shocking

A blot on the escutcheon of British rule in India!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%9378

and for 15 people like that????

:o

भारत में दुर्भिक्ष अंग्रेजों की देन है...

An utter failure of laisse faire economics leading to incalculable pain and suffering.

the British have a lot to answer for in their quest to increase their empire.

What Dasi? You think there weren't famines in feudal India before the Raj? Get a grip.

Shane Blacklee yes there was. But Brits manufactured Many to control the trade.

Eg in Bengal wheat fields were converted to jute plantation.

Maun Mohan Singh when in British parliament made a statement that British rule was good for India.

Many famines were man made under British Rule and more lives were lost in India than than some of the known genocides in history. Read about Bengal Famines in the wiki. The British didn't suffer, only the common man in Bengal paid the price. British royalty has a lot of apologizing to do for the loot and rampage they undertook in their colonies to enrich England !

Pre-colonial famines were less frequent, less deadly, and more localized. Several aspects of British rule conspired with (we think) extreme El Nino conditions in the latter half of the 19th century to make those famines especially bad. Probably the biggest problem was the indebtedness of tenant farmers, a product of the unrealistic revenue demands made on landlords and raiyats, especially in the Madras Presidency. The drastic annihilation of forests, and the creation of the reserve forests, also removed much of the "margin" and "commons" poor people relied upon to graze animals, cut hay, etc., to eke out a living. Much of the timber was used as railway ties and fuel for the expansion of the British railway system in India. Then, making matters worse, the railway system was used to export grain and cotton via newly modernized ports (Bombay, Madras, etc.), and Indian farmers were encouraged to get involved in the international grain trade at the same time that the U.S. and Russia and South America were about to dump massive quantities of grain on the international market: bad planning, and a race to the economic bottom, triggering a global recession in the 1890s. In pre-colonial times, most people who lived in famine-stricken areas could move to neighboring provinces, get by as casual laborers, and return home when conditions had improved. Travelers speak of villages left empty, but later reoccupied. That didn't happen in the famines after the late 1860s: those people were uprooted permanently, millions died, and those who could left the country to become coolie labor in places like Sri Lanka, Mauritius, S. Africa, Fiji, and Malaya.

The british should have been tried for crimes against humanity. Hypocrites rule.

OMG

Its history. .but what pains me is when we fail to learn from mistakes.

And this was not a Holocaust???? Give me a break! Where are the trials at the The International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity? Absolutely horrifying.

Shame.......and the Brits are unapologetic to this day for their atrocities !!!

And still despite all of these wonderful "explanations" nobody has been able to answer the simple question. How then did the population increase? How does a population increase unless 1) the country was brought to peace, 2) there is more food (or more nutritious food) available, and/or 3) medical facilities improved?

Chris, India had enough peace and prosperity. That is the very reason the entire Europe was dying to come here, Columbus was ready to travel through Hell (Wet direction). So British did not do ANY favors to India. Medicine in India was much better than in Europe when the British arrived. But of course these things don't look good in textbooks.

I dare say that long before the descendants of the Brits who governed India were taken to the International Court, the descendants of all those who burned their own mothers, drowned their infant daughters in milk, and forcibly married their children before the age of 8 would be much higher up the queue.

Christopher Buyers No it didn't. India's population which stood at approx. 3 million in 1875 fell to approx. 2 million in 1881..that is almost one-third of the population wiped out. And these figures are for British India that is India, Pakistan and Burma. See http://www.populstat.info/Asia/indiac.htm

my apologies, it is 200 million and 300 million respectively

Sorry, are you seriously trying to pretend to me that during the whole period of British rule the population did not increase? I am not saying that the population may not have declined DURING a period of famine. But I am saying the whole period of British rule. That being said, for goodness sake, try and look at something before your post it - there are 3 different figures in your source for 1881 and 2 figures f0r 1871.

Chris, we would be the first to accept our foibles, Our society needs to change and change it is doing and change it will. But never, never have we invaded another country to cause so much distress.

Yes Mr.Shane they weren't any famines just blotches from the Moghul invaders before these 2 clans of invaders we were the richest country in the world ! We weren't called sone ki chidiya - the Golden bird for nothing :) u need more details inbox me .

Sorry, Mr Joshi, but which textbooks are those? The ones published by the Maratha universities or in the Mughal ones?

I am just curious Mr Narayan, what are these "foibles" you are ready to accept? I wouldn't exactly use the word "foible" to describe the burning of one's own mother or drowning one's own daughters in milk. So I imagine that the charges you are ready to accept are much more minor ones. Have I understood you correctly?

No you havent and I dont expect you to.

So you were being disingenuous. You do not actually accept anything, even "foibles".

Famines during British India Bengal famine of 1770: 10 million or one-third of the population of Bengal Chalisa famine of 1783–84: 11 million Skull famine of 1791–92: 11 million Agra famine of 1837–38: 800.000 Upper Doab famine of 1860–61: 2 million Orissa famine of 1866: 1 million Rajputana famine of 1869: 1.5 million Great Famine of 1876–78: 10.3 million Ganjam, Orissa and North Bihar 1888–89: 150.000 Indian famine of 1896–97: 5 million Indian famine of 1899–1900: 1 million Bombay 1905–06: 235.062 Bengal famine of 1943: 5 million Total deaths during 160 years of British India: ~ 60 million Total deaths during 66 years of India: There has been no major famine in India since 1943

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine

Thank you. And now the total population statistics in year 1 and year 160 were? I suppose you will be including statistics for the Indian ruled areas and also the 160 years before British rule? Just to be fair, you understand? Just to have something to compare?

There were 14 famines in India between 11th and 17th cen due to uneven rainfall.During the British rule there were approximately 25 major famines induced due to British economic & administrative policies - seizure & conversion of local farmland to foreign owned plantations,restrictions on internal trade,heavy taxation to support unsuccessful British expiditions (Anglo-Afghan war),exports of staple crops from India to Britain &so on ...

Bengal famine. Facts rarely mentioned. 1) Bengal was ruled by an Indian government, the Minister responsible during the Midnapore famine was Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy, later PM of Pakistan. The Premier under whom he served, Khwaja Nazimuddin. 2) the usual source for shortfalls in rice production in India was Burma, where rice production and exports had grown exponentially under British colonial rule. But Burma was occupied by Japan. 'Asia for the Asians' meant Burmese oil and rice for the Japanese, not even the Burmese, let alone Indians.

While famines had occurred in the Indian sub-continent before British occupation, in many instances the consequences of monsoonal failure and resultant drought were addressed urgently by the indigenous rulers. Thus irrigation works, public works employment and food purchase and distribution were useful responses to such impending disasters. The British brought an unsympathetic and ruthless economic agenda to India. Economic exploitation damaged the indigenous Indian economy and resulted in a decline in the standard of living. The British disinclination to respond with urgency and vigour to food deficits resulted in a succession of about 2 dozen appalling famines during the British occupation of India. These famines swept away tens of millions of people. One of the worst famines was that of 1770 that killed an estimated 10 million people in Bengal (one third of the population) and which was exacerbated by the rapacity of the East India Company . Bengal suffered further famines in 1783, 1866, 1873-74, 1892, 1897 and 1943-44 The extraordinary continuing aspect of this 2 century Holocaust was the exacerbation and indeed the creation of famine by the sequestration and export of food for enhanced commercial gain. Thus in severe Indian famines in the mid-19th century (by which time the British authorities were thoroughly familiar with this sort of event) export of grain was permitted on the grounds of non-intervention in trade 6. This horrendous scourge [8,9] continued into the 20th century. Thus Rajasthan suffered a succession of severe scarcities and famines from 1899-1941, a very severe famine occurring in 1939-1940 [8]. The culmination of this saga of immense human suffering was the Bengal famine of 1943-44 [1-7].

Christopher Buyers Do you think that Europe's population as a whole did not increase from 1920 - 1960? Does that mean the holocast with the murder of 6mil Jews is justified ? A country such as India has a large population. Even a small percentage of that is huge in actual numbers. The whole world's population grew in the last century despite war and other terrible things people inflicted on each other. So that line of reasoning is pretty dumb. Secondly, pieces of Indian society had bad practices due to a variety of reasons. That is history. We accept it. We cleaned up. Did Europe not have burning of witches. Burning of scientists. Atrocities on society? The Americans (educated by western standards) burned Black people till early last century. Hell they freaking nuked 2 civilian cities 60 years back. But looking at similar historic periods, the maturity of thought and culture India was way ahead especially compared to the barbarians of Europe. British India was not all bad. But, especially in the early period, they were solely focused on material gain i.e. looting. Helping the famine victims was not a priority, we can be sure. So, first study some history, then try to excuse the horrible things some people did on others.

Sorry, what parts of Rajasthan were ruled by the British apart of Ajmer? Are you saying there was no Indian rule in Bengal in 1943-1944?

The Second World War involved the following British losses: 303,000 British armed forces personnel killed, 109,000 Commonwealth losses, 60,000 civilians killed in air raids and 30,000 Merchant Navy sailors killed. Against this we can set the forgotten "Allied" millions of Bengalis who died agonizing deaths, the toll amounting to 50 to 100 times the civilian losses in Dresden, Hamburg, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Tokyo or in German bombing raids on Britain.

Abhijit, do you not understand the difference between famine and murder by gassing? Do you really not understand the difference between murdering a third party stranger, from burning your own mother and suffocating your own daughters?

omg.

since1939, the United Kingdom had been drawing grain and manufactures from India for the war effort, and the colonial government had been printing money to pay for these purchases. The resulting inflation had combined with other factors to precipitate famine in early 1943., the Government of India asked the War Cabinet for half a million tons of wheat by year-end. The cereal would feed India’s two-million-strong army and workers in war-related industries; if any happened to be left over, it would relieve starvation. Winston Churchill declined to send wheat to India, then a British colony, thereby condemning millions, of people to death by starvation. Churchill chose instead to use the wheat and ships at his disposal to build a stockpile. Indians were “breeding like rabbits,” he explained at subsequent War Cabinet meetings (as recorded by Leopold Amery, the Secretary of State for India). Churchill’s close friend and technical advisor, Lord Cherwell, -said,"expending valuable shipping on Indians “scarcely seems justified unless the Ministry of War Transport cannot find any other use for it,” he added in a draft memo. In 1943, the non-availability of grain forced government-run relief centers in Bengal to reduce the grain rations provided to famine victims to about four ounces a day. That came to 400 calories, at the low end of the scale on which, at much the same time, inmates at Buchenwald were being fed. The Bengal famine drew to an end in late December, when the province harvested its own winter rice crop. The death toll was about 3 million.

Hmm. Interesting. So in every period of inflation during Indian history we find the correlation of crop failures. Is that the logic of your argument?

India contributed an army of 2.4 million men to assist the British war effort in World War 2. However India was rewarded by a British-imposed Bengal Famine (Indian holocaust) that killed million Indians.Australia was a major supplier of wheat but deliberately by-passed starving India , this boosting British food stocks and what was evidently a starvation-based military strategy to prevent Japanese advance into Bengal.While this horrendous atrocity has been almost completely white-washed out of British history, some historians and scholars have told the truth. dia you couldn’t own land as private property. The saying we have is sabhi bhoomi Gopal ki! You know, “the land belongs to the creator”. You can use it and it’s absolutely the same for the Aboriginal people here. You can’t own land, you can’t buy & sell it.The British created a group of owners of land who would then be the rent collectors, who would then finance the empire and meantime people were losing their land.And this had simultaneous impact on hunger because if all your surplus is being extracted to pay taxes then the very producers of food go hungry, which is why 2 million people died in the Bengal famine of 1942. Not because there wasn’t enough rice in India — we were exporting rice for the war — but because of the way the free trade rights of commerce were higher than the rights of people to eat.And the entire force of the British empire was being used to extract the last amount of paddy from the peasants. We had at that point a wonderful women’s movement called tib-haaga, and the women would basically blockade their paddy and say we won’t let you take it, you can’t forcefully take away our produce, we would rather give our lives than give our rice. And if that direct action of that kind that eventually brought the changes of the ’40s. And after ’47, when we got independence, we ensured that noone could own more than a certain amount of land. Laws that were called land ceiling, Seventeen acres under irrigated conditions, not very much — which makes every farmer in India a small farmer — unless they’re lying and putting cats and dogs as owners of pieces of their farm, which also happens in places.The second thing that was done was a universal right to food, and one of our economists got a Nobel Prize , Amartya Sen, who wrote a book on food and famine in which he talked about why after independence in India there had been no famines and why there had been such huge famines in China.And he traced it down to food entitlements and food rights that our systems had democratically been shaped to ensure that everyone got food. ”

For the benefit of Ms Pundir I post a link to the retort to Mukherjee, from whom she quotes extensively but does not acknowledge. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/966-without-churchill-indias-famine-would-have-been-worse

I have no desire to crucify Churchill.His record on Indian independence and imperialism was appalling and he thoroughly deserves all the criticism leveled at him on this matter - by everybody including Mukherjee. An interesting quote from the report provided by the governor of Bengal, who was not actually British but Australian. Casey later went on to become Australian foreign minister and had something of a humanitarian reputation.Wavell’s description of Churchill’s attitude toward India as “negligent, hostile and contemptuous. It was basically the British imperial policy and callousness, which had disastrous consequences.

Your opinion may or may not be correct about Indian independence and imperialism. Mukherjee's may or may not be justified in holding prejudices. You are both entitled to your view. But it is intellectually bogus to pretend that Churchill stopped food supplies to India. That is an outright lie.

Two interesting quotations about Lord Casey which may entertain the debate, given the previous effort. "One of his first acts in Cairo was to protest that UK troops were being referred to as 'British' in troop statistics; he said the Australians were British too." - Personal Experience, 1939-1946. By the Rt. Hon. Lord Casey. And the Indian opinion of Lord Casey as Governor "How are we to endure the humiliation of a Governor from a country that prohibits Indians from entering it?"

my heart is broken...

Was only Hitler capable of such cruelty to humankind? Well, think again.

No. Bengali landlords hoarding grain were quite capable and did do exactly that.

Just to set the record straight, since Bhavna has a tendency to supply misinformation. In her list of famines during "British" rule she includes the following: Chalisa famine of 1783–84: 11 million - North India, i.e. the imperial territories of Delhi (under Maratha protection), UP, the Punjab, Rajputana, and Kashmir. All under Indian rulers, not the British. Skull famine of 1791–92: 11 million - mostly South India, i.e. Hyderabad, Southern Maratha country, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar. All under Indian rulers, not the British. Rajputana famine of 1869: 1.5 million - Ajmer, Western Agra, Eastern Punjab and Rajputana. Most of the 1.5 million deaths were in the princely states of Rajputana, again not British territory. Great Famine of 1876–78: 10.3 million - Madras, Bombay, Mysore and Hyderabad. The deaths in British territory are estimated at roughly half the number or 5.5 million.

Mr. Buyers , could you be persuaded to look into the following? * The argument of tying the general increase in population of a region to salutary polices of a benevolent government is a very Churchillian one (in the context of India), and may not hint at the entire picture. The population of India increased by a 100 million to 250 million in just 30 years since 1850, perhaps the largest expansion it had seen until that time. This period coincided with the Cotton Boom owing to the American Civil War, when, as done in Lancashire, large tracts of land marked for subsistence farming were used to grow cotton instead. In the mid 1860s, India had become the single biggest supplier of cotton to the UK. The prosperity resulting from this circumstance is credited to have played the major role in population growth. By the 1870s, with the renewal of cotton supplies from the American South, peasants who chose to grow this cash crop, thus exposing themselves to global economic and political dynamics beyond their control, were decimated. Also, increased prosperity isn't the only cause for population growth; poverty, lack of social movement and exposure to agents of mortality (weather, diseases etc.) are potent contributing factors. Please see the "Causes" section of the Wiki article on "Human Overpopulation" (which I believe you trust, as you quote generously from that website for famine statistics) for a discussion. Not only did the per-capita income not increase for the entire period of British occupation of India (1757 to 1947)[page 311, "Late Victorian Holocausts" by Mike Davis], the average life expectancy fell during the Victorian times, this after the Queen had declared to treat her Indian subjects justly post-mutiny. Therefore, there cannot be too strong a case to be made for the blessings of the British being the cause for population increase. * The number of fatalities that you list across various famines in the 18th and 19th centuries cannot be used to compare their causes and pin those responsible. The Great Bengal Famine of 1769-70 was largely man-made, caused due to the policies instituted by the British government (outlined below). The Chalisa and Skull famines, having similar fatalities to the Bengal one, were not, they being caused by global weather dynamics. This, of course, does not mean that the the local rulers weren't responsible to manage drought and the transport of food grain, but if the British could not do so to prevent the 1943-44 Bengal famine in a time of grain surplus despite the whole of their imperial machinery at their disposal, the Rajas could not be blamed too strongly for their inaction 150 years ago. If WWII is touted as an excuse, I'm sure the constantly warring states of India could drum up a similar one. Prior to British rule, an Indian sovereign - be he Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist - had no claims of ownership to tillable land, only a part of fruits thereof in proportion to its produce. Villages held collective rights over such land, and safeguarded its subsistence by storing enough quantities of cereal underground to last them a year or even two. Such an established system was changed after British victories in the latter half of the eighteenth century where sections of land were parceled out to Zamindars, upon whom the responsibility to collect tax was put upon in return for ownership. The exorbitant and permanent increase in taxation on the peasantry was required to be paid on a specific day of the month, and the only way this could happen was for them to approach the local moneylender to borrow at rates ranging from 30% to 200%. The land of Bengal, which was once luxuriantly fertile that rarely fell to erratic monsoons, was as a result made barren, leaving the rayats without recourse to their own grain or a system of fair credit. Persistent attempts at reform by the Civil Service in India, MPs and famine commissioners in England, notably William Digby, William Wedderburn, John Bright, James Caird, Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt were repeatedly vetoed by India House, with the result that no less than 30 million deaths have been estimated to have occurred between 1870 and 1910 (including those in princely states) due to famines prompted by climate change. This is an equivalent to India suffering through an Irish Famine every 16 months for 40 years. Indians still had no political influence, and petitions suggesting reform by the Indian National Congress to the Viceroy and the British Parliament were routinely ignored. The British both opened and closed their rule in India in the shadow of famines in Bengal (1770 and 1943), relief during the latter having been denied by Churchill due to his diversion of ships marked for carrying grain towards the War effort. It can be assumed that no native government would have tolerated such a catastrophe. * The Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 was caused by the destruction of crops in Bengal due to cyclones, and the loss of Burma to Japan. Bu

Thank you Shashi - the snottiness of the British continues. It's time for those unenlightened ones to realize that the sun has really set on the British Empire. As you said, seek the truth and stop defending the monstrous actions of the Raj. They were LOOTERS, that's all.

Sigh. Loot is an Indian word, from the Hindustani लूट/لوٹ (lūṭ, “spoil, booty”), from Sanskrit लुण्ट (lu'ṭ). That tells you all you need to know.

Again, more snottiness.....sigh...

To quote Elton John (a Brit too): Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

As for the word 'loot," that's the least of the things that the British stole (is that English enough for you or does one have to check the etymology of that word too?) from India!

Vinita, I believe you have missed the point.

Sashi Kolar, a brave attempt, but I fear you fall short on a number of scores. * The argument of tying the general increase in population of a region .... * Also, increased prosperity isn't the only cause for population growth .... - none of this matters unless there is either an increase or plentiful supply of food. However prosperous you are or however poor you are is of no consequence - unless you have food. * Not only did the per-capita income not increase for the entire period .... - Do you even know what the term per capita means? It is the division of income over population. So if there has been a massive increase in population compared and the level of income is less, or even stays exactly the same, per capita income decreases. If the price of food decreases and supply increases, per capita income may not matter at all. As for life expectancy. Why choose the "Victoria era" when you have already chosen period of British rule from 1757-1947? Why not treat like with like? Could it be to obfuscate the fact that actually life expectancy increased (and indeed, child mortality fell? Which was actually the case. * The number of fatalities that you list across various famines in the 18th and 19th centuries ..... - You have not grasped the point. I was simply going back to the unacknowledged source used by Bhavna and giving the actual details of what that sources says - undistorted. Whether or not the Chalisa and Skull famines were manmade or not was not the question. The fact, not stated by Bhavna was that they had nothing to do with the British, nor were they in British administered areas - as she tried to pretend. Of course, it also retorts John‘s earlier attempt to claim that there was little effect of famines under Indian rulers because they dealt with them better than the British. * Prior to British rule, an Indian sovereign - be he Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist - .... - Ah yes, this lovable golden age before British rule when everything is beautiful. Famines in India prior to British rule - see the link for an extensive list, see the litany of famines listed and clearly sourced at this link http://panhwar.com/Article152.htm * The Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 was caused by the destruction of crops in Bengal due to cyclones .... - Amatya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning economist (as opposed to the non-historian, non-economist Mukherjee) has shown that the rice crop in Bengal in the famine year of 1943 was indeed much higher than the non-famine year of 1941. So it was not an absence of supply. So castigating Churchill for not releasing ships from Europe is a red-herring. The primary cause in 1943 was probably grain hoarding by landlords and traders, who were not British but Indian. Expecting a shortfall of imports as a result of the Japanese occupation of Burma, they hoarded stocks and prices soured beyond the reach of the poor. Agriculture, Labour, Civil Supplies, Public Health, were devolved powers under the control of the Indian Bengal government headed by Khwaja Nazimuddin - not the British. So they must take the primary responsibility. - the majority of the deaths were not in fact caused by starvation (1 million), but by the spread of disease (perhaps as much as 3-4 million). "India" may not have seen a famine of that like again, but certainly that other part of Bengal that is a part of Bangladesh certainly did in 1974, when the "official" report of 26,000 deaths is trounced by unofficial estimates of 1.5 million. * Earlier too, in the 1899-1900 famine, excess grain from Bengal and Burma weren't moved to those starving. Bombay wasn't allowed to run fair price shops; Bengal wasn't given money to import grain; ... - You‘ve lost me. Bengal had excess grain and wasn‘t allowed to move it - so why would it need to import grain? Either Bengal was in surplus or it was in famine. Which is it? ... Burma exported rice to Europe. The integration of Burma's rice harvests into the imperial railway network in India was touted as a measure to eradicate famine, but the same never happened. The situation was made worse by the natives hoarding supplies for increased profit. - Oh "horrible" Burmese, they preferred to sell their rice to Europeans not Indians. Horrible "natives" for hoarding grain supplies. Should be taken to the International Court of Human Rights for such a terrible, terrible crime, don't you think? * As for the deviant social practices referred to by you .... - I am sure we could. But I doubt you could come up with any scenario where it was a matter of generally accepted social policy that victimized an entire gender in quite the same way - 50% on the human population. As I think I asked someone else, who seems to have run away. So now I shall ask you. Do you seriously not understand the difference between killing an unknown 3rd party and burning your own mother or suffocating your own children? * Lastly, I request you to drop the patronizing tone and participate in the discussion as a

The whole story is sad.thank God we hve survived the draughts.No use crying over spilt milk.Better we consider future because those responsible for past are long gone.But are we where we should have been after "Independence"?ie 66 years after?who is responsible for this?

Mahendra Singh I don't think we should forget the past. We must recognise what happened, how bad it was and learn from their mistakes. So that we, now and for the future can make things better. What I cannot abide is this trying to blame the British for everything, as if there was no Indian responsibility. Just because they take up an anti-Imperialist line, some people think that they can abandon intellectual rigour and should be excused the use of distorted facts or even downright lies, but ought not to be held to account because they are on the "morally right" side of history. We learn absolutely nothing that way. All that does is set up easy excuses for modern politicians "look how wonderfully better we have done, compared to the Brits, they say". Not a word of international aid from developed countries, the creation of the UN or FAO, world food programme, international relief efforts, improved crop yields, transportation, weather forecasting, absence of war. No - the miracles have all been achieved by the wonderful post-independence politicians. I doubt anyone even mentions that the better varieties of crops, high yielding varieties and pest and weather resistant types, can be traced back to the policies implemented following the enquiry in 1900 under Curzon following the 1899 famine.

Buyers, as feared, I did not expect an intelligent response, let alone a thoughtful one. But, we Indians do like to hope in vain. Good luck.

Thank you Shahsi Kolar. Your good wishes mean the world to me. But before you go, remind me of when you last stood for election to be able to speak for "we Indians". I just cannot recall your name coming up in any ballot.

Christopher Buyer, I believe you are missing the truth.

Oh, I don't think so somehow. But your belief is understandable, Vinita Ulla, since you do seem to suffer a detail deficit disorder. So you are "excused".

Thanks but no thanks - don't need your permission. You seem to be incredibly immature.

No just having to dumb down to your level. Just haven't been able to quite reach it yet. Not to worry about thanking me. I give it to you anyway. Let that be my special gift to you.

Such an interesting discussion however disagreeable it may have been to the other side... but as always is the case...it has been marred by so many personal references. But one can understand since this topic is so emotional by its nature. Since all these discussions are being archived at a website...I am unable to decide which of these comments to hide and which to retain... for the benefit of a researcher using this database.

Again, I'm posting the link to the UN Declaration on Decolonization, adopted in 1960. Maybe this will open your eyes to the fact that colonization was evil and that the British (along with other Europeans) did WRONG. http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/declaration.shtml

This was when the Famine COde was enacted. It took another century to eradicate famines in India.

Indeed. One of the problems with 1943 was the Famine Code was not implemented.

This is not the place to discuss the general evils of colonialism. We are discussing famine here. Open up a new discussion somewhere else if you wish. But I warn you that within a couple years after 1960 most of those who passed the UN resolution had sunk into dictatorships of kinds far worse than colonialism could even imagine. As for some of the pious words. I shall ask you to start with the application if that resolution to Indian occupied Kashmir. Then to move onto the question of peace, and ask you if the ending of colonialism ended war for India? How many times has India gone to war or intervened in neighbouring states since 1947? How much do India, Pakistan, Bangladesh spend on arms? More or less than during the empire? Do you even realise that there is a larger army being maintained in Kashmir than British troops used to put down the Mutiny in 1857?

Thank you Christopher Buyers , Bhavna Pundir, Vinita Ullal and Shashi Kolar for this spirited discussion that appears totally polarized on the face of it...but if one can ignore the personal jibes...they reflect the compelling perspectives of both sides. This is an emotional topic of epic proportions and one has to understand that it is not easy to retain an objective and dispassionate view towards it. But the claims and counter claims with so many researched facts have kept the reader quite engrossed while following this discussion.

For those interested, there are various accounts of famine affected areas in the late Victorian period on archive.org. Here's one on the conditions in the Native state of Baroda (http://archive.org/stream/notesonfaminetou00sayarich) and one on South India (http://archive.org/stream/faminecampaignin01digbuoft). Besides, personalities like R.C. Dutt (in his economic studies on India) and Dadabhai Naoroji in his "Poverty and Un British rule in India" too have spoken about the subject. Roderick Matthews' indictment of the British is severe in his "Flaws in the Jewel". These studies point to the failure of the administration rather than a lack of empathy or concern in the officers on the ground. Even the famous British MP, John Bright, could not shift perceptions through his speeches. Famines (including the Irish one in the mid-19th century) were generally explained away by labeling the regions as unhealthy, diseased, prone to crop failures and through Laissez-Faire economics and Malthusian theory of population check that were popular during the 19th century. The British both opened and closed their rule in India in the shadow of famines in Bengal (1770 and 1943), and both have been termed as man-made, the former due to the introduction of the zamindari system and the latter due to insufficient preparedness or political will to ship grains to places of suffering and to curb hoarding for profit. I wish a more recent study of the subject that takes the ecological and economical conditions into account is bought about.

The intellectual facetiousness of new age imperialists is really confounding. The entire history of anti-colonial dissent becomes a matter of ingratitude with these people. Thankfully, we are not compelled any longer to accept the rationale of supremacists