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

 

[indushek]

Like British imperialism eliminated local wealth, in the same way, Islamic invaders changed the local culture and impacted the native religion and way of living of the people. But there is one positive aspect amongst Islamic rulers ( In particular Akbar), they have positive contributions to India too..

So the impact and perception of the people of India and Pakistan about the invaders to our continent would be different.

The only one you could come up with as an example, who added value was someone who was born here. Tells you clearly that, outsiders who come to loot will never do value addition.

I don't see any difference between early Muslim Invaders and the Brits, until the Muslims decided to settle here. Once they settled, they had to protect themselves which got bandied as protecting locals.

Like you say there is no use in fighting history, shit happened and nothing can change it. Only let's not push one up and push one down, everyone acted in their own interest.

One did it on the pretext of spreading the God's words to the lands of Kuffar, the other did it to gentrify the ugly and savage benighted heathen.

What riles me up is the leftist marxist historian, who comes up with reasons, to justify the mass murders of locals. Note that he comes up with such reasons for 1 out of 100 or even 1000 murders, when there is undeniable proof but its avoided from books. Will tell you that, its all there if you wanna read. But we will only include all sweet sweet things in books, cause it is detrimental to the nation. Will never tell you that the present so called descendant, has nothing to do with the past offender, unless he wants to wallow in the glory of past. (There is a local saying in my mother tongue telugu, goes like 'our grandfathers drank ghee, come smell our mouths'.. am sure you get what I mean here).

Says that its done (whatever has been pushed out of mainstream, which only recently some authors are bringing out) due to political expediency (that too when they can't say it didn't happen), and that the local rulers did it to each other as well (changing goal posts), that there were societal fissures blah blah blah. A narrative created in the name of nation building, to beat down majority into a corner, and to look at the pats through present's lense. Leftist liberals are the biggest frauds on this planet, who will hold different umbrella to different sunshine.

Will they accept if a country today, based on whatever pretext conquers and mass murders or converts some other country? They sure will, if the invader or conqueror is a minority in their own country hehe (except if its India of course). A mix of psychotic behavior/schadenfreude and finally holier than though attitude.

Solution for this rant: Accept shit happened and move on, but naah .. we want to keep the fissures in present society, by denying any past brutalities (I know the filth around her, who carry my country's flag. They will jump in like pack of dogs, to point out the filth on majority's side. Watch out to see what about ism). Keep pitting one section against another, using warped theories and god knows whose version of history.

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.

 

[_NOBODY_]

Why stop there? Bring the Mongols back. They will clear up a LOT of issues from Europe to Asia. Quickly.

All hail Lord Genghis.

 

[CIA Mole]

but even without the british, 2 billion south asians are condemned to generational poverty

not sure whats worse

 

[Gaomayaslayer]

Churchill was a piece of turd.

 

[NagaBaba]

It looks like an Indian rapist has raped your mother and you turd has popped out of her rear.

 

[VCheng]

All hail Lord Genghis.

Thank you. Do you mean me or my illustrious ancestor?

 

[_NOBODY_]

Thank you. Do you mean me or my illustrious ancestor?

Our lovely daddy Ghengis of course.

 

[Joe Shearer]

What riles me up is the leftist marxist historian, who comes up with reasons, to justify the mass murders of locals. Note that he comes up with such reasons for 1 out of 100 or even 1000 murders, when there is undeniable proof but its avoided from books. Will tell you that, its all there if you wanna read. But we will only include all sweet sweet things in books, cause it is detrimental to the nation. Will never tell you that the present so called descendant, has nothing to do with the past offender, unless he wants to wallow in the glory of past. (There is a local saying in my mother tongue telugu, goes like 'our grandfathers drank ghee, come smell our mouths'.. am sure you get what I mean here).

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.

 

[Progressive1]

They did the same as the British, only difference is British are able to hold themselves accountable and admit to what they did and even provide evidence. You can't gaslight your way out of this.

No one is better than the other, British, Afghans, Arabs all robbed, murdered and enslaved.

The British created the railways, governance and army structures and assisted in the creation of Pakistan. The others did not help to create Pakistan before they left. That's why I regard the British intervention as beneficial to Indus. Bad for gangus, good for Indus. Hope that explains my rationale.

Durrani empire could be called real pre cursor to Pakistan , what british did was to filled its gap in other political form.

 

[VCheng]

Our lovely daddy Ghengis of course.

Are you calling me "son" too like a moderator did a few days ago when he/she/it was incapable with coming up to a coherent response in another thread?

Oh, and that would be the Great Grand Daddy of an eighth to Humanity, the Mighty Lord and Conqueror Genghis Khan to you. And my ancestor.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I don't see any difference between early Muslim Invaders and the Brits, until the Muslims decided to settle here. Once they settled, they had to protect themselves which got bandied as protecting locals.

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.

 

[_NOBODY_]

Are you calling me "son" too like a moderator did a few days ago when he/she/it was incapable with coming up to a coherent response in another thread?

Oh, and that would be the Great Grand Daddy of an eighth to Humanity, the Mighty Lord and Conqueror Genghis Khan to you. And my ancestor.

Of course, I should have addressed his majesty correctly. Imagine how different the world would have been if he lived for another decade and if the empire had gotten a single successor.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Says that its done (whatever has been pushed out of mainstream, which only recently some authors are bringing out) due to political expediency (that too when they can't say it didn't happen),

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?

and that the local rulers did it to each other as well (changing goal posts), that there were societal fissures blah blah blah.

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?

A narrative created in the name of nation building, to beat down majority into a corner, and to look at the pats through present's lense. Leftist liberals are the biggest frauds on this planet, who will hold different umbrella to different sunshine.

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?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Solution for this rant: Accept shit happened and move on, but naah .. we want to keep the fissures in present society, by denying any past brutalities (I know the filth around her, who carry my country's flag. They will jump in like pack of dogs, to point out the filth on majority's side. Watch out to see what about ism).

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?

Will they accept if a country today, based on whatever pretext conquers and mass murders or converts some other country?

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?

 

[PradoTLC]

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:



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:

Patnaik emphasized:

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

so nazis were kindergarten kids compared to English