Famine and imperial practices

This trend was used in India by the British as a way of ruling the country. The British used this technique of starvation as one of its project for colonialism. In the year 2016, a population of about 28 million was starving with no food in Yemen, yet the British government seemed not to be disturbed. During this period, the British were busy advising and instructing the Saudi Arabians to bomb Yemen from the skies. They stayed in a sort of ‘command room’ where they would instruct the Saudi Arabians from where they would bomb Yemen. In Nigeria, the British were also involved in arming and providing mercenaries to the country for the protection of the oil. With the intention to securing the cheap oil, the British blocked Biafra from accessing food and this led to the death of many people due to starvation.

Bengal, Honan and Tonkin famines occurred due to the inflationary conditions that were in existence during the dominance of the Second World War. The famine at Bengal was however not caused by a shortage in food supply. If the statistics produced by the National Agricultural Research Bureau is anything to go by, the crop production during that period was high. The Indians were therefore unable to stock up food for the drought seasons. The looting by the British through ‘tax farming’ led to the Indians being unable to stock food for the drought season. This led to the vulnerability of the population to famine. These famines that happened in India were so severe that they caused a significant reduction in population growth rate of the country between the 19th and the 20th century.

The agricultural practices in the country are heavily dependent on the climatic conditions. Polanyi on the other hand traces the origin of capitalism from Britain. However, he does not regard Britain as a former colonial power. He does not also mention race a factor in his work. Instead he focuses on land, money and labour. According to several studies done on famines, it is argued that famine is not caused by droughts, crop failures among other natural disasters. The starvation technique seemed to be effective for the British especially in India and other Asian countries. In the recent past, the British imperial policy has been used by international organizations such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) while inflicting said policy in the African countries.