Trigger warning: descriptions of sexual violence and assault
In writing this article, the author in no way means to convey the impression that Indians were merely passive victims. On the contrary, they actively resisted at virtually every stage of their oppression. Indeed when independence was gained it was due to their actions as opposed to their ruler’s benevolence as is commonly stated.
Many commentators were horrified by the results of an annual poll from the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA 40) conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) since 1983, which found that the number of British citizens who were proud of Britain’s history had fallen over from 86% (in 1984) to 64% (in 2023). Five years ago a YouGov poll found that 32% of Britain’s population believed that the British Empire was something to be proud of. I wonder how many of those who participated in these polls were aware of the extent of the suffering British imperialism caused.
In this article, I hope to highlight some of the consequences of British colonial rule in its largest overseas territory, India. I hope to demonstrate the so-called mother country’s attitudes towards its colonial subjects (humans). India, as referred to throughout this article is what was ruled by the British East India Company (EIC, 1757 – 1858) and later the British Raj (1858-1947), which today comprises the states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (formerly East and West Pakistan respectively following the partition of India). While India’s not the most eye-catching of Britain’s crimes, its lasting economic impact on India is almost certainly the most consequential.
India, for most of its history, has been amongst the oldest and greatest civilizations on earth. Its wealth, prosperity, and contributions to the world are staggering, for example, the number system that we use today is an Indian invention (Hindu-Arabic numerals). This was all to change during British colonial rule. Shashi Tharoor writes “India’s share of the world economy was 23 per cent, as large as all of Europe put together… By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to just over 3 percent. The reason was simple: India was governed for the benefit of Britain” (Tharoor, 2017, pp. 2-3).
“In 1600, Britain produced just 1.8% of the world GDP while India generated around 23%”
The British were relentless in their extortion of wealth. For instance, India’s legendary textiles and ship-building industry “whose cotton, silk, and woolen products were marketed in Europe as well as elsewhere in Asia” (Fryer, 2021, p. 21). India’s high-quality textiles which once enjoyed 25% of global trade, were virtually eliminated at the request of Britain’s low-quality cloth manufacturers because they simply could not compete with India’s. The rest of India’s manufacturing sector suffered similarly, just like what happens in many Afrikan countries today, India was made to export its raw resources and import the finished product, causing India’s share of world manufacturing exports to fall from 27% to 2%. The thriving Indian shipbuilding industry was also decimated for similar reasons.
To add insult to injury, Indian colonial subjects were made to pay for the oppression they experienced, as well as that of others from Britain’s other colonial wars. Along with occupying their nation, Indian troops serving in the British Army were deployed (amongst other places) in: China, Ethiopia, Malaya, Egypt, Sudan, Burma, Eastern and Southern Afrika. By the end of the 19th century, the British had a standing army of over 300,000 people, two-thirds paid for by Indian taxes.
In 1600, Britain produced just 1.8% of the world GDP while India generated around 23%. By 1940, Britain accounted for nearly 10% of the world GDP and India had become a poster child for global poverty and famine with a world GDP of merely 3%. When British rule formally ended the Indian population had a literacy rate of 16%, a life expectancy of 27 years, and a 90% poverty rate.
Policy-induced mortality crisis
Perhaps nothing shows the delusions of supremacy more than Britain’s grotesque madness, sadism, and callous indifference towards its colonial Indian subjects, such as its full awareness of the consequences of its colonial policies that resulted in multiple devastating famines in the subcontinent. The British colonial government had a policy against intervening during often preventable famines for three key reasons: (1) Free trade principles; (2) Adherence to the Malthusian doctrine (which influenced eugenics policies) and; (3) A general tightfistedness. In their defense, the British were “equal opportunity” colonizers having followed the same policy in Ireland (the great famine of 1845 – 1852).
As a result, over 250 years India suffered from what can only be described as one of history’s worst genocides. These famines include: Bengal (1770), Madras (1782-83), Chalisa (1783-84) in and around Delhi, Doji bara (1791-1792) around Hyderabad, Agra (1837-38), Orissa (1866), Bihar (1873-74), southern Indian (1876-78), the Indian Famine (1876-1900apx.), Bombay Famine (1905-06) and the Bengal Famine (1943-44) (Mallik, 2023).
Over this period, millions of people needlessly died as a result of British colonial rule. At the peak of British colonial rule, during the four brutal decades of 1881-1920, research has found (based on a presumption of a pre-colonial baseline for “normal” mortality) that Britain’s exploitative empire policies killed around 100 million Indians. All along millions of tonnes of wheat were exported from India to Britain. The last large-scale famine to take place in India was during British colonial rule, none have occurred since. For context 11 million people died during the Nazi’s Holocaust. 6 million Jews and 5 million more namely Slavs, political dissidents, homosexuals, and others deemed “undesirable.” That means at least ten times as many people died than from famines in India due to easily preventable British-made famines. It’s larger in number than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in Cambodia, Maoist China, Mengistu’s Ethiopia, North Korea, Pol Pot’s, and the Soviet Union.
“The last large-scale famine to take place in India was during British colonial rule, none have occurred since”
It is worth briefly looking at the most infamous of these, the Bengali Famine (1943-44). The immediate cause of the famine was food shortages brought about by the war, in particular the Japanese invasion of Burma which cut off food (rice) imports to Bengal. As the domestic distribution system broke down the peasantry, who lived at or below subsistence levels at the best of times, were devastated. By the time it ended nearly 4 million people had starved to death. During this time, not only were no steps taken by the British colonial administration to alleviate the famine, but grain exports at the rate of 3000 tonnes per month continued to be exported to Iran. Australian wheat even sailed past Bengal, while people starved to death in the streets. The British colonial government determined that the Indian colony was not permitted to spend its cash reserves, or even use its ships to import food. Perhaps, the most callous was how Britain rejected Canadian, American, Australian, and British food aid to India. A big exacerbation of the problem was Britain’s then-prime minister Winston Churchill.
Churchill’s racism was so blatant and unashamed, that it is hardly worth going into here, still it should suffice to know that the right-wing imperialist, and one of his close Cabinet colleagues Secretary of State for India Leo Amery, himself said of Churchill “I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s” (Newsinger, 2013, pp. 167). Moreover, during Churchill’s Second World War Victory broadcast on May 13, 1945, he thanked Australia, Canada, and New Zealand (the “White dominions” built on the spoils of British colonialism) for their contributions to the war effort. He didn’t mention India’s contribution despite providing more men and materials than the rest combined.
“Churchill, “who seemed to regard famine relief as “‘appeasement’ of the Congress.” On one occasion when presented with details of the crisis in Bengal, Churchill is quoted as blaming the famine on: “Indians breeding like rabbits”. As far as he was concerned “‘the starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks,’ a sentiment with which Amery concurred,” (Newsinger, 2013, pp. 167). Although in truth the only real difference between the 1943-44 famine, is that it is better documented than the numerous famines that preceded it.
Before a widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British colonial rule in India known as the Great Rebellion in 1857, the British ruled India indirectly through the British East India Company (EIC), a joint-stock company. The EIC employed brutal methods to make its money. Amongst these, they made frequent use of intimidation and torture. The subject of torture was laid before the House of Commons during sessions in 1856 and 1857. In the words of Marx, these reports established “the universal existence of torture as a financial institution of British India.” It was admitted that to collect revenue the police and tax men made routine use of torture, to which British colonial officials unconvincingly claimed it was solely the fault of lower Hindu officials.
Their methods “ranged from rough manhandling through to flogging and placing in the stocks and then on to more extreme measures searing with hot irons… dipping in wells and rivers till the victim is half suffocated, squeezing the testicles…putting pepper and red chilies in the eyes or introducing them into the private parts of men and women… prevention of sleep… nipping the flesh with pincers… suspension from the branches of a tree… imprisonment in a room used for storing lime” (Newsinger, 2013, p. 78). As a reminder, the British colonial government justified their imperialism in India as a civilizing mission.
“the British justified their imperialism in India as a civilizing mission”
The British responded to internal dissidents and other threats to their rule just as brutally as you would expect, with the possible exception of the Mau Mau rebellion. The British perhaps never brutalized a people quite like they did during the great Rebellion of 1857. The British made use of mass hangings and firing squads. As well as pillaging rebellious cities and the surrounding country sites such as Allahabad where 6000 men women and children were killed. The civilian White population set up many volunteer hanging parties to help “suppress” the rebellion, just like during the great Palestinian revolt in the 1930s. One, Colonel James Neill forced prisoners to lick floors of houses in which mass killings had taken place before hanging them. In this he saw himself guided by the “finger of God”, his psychopathy only ended when he was shot dead. He received a posthumous knighthood from Queen Victoria.
To quote John Newsinger “This was a war of innumerable horrors: prisoners blown from the guns, mass hangings (Sergeant William Forbes-Mitchell saw 130 men hanged from one giant banyan tree), and the merciless sack and pillage of ancient cities.” William Howard Russell recounted another incident in Lucknow where a young boy approached a British officer and asked for his protection. The man put his pistol to the boy’s head and shot him… Muslims were smeared “with pork-fat before execution” and “Hindus were forced to defile themselves.” Things were being “done in India which we would not permit to be done in Europe.” Lord Canning, the governor-general, complained to Queen Victoria, “a feeling of shame for one’s fellow countrymen.” Canning’s attempts to urge, not so much restraint, as some discrimination, in the slaughter, earned him the derisive nickname of “Clemency Canning.”
During the 20th century, the authorities frequently responded to all kinds of protests with mass shootings, frequent use of arrests and detention as well as brutal beatings. In one particular episode, a Gandhian non-violent protest took place at the Dharasana salt works. Crowds approached the police stockade in silent columns. As they began wading the ditches and approaching the barbed wire police rushed forward and began mercilessly beating protesters. This went on for hours until around 300 people had been beaten or seriously injured, and two had died. At no point did anyone even raise a hand in their defense.
Yet with that said, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of the brutality of the British Empire and European imperialism generally, than the Jallianwala Bagh/ Amritsar massacre.
In 1919 just one year after the end of the First World War, often called the war to make the world safe for democracy, Indians rallied across the region of Punjab. Namely in response to broken promises of self-governance in return for India’s massive contribution to Britain’s war effort, in which over 1 million Indians had served. The British responded by arresting two of its nationalist leaders and introducing the Rowlatt Act, giving police the power to arrest anyone without reason. A riot ensued and by 11 April 600 soldiers under the command of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer had entered the city with instructions to restore order. Dyer’s first act was to issue a proclamation which effectively constituted martial law.
Despite this, protesters decided to proceed with an anti-Rowlatt rally in the afternoon of 13 April at the Jallianwalla Bagh, a tightly packed and enclosed space. This happened to coincide with the celebrations of the major religious spring festival Baisakhi, in which around 10,000 to 15,000 people from outlying districts, many of whom were unaware of Dyer’s proclamation, entered the city. The Brigadier decided to make an example of them. “when Dyer learned of this meeting he did not seek to find out what it was about, whether the attendees were there in open defiance or merely in ignorance of his orders. He promptly took a detachment of soldiers in armoured cars and equipped with machine guns, and parked his vehicles in front of the gate to the Bagh. Without ordering the crowd to disperse or issuing so much as a warning—and though it was apparent it was a peaceful assembly of unarmed civilians—Dyer ordered his troops, standing behind the brick walls surrounding the Bagh, to open fire.” (Tharoor, 2017, p. 169)
Dyer did nothing to help the wounded and dying and soon forced a curfew which left the injured and dying screaming throughout the night. “Dyer himself later estimated that he had probably killed two to three hundred people, although he admitted the figure might have been as high as four to five hundred. The official estimate was finally put at 329 people killed, of whom 42 were children, one a six week old baby, and 1,200 injured. This was certainly too low. According to Helen Fein, ‘a house-to-house census showed that 530 were reported killed’ although even this was probably an underestimate as the city was full of people come in from the country for a fair. Dyer himself made it clear that regardless of the number, he was completely unrepentant and that if he had had more troops and more ammunition he would have killed many more” (Newsinger, 2013, p. 120).” In the morning Dyer ordered any people wishing to go down the street to crawl on their bellies, which he had his troops enforce at bayonet point. He then instituted a regime of public floggings.
In his words “I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed… It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect, from the military point of view, not only on those who were present, but more specially throughout the Punjab” (Newsinger, 2013, p. 120). He quite openly admits to carrying out a massacre with the express intent to terrorize the population, this is quite literally the dictionary definition of terrorism.
By contrast, in Peterloo, British troops killed 11 protesters, in Boston they killed 5, after the Easter Rising in Dublin they executed 16. The Amritsar Massacre is without a doubt one of the most heinous single acts ever committed by a Western imperial power. And the man who ordered it was hailed as “the man who saved India.”
This article focuses only on one territory of the British Empire and in no way covers all or even most of the atrocities the Indian people were forced to suffer. My purpose in writing this is to show the brutal nature of every imperialist project which seeks to place some above and others below. The only difference that the British Empire has, is that it carried out these crimes on a historically unprecedented scale. An empire, which a one point, dominated almost one-quarter of the earth’s land and peoples.