Was imperialism good or bad for India? Image Elicitation

Image A: Famine victims, 1877

Image B: Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India

Information on Images A & B There was a devastating famine in India, Lord Lytton, viceroy of India, opposed any efforts to intervene in the famine as violating the principles of laissez faire economics. In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith had written that “famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconvenience of death.” Lytton opposed government charity because it would diminish the work ethic of those receiving it. The only charity he allowed was given out in small amounts and included difficult requirements for those receiving it. Lytton appointed Sir Richard Temple a Famine Delegate to control government expenditures. He set up a government program where those in need could get work as manual labor for railroad and canal projects. However, the workers had to travel far away from their homes and live in camps in order to do this work. They were given food, but the prescribed ration was 1627 calories per day. By comparison, the ration provided to prisoners at Buchenwald, a Holocaust concentration camp, was 1750 calories. There were calls for a Famine Fund to counteract future famines. However, Lytton opposed financing it with an income tax, which would affect the rich, and instead supported a land tax on the peasantry. This was rejected, so Lytton pushed taxes on small traders and on salt. In the end, the Famine Fund wasn’t even spend on famine relief, but rather was used to reduce the tariff on cotton goods imported into India and on the war in Afghanistan. In 1876, at the beginning of the famine, the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India was celebrated with a weak-long feast for 68,000 officials. Meanwhile, a British journalist estimated that 100,000 people died during the course of the festivities. - Adapted from Mr. Carroll’s synopsis of Late Victorian Holocausts (2001) by Mike Davis

Image C: British Railways in India

Image D: “Christmas in India,” 1881

Image E: “Inoculation against Plague, Bombay,” postcard, early 20 th c.

Information on Image E The plague referenced in the postcard is the same type of plague that ravaged Europe during the Black Death of the 14 th century. In the first half of the 20 th century, India had more deaths from plague than any other country. In 1966 India officially declared that the plague had been conquered there, but there have been outbreaks since then. - Taken from Judith B. Tysmans, “Plague in India –1994 Conditions, Containment, Goals” (