4 ms·

I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the l

I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the late 19th century. [2] I don't know how much control they had over what and how every set of deaths occurred, so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire-kill-worldwide/answer/Karthikeyan-Madathil https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Company_in_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Comp...

twic 7y ago
The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
sbmthakur 7y ago
While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf
claudiawerner 7y ago
>so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. This is true, but perhaps in a way you weren't anticipating; this point was made decades ago by Herbert Marcuse in response to people attempting to compare, for instance, Nazi death tolls with Soviet ones. This mode of argumentation reduces concrete matters of policy and motivation (quality) into mere numbers to be thrown about (quantity). But authoritarianism is not a quantitative matter - a nation with harsh laws under which only few are convicted is still an authoritarian nation.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kiliantics 7y ago
And yet such nuance is never afforded to the other empires mentioned in GP's comment. "Communism killed 100 million" etc. being widely held views.

twic 7y ago

The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

sbmthakur 7y ago

While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf

claudiawerner 7y ago

>so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. This is true, but perhaps in a way you weren't anticipating; this point was made decades ago by Herbert Marcuse in response to people attempting to compare, for instance, Nazi death tolls with Soviet ones. This mode of argumentation reduces concrete matters of policy and motivation (quality) into mere numbers to be thrown about (quantity). But authoritarianism is not a quantitative matter - a nation with harsh laws under which only few are convicted is still an authoritarian nation.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kiliantics 7y ago

And yet such nuance is never afforded to the other empires mentioned in GP's comment. "Communism killed 100 million" etc. being widely held views.