BRITISH ATROCITIES AGAINST INDIANS

British Indian Colony: History of Exploitation Atrocities and Cultural Annihilation

 by Adnan

The great India. Ruled by the Pal, Sen, Muslim and British. A land of beauty, where thousands of cultures unite. Other than British all rulers had to merge with the Indian culture and be a part of them. On the other hand British landed here on the plea of doing business but shattered its social structure with continuous attacks on peasants, communal harmony and rules of the home business.

The East India Company originated on 31 December 1600 through royal charter with monopoly on all trade with the East Indies. The Company's ships first arrived at Surat in 1608. Sir Thomas Roe gained permission to establish a factory at Surat from Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, in 1615. Gradually the British set up numerous trading posts along the east and west coasts of India. As early as in 1669 Gerald Ungier, chief of Bombay factory had written to his directors: "The time now requires you to manage your general commerce with the sword in your hands". So from then, they were looking for establishing their root here in India even at the cost of bitter fights. With the continuation, in 1717, the Company achieved the most critical success when it received a Dastak or royal edict from the Mughal Emperor exempting the Company from the payment of custom duties in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Taking this advantage, company employees carried on personal business without paying duty to Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah. In this way the East India Company strengthened their root in the soil of India. This was one of their major successes. But conspiracy did not bring to a halt.
In 1752, Robert Orme, in a letter to Clive, noted that the company would have to remove Alivardi Khan in order to prosper. Instructions on October 13, 1756 from Fort St. George, Madras instructed Robert Clive, "to effect a junction with any powers in the province of Bengal that might be dissatisfied with the violence of the Nawab's government or that might have pretensions to the Nawabship". Accordingly, Clive deputized William Watts to negotiate with two potential contenders. One of them was Nabab's generals, Yar Latif Khan and other was his relative and Army Chief, Mir Jafar Ali Khan. On April 23, 1757 the Board of Directors of the Company approved Coup d'état as its policy in Bengal. British succeeded infiltrating the Nawab’s highest ranks, his own family, his Army Chief and his financers. ‘Nimak Haramer Deuri’ or the ‘Traitor’s Gate’ still stand today as witness to the secret meeting where Watts met Mir Jafar in disguise of a Borkha clad women in a Palanquin. Finally, on June 5, 1757 a written agreement was signed between the Company, represented by Clive, and Mir Jafar which ensured that Mir Jafar would be appointed Nawab of Bengal once Siraj Ud Daulah was deposed.

The Bengal Nawab became engaged in war of existence as Clive made some cunning steps. The war of Palashi against Clive was the war to save Indian glory and also to resist British aggressors. But Siraj lost. Treachery was the reason. Enemies were set among their own. At the beginning of the war Nawab forces conquered. But Clive was emboldened by reinforcement from Madras. Moreover, the Nawab was also preoccupied with the invasion from the west by Ahmed Shah Abdali of Afghanistan. More than anything else, chief Army officer of Nawab, Mir Jafar Ali Khan was a betrayer in spite of having advantage of more soldiers. Thus the British business company started a heinous way of betrayal and treachery. That laid its shadow through the whole period of Indian colony.

British colonies spread through the world by adopting three ways.

In Settlement colonies the colonizing country migrated to and eventually took complete control of every resource. Natives were annihilated through killing or by exposure to disease. Colonies of settlement were located in temperate zones, with climates similar to Europe’s. Examples of settlement colonies include English colonies in parts of the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Secondly, `Colonies of Exploitation’. Those were the tropical dependencies where British went primarily as planters, administrators, merchants, or military officers. Foreign colonizers established political control, if necessary using force against colonial resistance. But natives were not displaced or killed. Colonies of exploitation included Indonesia and Malaya in Southeast Asia, and Nigeria and Ghana in West Africa.
Third one is of contested type. A significant number of European settlers took up permanent residence. They tended to develop their own government parallel to the parent country and politically dominated native peoples. Examples of contested settlement colonies include Algeria and Southern Rhodesia, both in Africa.
There are several other types of colonialism and imperialism, including preexisting empires. Preexisting empires were or had been powerful states that possessed a large population, strong political structures, and a sophisticated economy. India under English rule is an example.

British started an unfair journey in India.

Now a brief narration of boundless British lootings and silent murders will be presented.
Since 1600, the British trading company used to buy delicate fineries from India and paid in gold and silver. The issue created vast uproar of protest among the British people, resenting the draining of the precious metals from England to India. In those days, Europe had nothing to export that had demand in India. But as soon as the company seized control of Bengal Taxation after Palashi war, Indian commodities were bought with the Indian currency. Besides while vying for all of India and even for war waged in foreign location, the British Indian army was financed by the Indian money. So exploitation and aggression got more acute.
Right after Plassey, the looting and exploitation by the company started unabated. As per agreement with Mir Jafar, Clive collected £ 2.5 million for the company and £ 234,000 for himself from the Nawab's treasury. In addition, Watts collected £ 114,000 for his efforts. The annual rent of £ 30,000 payable to the Nawab for use of the land around Fort William was also transferred to Clive for life. To put this wealth in context, an average British nobleman could live a life of luxury on an annual income of £ 800.
During Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of India, expansion of British rule was pursued vigorously. In 1784 Hastings was succeeded by Cornwallis, who initiated the Permanent Settlement. Whereby an agreement in perpetuity was reached with Zamindars or landlords for revenue collection. British started a kind of genocide with the law. Blueprints were made with the law to paralyze the peasants of India politically and economically. Peasants had to be more dependants. British initiated slavery. Peasants drowned under loan and were not able to collect courage to resist the British. A numerous number of peasants lost their lives, sons and even their wives’ respects due to atrocities of the Jamindars. This British imposed mute genocide made the Indian social structure collapse.
During Wellesley, total British territorial expansion was achieved. Major victories against Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Marathas, and finally the subjugation and conquest of the Sikhs in a series of Anglo- Sikh Wars led to British occupation all over India. In some places, the British practiced indirect rule placing a Resident at the native ruler’s court. By Lord Dalhousie's notorious doctrine of lapse, native states became part of British India if there was no male heir at the death of the ruler. Often annexation was justified on misrule. Thus annexation and harsh revenue policies exhausted all the potentialities of Indian agriculture.
Thus exploitation and being indifferent to the distress of local people led to many terrible famines in India. Due to plundering of resources and sheer indifference to the dire straits of the victims, Indian people started suffering from full scale famines. The Great Bengal Famine of 1769-70, caused deaths to 10 million Indians in Bihar and Bengal. During 1782-84, 11 million died for famine in Madras, Mysore, Delhi and Punjub. During 1791-92, another 11 million died in Hyderabad

, Southern Maratha country, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar. The Agra famine of 1837–38 caused 800,000 deaths. Orissa famine of 1866 killed 1 million. Rajputana famine of 1869 killed 1.5 million. The Great Famine of 1876–78 killed 5.25 million in British territories of Madras and Bombay alone. Bengal famine of 1943 killed 3 million in Bengal. All through the 190 years of British rule, economic exploitation continued, reflecting the fate of a Preexisting Colony of Exploitation. How should we label this? Isn’t this genocide? Of course it is. Indirect genocide; done by the British. What they wanted was to kill Indians on any ground.
Thus for almost 200 years, wealth from India was systematically transferred to Britain. British Banks used Indian capital to fund industry in the US, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Industrial revolution and modern capitalism in the west were based on the colonization of India. It was the forced pauperization of vast Indian population that allowed nations like Britain and US to industrialize and "modernize". This capital was collected through various means including uneven trades, forced use of land and labor, great remittance of Indian income and excessive extraction from the common Indians.
British used arms with no considerations breaching all the boundaries of humanity. The western civilization raised on the base of the blood of Indian peasants.


Atrocities by the British against upsurges

Atrocities committed by the British started long before the 1757 Plassey conquest. With their usual cunning and calculative conspiracy, the British company successfully used the internal Indian conflicts to bring down many rulers. These were done coldly with unrestrained use of weapons and widespread atrocities. The started fortifying their trade posts with an imperial greed. The way the British supervised the cruelty done to Siraj and his family.
Rampant and coercive exploitation by the British incited many rebellions aimed to throw away the yolk of colonial subjugation. After Plassey and during the imperial expansion throughout India, the peasants in many areas flared many local peasant revolts and all of these uprising were quelled through extreme atrocities by the British. Especially after the Great Bengal Famine of 1770, both Hindu and Muslim peasants of north and central Bengal revolted against the British and their collective agents. Fakirs like Majnu Shah and Sanyasis like Bhabani Pathak led the uprising that lasted for three decades. It took the British at least a decade of burning villages and slaughtering Indians to quell the revolt. Wasn’t it genocide? British had no right here. They did not belong here. Even they could not be a part of the country like others. Instead they transferred properties of the country to theirs. Killed people. Obliterated vast areas.
Against their unruly, another peasant uprising in Rangpur district of north Bengal in 1783-4, the Chuar uprising in Bankura and Midnapur that lasted till 1799. These revolts killed many British and the reprisals from them were brutal. Warren Hastings failed to suppress the Chuar uprising and finally in 1799, Governor General Wellesly crushed the uprising through a pincer attack. Many of the rebels were hung from trees near Salboni in Midnapor, a place still known as the ‘heath of the hanging upland’ or ‘Fanshi Dangar Math’. The question is who killed whom coming from thousands miles apart? What right the British had to hang natives from trees? Wasn’t this genocide?
Among later peasant and working class revolts, more vital ones include Bheel uprising from 1817 to 1846 in Bundelhkand of Uttar Pradesh

, Jat revolt of Rohtak and Hissar in Haryana, The Koli revolt of 1839 to 1845 all over Gujarat, aboriginal uprising during 1830 to1833 in Chotanagar among the Mundas. The most important revolt was by the major uprising by the Santals for attaining independence. These entire grassroots level survival struggle against the wanton exploitation by the British gained much ground and at those primary years of colonization they posed major threats to British presence and their mercantile exploitation that oppressed the grassroots poor. This threat of annihilation to budding British rule was smashed by insensitive and all-out atrocities and bloodshed resulting in defeat of the isolated but well-determined liberation struggles by the poorest of the poor under East India Company. Later on, the Muslim led Wahabi and Faraizi uprising, though inspired by Islamic principles, was in fact a direct struggle to uproot British rule from the subcontinent.

One salient point in British ascendancy in India was their cunning strategy to use the feuds among local rulers to pit one of them against the other by taking side with those inclined to them. Even in deposing Siraj they manipulated the local conflicts. Later on conflicts between various Indian rulers was also successfully utilized by the British in spreading their domination all over India. This basic strategy of ‘Divide and Rule’ was persistent all through the British domination and lingered into the ending decades of the British rule inciting communal conflicts. They intentionally backed the two-nation theory to make sure that the British India gets divided into warring states and becomes weak in pursuing a real secular and united development approach facilitating neo-colonialism.

Exploitation

 India provided capital to the nascent industrial revolution in England by providing cheap raw materials, capital and a large captive market for British industry. In certain areas, farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as opium, indigo, jute, tea and coffee. This resulted in famines and uprisings on a large scale. In all these plundering exploits, the British company successfully used the local people to extract revenue from their own fellow citizens at the grassroots level. Weapons was used indiscriminately and often at inhuman scale to clear the way to exploitation and destitution.

Later on, as soon as the company secured Diwani or Tax collection rights for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, they fueled their exploitation of India by Indian resources. Excessive and atrocious taxing policy loosened widespread devastation in the agrarian sector with a height of inhumanity that killed millions of toiling Indians through frequent famines and perpetual pauperization.

Atrocities

Drawing inspiration from these localized revolts, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 was fought by Hindu and Muslim sepoys together to oust the British, an incident cited by many historians as the ‘First Struggle of Independence’ in India. The exterminating violence resorted by the British in all revolts proved them to be a bloodthirsty rulers prepared to perpetrate any level of inhuman atrocities, violence and conspiracy to safeguard their colonial possession.

During the Sepoy Mutiny, rebel sepoys were blown by cannon fires and in Delhi, the Mughal princes were massacred en masse. Force was also used in compelling the local farmers to cultivate cash crops. Under the crown as well, atrocities were perpetrated to quell the armed revolts in various Indian sections. The cruel Jallianwalla Bagh massacre due to protests against the Rowlatt Act in 1919 is another example of such atrocities. In the two World Wars, the British entangled India and used Indian soldiers and money to fight the wars opposing Indian popular descent. During the nationalistic movements, police atrocities and hateful conspiracy by the British caused deaths to hundreds of patriotic Indians. The British are even indirectly responsible for the communal genocide during partition of India, as they are the one who deliberately incited communal hatred and pressed for the partition of India. Communal division of Punjab and Bengal and the Kashmir issue still remain as a problem today.

Atrocities by the British went unabated even after the Sepoy revolt as retribution to stop such occurrence in future. But little was the success of such moves. Driven by the paramount urge to extract as much of Indian resources for repatriating to England, their level of exploitation never was downsized and as local Indians got exposed to western education and comparatively human citizen rights prevailing in native lands of the colonial power, a steady sense of independence from the yolk of Foreign subjugation started taking organized forms leading India into nationalistic freedom movement. Starting from the armed resistance to oust British from India up to lawful movement for peaceful settlement of the colonial question, the British, though subdued enough not to be as brutal as before, left no stone unturned to quell such movement by armed might in addition to treachery, conspiracy and hateful collaboration of local cronies.

As awareness and fighting spirit of the Indian mass escalated, the British realized the ineffectiveness and risk of all out suppression of the Indian demand for their legitimate rights. Nevertheless, they utilized every opportunity to split the solidarity of Indians to weaken their demand. Engineering communal divide between Hindu and Muslim communities was one such manipulation that has enduringly negative impact on the oppressed Indian mass and caused indescribable communal conflict and colossus bloodshed both before and after the partition of India. Not much earlier than 1919, the Jalinwalabagh massacre represents such an atrocity on unarmed public to quell the newly emerged nationalistic movement for self rule that was ultimately demanding ousting of the British rule.

Cultural Annihilation

The British looked down at the Indian people. Ironically, Indian civilization was far superior to the colonizing England. It only lacked the modern weaponry. From the very beginning, the British negated Indian culture. They introduced alien education to cut off the Indians from their traditional heritage and cultural pride. Zamindar and rich middle class went to England to be educated in ‘civilized’ values by a country which gained economic power through enslaving others and through insensate violence against colonized people.

For running the Indian Empire, owing to limited number of Britons, the service of Indian people was imperative. So, a class of clerically competent Indian people was educated in British system to create a specific class in India who, according to Macaulay, would be individuals ‘Indian in Body but British in Mind’. As many of the Indians, especially the Hindu community was admiring and supporting the British, they vigorously set themselves to learning the clerical version of British Education with a distinctive plot– serving as English speaking loyal subjects as well as to glorify the superficial English education as the pinnacle of wisdom. This alienated them from the persistent plights from British exploitation and made them an accomplice in annihilating the heritage of Indian culture and education that used to be far more superior then the British. At one point these middle class Indians were ashamed of their Indian ancestry and most of these so called English educated people turned into die hard supporters of British colonialism. As leading Indians started abhorring everything Indian, excessively obsessed to destroy the centuries old and racially harmonious Indian wisdom, they failed to appreciate both Indian and British education from the right perspective. In all forms of arts and literature practiced among these privileged collaborators of British exploitation, the indigenous culture appeared obsolete and crude.

Through superior technology, huge resources plundered from the colonies and their supreme status as colonizers, they were able to impose their culture on the subjugated populace, a phenomenon that Rudyard Kipling ironically described as ‘white men’s burden’ to emancipate barbarian colonized people, whereas most had a superior culture.
Thus the older and intrinsically richer Indian civilization was pushed to the backstage. What ensued was an almost irreversible decay in the sense of self-identification for the Indian Mass. The greatest blow to the Indian culture was the inciting of communal tension by the British which disrupted the century-old coexistence of various religions. The ‘divide and rule’ policy of the British had led to the demise of communal and racial harmony and assimilatory culture that once earned respect world over. Totally disoriented by the British plots, the Indians became foreigner in their own land and acted as puppets of the British in all the ill designs against the local people, economy and culture.

From the Plessey until the Partition, the British conquest and empire building followed a dark path of vile conspiracy, wanton bribing, breach of faith, sheer atrocity and indiscriminate exploitation to destroy the economy, culture and the very fabric of the superior Indian civilization. People of the subcontinent are still reeling from the blow. Many of our current dire straits are a direct predicament of denuding the Indians from their ancient and profoundly richer culture having a lot to offer to the British colonizers.
The deep rooted exploitation, indiscriminate atrocities and deliberate cultural annihilation perpetrated by the British in India has irrevocable ramification for the later history of this subcontinent. People of this one time British colony still suffer from the pervasive decay and lingering divide created and nurtured by the British colonizers. By all standards, the British owe to the colonized Indians and their present generation a profound, true and far reaching ‘Apology’ for their vile maneuvers in the colonial days. This type of ‘historical’ or ‘official’ apology is not a new phenomenon and it has many noticeable precedents. Universal human justice demands that this issue of outrageous siphoning of Indian resources and the permanent harm inflicted by the British rule on the Indian people should be brought into account.

Recent years have seen a wave of official apologies for wrongs committed in the distant past. Most recently in 2008, Italy apologized to Libya for colonial misdeeds and the Canadian and American government apologized to the Red Indians as did Australia to its aboriginal people. Former Japanese Prime Mi Junichiro Koizumi expressed “deep remorse” for Japanese World War II era conduct in China and Korea. Following the presidential victory of George W. Bush in November 2004, a website ‘sorryeverybody.com’ suddenly appeared permitting Americans “to offer apologies to the rest of the world.” Other instances include Tony Blair’s 1997 regrets for British inaction during the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-nineteenth century; Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s apology for the forced relocation of Inuit people in 1953; President Bill Clinton’s apology for failure to act during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; France’s acknowledgement of the massacre of Algerians at Sétif in May 1945; a Canadian government apology in 2001 for military executions during the First World War; a German government apology for the colonial-era massacre of ethnic Herero people of Namibia by German soldiers; and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s apology for his part in the incitement that led to assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The most famous apologizer of recent times was the late Pope John Paul II, whose apologies reached far back in history, and included contrition about the Religious Wars, the Inquisition, Jews, women, Blacks, schisms, Martin Luther, and the Church’s denunciation of Galileo.

Along with these, there are refusals to apologize for historic wrongs. Thus, despite requests, Soviet and later Russian leaders have never apologized for the massacre of thousands of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn in 1940; the Israelis refused the invitation of Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad in 1968 to apologize for their “aggression” the year before; Australian Prime Minister John Howard would not apologize for the European settlers’ treatment of the aboriginal population in that country; and President George Bush, Sr., declined to apologize for the Americans’ use of the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945.
Despite such cases, the wave has continuing force. Apologies are scarcely ever rejected for being irrelevant or misplaced, but rather for being insufficient, inadequate, or insincere. So the British also owe us a sincere and significant apology, at the soonest possible time. We should demand all possible reparations to address this history of Himalayan plunder and inhuman atrocities inflicted for centuries upon this subcontinent, effect of which still remain as the principle obstruction in the development of this region.
On 30 August 2008, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apologized to Libya for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era and signed a 5-billion-dollar investment deal by way of compensation. Similarly, universal justice demands that Britain should also make a compensating apology for the harm inflicted on British India. A compensation of 5 million pound for each of the 190 colonizing years would be the minimum for making a plausible apology.

 

British Rule in India and Nazi rule. What is the difference?

BY Nita

Indian History books teach the pros and cons of British rule
The subject of British rule in India is an emotional one for most Indians but even those Indians who are aware that Britain plundered India and treated locals as sub-humans and killed the indigenous industry, reluctantly admit that Britain did build infrastructure and made English popular in India. Guess if it wasn’t for British rule all those years ago I wouldn’t be writing this very piece in English, would I? And well, Britain did unite all those little kingdoms and gave all of us a pan Indian identity.
But if most Indians believe that British rule did some good (not everyone agrees about the high price paid) I think the credit is due to the way we were taught history. The advantages of British rule were clearly brought out.
Britain apparently teaches a biased view of the British Raj
What surprised me was a front page report in today’s Times of India (Mumbai). It said that British school children are not taught the evil aspects of British rule – in fact there is a controversy going on in Britain right now about teaching school-children about Jallianwala Bagh, where hundreds of peacefully protesting Indians were massacred (including women and children). It’s difficult to understand why Britain wants to brush this under the carpet..after all if German school children can be taught about the evils of Nazi rule, why can’t British school-children be taught about the evils of British rule in India? Sure, the Nazis did more damage in a short period of time and killed millions of Jews.
But who has calculated the damage that Britain did? Are there any records of the number of Indians killed and enslaved by the British during the British Raj? Are there any records of ill-treatment meted out on a regular basis to the Indians? Has anyone calculated the economic damage caused to India because of the East India Company and British rule? Ofcourse not.
Britain does not want to know
The truth is that the truth is too painful. And neither the Brits nor the Indians in Britain are trying very hard to do anything about it. On the other hand, it is because of the power of the Jewish community that Germany said sorry…and meant it. It is because of the Jewish people that today German school children know the truth. Surely, history is important?
Britain’s attempt to change the curriculum is being opposed
Britain is trying to change the curriculum to give British school-children a ‘valuable insight into shared, if painful and often controversial aspects of the relationship between Indian and Britain’ but there are groups opposing this because this kind of teaching is considered anti-British. How can the dissemination of truth be anti anything?
The root of racism
But then, this is the very root of racism. Children in developed countries are taught in school itself that they come from a ‘superior’ stock. They are taught to take on the ‘White Man’s Burden’. A burden which makes it mandatory for the ‘superior’ race to ‘civilize’ the ‘inferior’ races. This was the attitude of the British when they came to India. They came, they saw and they plundered. They believed it was their right as ‘rulers’. At the same time they came down heavily on some of the barbaric practices they saw in India.
Yes, some barbaric things went on in Indian society (and we are not completely rid of them) but what the British failed to see that what they were doing was equally barbaric. They robbed and enslaved not just a few people, but a whole country.
What Britishers did not realise was that India had a far longer history of ‘civilization’ than war-like Britain. The problem was that India’s civilization was cloaked in dhotis, saris and turbans and some ancient practices (not too far removed from equally medieval practices that took place in Britain). These differences convinced the shirts, skirts and trousers who came to India that India was uncivilized. Every culture and every country has it’s dark side…but the developed world can only see the evils of other countries…not their own.
What chance does truth stand?
What’s amazing is that the developed world today prides itself on freedom and democracy…so why not own up to the bad things of the past? True, Britishers were probably not as bad as the Nazis, but they did far greater harm than the Nazis by the very virtue of their being around for more than a hundred years. The British East India Company arrived in India as far back as 1757 (proxy rule by the British) and then direct British rule started in 1858, lasting until 1947. The Nazis under Adolph Hitler ruled only from 1933 to 1945 – which is just a dozen years! One does not need much of an imagination to realise the damage the British must have done to India.
The sad part is is that millions of young Britishers are growing up thinking that Britain did India a big favour by ruling her. Why, the Queen herself wears a diamond stolen from India in her crown. The Wikipedia calls this diamond the ‘spoils of war.’ Funny.

 British Atrocities on Indians - Holocaust or Genocide ?
courtesy Yahoo disucussion

In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, Mike Davis tells the story of famines that killed between 12 and 29 million Indians. These people were, he demonstrates, murdered by British state policy. When an El Niño drought destituted the farmers of the Deccan plateau in 1876 there was a net surplus of rice and wheat in India. But the viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should prevent its export to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered "to discourage relief works in every possible way". The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labour camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of Buchenwald. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.

As millions died, the imperial government launched "a militarised campaign to collect the tax arrears accumulated during the drought". The money, which ruined those who might otherwise have survived the famine, was used by Lytton to fund his war in Afghanistan. Even in places that had produced a crop surplus, the government's export policies, like Stalin's in Ukraine, manufactured hunger. In the north-western provinces, Oud and the Punjab, which had brought in record harvests in the preceeding three years, at least 1.25m died.

Three recent books - Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins, Histories of the Hanged by David Anderson, and Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis - show how white settlers and British troops suppressed the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya in the 1950s. Thrown off their best land and deprived of political rights, the Kikuyu started to organise - some of them violently - against colonial rule. The British responded by driving up to 320,000 of them into concentration camps. Most of the remainder - more than a million - were held in "enclosed villages". Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes". British soldiers used a "metal castrating instrument" to cut off testicles and fingers. "By the time I cut his balls off," one settler boasted, "he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket." The soldiers were told they could shoot anyone they liked "provided they were black". Elkins's evidence suggests that more than 100,000 Kikuyu were either killed or died of disease and starvation in the camps. David Anderson documents the hanging of 1,090 suspected rebels: far more than the French executed in Algeria. Thousands more were summarily executed by soldiers, who claimed they had "failed to halt" when challenged.

These are just two examples of at least 20 such atrocities overseen and organised by the British government or British colonial settlers; they include, for example, the Tasmanian genocide, the use of collective punishment in Malaya, the bombing of villages in Oman, the dirty war in North Yemen, the evacuation of Diego Garcia. Some of them might trigger a vague, brainstem memory in a few thousand readers, but most people would have no idea what I'm talking about. Max Hastings, on the opposite page, laments our "relative lack of interest" in Stalin and Mao's crimes. But at least we are aware that they happened.

In the Express we can read the historian Andrew Roberts arguing that for "the vast majority of its half-millennium-long history, the British empire was an exemplary force for good ... the British gave up their empire largely without bloodshed, after having tried to educate their successor governments in the ways of democracy and representative institutions" (presumably by locking up their future leaders). In the Sunday Telegraph, he insists that "the British empire delivered astonishing growth rates, at least in those places fortunate enough to be coloured pink on the globe". (Compare this to Mike Davis's central finding, that "there was no increase in India's per capita income from 1757 to 1947", or to Prasannan Parthasarathi's demonstration that "South Indian labourers had higher earnings than their British counterparts in the 18th century and lived lives of greater financial security.") In the Daily Telegraph, John Keegan asserts that "the empire became in its last years highly benevolent and moralistic". The Victorians "set out to bring civilisation and good government to their colonies and to leave when they were no longer welcome. In almost every country, once coloured red on the map, they stuck to their resolve".

There is one, rightly sacred Holocaust in European history. All the others can be denied, ignored, or belittled. As Mark Curtis points out, the dominant system of thought in Britain "promotes one key concept that underpins everything else - the idea of Britain's basic benevolence ... Criticism of foreign policies is certainly possible, and normal, but within narrow limits which show 'exceptions' to, or 'mistakes' in, promoting the rule of basic benevolence". This idea, I fear, is the true "sense of British cultural identity" whose alleged loss Max laments today. No judge or censor is required to enforce it. The men who own the papers simply commission the stories they want to read.

Turkey's accession to the European Union, now jeopardised by the trial of Orhan Pamuk, requires not that it comes to terms with its atrocities; only that it permits its writers to rage impotently against them. If the government wants the genocide of the Armenians to be forgotten, it should drop its censorship laws and let people say what they want. It needs only allow Richard Desmond and the Barclay brothers to buy up the country's newspapers, and the past will never trouble it again.

Source(s):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/27/eu.turkey