If the black slaves of Africa did not fare well under British Imperialism it did not end there, for now it was the turn of the Irish people who were virtually occupied by United Kingdom by the Act of Union of 1801. During the Famine in 1845, there was potato crop failure caused by blight which destroyed the crop by 40% causing widespread hunger and death especially among the rural poor of Ireland. The potato crop failure continued till 1850 which claimed a million lives. The Tory Government of Robert Peel took up relief measures to lessen the death toll. However, when the Whig Government of Lord Russell came to power in 1846, the tide turned against the Irish people.
Lord Russell was an ardent supporter of laissez faire capitalism and did not prohibit the export of food from Ireland. The food subsidy and public relief measures were cut back in a mean spirited manner and the under secretary at the Treasury Charles Trevelyan with a singular lack of tact and empathy pompously said "the judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson". [viii] Million Irish people were sacrificed on the altar of Laissez faire capitalism.
If bumping of a million Irish people and millions of black slaves from Africa was not enough to satisfy the blood lust of British Rule, British imperialism shifted its gaze to the Jewel of the Crown- namely India.
In traditional narratives of British history it is said that India was governed by honorable men who gave an otherwise chaotic country the rule of law and good governance. There were minor hiccups along the way of course - such as the brutal quelling of the Great Sepoy Mutiny where the rioting sepoys were blown from the mouth of the cannon and the infamous massacre of Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar) where the troops under Brigadier Reginald Dyer blocked the exits from the garden and opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of men women and children who were slaughtered in hundreds.
More villainous was the British official apathy to the Great Famines which stalked India during the late 18th Century and the 19th century.
Owing to adverse climatic conditions (El Nino effect) shortfall in monsoon rains and drought resulted in famines at various parts of British India. During the pre-colonial times the drought conditions did not escalate to famine conditions as each rural household enough reserve of food grains to tide over the crisis
But with the British coming to power this was soon changed by breaking the rural household and transferring the food grains to central depots from households. The grains were then exported to England. The network of railways facilitated this plunder. Moreover, the hoarding by grain merchants took place with the connivance of British officials leading to artificial scarcities .This in turn lead to exorbitant rates being charged for food grains plunging the poor rural peasantry and children to mass starvation and death. Even the extreme famine conditions prevailing in various parts of the country like Bengal- where the starved resorted to cannibalism- did not prevent the British from siphoning off the reserve food grains from rural households to be sold for huge profits in international markets.
The famine of 1876-78 rapidly spread from the Madras Presidency through Mysore, the Bombay Deccan and eventually into the North Western Provinces . The main villain who epitomizes the callous indifference of Imperial officialdom was Lord Lytton who was the Viceroy at that time.When Indians were dying like flies, Lord Lytton whose head was muddled by opium abuse thought fit to organize a week long sumptuous banquet where choicest wines and delicacies were served to the sounds of bacchanalian revelry. The celebrations were attended by some 68,000 motley elements of landlords, princes and other parasites owing allegiance to the British Empire. The banquet was in honor of the investiture of Queen Victoria as Empress of India who -- as macabre as it may sound- promised peace and prosperity to her subjects in her far flung Empire. [ix]
Lord Lytton had different notions of peace and prosperity, steeped as he was with the principles of Malthus and Social Darwinism which laid the iron law that famine, pestilence and wars eliminated the inferior in favor of a superior race. He then proceeded to coolly implement the principle of natural selection with deadly effect. At first, he refused to provide any famine relief. As pressure grew around him, he thought of a clever idea to help natural selection. The good lord issued instructions that food exports from India should continue unabated. Then he forbade any relief measures to famine stricken natives within a ten kilometer distance. This meant that Indians had to walk long distances to get relief. Many women and children died on the way. Few who survived were put to hard back breaking work such as breaking stones and digging trenches. The food rations which were given to the starving Indians was even less than the rations given to the inmates of Buchenwald- a Nazi concentration camp. [x] Lytton's genocide cost 10 million Indian lives.
The ghoulish appetite for Darwinian winnowing of the inferior species did not wane among the British imperial elites. This was put to test in the Bengal famine of 1943. The chief culprit was none other than Winston Churchill who was a racial bigot and hated Indians as belonging to a beastly race. The modus operandi was disgustingly the same.
The food grain from India was looted by the British to feed the British army fighting the Second World War and to build the food stockpile for the British during the war effort. The fall in food grain production in Bengal made matters worse on account of hurricanes and fungal infection. Madhusree Mukerjee in her research on the Bengal famine documents the War British Cabinet's role, especially Churchill's role in worsening the food shortages and stonewalling attempts to send food from other countries to alleviate the ravages of famine. Churchill's intransigence could be explained on the basis of two factors- first racial and the second economic. Churchill's sinister views on race superiority were allied to that of Hitler and he viewed Indians as an inferior race that had to be culled to prevent them from breeding like rabbits. Churchill also calculated that the food stockpile built as a surplus by denying food to Indians would sky rocket in prices after the war which would be advantageous to Britain post war.
Churchill was a racist and a killer who dispatched 4 million Indians to their death during the famine. As a consummate hypocrite and a liar he covered up his role in the genocide in his one sided account History of the Second World War waxing lyrically about protecting the interests of India:
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