۲ - Britain's De-Industrialization Of The Indian Subcontinent
Today, we begin our story here: in my ancestral home, on the Indian Subcontinent.
This is the setting of the largest genocide and mass migration of humans in history. Though many of us haven't even heard of it. In my own community, it's something we prefer not to talk about. The horrors of it on both sides swept under the rug, the trauma something too large to bear, let alone talk about in the open.
In 1947, after years of uprisings and mob violence, the Indian Subcontinent, filled with uncountable cultures, languages and histories was split into two new countries. East and West Pakistan for the Muslims. And India for the Hindus and Sikhs. The border, the western-most one which split down the middle the land and culture of Punjab, the Land of Five Rivers, caused unimaginable horror and pain. One small part of a gigantic land mass that witnessed terror in every corner and crevice of its heavenly lands. Pain that has been passed on in ways we still don't understand in South Asian bloodlines across the globe today.
See, the border was created by a man named Cyril Radcliffe. At the time of his partitioning of these two massive land masses, he had never been further east than Paris. For some reason, the white man saw it fit to name him the expert on how this land should be divided. His uneducated and frankly disgusting disregard for the human beings living there caused swathes of people to mass migrate in a matter of days and months across these new borders. To top it off, the British, who were unable to continue funding their colonial crimes after their second World War, moved hastily. A process that should have never happened in the first place, was now being done in under six months.
This led to the death of almost two million people, another fifteen million forced to migrate in an instant. This all occurred at the end of the British empire's genocide of over 165 million people on the Indian Subcontinent. The largest genocide in history. Those 165 million human beings were killed in only a matter of forty years between 1880 - 1920.
The rest go unaccounted for. It's estimated that over 200 million people were ruthlessly killed during Britain's two hundred year rule over the Indian Subcontinent. But if they were able to kill that many in just forty years, do we really think that number is accurate? South Asian’s survived over 25 forced mass starvations under British rule.
But let's go back a bit.
How did Britain colonize India in the first place? What was occurring on the subcontinent before the white man came? Pre-Colonial Archival Footage In the year 1700, the Indian Subcontinent was powering 27% of the World's Economy.
In 1947, 250 years later and the year of Partition, it was a mere 3%. So what happened?
The subcontinent, revered for its textile industry, masterfully crafted jewelry, pottery, porcelain and ceramics, it's fine metal works and natural resources, fell into disarray after the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb died in 1707. Pre-Colonial India was not only a manufacturing powerhouse, but they had the systematic foundation for merchants, financiers, and trade routes to flourish and thrive. Cities like Andhra were known for their block printing textiles, while Gujarat and Bengal were respected for their luxuriously crafted woven products. It was these talents that created powerful and secure Maritime routes around the globe. Routes that other artisans were able to capitalize on to ship their own products at a lower price. Thus the textile industry lifted the entire subcontinent's economy up alongside it.
But it was at this time, tribal wars broke out as princes battled for control, usurping one after the other for the Peacock Throne and control over the entire Subcontinent. The British saw this as a golden opportunity. One that could not be overlooked. Unlike the armies that came before them who would loot and pillage, then leave, or integrate themselves within the larger community, the British viewed India as a bottomless bank vault. One that could provide Britain with wealth for centuries to come.
They bombarded and blasted their way through the subcontinent, eventually gaining control over and the allegiance of the few spineless landlords ruling over it. They began by dismantling the native industry, becoming a monopoly over textile goods manufacturing. They became the exclusive buyers of all textiles while choking off any and all exports to the rest of the world. On top of that, instead of investing into these goods with foreign currency, they would pay for them using the stolen tax revenue from the Indian Subcontinent itself, stagnating the economy entirely.
Despite all of this, British textile manufacturers still found it impossible to compete with the once thriving artisans quality of work. They simply couldn't match the masterful craftsmanship. So they lobbied their own government to send in their troops and destroy Indian looms, and for good measure, they also broke the thumbs of the skilled weavers to ensure they would not be able to continue their work. When this didn't work to completely destroy the economy, the British introduced an 80% tariff on exported goods from India to Britain. Keep in mind, India was at this time only allowed to sell to Britain as it was illegal to sell to any other foreign nation. This essentially reduced India to an exporter of natural resources, which the British would take, manufacture into goods, and sell back to the Indian people at a massive premium. They did this across all other industries establishing a chokehold on the subcontinent's people.
This mass subjugation led the skilled workers: artisans, merchants, and builders of all sorts back into agricultural work, back into the fields. In 1947, a measly 0.7% of people on the subcontinent were now working in manufacturing. But they didn't stop there. The land wasn't fit for this much cultivation, alongside Britain's purposeful export of crops as well as a lack of rainfall occurring at the time, Britain drove the people into mass starvation. A tactic still being used today by Britain's minions such as Israel.
At this time, the British empire saw fit to impose a new tax. One on the agricultural cultivators themselves, set at
50% - 80% of gross revenue each harvest. This left fieldworkers owing far more in taxes than they could ever accrue in income themselves.
Far away, in the British parliament, they boasted about their disgusting achievement. FJ Shore said "the Indian's have been taxed to the utmost limit. Every province has been made a field for higher exaction and it has always been our boast how greatly we have raised our revenue above that which the native rulers were able to extort."
When the once rich and thriving people of the subcontinent were unable to pay, they were tortured, locked up in cages outside in the burning heat, forced to sell their own children to pay a small amount towards their debt, and finally, forced to give their land to the British. Millions were now landless.
At the start of the 20th century, the subcontinent was paradoxically the largest revenue source for Britain's economy, as well as its largest purchaser of exports. All of this being funded by who?
The Subcontinent's Taxpayers.
The British saw the subcontinent as a slave colony. A place they could never integrate with or rule over as their own. But only a place to extract blood money from for generations. Britain left India with an estimated 43 trillion USD at the time they fled from the Subcontinent. An extinction of humanity and arguably the greatest crime committed in human history.
The life expectancy for a South Asian during British Rule in the 1800s was 25 years old. And this is but a drop in the ocean of the British empire's crimes against our people. Crimes that are still occurring today across the Middle East, in Palestine, North America, Africa and Asia. The colonizer wants to create the narrative that we wouldn't have been able to continue innovating our home. Building railroads, marvels of architecture, agricultural solutions in one with nature and more. They want us to believe that, despite not being able to match our intellect and craftsmanship, our natural ability to create pure and powerfully, we would not have been able to sustain moving into the modern world.
Murder is their only language.
And while we often welcome them with open arms, they have chosen to slit our throats as we peacefully sleep.
