How much money was siphoned from India during British Raj? How did they do it? And why didn’t Indians stop them? It’s 70 years ago. What difference does it make?
It was Republic day. When India got a new identity. What does the future hold for India? Depends on where we come from! We’ll tell you about the world’s biggest scam! In the next few minutes we’ll tell you about the world’s biggest scam!
A scam where real things disappeared from our country. And out of nowhere created wealth in the British coffers.
Showcasing Indian history and culture in an interesting way and bringing this to you is our personal mission.
“The Englishman flourishes, and acts like a sponge, drawing up riches from the banks of the Ganges, and squeezing them down upon the banks of the thames.” – John Sullivan, the founder of the British settlement of Ootacamund, (Ooty) 1840.
But we had development during the British Raj as well, right? British gave us railways, education, English.
So the British Raj wasn’t really that bad for the country. Many people justify colonization with these statements. And logically, it sounds correct.
The true picture emerges when we ask the question, why did the British make the trains in the first place? When the British Empire had reached all over the globe.
India had become a central hub for them. Having a strong network for transport worked in their benefit more than ours!
And who foot the bill for the Railway network construction? We did, of course! It benefited them, and we paid for it.
Between 1854 to 1947, more than 14,000 trains were imported from Britain into the country. The Railways majorly employed the British from a ticket collector to a high level officer.
They made sure all earnings would go to a British person. And still we think the Railways were meant for our own benefit as time passed, Britain got richer and India poorer.
But why?
Dadabhai Naoroji started researching on this loot. And he came to know a starting fact. Between 1835 and 1872, in a period less than 40 years goods worth 13 million pounds were imported by Britain from Indian merchants.
And Indians were not paid even a single rupee for this. To ensure this level of drain, the British needed a network. And this network was ‘The Indian Railways’. The biggest source of British revenue and the biggest importer of British goods was India.
And this is possible only when the existing economy is destroyed. But how?
By Deindustrialization. If import export happens by the sea route then destroy the native shipbuilding industry. Chhatrati Shivji Moharaj used our ships to defend us against portuguese invaders. The Imperial Chola navy went all the way to Indonesia. Our navy was our strength.
Bengal, Surat, Calicut were hubs for shipbuilding businesses which were destroyed by the British in a similar way, agriculture and small industries were broken.
When the British came to India they destroyed our handloom industry weavers were forced to sell only to the British and the selling price was artificially kept so low that the weavers could not recover their own costs.
Assam and Odisha were forced to grow poppy or khus-khus which is the raw material for drug Opium. They used this opium intoxicate China. British were those uninvited guests who took taxes from us, controlled our currency and decided the value of our goods themselves as well.
This is undoubtedly the greatest scam of all times.
There are 3 steps to this scam.
Step 1
If any foreign trader wanted to buy Indian made goods first, they had to buy special Council Bills. This was a special currency on which the British Crown had complete control.
Step 2
To purchase this currency, payment was accepted in gold or silver only. Take actual material in exchange for a piece of paper.
Step 3
These special Council Bills had no real value in India. People in India needed Indian Rupees to buy goods and services.
What should the exchange rate for a special Council Bill be?
This rate was also by the British themselves. And this money came from the texes that we paid.
Real value from India was getting drained abroad and Britain’s value was increasing.
But a scam like this can only be successful. When smart people who can expose a scam like this were under British control.
So they started the world’s biggest brainwashing campaign which is also known as English Education.
“We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” – Thomas Babington Macaulay, Minute on Education
We’ll look at how Britain destroyed the education system in the future. But what impact did this have on our economy?
The problem isn’t that the British started teaching with English as a medium of education. Problem is, through their education they managed to convince us.
THEIR PRINCIPLES, THEIR MORALS, THEIR LIFESTYLE IS IDEAL!
Purchasing British goods became a status symbol. People here looked Indian. But copied the British in their lifestyle and thought. That’s how we became their slaves. Slaves who didn’t take money from them but gave them money.
And we never even understood this!!!
That’s how the value of the world’s largest scam kept increasing. The value of this scam in today’s time is total loot 45 trillion US dollar!
That British stole (Research by economist Utsa Patnaik) which is 17 times the present annual GDP of Britain. Even if Britain wants, it can’t pay us reparations for this loot.
So, today, should we become enemies of Britain?
Not at all. History is neither for excuse nor for revenge. History simply serves as a reminder that 70 years ago, the British left us one of the poorest countries.
Today, India is the 5th largest economy in the world much ahead of Britain.The East India Company that looted India for almost a century is today owned by an Indian.
Today British companies seek our help in making vaccines and our companies are happy to help as well. Because our principal has always been simple.
Forgive but don’t forget.
A few years ago, we visited Germany. German history also has regrettable parts just like British history. German atrocities on Jews during World War 2 are well documented.
But today, Germany lies in this one thing that they don’t hide their past. The concentration camps that were centres of torture. Allow people in for free today. Accepting all the mistakes that happened in the past. I think every ‘Great’ nation needs to learn something from Germany so that mistakes are not repeated.
This article inspired by this video of Abhi and Niyu
