Battle of Plassey happened on this day in 1757 marking the start of the British colonialisation of India (representing modern day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Before the British rule began, India’s GDP accounted for approproximately a quarter of the world’s total GDP. Its economy was richer than all of Western Europe. Over the next 190 years, the British colonialists stole a total of US$45 trillion from India. This is 17 times more than the UK’s annual GDP.
In total, 35 million lost their lives in various famines because of the scale of pillaging, looting and wealth extraction by the British. The Bengal famine killed around three million people in 1943 because of the direct policies of Winston Churchill who had blamed the famine on the people of India. He said that the famine was their fault for “breeding like rabbits”.
Cllr Khaled Moyeed 