archives: FAMINE IN INDIA by Dadabhai Naoroji

This year marks the 200th birth anniversary of Dadabhai Naoroji, pioneering economist and fighter for darker humanity. Below we reprint his essay 'Famine in India'.

It was a pure matter of fact that Great Britain, during the whole period of her connexion with India, had never spent a single farthing of British money on the Eastern Empire. All the great wars which had been engaged it had been paid for by the Indians themselves, and it was India, or rather its Natives, who had given this noble heritage to the British Empire. Indians had also shed their blood in order to maintain and extend that Empire. Upto the time of the Indian Mutiny the British Army there never exceeded 40,000 men, while its average strength was from 15,000 to 20,000 men. But the Indian Army of 200,000 was placed at the service of the Empire; it was maintained by India, and it shed its blood for India. Surely these facts required no comment. But that was not all. From the time when Great Britain first obtained territorial jurisdiction in India down to the present day it had drawn millions upon millions sterling from that Empire. Great Britain had appropriated this Indian wealth, thereby reducing the population to extreme poverty. At the beginning of the century only about 3 million a year was drawn from India, but now the amount taken away was officially admitted to be about 30 millions sterling annually. This was an open sore, and no country could withstand being bled unceasingly in this manner.
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The result had been to reduce the bulk of the Indian population to extreme poverty, destitution, and degradation; and it was "Great Britain's bounden duty, in common justice and humanity, to pay from her own Exchequer the costs of all famines and diseases caused by such impoverishment". There could only be one ending to this continual bleeding of India. Famine was following upon famine; each visitation was becoming more disastrous, and the present was the most disastrous of the whole century. For from thirty to forty years I had been crying in the wilderness against this terrible treatment. I had realised, and had endeavoured to make the people realise, that a country thus drained must in the end die. Great Britain owed a debt to these poor, wretched, dying people. The British people, through their policy, were the cause of the misery which now prevailed, and the least they could do surely was to try and help the Natives of India in their time of terrible distress. 


The great idea of the Indian Government appeared to be not to let the English taxpayer have any trouble or annoyance in connection with India. The rulers of that Empire seemed to think that the moment the English taxpayer was called upon to contribute a farthing for the maintenance of India, he would demand to know the reason why India had been treated in the manner she had been. They were well aware, too, that no good reason could be shown for such treatment. Let him give one illustration of the unwisdom of maintaining a running sore. Thirty years ago France and Germany had a deadly struggle. France was beaten and had to pay dearly for it. A heavy burden was imposed upon her, a severe wound was inflicted. But in process of time it healed. France paid her debt, the account was closed, and she became as prosperous as ever. Why was not an endeavour made to treat India in the same way ? Why, having once drawn from her enormous sums of money, was not the account closed and the Natives of India allowed to reap the benefit of the wealth which their country produced ? No. The policy was to keep the wound running day after day and month after month, and they might rely upon it that until the bleeding was stopped India would have no chance of prosperity.


It surely was the duty of the British Exchequer, seeing that their policy was responsible for the present famine and disease, to pay the whole cost of saving life and of restoring the stricken people to their normal industrial condition instead of further oppressing and crushing the Indian people themselves by compelling them to find these costs directly or by loan under the deceptive pretext or disguise of what is called "the resources of the Government of India", which simply meant squeezing the wretched people themselves. The term "resources of the Government of India" was a most deceptive one. They had often been told that India had not exhausted her borrowing powers. But what were the facts ? The Government of India consisted of Europeans. The Indians had not the slightest voice in the expenditure of a single farthing. They had only to pay, and, before any portion of the taxation exacted from them could be used for the benefit of India, 200,000,000 of rupees were annually devoted to the payment of salaries and pensions of Europeans who constituted the Government of India. The population of England paid 5%. per head per annum in the form of taxation. The people of India did not even pay 5%. per head; yet. strange to say, they were crushed by a heavier burden of taxation than were the English. The incidence and heaviness of taxation did not depend upon the amount; it depended upon the capacity to bear it; and the fact was that, while English taxation represented from 6 per cent to 8 per cent of the taxpayers' income, the taxation in India represented 14 or 15 per cent. They all knew how hard it was for a man earning £1 per week to give 1s. out of it. It was far more easy for a man with an income of £1,000 a year to give away £100; and hence it was that the people of India, in their wretchedness and impoverishment, felt so heavily the taxation imposed upon them.


Was it not most humiliating and discreditable to the British name that other countries should be appealed to come to Britain's help for the relief of Britain's own subjects after they had been under British rule for a period of 150 years ? British rule was supposed to confer great blessing upon the Indian race. But what had been the results of it ? Millions of the people were dying of famine and disease, and scores of millions from year's end never knew what it was to have a full meal ! As had been well said it was a shame that our own fellow-subjects should starve while the British Empire was the greatest and richest in the world. In treating India as they were doing they were killing the bird that laid the golden eggs. They were deriving great benefits from India, but those benefits carried with them losses to the Indian people. If they would only-treat India honestly, if they would act as honourable Englishmen and fulfil their pledges to India, they would be able to gain ten times as much benefit from India, and those benefits would then carry with them the blessings of the Indian people. More than that, how was the wealth now withdrawn from India distributed ? It went into the pockets of the capitalists and the higher classes. It did not benefit the working men of Great Britain. He had no desire to appeal to their selfishness, but he was bound to point out the economic fact that the doing of evil reflected upon all who had a share in it. 


Now, in England the production represented something like £40 per head per annum. They exported goods to the whole world, and the amount of exports was placed at three hundred millions sterling per annum. Upon those exports rested the question of their employment. Their own colonies had slammed the door of protection in their face, European countries had also adopted protective tariffs; so, too had the United States of America, and yet, notwithstanding this fact, Great Britain annually exported the produce to the value of three hundred millions sterling. India was the only place where they had perfect freedom of trade, entirely under their own control. But what proportion of the British exports went into that country? Only about twenty-five millions sterling. Why was it that such a small amount was exported to India? Simply because the process of bleeding had been carried on to such an extent that the people had literally, no money left with which to buy British produce. 


Now if, instead of treating the Natives of India in this cruel and barbarous fashion, they were to deal with them honestly, what would be the result? Let them remember that the Indians were not a race of savages. Two thousand years ago they were the mostly highly civilised nation in the world. And what sort of people were the Natives of England when at that period they were discovered by Caesar? Now, the Indians know how to enjoy the good things of this world, and if they were only allowed to benefit by what they produced they would be able to buy the manufactures of Great Britain. The Government were willing to massacre savages in South Africa in order to find markets for British goods, whereas if they would only develop the resources of India with her three hundred millions of population they would find ample outlet for British trade, and there would soon cease to be any unemployed in Great Britain. Thus if they would only adopt an honest police to India they would benefit ten times to the extent they now did. Nemesis always followed upon unrighteousness, and, as Lord Salisbury once said, “Injustice will bring the mightiest of the earth to ruin.” He did not see why England should be an exception to that rule. 


British rule had given the people security of life and property; but of what value to them was a life which meant death by starvation or disease, or of what good was property when it was only produced for the benefit Great Britain? The fact was that Indian Natives were mere helots. They were worse than American slaved for the latter were at least taken care of by their masters, whose property they were. All the Indian people asked was that this country should faithfully carry out the terms of the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 which promised that “Our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified to discharge.” Hitherto the policy of Great Britain had been in distinct contravention of Parliamentary pledges and of the Queen’s Proclamation. The romance was that British rule was a blessing to India; the reality was that it was destroying India, and they might depend upon it that the destruction of India must ultimately be followed by the destruction of Great Britain. Let them alter their policy before it was too late. He very much feared that the present famine would be followed by another famine next year, because the land had become so dry. Things were going from worse to worse, and it behoved the people of Great Britain to arouse themselves, and in the interests of humanity and common justice to adopt such a policy in India as would enable the people to develop the enormous wealth of that country and to enjoy the fruits of their own country.