https://x.com/sov_media/status/2008919566081273946?s=20
I’m recovering from jet lag but this is pretty interesting. Empires of incorporation (Chinese, Ottoman, Mughal) versus Empires of Extraction (French, English, Dutch).
No famines in Mughal India as compared to regular famines in British India.
There was a terrible drought (maybe famine too) in early 17th century. Not sure but Maratha castes see a population bottleneck around 400 years. Either drought/famine or mass killings by Sultanates and early Mughals.
Look up Deccan Famine of 1630; Incidentally the year a young boy was born in Shivneri
Deccan admittedly was the battleground?
LOL. There have been plenty of previous discussions on this topic esp. regarding correlation between low HDI and prolonged Turkic rule in the sub continent. The only sub-groups who have rosy tinted views of both type of empires are the who acted as local henchmen.
On a related note of why partition was the lesser of the 2 evils, look at the thread comparing the similarities between India and Nigeria. Basically Nigeria is what that Subcontinent as a whole would look like.
https://x.com/sankofa360/status/2008867066577617187
R Pakistan & Bangladesh at Nigeria levels?
I think the terminology was interesting
There was another QT which said that undivided India would be like Nigeria domestically in the sense that there would be chronic civil war like situation. Not very different from current reality given the overall demographics and the evolving situation.
We canโt speculate on the counter factual in such manner..
The structural factors are similar though. Only diff is Hindu rather than Christian. But again demographic trends seem to be fixing that as well ๐
XTM says: No famines in Mughal India as compared to regular famines in British India.
As no one wants to give references and numbers here goes.
devastating 1630-32 Deccan Famine
3 million deaths in Gujarat/Malwa) being the worst, featuring extreme mortality, cannibalism, and crop destruction, exacerbated by military grain diversion
The famine happened during the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.
Other notable famines struck during Akbar’s reign (1555-56, 1573-74) and later in Kashmir (1641), highlighting recurring vulnerability despite agrarian development.
Read the Peter Mundy first-hand account of the Gujarat famine in link below
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_famine_of_1630%E2%80%931632
If the accounts are accurate, the Mughals were diverting food meant for famine relief to soldiers fighting territorial wars in the Deccan. Brings to mind Winston Churchill’s diversion of food supplies (from Australia IIRC) to Greece because he deemed the people there resisting the Nazis more worthy than people dying in the Bengal famine (1943).
Not to excuse any of this, but I think there is an inordinate focus on famines that occurred in British India because they occurred in peacetime, and there was no semblance of relief to the public offered by a government that was all-powerful and very secure in its position; instead, lots of callous statements of the Darwinist kind from people in power. Previous regimes in India, whether indigenous or foreign-derived, would make efforts to provide food, relax/eliminate taxes, etc. when famines and droughts struck.
The Brits kept treating their rule over Indians as a massive social science experiment, which is what I find most perverse about the British Raj and its modern-day defenders. (sbarrkum: to be clear, this is an aside; I’m not talking about you.)
Sorry I stand corrected