British Imperial Policy Means Famine

[13thMonkey]

Then and Now:

British Imperial Policy Means Famine

by Paul Glumaz

 

The current outbreak of food shortages and famine internationally should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the history of British imperial free-trade policy. To buttress that point, we present here indictments of that policy by two leading statesmen with personal knowledge—Abraham Lincoln's economic advisor Henry Carey, and the founder of modern China, Sun Yat-sen—in addition to this overview article, written in 1991, from the archives of the LaRouche movement.

 

Before Hitler, there was Britain, and the British famine policy in India.

 

As many look with horror at the starvation now being induced in Africa by agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the grain cartels, few know that in a previous century the British pioneered all these techniques in India. What follows is a brief outline of the British famine policy in India from 1764 to 1914, and how the British developed the deliberate use of famine and food control as the principal means of rule.

 

To understand the question of famine in India, one must first start with the fact that India's climate is characterized by the monsoon, in which a region's weather follows the pattern of a dry climate for most of the year; then comes a period of rains, which is the monsoon. At least once in the course of a decade, the monsoon fails to arrive in any given region.

 

Traditional agriculture in India and other countries always planned for this by laying aside foodstocks at the village level, which ensured that there would be adequate food in drought years. The central administrative authority, whether it was a Hindu prince, or the Moghul court, would suspend taxes for that period of economic insecurity. Prior to British rule, it was understood that famine needed to be avoided if the central authority was to have any legitimacy as the ruler of an area. The British changed all this.

 

As B.M. Bhatia writes in his 1967 book, Famines in India: "From about the beginning of the eleventh century to the end of the eighteenth there were 14 major famines in India." This is roughly two per century. Under the period of East India Company rule from 1765-1858 there occurred 16 major famines, a rate eight times higher than what had been common before. Then, under the period of British Colonial Office rule from 1859 to 1914, there was a major famine in India an average of every two years, or 25 times the historical rate before British rule! The rest of the world's population was growing due to technological progress, but the population of India remained at approximately 220 million for over a century prior to 1914.

 

Deliberately inducing a major famine more or less every two years, was, for over half a century, the backbone of British colonial policy in India.

 

The history of the British in India is a history of the deliberate creation of famines. Such famines resulted from the policies of the East India Company. Those policies included looting through "tax farming," usury, and outright slavery of the indigenous population.

 

As we shall see, a limit to this rapine was reached in the middle of the 19th Century, leading to the first struggle for Indian independence, which began with the Sepoy Mutiny. Following that revolt, a new policy was developed by the British Colonial Office, which took over all the operations of the East India Company. The new policy revolved around creating famines in selected regions on a continuous basis, with the goal of creating a mass of starving people who could be used as slave labor, needed by the British to build the infrastructure of British rule.

 

East India Company Rule

The British East India Company began the administrative takeover of India in 1764-1765. The company was appointed diwan, or governor, over the area of Bengal by the collapsing Moghul Empire. The British entered India as the administrative rulers and tax collectors of the Moghul court.

 

As tax collectors, the previous supposedly "rapacious" Moghul agents, had collected the marketable equivalent of £818,000 sterling from the area of Bengal. In 1765-66, the first year of East India Company diwanship, the company was able to collect the equivalent of £1,470,000; and by 1790-1791, this figure had risen to £2,680,000. According to Jean Beauchamp's British Imperialism in India, Warren Hastings, the company's chief officer in India, wrote the following to the company's board of directors in London:

 

"Not withstanding the loss of at least one-third of the inhabitants of the province, and consequent decrease in cultivation, net collections of the year 1771 exceeded those of 1768.... It was naturally to be expected that the diminution of the revenue should have kept an equal place with the other consequences of so great a calamity. That it did not was owing to its being violently kept up to its former standard."

 

The great calamity mentioned was perhaps the worst famine in Indian history, which struck the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. It is estimated that no fewer than 10 million perished from starvation. The severity of this famine was a direct result of East India Company looting.

 

Tax Farming

What the Company had done to increase the tax revenue was to set up a system of "outsourcing" the right to tax the land. This is what is known as "tax farming." The tax collector had the right to obtain as much tax as he could get, since he had bought these rights at auction. In turn, the one who was taxed, the registered landholder, called zamindari, was allowed to extract whatever he could for himself and for the tax collector from the poor peasant who worked the land.

 

The zamindari, who was subject only to the payment of the company's taxes, essentially had complete power over all the land and all its cultivators.

 

Through this looting system, the Company left nothing in reserve for the times when the monsoons would fail. In addition, little or no maintenance was allowed for the cultivators' infrastructure, such as the irrigation works.

 

The results were horrendous, as more of India's land area came under Company rule.

 

The drain of wealth from India based on a tax-farming system, the destruction of native textile industry by the "free market" dumping of British textiles, and the plantation economy of opium, led eventually to a fierce resistance from the communal based population.

 

This finally led to the Sepoy Mutiny of the zamindaris and others, especially those who lived in areas not totally under Company control. It almost broke the British Empire.

 

In the end, the East India Company was relieved of its rule in India and was replaced by a governor-general, and a colonial administration. The commission which recommended this change concluded that the problem was the lack of a transportation and communications infrastructure, necessary to hold subject such a vast country. Also, the commissioners concluded, there was a need for an Indian ruling class that would function as intermediaries for the British colonialists.[1]

 

Slave Labor Policy

Britain's colonial overseers agreed on the need for the development of a rudimentary infrastructure to increase the efficiency of their rule, and looting of India. But the Empire had a problem. The proposed grid of railroads and large-scale irrigation works was too expensive, from the colonialists' point of view. So, the decision was made to force the already plundered Indian population to pay for these development projects.

 

This presented another serious problem. India, at that time, did not have a landless laboring class which could provide a pool of cheap labor for such projects. The caste system of India was all-encompassing. As Bhitia documents, the ritual distribution of goods at the communal level, based on caste and guild relations, made it undesirable for families and individuals to leave this system, especially to become slaves for the British railroad and irrigation projects.

 

The British solution to this problem was "famine relief." To build the railroads, the British set up "famine relief works." A famine would create the condition, such that, faced with certain death from lack of food, an Indian would be forced to "choose" to go to a famine relief center, much like a starving famine victim in Africa would do today. However, once having done this, the individual lost his caste relations and privileges. Then he was told that if he wanted to continue to eat, he must work, building the railroad in exchange for food.

 

At these projects, less than minimum subsistence was the norm, much like a Nazi forced-labor concentration camp. As yesterday's famine victims dropped dead from exhaustion and slow starvation on the railroad or irrigation project, today's famine refugees were making their way into this so-called famine relief system. This system would today be labeled euphemistically, the "recycling" of the work force.

 

With the advent of railways, it became easier for traders to buy up food and other goods when they were cheap, and in some cases, even when costly, and export them to England—much in the same manner as the British let the Irish starve during the potato famine, rather than allow the wheat, barley, and rye grown in Ireland for England to be used to feed the Irish.

 

Under these conditions, the nature of famines and scarcities began to change. Whereas in the past, famine had been a regional phenomenon, under this British policy food became scarce throughout the country, hitting the poorest in a devastating manner. It was these famine-stricken poor who then continued to supply the labor for the relief-works.

 

Rise of Usury

The development of the railroads also helped to develop a class of Indian money-lenders, who became the intermediaries for the British. This allowed for the British to control even areas which were not affected by crop failures.

 

Such areas were hit with multiple increases in prices because of the demand placed on their food from other areas of the country. Money-lenders would then sell British goods to Indians at inflated prices, and buy their grain at low prices. Then they would sell that grain at high prices, either on the international market, or back to the same people in times of famine.

 

Since these transactions were carried out largely on a credit basis, vast segments of the population became debt slaves to the money-lenders, if they were fortunate enough to escape having to work on famine relief projects. In addition, the British played this system of debt-slavery off against the traditional caste and guild system, which had never had to deal with such a monstrosity.

 

This system brought to the fore a class of money-lenders who became the power through which the British were able to offset, in part, the resistance within India to their rule coming from the communal base.

 

The spread of famine throughout India can be measured in the expansion of the railroad system. There were 288 miles of rail in India in 1857; 1,599 miles in 1861; and 3,373 miles in 1865. By 1881, there were 9,891 miles; there were 19,555 miles by 1895; and 34,656 miles by 1914.

 

With the expansion of the railroads, and "famine relief" which built the railroads, the exports of food grains rose rapidly. The export of rice grew from 12,697,983 hundred-weight in 1867-68, to 18,428,625 hundred-weight in 1877-78. Wheat exports grew 22-fold during this same period, from 299,385 hundred-weight to 6,373,168 hundred-weight. The criminal nature of this policy is clearly seen, since 1876-78 were major famine years. The export of rice reached 30.3 million hundred-weight, and wheat reached 30.3 million hundred-weight in 1891-92.

 

The worst famine was in 1896-97, which affected 62.4 million people. This resulted, among other things, according to Bhatia, in "civil commotion and unrest in Bombay against continuing exports of food grains from the presidency at a time when the people faced the threat of famine. The government of India, however, refused to change its food policy and steadfastly clung to the view so far held that, 'even in the worst conceivable emergency, so long as trade is free to follow its normal course, we should do far more harm than good by attempting to interfere....' "

 

Does this sound all too familiar? The [George H.W.] Bush Administration has proclaimed a New World Order based on "free trade" and an end to the "restrictions" imposed by national sovereignty. As food and other basic resources increasingly come under the control of Euro-Anglo-American cartels, most of the world is slated to become much like India was under the British.

 

Bush's New World Order is in fact nothing new, and the principal instrument of rule in this new world order is scheduled to be famine, and "famine relief" projects for the victims.

 

If people don't wake up, a day will come when you may lose your cherished low-paying job, and find yourself homeless and on the soup line—only you will be told there's no slop to eat, unless you join a work gang.

 

Slave labor, famine, and government-protected drug lords, like the British East India Company, are to be your masters in this New World Order. It has been done before!

 

Now maybe you will think twice when you view the British Broadcasting Corporation's films of the "glorious days of the British Raj in India" which you see on PBS. British policy in India was nothing less than deliberate genocide. We face the same policy today, this time on a global scale.

 

 

--

 

[1] See Eric Stoakes, "Traditional Elites in the Great Rebellion of 1857," and "Some Aspects of Revolt in Uper Doab," in E.R. Leach and S.N. Mukherjee (eds.), Elites in South Asia (Cambridge, 1970).

[suchandra]

 

Now maybe you will think twice when you view the British Broadcasting Corporation's films of the "glorious days of the British Raj in India" which you see on PBS. British policy in India was nothing less than deliberate genocide. We face the same policy today, this time on a global scale.

I don't think this was past, the Britishers still are in control through India's monetary system. Right after Gandhi's assassination 1948, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was installed. Although this is a great secret it should be clear that the RBI belongs the BOE, Bank of England, which is a privately owned Bank. In other words, Bank of England is printing the Indian Rupee and loaning it against interest to the Indian government and 1 billion Indians. The Indian State cannot print its own money, in fact they have to pay interest for every transaction. By controlling the currency of a nation you have full control of the countries whole economy. Even the value of the Rupee against other currencies is determined in London. In that sense India was never freed from the Britishers. Mahatma Gandhi surely would not have accepted such a settlement.

[13thMonkey]

Another interesting article:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s19040.htm

[url="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s19040.htm"]

[Durgaputra]

13th Monkey- very good post.

 

Suchandra, methinks you are getting a bit paranoid here. The power centre today is the US, which is able to print as much currency as it wants because it is the 'reserve currency'. Look at Iceland and US- both had major banking system collapses- the one big difference is that the US has the US dollar and prints more money to finance its wasteful wars and other expenditures, whereas Iceland has to ask IMF for money.

[suchandra]

 

Suchandra, methinks you are getting a bit paranoid here. The power centre today is the US, which is able to print as much currency as it wants because it is the 'reserve currency'. Look at Iceland and US- both had major banking system collapses- the one big difference is that the US has the US dollar and prints more money to finance its wasteful wars and other expenditures, whereas Iceland has to ask IMF for money.

Paranoid? For you all people except yourself are paranoid?

 

 

 

Who Controls The Federal Reserve System?

By Victor Thorn

 

Now that we know the Federal Reserve is a privately owned, for-profit corporation, a natural question would be: who OWNS this company? Peter Kershaw provides the answer in "Economic Solutions" where he lists the ten primary shareholders in the Federal Reserve banking system. 1) The Rothschild Family - London 2) The Rothschild Family - Berlin 3) The Lazard Brothers - Paris 4) Israel Seiff - Italy 5) Kuhn-Loeb Company Germany 6) The Warburgs - Amsterdam 7) The Warburgs - Hamburg 8) Lehman Brothers - New York 9) Goldman & Sachs - New York 10) The Rockefeller Family - New York Now I don't know about you, but something is terribly wrong with this situation. Namely, don't we live in AMERICA? If so, why are seven of the top ten stockholders located in FOREIGN countries? That's 70%! To further convey how screwed-up this system is, Jim Marrs provides the following data in his phenomenal book, "Rule By Secrecy." He says that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which undeniably controls the other eleven Federal Reserve branches, is essentially controlled by two financial institutions: 1) Chase-Manhattan (controlled by the Rockefellers) - 6,389,445 shares 32.3% 2) Citbank - 4,051,851 shares - 20.5% Thus, these two entities control nearly 53% of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Doesn't that boggle your mind? Now, considering how many trillions of dollars are involved here, and how the bankers are WAY above our "selected" officials in Washington, D.C., do you think the above-listed banks and families have an inordinate amount of say-so in how our country is being run? The answer is blindingly apparent. Where does the money come from? We all know that the Federal Reserve CORPORATION prints money - then loans it, at interest, to our government. But wait until you see what a total scam this process is. But before we get to the meat of this issue, let's remember one thing about the very essence of banking - primarily that money should have some type of standard upon which its value is based. In the case of America, we operate on what is called a "gold standard" (i.e. our money is backed by gold). So, with that in mind, let's look at how money is actually created, and at what cost. If the Federal Reserve wants to print 1,000 one-hundred ($100) bills, their total cost for ink, paper, plates, labor, etc. would be approximately $23.00 (according to Davvy Kidd in "Why A Bankrupt America"). Now, if you do the math, the total cost of 10,000 bills would be $230.00 ($.023 x 10,000). But, and here's the catch - 10,000 $100 bills equals $1,000,000! So, the Federal Reserve can "create" a million dollars, then LEND it to the U.S. Government (with interest) for a total cost of $230.00! That's not a bad deal, huh! The banking industry calls this process "seignorage." I call it outright THEFT. Why? Well, regardless of the immense profit margin ($1,000,000 for $230), plus the huge interest payments, our government then needs to STEAL the American people's money to payoff their debts via a Mob-like agency called the IRS. So the bankers steal from the government, then the government turns around and steals from the people. I'm no genius, but who do you think is getting screwed in this process? US - the people at the bottom rung of the ladder. What's worse is that - now catch your breath - there's NO MORE gold left in Fort Knox! It's all gone. In other words, the GOLD STANDARD that our financial system was based upon is now an illusion. We can't convert our money into gold --- only other currency. The entire underlying basis for our money is now a lie - a sham. The Federal Reserve has become so arrogant that they've become a literal MONEY MAKING MACHINE, creating currency out of thin air! So that's where the Fed gets their money - they literally make it, then lend it to us so they can make even MORE money off of it. Money As A Religion The above-detailed process has become so ridiculous that William Grieder, former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, wrote a book in 1987 entitled, "Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country" that details how the Controllers have conditioned us to accept this absurd situation. "To modern minds," he writes, "it seemed bizarre to think of the Federal Reserve as a religious institution. Yet the conspiracy theorists, in their own demented way, were on to something real and significant. The Fed did also function in the realm of religion. Its mysterious powers of money creation, inherited from priestly forebears, shielded a complex bundle of social and psychological meanings. With its own form of secret incantation, the Federal Reserve presided over awesome social ritual, transactions so powerful and frightening they seemed to lie beyond common understanding." Mr. Grieder continues, "Above all, money was a function of faith. It required implicit and universal social consent that was indeed mysterious. To create money and use it, each one must believe, and everyone must believe. Only then did worthless pieces of paper take on value." Do you get it? MONEY is an ILLUSION! Why? Because the gold standard upon which our money is supposed to be based has been eliminated. There's no more gold in Fort Knox. It's all GONE! Now, money really IS only paper!!! In the past, money was supposed to represent something of tangible value. Now it's simply paper! Taken one step further, many of us don't even use paper money any more! Why? Well, here's a scenario. Many places of employment directly deposit their employee's paychecks into the bank. Once the money is there, when bill time comes around, the person in question can write out a stack of checks to pay them. Plus, when they need gasoline they use a credit card; and groceries a debit card. If this person goes out for dinner on Friday night, they can charge the tab on their diner's card. But what about the tip? They simply scribble in the amount at the bottom of the check. So far, the person hasn't spent a single dollar bill. Plus, if you bring electronic banking into the picture, we've virtually eliminated the use for money. And, God forbid, what happens when encoded microchips are implanted into the backs of our hand? In essence, money has become nothing more than an illusion - an electronic figure or amount on a computer screen. That's it! As time goes on, we have an increasing tendency toward being sucked into this Wizard of Oz vortex of unreality. Think about it. Americans as a whole are carrying more personal debt than in any other time in history. Plus our government keeps going further and further into the hole, with no hope of ever crawling out. But we have less and less actual MONEY! We're being enslaved by the debt of electronic blips on a computer screen! And 70% of the banks that control this debt via the Federal Reserve exist in foreign countries! What in God's name is going on? As author William Bramley says, "The result of this whole system is MASSIVE debt at every level of society." We're getting screwed in a sickening way, folks, and the people doing it are demented magician-priests that use the ILLUSION of money as their control device. And I hate to say it, but if we allow things to keep going as they are, the situation will only get worse. Our only hope ... ONLY HOPE ... is to immediately take drastic action and remedy this crime. (to be continued)

[Sephiroth]

Good topics.

 

I'm not sure whether most of you guys know or not, but when comes to the "evilness" which Westerners have done to Asian country for the past 200 years, many Western countries today seems to decline to comment on them on their history books.

 

Matter a fact, most historical data from the West could state that India was a colony under British, or Vietnam was colony under Spain, Indonesia was colony to Dutch etc. It will not show what this people have done in Asia countries and their impacts on the Asians.

[suchandra]

 

Good topics.

 

 

 

Since present Vaishnava institutions are controlled by the global banking cartel you won't read much more about this topic.

[Sephiroth]

 

Since present Vaishnava institutions are controlled by the global banking cartel you won't read much more about this topic.

 

Which is why the Hindus should go back to their roots and apply more self-sufficient methods instead of relying on global banking.

 

Even Mahatma Gandhi had the idea before - make your own stuff, use your own stuff and stop replying on others - especially from imported goods.

 

India have everything it needs - from resources and materials for its industries to the professional and semi-professional workers to push forward its industries. I have no idea why India could be so backward in term of industries . Hell .. even China and Korea seems to be overtaking India in term of being self-sufficient.

[AncientMariner]

 

Which is why the Hindus should go back to their roots and apply more self-sufficient methods instead of relying on global banking.

 

Even Mahatma Gandhi had the idea before - make your own stuff, use your own stuff and stop replying on others - especially from imported goods.

 

India have everything it needs - from resources and materials for its industries to the professional and semi-professional workers to push forward its industries. I have no idea why India could be so backward in term of industries . Hell .. even China and Korea seems to be overtaking India in term of being self-sufficient.

 

 

The global banking cartel are a well oiled sophisticated machine that will not let any nation have self sufficiency or independence if they can help it and fortunately for them 99% of the masses of the people on the Earth are ignorant about how money works and who is behind it so they almost always seem to find ways to dupe these unsuspecting nations into their banking scams. In addition they always find willing frontmen who are willing to sell out their own countrymen for riches. They use the frontmen in the guise of politicians, religous leaders, celebrities etc. to aid in keeping their countrymen pacified while the banking cartels steal it all. India and America are beginning to parralel each other in many ways it seems.

 

 

Been reading the 10th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam and if the Bhagavatam really is true it is amazing how much everything has degraded in just 5000 years. It is also amazing to research and figure out who the Kings are on the Earth right now that are furthering the progression of the Kali-yuga. Doesn't seem there is much that can be done to stop it because they are successfully socially engineering the populations of the Earth to become the perfect obedient serfs. Even in my short lifetime it is amazing to see how much Americans have grown to love their serfdom and defend the monetary system that basically enslaves them their whole lives. The spirit that initially caused America to rebel from British Imperialism seems to be all but dead. I first watched that movie Idiocracy a few years ago and thought it was funny but far fetched and now just a few years later living in America is almost like living in some kind of really bad late night low budget horror flick offshoot of Idiocracy.

[Sephiroth]

Self-Sufficiency IS NOT Impossible.

 

It seems to be impossible because Governments run by politicians who wants big houses, expensive cars and have plenty of mistresses.

 

Self-Sufficiency can start as a trend when people start to come together, form a community and establish their own economic without the need for Politicians or middle-men.

 

Self-Sufficiency IS POSSIBLE.

[AncientMariner]

 

Self-Sufficiency IS NOT Impossible.

 

It seems to be impossible because Governments run by politicians who wants big houses, expensive cars and have plenty of mistresses.

 

Self-Sufficiency can start as a trend when people start to come together, form a community and establish their own economic without the need for Politicians or middle-men.

 

Self-Sufficiency IS POSSIBLE.

 

 

 

I agree but in America people are addicted to television and are basically hypnotized by the propaganda so they have developed a reliance on the military industrial complex and are taught from birth to be reliant on government. Gonna be a hard addiction for them to break but it is kind of like what Russel Means from the Lakota Nation says, America is now an Indian Reservation and the elite are instituting the same eugenics programs they used on the Native Americans only now these are going to be used on the unsuspecting American yuppies.

[Sephiroth]

Excuse me ... WHO CARES about American people?

 

I'm stating that Indians - in India should start to become self-sufficient.

[Durgaputra]

Suchandra,

Your post supports my post- since it talks about the US- what proof do you have for your statement that the INR is controlled by- of all the people- BOE ?

[suchandra]

 

Suchandra,

Your post supports my post- since it talks about the US- what proof do you have for your statement that the INR is controlled by- of all the people- BOE ?

 

In the nineties the Indian government shipped all of India's gold reserves to London in order to get out of debt. The Bank of England, determined to restore London as the main gold market, reached an agreement also with the seven South African mining houses to ship their gold to London for refining. Most Australian gold also came to London, transforming the market. Gold rush in Brazil led to opening of mint in Rio de Janeiro making 'moedas de ouro', but also this gold ended up in London.

[suchandra]

Right now China, India and Russia barely have any gold reserves. You will soon be seeing Gold buying by these countries as a shore to their currency.

If rupee would be in the same position as dollar, there was no need for India in 1990 to send all its gold reserve to London to guarantee payments for India's imports and surrender India to the IMF and World Bank, the two agents of the US to implement highly unpopular anti-people 'Economic Reforms'. It would have been sufficient for Narasimha Rao to print more rupees. If all developing countries would have the same facility, they would be able to develop very quickly.