How to bankrupt a country legally: British India during World War II

It is widely accepted that Britain extracted enormous wealth from India under colonial rule. What is less understood is how technically sophisticated and legally sanitised the extraction during World War II was, and how it devastated India’s economy while remaining defensible on paper.

This is a primer on how the British Raj financed an imperial war by transferring the burden onto India, primarily onto its poorest population.

Apologists for the British Raj often argue that wartime requisitioning from India was legitimate because Britain “paid” for what it took. This argument collapses on inspection.

The Raj did not pay in hard currency such as sterling. It paid largely through internal accounting credits and rupee balances, while simultaneously expanding India’s public debt. These so-called payments were claims on the Indian government itself, not real transfers of value. Explosion in revenue and debt

Between 1939–40 and 1945–46:

Total government revenue (centre plus provinces) rose from approximately ₹180 crore to about ₹590 crore, a more than threefold increase.

Public debt composition changed dramatically. Sterling debt fell from roughly £440 million to about £34 million, while rupee debt rose from roughly ₹450 crore to about ₹2,280 crore.

This mattered because sterling liabilities constrained Britain. Rupee liabilities did not. India was effectively forced to finance the war internally.

Price controls for the empire, market prices for Indians

The colonial government fixed prices at which it purchased essential goods for the war effort such as food grains, raw cotton and industrial inputs. At the same time, civilian markets were largely exposed to rising prices.

The result was predictable.
The state bought cheaply.
Ordinary Indians paid more.
This policy transferred purchasing power from the population to the war machine while disguising it as procurement.

Deficit financing and money printing

To service its expanding rupee debt, the Raj relied heavily on deficit financing.

Currency in circulation rose from about ₹179 crore in August 1939 to roughly ₹1,200 crore by December 1945, close to a sevenfold increase.

This expansion was not matched by an increase in consumer goods, because wartime procurement diverted resources away from civilian use.

The result was severe inflation.

Taxation shock

Taxation increased at a pace unprecedented in Indian history.

Tax receipts rose from roughly ₹50 crore in 1939–40 to about ₹400 crore by 1943–44, an approximately eightfold increase within four to five years.

This occurred alongside shortages and rising prices. The population faced lower supply, rapidly depreciating money, and sharply higher taxes at the same time.

The ignorance!

To begin with, the north African campaign.

The 8th army OOB had born the 4th and 5th Indian divisions + the 3rd Indian motor brigade.

Indian soldiers formed around 25% of the total roll call strength of the combat elements of the 8th army.

https://twitter.com/modadGeoP/status/1962760445804032501

2/n remove these from the OOB and Rommel would have reached the Suez within a month after he landed.

Then you have the rear elements, the RIASC (Indian service corps) basically the drivers, mechanics, mule drivers,camel drivers formed the back bone of the 8th army supply chain

It's not the gas chambers that were the real killers (I mean they did kill 7-9 mn total on the Holocaust) but in absolute terms it was the "Hunger plan". Formulated by this bureaucrat, it essentially called for not feeding Slavic peoples and letting famine and epidemics kill them

https://twitter.com/riauncovers/status/1959986687335125465

2/n the Germans managed to kill around 12-14 mn Slavs with this method but the Raj? It killed close to 50-60 mn in famines and another 30-40 mn in epidemics (which starving people are greater prey to) meaning the Raj achieved kill rates of 80-100 mn in just 3 decades

Everyone talks about the England French, French Prussian / German rivalry but this Siam vs Khmer feud has been going on for centuries now! A brief thread.

https://twitter.com/sidhant/status/1948251104145539454

1/n It all started with a war over the Khmer vassal state of Luov, which was annexed after 30 years of fighting in 1350. Around this time the Thai (Siem) shifted their capital from Sukothai to Ayutta which was much closer to Angkor.

When the US almost sanctioned India into oblivion thanks to Nehru's stupidity, utter, gobsmackingly low IQ stupidity. A thread about when he greenlit Thorium sales to China.... 2/
The export was conducted by a PSU—likely Indian Rare Earths Ltd.—and had an explicit license from the Government of India.
Customs in Mumbai were instructed to clear the cargo without delay. There was no ambiguity. This was a state-approved sale of nuclear-grade material to

A thread on how El Salvador became the murder capital of the world thanks to Mr James Hill, courtesy the US govt as well.

https://twitter.com/SudsG5/status/1913932063276994681

1/n In the 1890s, James Hill—an Anglo coffee baron—bribed his way into El Salvador’s government.
With US backing, he helped privatize all land.
Why?
Because El Salvador’s soil was so fertile, people didn’t need wages to eat.
That was bad for profit.

The kind of cope and seethe our people dish out.

July 1, 2003 1 lakh govt employees including some 15k teachers went on strike. The iron lady of TN (for all her corruption I miss her steady stewardship) Jaya said nothing.

A day later she issued an ultimatum to

https://twitter.com/LoveDayKaMemer/status/1810960617232367843

2 all the employees, get back to work and then we will talk.

They, motivated by the DMK unions said no.

2 weeks later she overnight sacked 1.7l, arrested 10,000, invoked ESMA hired 1,000's of temp workers.

3 weeks later the unions collapsed, surrendered (some shamelessly

@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor While @prathgodbole weighs in on the Maratha aspect. One thing though, you are right in that we would have never been a single polity. Starting the fall of the Mauryans, Hindustan has always gone through a cycle. 3 (very rarely 2) power centres would form. One centred @VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor @prathgodbole Around the Gangetic plains, another in the West around modern day Karnataka (Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Satavahanas etc though the Satavahanas had their capital in modern day Maharashtra) and one in the South, almost always a Tamil empire.

These would jockey for power

Well Ms Tara replies but again it lacks any merit entirely.

Taking one year GDP drop as a "gotcha" proof simply doesn't cut it. Economies have patterns and trends.

Here is the Pakistani GDP tre f from 1994-2018 broken into 5 year chunks.

It's clear that over

https://twitter.com/kartha_tara/status/1725083601291620391

2/n a 25 year horizon, Pakistan goes through minor booms and busts.

As I explained yesterday there was no secular dip in Pakistani growth and if anything the period 2014-18 was the second highest average growth Pakistan has had in 25 years!

1/n Obama’s murderous track record is fairly widely known, however what is less well known is his outright pandering of the nastiest dictators when he was the POTUS. A short thread.

Leading the list is,  Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, one of the worst dictators on earth, he 2/n has been in power for decades, has murdered or imprisoned without cause every single political opponent of his, corruption in Equatorial Guinea is legendary and often in the top 5 of most corrupt countries on earth rankings. Yet, under Obama, US oil investments into

Not a "bhosad piller"and I firmly believe reservations should stay. Infact I believe existing reservations reduced a bit and a full 5-10% given to children of inter caste marriages. Incl maybe full sponsorship of children born to such parents. The numbers are negligible rn

https://twitter.com/Me_Predictor/status/1642186652536934401

1/n that said. These are very vague and tenuous arguments. Correlation is not equal to causation.

Take a foundational metric, both Kerala and TN (to name the few key South Indian states one associates with higher standards of living) had much higher literacy rates

Our first education minister Abul Kalam Azad, had no formal education, was born to an Afghan father and Saudi mother in Saudi Arabia (then Ottoman Turkey)

Indira Gandhi never completed her formal education. She at least was undeniably intelligent.

Rajiv Gandhi though

https://twitter.com/total_woke_/status/1642078539540480005

2/n a senior Mandarin in the MEA wrote to an attache in the Indian embassy in London (who himself was a Cambridge PhD) asking for him to help with Pappu sr's admission into Cambridge.

The attache then spoke to high officials in Trinity Cambridge and got Pappu sr

I am curious as to just how much these western "liberals" spew fake news on very objective and verifiable truths.

Take this article by @IChotiner

newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/h…

And break it down para by para to understand the lies and Propaganda. 1/n the opening para has a clear lie and a partial truth written to twist facts.

Lie 1 (L1) - Rahul Gandhi was convicted of insulting an entire community named Modi. Not just for "likening" the PM to a thief.

If @IChotiner had an iota of journalistic integrity

Let's just take this bit and deconstruct the colonial propaganda that still resonates across the centuries.

Sati was NEVER a widespread problem. British records themselves note that there were only a few 200 cases a year (even 1 is 1 too many) and this was localised

https://twitter.com/AndreasKoureas_/status/1606427698968109059

2/n to Rajasthan and Bengal. The linkage to Islamic depredations is clearly manifest.

Female infanticide and sex selection were never a recorded issue till the 1970's when US propaganda backed by funding for research pushed the theory that sex selection will help

Truschke here says that "Nalanda recovered" offering no proof but the claims of one Tibetan monk who visited a 100 years later with the implicit argument being "Khilji didn't destroy Nalanda"

But what did this monk, Dharmasvamin (chag lo Chosrjedpal) say she skips.

https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1590096311251918848

1/n the monk, Dharmasvamin has his. Visit covered in a text by Dr Roerich and Dr Altekar.

In this work, chapter 10 covers his visit and stay at Nalanda.

The Romans did not have equality of law, if anything they had a very graded system.

To begin with, Romans discriminated on the basis of culture.

Only Romans got full citizenship and hence rights. Even those on the Italian peninsula only got a watered down system

https://twitter.com/JoeAgneya/status/1589645644276568064

2/n called Latin rights. Brutal wars were fought by Rome's Italian neighbours over the discrimination they had to endure, they even fought brutal wars over this (see, Social wars).

Then you have the Provincials (conquered nations outside the peninsula) and these had

So will break this up into multiple pieces lest it get unwieldy.

This shorter part will cover something very important, port turn around.

https://twitter.com/SudsG5/status/1588899075310907392

1/n. Port turn around is very very important to attract large vessels. Why? Because for them time is literally money. Container carriers (think CMA OR Maersk for ex) only own a portion of their fleet, like airlines they lease the rest. Even in normal times these are expensive twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

To add to this excellent thread, a few other points and esp as someone who works in the Supply chain industry, these are something I see and work with daily.

In this thread below I will only consider maritime haulage of the non oil variety i.e Container and Bulk shipping

https://twitter.com/NarenMenon1/status/1487242537492381702

1/n the obvious place to begin is our abysmal port capacity but before we go there, we must understand how the container carriers operate. They operate on a hub and spok(e) model.

Mother vessels serve the main base ports dropping off cargo at these mega ports, from which

The #FATFgreylist normalisation, the F16 package, this is just a Dem regime doing what they do best, push for closer ties with Pakistan. A thread. 1/n The pivot towards Pakistan started under LBJ, his administration explicitly wanted a weaker India. R Nixon then continued this policy.
Carter famously threatened to sanction us if we continued our nuclear experiments and even signed a presidential order

There is a lot of chatter about how the Russian army has underperformed, how it was / is a paper tiger etc etc. Leaving aside the fact that Western propaganda only gives us one side, the Ukranian side, let's look at some possible tactical / strategic reasons. Thread. 1/n The same reason the Americans struggled in Vietnam, or managing the insurgency in Iraq / Afghanistan. Or the Soviets themselves in Afghanistan.

Soviet and later Russian doctrine envisages fast mobile wars with loads of artillery to soften the offense.

Nice to read but in reality Indian emperors often ravaged towns and cities too. The differences here with Christian and Islamic empires being this was not motivated by Faith, or creed.

https://twitter.com/JoeAgneya/status/1500777682262392836

Take the campaigns of Raja Raja Chola in Chalukya territory or his utterly destructive wars in Sri Lanka (that saw the ancient Sinhala seat of power Annuradapura sacked to the ground), there are plates that talk about how Brahmanas (in Chaklukyan territory) were killed