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

This is an interesting couple of articles (based on a recent academic paper) that is likely to have a little too much truth for many westerners. It offers some fascinating findings re the effects of so called "capitalism" itself, and particularly regarding the effects of the British Empire on it's "jewel in the crown" India. The genocidal and culture erasing effects of British imperialism are often overlooked amid claims that it brought "prosperity" and "modernisation" to much of the world. While it certainly brought great wealth to Britain, it did in fact begin with state sanctioned piracy and culminated in the subjugation and erasing of native cultures, overt racism and genocide.

The colonies of Australia and the US offering good examples of the latter. Though to be fair, it was the oligarchs in the US who instigated a civil war (that the French won for them) with the aim of displacing and wiping out the native populations as necessary. The British foresaw this and were against it (hence the civil war). Though obviously it isn't spun that way in the US national mythos.

As to India the 165 million figure is the higher limit, but anyway it was at the very least 100+ million deaths attributed to British Imperialism in one particular 40 year period (1880-1920). This makes people like Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, while monsters in their own right simply lightweights in comparison and is a higher mortality than all of those combined. You could probably throw in both world wars and till get a lower figure.

It also leaves out other well known British Colonial genocides and other periods, such as the starvation of several million people by (well documented racist) Churchill due to taking the resources of Bengal (food) for the British war effort in WW2, which makes him little different to the Hitler in that regard.

The Nazis simply used the European Imperial model not in some far flung colony, but within Europe itself including within their own borders. Though ultimately a true reading of history makes the parallels with the US obvious and they were probably the real inspirational model.

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.”

The articles here and here

The paper itself here.

An article on the British caused Bengal famine.

Sounds as if somebody is about to rationalize a current situation by contrasting and comparing one of its current opponents' 19th and early half of the 20th-century history.

FWIW we have a thread that somewhat touched on this subject earlier...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Quintilian

It's crazy to recognize the British did all this to feed its empire, and when ww1 hit they simply began to wash their hands of the mess they created and began to scrub history in their favor, or pass the buck onto local population. Partition of India, and creation of Isreal come to mind, both of which instances are still huge issues to this day. Ah the glory days of colonialism, slowly passing on the torch to the new widely accepted capitalism, with a huge disgusting bang at the end.

You can look at any sea fairing empire and it was the same. Dutch, Spain, France, all had a hand at decimating indigenous populations either thru war, famine, pestilence/disease. However the indigenous such as the Inca (and countless others) did not have a problem of subjugating and decimating other societies and tribes they came across..

The strong throughout history owns the gold and makes the rules; call it reality/history.

a reply to: Quintilian

The exploitation of colonial possessions is inconsistent with the concepts of competitive private enterprise and voluntary exchange.

You know, actual capitalism.

So not exactly sure why you threw the word "capitalism" in the word salad...

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism.

Thus that little uprising in the Americas.

And if you want to nit pick a little, take the time to compare the Democrat's Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg papers.

The American Democratic party segregation laws were the basis of the Nazi party's platform.

They literally substituted "Negro" with "Jew" in some paragraphs.

But yea, capitalism bad...

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: Quintilian

The exploitation of colonial possessions is inconsistent with the concepts of competitive private enterprise and voluntary exchange.

You know, actual capitalism.

So not exactly sure why you threw the word "capitalism" in the word salad...

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism.

Thus that little uprising in the Americas.

And if you want to nit pick a little, take the time to compare the Democrat's Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg papers.

The American Democratic party segregation laws were the basis of the Nazi party's platform.

They literally substituted "Negro" with "Jew" in some paragraphs.

But yea, capitalism bad...

Well said and thanks I just did not feel like writing more today !!

originally posted by: putnam6
Sounds as if somebody is about to rationalize a current situation by contrasting and comparing one of its current opponents' 19th and early half of the 20th-century history.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

Do you have an English translation for that lot?

a reply to: Lumenari

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism

true, they let the trading companies worry about that, and granted royal charters that gave them right to subjugate foreign lands with their own private armies and got a large percentage of the revenue made. you know sorta like the big guy, but they got way more than 10%.

the biggest one was the east india company.

Thats part of the reason I laugh when people talk about how horribly brutal the US is, we are absolute babes lost in the woods when it comes to depopulation when you look at Europe's history.

Even most of the deaths we get "credited" with when it comes to natives in the US, the damage was done (for the most part) long before we were a nation we just drove the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Should we have done better, yep no question, are we the worst nope not even in the top 100 in my opinion.

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: Lumenari

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism

true, they let the trading companies worry about that, and granted royal charters that gave them right to subjugate foreign lands with their own private armies and got a large percentage of the revenue made. you know sorta like the big guy, but they got way more than 10%.

the biggest one was the east india company.

The East India Company.

Fun fact... they did accomplish getting hops into beer.

IPA...

originally posted by: Irishhaf
Thats part of the reason I laugh when people talk about how horribly brutal the US is, we are absolute babes lost in the woods when it comes to depopulation when you look at Europe's history.

Even most of the deaths we get "credited" with when it comes to natives in the US, the damage was done (for the most part) long before we were a nation we just drove the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Should we have done better, yep no question, are we the worst nope not even in the top 100 in my opinion.

The Spanish killed most of us off with diseases we had no immunity to long before America was colonized, true.

But we were killing and enslaving each other long before that...

a reply to: Lumenari

And dont get me wrong, what Jackson and van buren did still pisses me off and I have no native blood in my ancestry.

we got a lot of things wrong in a short period of time.

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: Quintilian

The exploitation of colonial possessions is inconsistent with the concepts of competitive private enterprise and voluntary exchange.

You know, actual capitalism.

So not exactly sure why you threw the word "capitalism" in the word salad...

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism.

Thus that little uprising in the Americas.

And if you want to nit pick a little, take the time to compare the Democrat's Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg papers.

The American Democratic party segregation laws were the basis of the Nazi party's platform.

They literally substituted "Negro" with "Jew" in some paragraphs.

But yea, capitalism bad...

Well, I did say it would be difficult to accept for many in the west.

If you take that stance (which is basically just weasel wording of "capitalism"), I would argue that genuine capitalism has never existed in any international sense. It has always been a system where the strong exploit the weak. Still is. The modern US are no exception to that rule as the dominant empire (yes, they are an empire complete with occupations, vassals and hundreds of military bases on otherwise "foreign" soil)) as much as an exemplary. Whether a monarchy or republic makes no functional difference.

What passes for capitalism also goes fist in glove with the real problem of Imperialism, which together gave us the horrors of the 20th century wars and a huge amount of indigenous misery beforehand (and afterwards).

Us race laws were not so much the basis for the Nuremberg laws to the extent they "just changed some words", as taken into consideration. Some were rejected or modified for various reasons, sometimes because they were seen as too harsh. Though I wouldn't particularly argue this point if that's how you see it. It's hardly a great endorsement either way.

The "little uprising" or civil war in the British North American colony was not inspired so much by a need to become "capitalist" as the need to expand west. The Crown forbade expansion past the Appalachians by decree fearing conflict with the French, and the obvious displacement and genocide of the indigenous populations that would be the result. Thus the "little uprising" and resulting displacement and genocide of the locals, and also the expansion by military conquest where the US also stole half of Mexico and occupied various other places around the world (hawaii is one of the longest running illegal military occupations).

In many ways the US provided a blueprint for the Nazi's. Though it seems the overt nationalism and militarism where the forces are worshipped and war is glorified was a leaf taken from the Nazis.

What they used to do in the past was really bad. Even after the Brits left it still went on. There was more bad done to the Native American population than was done to the black people. There were good slave owners too, they were not all bad.

I never knew the approximate numbers of Indians killed, but I knew that they slaughtered lots of the Indians in their quest to steal the land from them.

That is now in the past, we should focus on just getting along with each other and not dwell on the evil that has happened in the past. I have known quite a few native Americans and the vast majority of them are friendly and nice to get along with. But there are some cranky jerks too....just like there are cranky white jerks. Just like there are straight and gay jerks. No matter what color, sex, sexual orientation, or wealth status you look at....there are always some jerks that can cause others to hate their people. I should not leave out education status either, seems like some people get stuck on themselves for being educated and some less smart will hate those who have degrees too.

originally posted by: 727Sky
You can look at any sea fairing empire and it was the same. Dutch, Spain, France, all had a hand at decimating indigenous populations either thru war, famine, pestilence/disease. However the indigenous such as the Inca (and countless others) did not have a problem of subjugating and decimating other societies and tribes they came across..

The strong throughout history owns the gold and makes the rules; call it reality/history.

Would be difficult to argue against this, so I won't. lol

Fair points.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
Thats part of the reason I laugh when people talk about how horribly brutal the US is, we are absolute babes lost in the woods when it comes to depopulation when you look at Europe's history.

Even most of the deaths we get "credited" with when it comes to natives in the US, the damage was done (for the most part) long before we were a nation we just drove the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Should we have done better, yep no question, are we the worst nope not even in the top 100 in my opinion.

Some truth to that. No state (that I'm aware of) comes close to the British Empire. This certainly doesn't excuse the others though.

Sure, everything wrong in the world is down to those bastard Brits.

Zzzzzzz......

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: Lumenari

In the time period you are talking about, the British Empire was a Monarchy that had nothing to do with actual capitalism

true, they let the trading companies worry about that, and granted royal charters that gave them right to subjugate foreign lands with their own private armies and got a large percentage of the revenue made. you know sorta like the big guy, but they got way more than 10%.

the biggest one was the east india company.

The easy India company ruled India, for twenty points, how many hundreds of years?

a reply to: Quintilian

In the report, the scholars estimated that India suffered 165 million excess deaths due to British colonialism between 1880 and 1920.

Maybe I'm just a delusional Brit but I call BULL-#!

The population of India in 1880 was 223M and in 1920 it was 268M ... Statista - India Population

It is statistically (and biologically) impossible to have killed 45-70% of the 1880 population and have them fully replenished with an additional 15+% within that same 40 year period.

Also mentioned is that:

Population growth would begin to increase in the 1920s, as a result of falling mortality rates, due to improvements in health, sanitation and infrastructure

The population of India grew from 268M to 324M between 1920-1940 that's only 56M in an equal timespan with improved lifespans.

I could equally take the other stance and just acknowledge that Britain simply did what every other powerful nation had done throughout history and was simply the best! (R.I.P. Tina Turner)

In this case I'm going to take both sides and quote the phrase "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics!" (Disraeli / Twain)

a reply to: Quintilian

I don't know if it's a real one or a fake memory / dream, but I can remember Goering at the Nurremburg trials saying what the Nazi's did when invading the east was no different to what the Yankees were doing when invading the west. Looking at it honestly and realistically it kind of makes sense, when considering the time. Theft of the land and the clearing of the resident human population.