British empire killed 165 million Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

British empire killed 165 million Indians in 40 years:​

How colonialism inspired fascism​

A scholarly study found that British colonialism caused approximately 165 million deaths in India from 1880 to 1920, while stealing trillions of dollars of wealth. The global capitalist system was founded on European imperial genocides, which inspired Adolf Hitler and led to fascism.

By
Ben Norton
Published
2022-12-12

British colonialism caused at least 100 million deaths in India in roughly 40 years, according to an academic study.
And during nearly 200 years of colonialism, the British empire stole at least $45 trillion in wealth from India, a prominent economist has calculated.
The genocidal crimes committed by European empires outside of their borders inspired Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, leading to the rise of fascist regimes that carried out similar genocidal crimes within their borders.

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel and his co-author Dylan Sullivan published an article in the respected academic journal World Development titled “Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century.”
In the report, the scholars estimated that India suffered 165 million excess deaths due to British colonialism between 1880 and 1920.
“This figure is larger than the combined number of deaths from both World Wars, including the Nazi holocaust,” they noted.
They added, “Indian life expectancy did not reach the level of early modern England (35.8 years) until 1950, after decolonization.”

Hickel and Sullivan summarized their research in an article in Al Jazeera, titled “How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years.”
They explained:

According to research by the economic historian Robert C Allen, extreme poverty in India increased under British rule, from 23 percent in 1810 to more than 50 percent in the mid-20th century. Real wages declined during the British colonial period, reaching a nadir in the 19th century, while famines became more frequent and more deadly. Far from benefitting the Indian people, colonialism was a human tragedy with few parallels in recorded history.
Experts agree that the period from 1880 to 1920 – the height of Britain’s imperial power – was particularly devastating for India. Comprehensive population censuses carried out by the colonial regime beginning in the 1880s reveal that the death rate increased considerably during this period, from 37.2 deaths per 1,000 people in the 1880s to 44.2 in the 1910s. Life expectancy declined from 26.7 years to 21.9 years.
In a recent paper in the journal World Development, we used census data to estimate the number of people killed by British imperial policies during these four brutal decades. Robust data on mortality rates in India only exists from the 1880s. If we use this as the baseline for “normal” mortality, we find that some 50 million excess deaths occurred under the aegis of British colonialism during the period from 1891 to 1920.
Fifty million deaths is a staggering figure, and yet this is a conservative estimate. Data on real wages indicates that by 1880, living standards in colonial India had already declined dramatically from their previous levels. Allen and other scholars argue that prior to colonialism, Indian living standards may have been “on a par with the developing parts of Western Europe.” We do not know for sure what India’s pre-colonial mortality rate was, but if we assume it was similar to that of England in the 16th and 17th centuries (27.18 deaths per 1,000 people), we find that 165 million excess deaths occurred in India during the period from 1881 to 1920.
While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia.

This staggering figure does not include the tens of millions more Indians who died in human-made famines that were caused by the British empire.
In the notorious Bengal famine in 1943, an estimated 3 million Indians starved to death, while the British government exported food and banned grain imports.
Academic studies by scientists found that the 1943 Bengal famine was not a result of natural causes; it was the product of the policies of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.


Churchill himself was a notorious racist who stated, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
In the early 1930s, Churchill also admired Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Italian dictator who founded fascism, Benito Mussolini.
Churchill’s own scholarly supporters admitted that he “expressed admiration for Mussolini” and, “if forced to choose between Italian fascism and Italian communism, Churchill unhesitatingly would choose the former.”


Indian politician Shashi Tharoor, who served as an under-secretary general of the United Nations, has exhaustively documented the crimes of the British empire, particularly under Churchill.
“Churchill has as much blood on his hands as Hitler does,” Tharoor stressed. He pointed to “the decisions that he [Churchill] personally signed off during the Bengal famine, when 4.3 million people died because of the decisions he took or endorsed.”
Award-winning Indian economist Utsa Patnaik has estimated that the British empire drained $45 trillion of wealth from the Indian subcontinent.


In a 2018 interview with the Indian news website Mint, she explained:

Between 1765 and 1938, the drain amounted to £9.2 trillion (equal to $45 trillion), taking India’s export surplus earnings as the measure, and compounding it at a 5% rate of interest. Indians were never credited with their own gold and forex earnings. Instead, the local producers here were ‘paid’ the rupee equivalent out of the budget—something you’d never find in any independent country. The ‘drain’ varied between 26-36% of the central government budget. It would obviously have made an enormous difference if India’s huge international earnings had been retained within the country. India would have been far more developed, with much better health and social welfare indicators. There was virtually no increase in per capita income between 1900 and 1946, even though India registered the second largest export surplus earnings in the world for three decades before 1929.
Since all the earnings were taken by Britain, such stagnation is not surprising. Ordinary people died like flies owing to under-nutrition and disease. It is shocking that Indian expectation of life at birth was just 22 years in 1911. The most telling index, however, is food grain availability. Because the purchasing power of ordinary Indians was being squeezed by high taxes, the per capita annual consumption of food grains went down from 200kg in 1900 to 157kg on the eve of World War II, and further plummeted to 137kg by 1946. No country in the world today, not even the least developed, is anywhere near the position India was in 1946.

Patnaik emphasized:

The modern capitalist world would not exist without colonialism and the drain. During Britain’s industrial transition, 1780 to 1820, the drain from Asia and the West Indies combined was about 6 percent of Britain’s GDP, nearly the same as its own savings rate. After the mid-19th century, Britain was running current account deficits with Continental Europe and North America, and at the same time, it was investing massively in these regions, which meant running capital account deficits too. The two deficits summed to large and rising balance of payments (BoP) deficits with these regions.
How was it possible for Britain to export so much capital—which went into building railways, roads and factories in the U.S. and continental Europe? Its BoP deficits with these regions were being settled by appropriating the financial gold and forex earned by the colonies, especially India. Every unusual expense like war was also put on the Indian budget, and whatever India was not able to meet through its annual exchange earnings was shown as its indebtedness, on which interest accumulated.

In this article:Britain, capitalism, colonialism, famine, fascism, genocide, India, Shashi Tharoor, UK, United Kingdom, Utsa Patnaik, Winston Churchill

 

[Joe Shearer]

Keep pitting one section against another, using warped theories and god knows whose version of history.

Isn't that a description, a precise and clinically correct description of the Sangh Parivar, using warped theories and histories written by anybody but an historian?

 

[Joe Shearer]

There is a reason why interfaith conflicts exist in this country in 2023, because people used history as their whore (pardon my french). Ultimately its the power over narrative, no one cares about truth.

You haven't either defined how history was used as a whore, or the truth, as you see it, other than throwing out dark hints about the truth not being cared for.

 

[SQ8]

You haven't either defined how history was used as a whore, or the truth, as you see it, other than throwing out dark hints about the truth not being cared for.

Let me guess - Muslim invaders , more horrible than the british - alien religion etc etc.

Whatever mohabbat ka sharbat being fed to the Modi brigade these days.

Oddly enough and correct me if I am over simplifying things - most of those muslims invasions were actually against other muslim(or lets be real - Turkic or persian stock) rulers who had invaded themselves. Its not like there were mass uprisings in India to throw anyone of them out…Princely revolts aside - everyone in India proper other than the elites regardless of religion was agnostic to whoever came in. So long as their village could return to farming and their men could get monies from going on bi-annual meat grinders campaigns to be part of whatever army ruled their land and paid best - they couldn’t give a hoot.

 

[indushek]

I am SICK AND TIRED of this stupid, uninformed comment. From you of all people.

Which leftist Marxist historian are you referring to? and what proofs are excluded from books? We learnt our history from the books written by three conservative historians, including personally related people. Even these conservative, Hindu-first people had nothing to say about concealment of evidence of these widespread atrocities.

Come on Joe, are you saying that a particular version of history wasn't promoted by Congress?

I may not remember exactly what I studied, cause its so many decades back, but don't the history books in India majorly cover only few periods in history?

How much of early India is provided in books, which pre dates Ashoka

Why is the history taught in India always Delhi centric? where small dynasties like Khilji and Tughlaqs are covered but there is not much about other similar smaller dynasties in other parts of the country

Where is the history of North East?

How much of South Indian history is taught in text books?

Do you deny that, when you look at Indian history through text book lens, and this is necessary because this is being taught to a kid in formative years, there is only history where locals have always lost?

Does Indian history constitute only Ashoka the Great, Akbar the Great and then the gentleman who gentrified us?

Please don't tell me its all there, and anyone who wants to read more can go to library. How many kids are so enamored by history, that they will go and research stuff?

Why does questioning become wrong? I for one know, that cramming everything into one large book is impossible. However can you deny that, certain parts have been given weightage over others?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Let me guess - Muslim invaders , more horrible than the british - alien religion etc etc.

Whatever mohabbat ka sharbat being fed to the Modi brigade these days.

Oddly enough and correct me if I am over simplifying things - most of those muslims invasions were actually against other muslim(or lets be real - Turkic or persian stock) rulers who had invaded themselves. Its not like there were mass uprisings in India to throw anyone of them out…Princely revolts aside - everyone in India proper other than the elites regardless of religion was agnostic to whoever came in. So long as their village could return to farming and their men could get monies from going on bi-annual meat grinders campaigns to be part of whatever army ruled their land and paid best - they couldn’t give a hoot.

The trouble is that other than a vague, background feeling of having been done down, there is nothing tangible that they can point to. The majority Hindu has never suffered any handicaps, except a reduction of their access to educational seats from 100% down to a lower figure. Not one single thing other than that.

That is when they resort to this hand-waving instead of citing facts, and that is when physicists, chemists, engineers, ex-bankers, veterinarians and post-graduate degree holders in acupuncture start re-writing Indian history.

Come on Joe, are you saying that a particular version of history wasn't promoted by Congress?

Yes.

Neither the Congress nor the Communists was in the business of writing history.

 

[SQ8]

The trouble is that other than a vague, background feeling of having been done down, there is nothing tangible that they can point to. The majority Hindu has never suffered any handicaps, except a reduction of their access to educational seats from 100% down to a lower figure. Not one single thing other than that.

That is when they resort to this hand-waving instead of citing facts, and that is when physicists, chemists, engineers, ex-bankers, veterinarians and post-graduate degree holders in acupuncture start re-writing Indian history.


Yes.

Neither the Congress nor the Communists was in the business of writing history.

Victim mentality is a strong motivation - because its easier to blame someone else rather than take introspection.

“Them are the problem - if not for them we would be bathing in milk, dining in gold and would no problem at all… even obedient gorgeous women as brides!!”

And you just bought every individual with even the tiniest of insecurities for life.

After all, introspection - actually going back into history… being empathetic .. which individual brought up in a rat race mentality has time for thay

 

[Joe Shearer]

I may not remember exactly what I studied, cause its so many decades back, but don't the history books in India majorly cover only few periods in history?

If you can't remember, you shouldn't comment.

I read for my honours degree in history the Advanced History of India, as a very basic text, with enormous additional materials, including advanced text books and specialised papers.

Which period in history was uncovered, according to you?

In the book I have referred to, Ancient India was covered by my very conservative kinsman, R. C. Majumdar. He was the pioneer in studies of the Indian cultural, economic and political impact on south-east Asia.

On early mediaeval Indian history, his colleagues covered most of the territory, moving on to mediaeval Indian history, and then to the modern period.

We read Nilakanta Shastri for specialist knowledge in the history of the Deccan and of points further to the south.

We read the History of Bengal published by Dhaka University for details about Bengal.

What was left out?

 

[indushek]

Did you see any difference between the early Muslim invaders, or the earlier Huns, who are thought to have given rise to the Gurjars and Rajputs, or the even earlier Kushanas, who had nothing to do with the existing India of their times, not in terms of language, not in terms of culture, and contributed only by taking up an obscure religion and spreading it all over Central Asia, and finally to China? Do you give these outsiders their credit for spreading Akhand Bharat to the central Asian steppes, or for the glorious spread of Indic culture, to use the phraseology of the current crop of writers of distorted history?

Do you go even further back, and deal with the uprooting of a language family from the whole of north India, and the replacement with an alien, steppe language? Or is that sacred language safe from your attacks?

It is the sheer ignorance of history on display that makes for the greatest disturbance.

The only difference is that, these tribes that you mention (which I have only vaguely heard of and never read much about) don't get into collective memory, given the time periods we are talking and perhaps them getting localized as well.

They are no longer around, to form a part of political discourse. Why don't you get it that, history has been politicized? Or you know it, but don't want to agree to it?

 

[Joe Shearer]

How much of early India is provided in books, which pre dates Ashoka

Read F. E. Pargiter, who reconciled the king lists of the Puranas, a diverse number of those, with the available chronology.

Why is the history taught in India always Delhi centric? where small dynasties like Khilji and Tughlaqs are covered but there is not much about other similar smaller dynasties in other parts of the country

Again, your inability to remember anything other than the Khalji and Tughlaq sultanates means nothing.

Gujarat was covered in detail; Jaunpur was covered in detail; Malwa was covered in detail.

Would you like a reading list, that will help you understand that everything was covered exhaustively?

In the Deccan itself, not only were the Rastrakutas dealt with, but also the Kakatiyas - guess where they ruled? So, too, for the Satavahanas, and their clashes with the Western Satrapies, or the later Chalukyas, then the variations ranging down to Sewell's account of Vijaynagar.

I could go on like this, but it is terrible to be confronted by someone equating his personal ignorance with some deep-laid conspiracy to obscure Indian history.

Where is the history of North East?

Where is it even today? Can you name a single history of Assam, covering the 600 year rule of the Ahoms?

I can. Those who read history all can.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Where is the history of North East?

Where is it even today? Can you name a single history of Assam, covering the 600 year rule of the Ahoms?

I can. Those who read history all can.

How much of South Indian history is taught in text books?

Extensively.

If you want the classics, we all depended on Nilakanta Shastri. There was then no one to challenge him.

Since then, he has been overtaken by Karashima. If you read that compilation and find something missing, you should apply immediately to Jyotirmoy Sharma at the University of Hyderabad and enrol as a PhD scholar.

Do you deny that, when you look at Indian history through text book lens, and this is necessary because this is being taught to a kid in formative years, there is only history where locals have always lost?

What does that verbiage even mean? Locals? Who are these locals? The Lodi dynasty? or the Suris? Or were the tussles between Khalji and Tughlaq not covered in sufficient detail?

I mention only Delhi-centric matters, since you seem to have no information about any happenings outside that region.

Was your remark a delicate allusion to Hindus being defeated continuously?

If so, you need to go back to 535 BC, when the non-Hindu Zoroastrian Achaemenids came into the north-west, and formed the three provinces of Gandhara, Hindush and Sattagydian. From then on, continuously, until the departure of the Huns, there were attacks by non-Hindus in the north and north-west, with some relative peace from the Deccan southwards.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Does Indian history constitute only Ashoka the Great, Akbar the Great and then the gentleman who gentrified us?

It does not.

Is it the fault of the historians that those who chose to learn a technical subject departed very early from a study of history and are ignorant of what information exists, until they wake up with a start and plunge into the Internet to catch up?

Please don't tell me its all there, and anyone who wants to read more can go to library. How many kids are so enamored by history, that they will go and research stuff?

It's all there.

If you want to be an engineer, that is your choice, and nobody has yet devised little pills that will allow you to learn history by swallowing these three times a day.

Why does questioning become wrong? I for one know, that cramming everything into one large book is impossible. However can you deny that, certain parts have been given weightage over others?

I emphatically deny that.

If your complaint is that certain portions of history, the land revenue system in north India under Akbar, for instance, has received more attention, that is because of the dedicated effort of a handful of researchers. There are similar works on south India. If you want to read in greater detail than Nilakanta Shastri or Karashima, try Gurakkal on Social Formations in South India.

I really fail to understand what your complaint is.

 

[indushek]

Can we have some examples?

Are you talking about the fraud perpetrated on WhatsApp University and YouTube College scholars by physicists, doctorate holders in acupuncture, and electronics engineers turned savants in Indian culture?

What is this reference to political expedience? Any clues? Or is it more hand-waving, intended to convey emotion free of facts?


So what is the proposition?

Local rulers did not do it? Idols were not uprooted from their temples and carried away as trophies, to be installed thousands of miles away as symbols of victory?

Dissenting populations were not sent away as happened, in your part of the world, to Srivaishnavites, who did not please the Saivite Kulothunga Chola?

Were social fissures between Hindus and Buddhists not sufficiently marked for you to take cognisance of them?


How was the majority beaten down into a corner? Did they lose anything? A job, a college seat, an opportunity to go abroad? What was it exactly? Can you define these vague shimmering handicaps? Are you referring to reservations, and if you are, how was the narrative of history mixed up with the reality of a vicious caste system? Or is it your case that Ambedkar's carefully researched books were all trash, completely untouched by Brahmin hand, therefore unfounded?

You mention leftist liberals.

Are you even aware that leftists are not liberals, that liberals are not leftists? Where are you picking up all this stupid disinformation from?

Is it not true that for long time, temple destruction was totally denied?
Is it not true that Aurangzeb did it, and Tippy did it in Kerala and these find no mention?

There is no hand waving Joe, it can't be denied that certain ugly parts have not been mentioned in Indian history.

The wars between Shaivaites and Vashnavites, Hindus with Buddhists can't be denied. You think I am only looking at one part of dirt, and leaving the other part out? Please am not that hypocritical, anything wrong happens it has be to mentioned.

I have nothing but respect for Ambedkar, and strongly feel that, there has to be nation wide reconciliation between all Hindu castes. All the wrongs have to be admitted, so that the country move on without any more fissures. This sadly don't think can ever happen, as people enjoying their supremacy over each group will lose their positions.

When I say Hindus have been beaten into corner, I talk about all of its sub groups and not just Brahmins (why do they need to be singled out? now are you singling them out?). I am talking about the narrative here, where the religion has been demonized enough. Any discourse on Hindus starts with caste system, or some other dirt or bad things that happened.

As if there is such distinction in India, don't they all bandy together?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Victim mentality is a strong motivation - because its easier to blame someone else rather than take introspection.

“Them are the problem - if not for them we would be bathing in milk, dining in gold and would no problem at all… even obedient gorgeous women as brides!!”

And you just bought every individual with even the tiniest of insecurities for life.

After all, introspection - actually going back into history… being empathetic .. which individual brought up in a rat race mentality has time for thay

You are right, and one day, when my mood is right, I will take the time to explain that the Hindutva character and personality is constituted of two psychological syndromes, and what they are.

Is it not true that for long time, temple destruction was totally denied?
Is it not true that Aurangzeb did it, and Tippy did it in Kerala and these find no mention?

Do you mean that temple destruction should have been an historical focus?

Seriously?

There is no hand waving Joe, it can't be denied that certain ugly parts have not been mentioned in Indian history.

Every single aspect has been dealt with, and it is a question of knowing what to read.

The rest is hand-waving by the ignorant, the utterly ignorant.

The wars between Shaivaites and Vashnavites, Hindus with Buddhists can't be denied. You think I am only looking at one part of dirt, and leaving the other part out? Please am not that hypocritical, anything wrong happens it has be to mentioned.

As I said, I was not Sanjaya, going back in time across millennia and seeing with a mystic vision what happened. Everything that I quote and write about is something that I have read in a text.

There are, for instance, brilliant reconstructions of Bengali culture by Kumkum Chatterjee, who died tragically early, based on the analysis of Mangalkavyas; the work done on educational systems in the Punjab before the East India Company by Chhanda Chattopadhyaya; the analysis, again surpassing brilliant, by Jawhar Sircar, whom I personally disliked, but whose startling analysis converted me into a fan, of the demographics of western Bengal that made a partition a possibility, and even a desired situation.

Where do you want to go?

It is only the ignorance of the trained (not educated) classes with excess income, and a need to find their own identity - the desperation of the Desi Loser - that drives this frenzy of distorted history writing on social media.

 

[indushek]

Fantastic.

So the people arguing that there is no relevance of taking up the agenda of yesterday in today's world are the people perpetuating fissures in society; the people who scream at the street corners about the impossibility of living with the Muslim community are the peacemakers.

Do you read what you post?


The US did it in Iraq. They conquered the country and sought to impose their own political norms onto it. Russia is trying to do that at the moment to the Ukraine.

Did you object? Did you not accept?

See what you are doing here, is putting me in a box. You are basically saying that, anyone who talks of what I just said has to be a Sanghi (even though I mentioned many times, that I have no affiliation or even basic understanding of that lot. I only see them as a group, who went from ideologues to power brokers. Everybody does it, so why shouldn't they? as long as its democratic)

I hope you will be honest, while answering below question Joe:

On one hand, you say that there is no relevance in present of past right? I am sure you mean the Muslim question which involves invasions, conversions or temple destructions that happened etc which gets peddled by BJP or Sangh? I whole heartedly agree, as the present day person shouldn't bear the brunt of past. I mean why should he?

However why is the Hindu not given the same leeway? Why is Caste system, or past dirt always brought up to say that your ancestors did this in the past? Why is the present day Hindu beaten down, with something that happened in the Past?

So this is not hypocrisy right? I certainly read what I posted

Does it matter if I objected or for that matter entire India objected? What sort of analogy is that, are you saying me or you or even India objecting would have stopped the superpower of world from this dastardly Invasion? Which was premised on total lie? Or are you thinking I am supporting it?

Besides I don't think America invaded Iraq to spread God's word, if am not wrong?

 

[Joe Shearer]

I have nothing but respect for Ambedkar, and strongly feel that, there has to be nation wide reconciliation between all Hindu castes. All the wrongs have to be admitted, so that the country move on without any more fissures. This sadly don't think can ever happen, as people enjoying their supremacy over each group will lose their positions.

**** your talk of reconciliation.

The audacity of it all, after continued oppression and endogamous tyranny from 800 AD onwards, when the genetics betray how the Dalit were frozen into their narrow sliver of space in Indian society, to talk about reconciliation.

How will you reconcile with the Dalit? I can insult you immediately by suggesting ways, but that would mean stooping to the level of creepy people like Sai Deepak.

All the wrongs have to be admitted, so that the country move on without any more fissures. This sadly don't think can ever happen, as people enjoying their supremacy over each group will lose their positions.

It is not about admission; that ship has sailed. It is about compensation, about correction. Here you need to enquire with @SoulSpokesman, for reasons that he will be better equipped to tell you.