued to increase in frequency and extent under our sway for more than half a century.”
During the terrible famine of 1838, according to one reporter, millions of pounds of rice and other edible grains were exported from Calcutta, to feed the kidnapped Indian Coolies, who had been sent to the Mauritius, to work in the fields.
Breakdown of Death Toll of Indian Holocaust caused during the British (Mis)Rule
These are just the figures of the British-man-made famines, it does not include the Epidemics induced by Famines, Anglo-Indian Wars, Indians killed fighting for the British, Freedom Fighters martyred by the British.
If all these are included the figures reaches over 1.8 Billion mark (ignored by Anglo Media)
Unless we know the root causes of our Indian history we cannot understand the present conditions and conflicts of the country. It is important to understand that this history will never be taught from our perspective because it is not in the interest of colonial masters to create revolutionaries. Only the completely brainwashed could deal with the history of the European’s genocidal hatred of the Indians without emotional pain. To not feel the ‘people pain’ meted out in such colossal dosages is to be already dead, a mere intellectual stone, a programmed creature unconnected to our own ancestors.”
FEEL THE PAIN of your ancestors to protect your descendants
Apart from the references provided below, here are a few books I would recommend on the subject :
1. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Mike Davis, Verso Books.
2. “Famines and Land Assessments in India”, Romesh Chunder Dutt. Available for free download from :http://www.archive.org/stream/faminesandlanda00duttgoog
3. The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule. From the Rise of the British Power in 1757 to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Vol. I, Romesh Chunder Dutt.
The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age. From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century, Vol. II, Romesh Chunder Dutt.
4. Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Forgotten Indian Famine of World War II, Madhusree Mukherjee, 2010.
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References for Figures Listed in the Table :
1. Dutt, Romesh Chunder (1908). The economic history of India under early British rule, Pg. 52
2. Grove, Richard H. (2007), “The Great El Nino of 1789–93 and its Global Consequences: Reconstructing an Extreme Climate Event in World Environmental History”, The Medieval History Journal 10 (1&2): Pg. 75–98
3. Ibid
4. Reference 1: Digby, William. Prosperous British India, Pg.127.
Reference 2 : Dutt, RC. Famines and Land Assessments in India, Pg.3
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Digby, William. Prosperous British India, Pg.127
8. Reference 1: Digby, William. Prosperous British India, Pg.127.
Reference 2 : Dutt, RC. Famines and Land Assessments in India, Pg.5
9. Ibid
10. Ibid
11. Ibid
12. Ibid
13. Fieldhouse, David (1996), “For Richer, for Poorer?”, in Marshall, P. J., The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 400, pp. 132
14. Reference 1: Digby, William. Prosperous British India, Pg.127.
Reference 2 : Dutt, RC. Famines and Land Assessments in India, Pg.9
15. Ibid
16. Ibid
17. A Maharatna, The Demography of Famine, quoted by Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, El Nino Famines and Making of the Third World, pg 7,table P1.
18. Digby, William. Prosperous British India, Pg.128
19. Ibid
20. Ibid
21. Ibid
22. The Lancet 16 may 1901, quoted in Mike Davis. Late Victorian Holocausts, El Nino Famines and Making of the Third World, pg 7, table P1
23. Maharatna quoted by Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, El Nino Famines and Making of the Third World, pg 174
24. Bengal Tiger and British Lion: An Account of the Bengal Famine of 1943, Richard Stevenson, Pg.139
Famines in Bengal: 1770-1943, K C Ghosh, pg.111
Famine Inquiry Commission Report, 1943. Pg.110
http://cecaust.com.au/foodcrisis/H%20Carey%20British%20free%20trade.pdf
Churchill’s Crimes From Indian Holocaust To Palestinian Genocide
http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230109.htm
How many Indians died in the genocides committed by the British Raj?
http://jambudveep.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/how-many-indians-died-in-the-genocides-committed-by-the-british-raj/
Bengal Famine Man-Made
News Article – The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday 16 November 1943
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17882909
Anglo Holocaust Denial – BBC’s “The Story of India” IGNORES Bengal Famines & British Indian Holocaust
http://creative.sulekha.com/anglo-holocaust-denial-bbc-s-the-story-of-india-ignores-bengal-famines-british-indian-holocaust_412021_blog
Churchill’s Famine?
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266849
INDIAN HOLOCAUST under British Raj: 1.8 BILLION excess deaths
https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/indian-holocaust
British in India : Slavery and Famine
http://cecaust.com.au/foodcrisis/H%20Carey%20British%20free%20trade.pdf
Censorship by the BBC which ignores the 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust & 1757-1947 Indian Holocaust
http://creative.sulekha.com/censorship-by-the-bbc-which-ignores-the-1942-1945-bengali-holocaust-1757-1947-indian-holocaust_556742_blog
The Forgotten Holocaust – The 1943/44 Bengal Famine
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.in/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html
Churchill’s Bengali Holocaust. Inadvertent confessions of Britain’s #1 war criminal
https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/churchill-s-bengali-holocaust
Listen to: The Bengal Famine
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine
(Courtesy: http://greatgameindia.wordpress.com/)
