“The Aryan stock is bound to triumph”

Sufferers from “Churchill Derangement Syndrome” hold “Aryan stock” high among Winston Churchill’s appalling utterances. The remark rose again in correspondence with a journalist. I dug out for him the background of that remark, but his report omitted it. Out of context the quote is misleading, so I guess that’s just as well. But rather than write off several hours’ research, the facts might here serve to advance reality.

Wales in its Welsh Wisdom is thinking of moving statues of Churchill, Nelson and Gandhi to a museum, the Daily Telegraph informs us. My correspondent wrote: “Churchill is again under fire, this time from the Welsh government. It cites his support for the British Empire and his supposed belief in the superiority of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ race. The official Welsh government report examines what monuments and streets commemorate various figures. It throws in Gandhi for good measure.”

I wondered idly what Mohandas Gandhi, who didn’t suffer fools gladly, would say about all this? I think he would be amused, but then depressed, by the onward march of invincible ignorance. Gandhiji said some regrettable things about black Africans around 1906. Against that, the statue of this great man who led India’s quest for independence is to be proscribed in Wales? I should think the Welsh would approve of this champion of Home Rule. (And of Churchill, who campaigned for devolution before it became popular.)

“The Anglo-Saxon race”

Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project holds digital references to 80 million words of Churchill’s writings, speeches, letters, papers, plus biographies and memoirs about him. This resource reveals that he used the term “Anglo-Saxon race” exactly twice. The first referred to U.S. and British sailors, the second to US-UK Free Trade. You tell me whether either sounds racist:

The union of the Anglo-Saxon race is a great ideal, and if ever it is to be achieved it will be by increasing and not diminishing the friendly intercourse of trade between this country and the United States. Against such wanton folly as a tariff war with the United States, Free-traders appeal with confidence to Lancashire, and we hope that, as in years gone by, Lancashire will point the path of honour and wisdom to the people of the British islands. —Speech supporting Home Rule for Ireland, Public Hall, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, 16 June 1904, Complete Speeches I, 317

Churchill’s comment on Aryan stock occurred in an interview with Gustavus Ohlinger of Michigan University in January 1901. Ohlinger published part of that interview, entitled “Success in Journalism,” in the university’s journal The Islander. But much of the interview, including the Aryan remark, went unpublished. Decades later, Ohlinger published the full transcript.  (Michigan Quarterly Review, February 1966).

The context is significant. Ohlinger was born and grew up in China, where his parents were missionaries. Naturally, he and Churchill talked about the confrontation then going on between China and Russia. Ohlinger asked: what was his opinion? Churchill’s replied:

…we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them…as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph. Personally, I am not greatly concerned about Russian development in China.

Now, most today would object to “barbaric” as a description of China, or at least its people. One hundred twenty years ago, perhaps not. Churchill was however predicting the outcome of a Russia-China dispute. (Cynics will smirk over his idea “to take the Chinese in hand.” That’s still in vogue among certain politicians 120 years later.)

Who were the Aryans, anyway?

Taken out of context, “the Aryan stock is bound to triumph” certainly sounds racist today. In the original context, Churchill was talking about a rivalry between Chinese and Russians. Undoubtedly they are of two races, and Churchill thought the Chinese needed taking in hand. Did he mean absolute dominance of the white race? I think not. Nor do I think “Aryan” is quite the right term for Russians.

It took Adolf Hitler to give the word “Aryan” a bad name. It wasn’t aways thus. Defending Churchill from being called a “barbaric Monster” in a Canadian newspaper, Terry Reardon wrote:

The Toronto Star doesn’t inform us that Aryan horseman warriors from Central Asia migrated into the Indus Valley in the third millennium B.C. They were “as arrogant as they were tough,” wrote historian Arthur Herman. “Their very name, Arya, meant ‘master’ or ‘noble.’” They evolved into four classes, led by the Brahmins. Ironically, in view of the Star’s charges, “Aryan stock” is today the dominant demographic group in India.

From one crater to another

No sooner does the campaign for Churchill’s memory quell emissions from one crater than another one erupts. The campaign to delegitimize Churchill as Hero continues, but the main volcanos have already erupted. Now we have the odd subsidiary crater spouting the same old stuff. Not much is new, so this is only for the record.

On July 1st in Forbes emitted “Churchill the Failure: The Paraxodical Truth about the Best and Worst Leaders.” This was sent to their corrections department (no reply):

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The author makes insightful points about leadership. He then constructs a narrative about Churchill based on the eruptions of critics who crop evidence to suit themselves. (1) Racial slurs in Churchill’s conversation are extremely rare. (2) Without the diaries of Leo Amery, hearsay evidence cited to show Churchill’s “hate” of Indians would not exist. Indeed, Amery’s own diaries include racist terms Churchill never used. (3) Churchill in WW2 praised “2.5 million Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu [and] the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers.”

(4) Amery’s alleged Churchill quotes are all from 1942-44. In that period, according to Indian historian Tirthankar Roy: “Almost everything Churchill said about Indians was related to the nationalist movement. Negotiating with nationalists during the war could be pointless and dangerous because the moderates were demoralized and the radical nationalists wanted the Axis to win. No prime minister would be willing to fight a war and negotiate with the nationalists at the same time.” (5) In truth, Churchill and his Cabinet pulled out every stop to alleviate the Bengal Famine. Arthur Herman, Pulitzer nominee for Churchill and Gandhi, writes: “Absent Churchill, the Bengal Famine would have been worse.”

If we condemn Churchill for the rare racial epithet, should we also condemn Amery, who made them wholesale? What about Gandhi, who said nothing about the famine? In South Africa Gandhi wrote that whites should be “the predominating race.” Blacks, he said, were “troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.” Gandhi racist? Surely not. We must look at the total picture of every historical figure. Amery served honorably. Gandhi led India to independence. Churchill saved civilization. All three were good and decent men. But there are differences.

The Crater Halifax: death of a thousand Post-It notes

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, protestors surrounded the Nemon statue of Churchill in a “Walk Against Winston.” There was no spray-paint or attempts to pull it down. These polite folk were armed with Post-It notes. They included the familiar litany of false charges, out of context quotes. Of course there was hearsay from Leo Amery (see above): “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

Terry Reardon replied on behalf of the Churchill Society Canada: “Attacks on Winston Churchill in the Canadian media are nothing new. On our website are replies to articles in the Toronto Star and the National Post.”

Reardon referenced Arthur Herman’s definitive article on the Bengal famine (above). It laid out fact after fact on the causes of, and Churchill’s actions to alleviate, food shortages. He also attached Churchill’s 8 October 1943 directive to the new Viceroy, Lord Wavell, which is even more definitive. From The Churchill Documents, vol. 19, 421:

Every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes, to deal with local shortages…. Every effort should be made by you to assuage the strife between the Hindus and Moslems and to induce them to work together for the common good. No form of democratic Government can flourish in India while so many millions are by their birth excluded from those fundamental rights of equality between man and man, upon which all healthy human societies must stand…. The declarations of His Majesty’s Government in favour of the establishment of a self-governing India as an integral member of the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations remain our inflexible policy.

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The reply, from one of the Walk Against Winston organizers: “Churchill and his government’s policies directly and unquestionably contributed to massive death and suffering in the case of the Bengal Famine. While Churchill’s role in opposing Hitler is significant historically, I don’t think the masses of brown and black people who he and his fellow ruling elites colonized, dispossessed, exploited, and consigned to oblivion would agree with your laudatory and rose-coloured characterization.”

How do you answer people who refuse to rebut or even acknowledge facts? They know what they think.  They’ve read their Twitter and Facebook. It is all generalities, without a source or a reference. Don’t bother them with the truth. They’ve already made up their minds.

Déjà vu all over again

An article called “Rethinking Churchill” ran on ORF, a website founded in 1990 “at the juncture of ideation tempered by pragmatism.” In a two-part article, the author repeated the same charges refuted three years ago by Soren Geiger for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project: “By my count, he makes twenty-two distinct claims about or against Winston Churchill in his 900-word article,” Mr. Geiger wrote. “I could deal with each of these one at a time. But here I will examine some of the most serious. In so doing, I aim to reveal his allegations against Churchill as unfounded and his historical analysis as embarrassingly sloppy.” To read, click here.

In ORF, the author adds another one: “The vaingloriously self-serving but elegant volumes [Churchill] authored on the World War II led the Nobel Committee, unable in all conscience to give him an award for peace, to grant him, astonishingly enough, the Nobel Prize for Literature — an unwitting tribute to the fictional qualities inherent in Churchill’s self-justifying embellishments.”

This may play well in the Twitterverse. Few there will know that Churchill’s prize in literature came before his vainglorious self-serving WW2 volumes were complete. The Nobel Committee cited his works of “historical and biographical description.” They particularly singled out Marlborough and My Early Life. You can look it up. So much for that crater.

Reader response

Mr. Geiger’s article above is entitled, “Winston Churchill the Racist Warmonger.” Scroll to the comments and you will find a reader reply. It mainly repeats all the above points, which the reader had clearly accepted. I responded. Most of it you’ve heard before. But for ease of reference, I include it here:

Dear Reader: Thank you for reading. Not a bad idea at all.

(1) Now please read Arthur Herman, “Absent Churchill, the Bengal Famine would have been worse.” (2) Next read “Churchill on India,” particularly Churchill’s words to Gandhi and Nehru—hardly those of a despiser. Churchill believed India should have self-government; what he opposed—and, yes, acted against—was the Congress Party’s Brahmin dominance. Hence Churchill to Ghanshyam Das Birla: “Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the Untouchables.” And Gandhi’s reply: “I have got a good recollection of Mr. Churchill when he was in the Colonial Office and somehow or other since then I have held the opinion that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill.”

(4) Next, read Indian historian Tirthankar Roy: “Everything [Churchill] said about Indians and the Empire was related to the Indian nationalist movement. Negotiating with Indian nationalists during the war could be pointless and dangerous because the moderate nationalists were demoralized by dissensions and the radical nationalists wanted the Axis powers to win on the Eastern Front. No prime minister would be willing to fight a war and negotiate with the nationalists at the same time.” (5) Before you accept Leopold Amery’s hearsay Churchill quotes, read “Churchill’s ‘Racist Epithets’” to learn how many occurred in Amery’s (but not Churchill’s) everyday speech. Was Amery mouthing Churchill, or himself?

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(6) For what Churchill really thought about Indians read “The Indian Contribution in WW2”: “The glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops who fought in the Middle East, who defended Egypt, who liberated Abyssinia, who played a grand part in Italy, and who, side by side with their British comrades, expelled the Japanese from Burma…. The unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine for ever in the annals of war.” This man hated Indians?

(7) On “poison gas,” read “Churchill and Chemical Warfare,” and learn the difference between tear gas (which he unfortunately labeled “poison”) and the gasses Germans began using in wartime. On “Aryan stock,” read “Churchill Derangement Syndrome,” for where and when he said it (and see last paragraph below). In the same piece, note that the “camel dung” crack is hearsay.

Nor is it possible to excuse Churchill as “a man of his time.” In fact he was far in advance of his time. From ages 25 to 80, examples abound of his concern for the rights of peoples of all colors, particularly in South Africa (you can read about that, too).

Bottom line: Churchill was human. He made mistakes, sometimes big ones. His language is almost absent of racial slurs, but he did believe a hierarchy of races existed back then. That is not the remarkable fact. The remarkable fact is that he consistently defended human rights. One has only to read to learn—something besides outbursts on the Twitterverse.

The “pernicious vermin” crater

The “stone him” crater

Fighting back: “The truth is great, and shall prevail.” *

Increasing signs that the search for truth survives. *”Don’t bother to read the comments”—same old stuff.

Why Churchill’s Leadership was Indispensable, Joseph Laconte, National Review.

“Churchill Out of Context,” Editorial Board, Toledo Blade

G. P. Taylor: “Stop Snowflakes and BBC Denigrating Winston Churchill,” Yorkshire Post

Cathy Gungell, “Is it Time to Stop Calling Churchill a Racist?“, UK Conservative Woman

Dominic Sandbrook, “Why should we be forced to pay for a BBC that portrays Winston Churchill as a mass murdering racist?”, Daily Mail

Edward G. Marks, “In Defense of Keeping Churchill’s Name on School,” Bethesda Magazine 

Bradley Gitz, “The Age of Dumb,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:  “In London, fake anti-fascists fighting imaginary fascists vandalized a statue of a real anti-fascist who fought real fascists by the name of Churchill. Or as another wag more succinctly put it, ‘Wait till they hear about the guys he fought against.'”

Thoughtful articles by historians

Heartening in the face of all this is the determined pursuit of truth by Indian scholars. Thanks and a tip of the hat to:

Video: “The Case for Churchill”

Churchill historian Andrew Roberts in a fair and balanced interview by Darren Grimes. Among other shibboleths, he covers Churchill “quotes” in his doctor’s diaries (minute 19). These were often imaginative afterthoughts, added twenty-five years later.

Dr. Roberts’ biography, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, calmly lays out the unvarnished truth, including Churchill’s flaws and mistakes. But as Roberts says, it’s easier to scrawl “racist” on a statue than it is to read a 1000-page book.

Memory: “The stars still shone in the sky”

Lost in the pell-mell rush to denigrate his memory was the 8oth anniversary of Churchill becoming Prime Minster, 10 May 1940. I thought of his words as I read the ignorant, ill-informed, false attacks on his character. They occurred amid protest over a tragic event that had nothing to do with him. He wrote at the end of Their Finest Hour:

And now this Britain, and its far-spread association of states and dependencies, which had seemed on the verge of ruin, whose very heart was about to be pierced, had been for fifteen months concentrated upon the war problem….With a gasp of astonishment and relief the smaller neutrals and the subjugated states saw that the stars still shone in the sky….

And now his defenders in far-spread association have concentrated on the slur problem. The battle for accurate information is still being fought. Who’d have thought his memory would ever be in jeopardy? Many faithful colleagues have joined the effort. The work goes on, the cause endures.

Letters to the Editors

“Donald Trump is no Winston Churchill, and the comparison is ludicrous.” John Ivison, National Post, 4 June 2020.

Mr. Ivison correctly writes that the comparison is ludicrous. Then he proceeds to state that Churchill was “massively flawed.” He says “Churchill ‘signed off’ on terms at the Yalta Conference that consigned tens of millions to Soviet Rule.” At that time Soviet troops occupied almost the whole of Eastern Europe. The only alternative for Churchill would have been to start a third World War. Next: “Churchill was prime minister at the time of the Bengal famine in 1943 when an estimated three million people died. His only possible defence was that he was preoccupied by the war in Europe.” The fact is that on 8 October 1943 Churchill sent an order to Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, on the “actual famine,” saying “every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes to deal with local shortages.” —Terry Reardon, International Churchill Society Canada

Churchill as Racist

“Was Churchill a racist? Yes, but he still deserves respect.” —Max Hastings, The Sunday Times 14 June 2020.

Max Hastings writes that Winston Churchill’s decisions at the time of the 1943-44 Bengal famine were “the gravest blots on his lifetime reputation.” In fact my great-grandfather felt strongly the responsibility of empire and saw himself as bound in duty to advancing the well-being of its indigenous peoples.

Of course Britain did not meet all requested food deliveries in the famine: not only was Japan in control of the Bay of Bengal at the time, as well as Burma, Thailand and Malaya, but as Dr. Tirthankar Roy, of the London School of Economics, wrote: “The war cabinet . . .  believed what the Bengalis told it: there was no shortage of food in Bengal.” And as Arthur Herman, nominated for a Pulitzer prize for his book Gandhi & Churchill, concluded: “Absent Churchill, India’s 1943 famine would have been worse.”  —Randolph Churchill, Kent

Bengal: What Did Gandhi Say?

A week later a reader quoted Viceroy Wavell that Churchill didn’t answer him about food relief, so I had a go. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel…

Mr MacShane should educate himself on what Gandhi not Churchill did about the Bengal Famine. As did Arthur Herman, Pulitzer nominee for Gandhi and Churchill: “For all his reputation as a humanitarian, Gandhi did remarkably little about the emergency. The issue barely comes up in his letters.” In February 1944, Gandhi finally brought himself to reply to British anxieties about food relief, writing to Wavell: “I know that millions outside are starving for want of food. But I should feel utterly helpless if I went out and missed the food [i.e. independence] by which alone living becomes worthwhile.” Which of them was the humanitarian?

India (again)

“How Has Winston Churchill Become a Central Figure in the British Black Lives Matter Debate?” —Alex Hudson, Newsweek, 17 June 2020. 

Since Churchill was manifestly not “a man of his time,” you incorrectly represent his racial attitudes. From his twenties to his eighties, his views on the rights of native peoples marked him as a dangerous radical to the establishment of the day. Most of his alleged slurs of Indians, for example, are hearsay from Leopold Amery, who crammed more racist epithets into one of his personal diaries than Churchill ever imagined. Churchill  meanwhile praised “the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu [and] the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers,” in World War II. —Richard M. Langworth

Africa

“The Churchill factor: Boris Johnson would rather everyone talked about Winston.” —Otto English, Politico, 15 June 2020.

Castrating people is a new Churchill outrage, and I thought I’d heard them all. Churchill did not advocate for Boer War concentration camps. In his maiden speech (18 February 1901) he complimented the Boers’ “unusual humanity and generosity” in the war and urged a generous peace. He did fruitlessly argue with his Boer jailer about equal rights for native Africans. He did say dreadful things about Gandhi, though the elephant crack is pure fiction. And he also said: “Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the Untouchables.” (Gandhi replied with a “good recollection” of Churchill and “that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill.”) Gandhi took a regrettably detached view of the 1943 Bengal famine; Churchill didn’t. Arthur Herman, biographer of them both wrote: “Absent Churchill, Bengal’s Famine would have been worse.”

The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya had more native opponents than supporters. Both it and the local government indulged in atrocities, though the Mau Mau’s were worse. If Mr. English would consult the cabinet minutes, however, he would find only two instances where Churchill mentioned the Mau Mau. In one he was concerned over loss of life. In another he warned against “mass executions.” Jomo Kenyatta, father of modern Kenya, said: “Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again.” —RML

Ireland and the Jews

“What Churchill’s legacy means for the country now.” Jessica Baldwin, Camden News Journal, June 18th.

Ms. Baldwin says it is immoral to look at the “reality” of Churchill “and still believe him to be unsullied.” Of course he was sullied. She correctly notes his support for the Dardanelles/Gallipoli operation and the Black and Tans. As to the rest of her catalogue, Churchill once said: “…it would hardly be possible to state the opposite of the truth more compendiously.”

Churchill didn’t “partition” Ireland. He negotiated the Irish Treaty which gave the Republic independence. Tanks to Tonypandy? They hadn’t been invented yet. In cabinet he spoke of the Mau Mau twice, once to warn against “mass executions.” Bengalis starved from several factors, despite Churchill’s efforts. (What was Gandhi’s position on the famine? Detached and non-committal.)

Britain didn’t go to war “to save the Jews” but to save liberty. Churchill jailed Britain’s leading fascist Oswald Mosley—an odd act for an alleged fascist. The colonial war effort was often cited by Churchill. He praised “the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu.” Serious inquiry will show that Churchill believed people of all colors should enjoy the same rights, and that it was the mission of his country to protect those rights.

We can believe Churchill was always right, and we can believe with Ms. Baldwin that we’ve been “fed a line.” Churchill himself offered a middle approach: “It seems to me, and I dare say it seems to you, that the path of wisdom lies somewhere between these scarecrow extremes.” —RML

“Nuking the Maralinga people”

In March I published a modest glossary,  “Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is to Racism.” How far “CDS” has progressed since may be seen by a correspondent who replied: “N is for nuking the Maralinga people.”

I seriously investigated this charge, which was new to me.  I carefully read the link above, and about Australians who witnessed and remembered the 1952 nuclear tests. The Churchill Documents and several scholars offer accurate data. Conclusions:

(1) You can’t have nuclear weapons without testing whether they work. (2) Australian permission for testing in the uninhabited Monte Bello islands was sought in 1950 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. (3) Churchill had replaced Attlee when the tests occurred: two on the islands in 1952, two in the Great Victoria Desert in 1953.

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Moral considerations were considered, but they involved wildlife, not people. On 21 May 1952 Lt. Col. Lipton (Lab., Lambeth Central) questioned Churchill over the destruction of animal life. Churchill replied, trying to be humorous:

The report of a recent special survey showing that there is very little animal or bird life on Monte Bello Islands was one of the factors in the choice of the site for the test of the United Kingdom atomic weapon. I should add, however, that an expedition which went to the  islands fifty years ago reported that giant rats, wild cats, and wallabies were seen, and these may have caused the Hon. Member some anxiety. However, the officer who explored the islands recently says that he found only some lizards, two sea eagles and what looked like a canary sitting on a perch.

Emrys Hughes (Lab., South Ayshire) was not amused: “There are still civilized people in this country who are interested in bird and animal life.” This finally produced a mention of humans—by Mr. Churchill: “Certainly I think everything should be done to avoid the destruction of bid life and animal life and also of human life.” Churchill may been referring to his well-known belief that the bomb’s apocalyptic nature might discourage its use.

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(4) The next tests occurred in 1956, on the Monte Bellos and Australian mainland. These did produce fall-out exposure for some people (the numbers are uncertain). The buck stops with the Prime Minister, but the PM was now Anthony Eden. Churchill was over a year retired. (5) Therefore, Churchill did not “nuke the Maralinga people.”

(6) Massive deserts and uninhabited islands are obviously the best places for nuclear testing. (7) Sixty years later, some Australian veterans who witnessed the original tests developed cancer. Their opinions were divided as to why they contracted it.

(8) The tests led to the nuclear umbrella Britain and America provided Australia, close to two expansionist communist states. (9) The Soviet Union’s last nuclear test was in 1990, the UK’s in 1991. America stopped in 1992, France and China in 1996. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 placed a de facto moratorium on testing. India (twice), Pakistan (twice) and North Korea (six times) have since violated the moratorium.

“Subsidiary craters spouting forth”

Churchill said when attacked by the son of a harsh critic: “Isn’t it enough to have this parent volcano continually erupting in our midst? And now we are to have these subsidiary craters spouting forth the same unhealthy fumes!”

To Arthur Herman’s truths about the Bengal Famine, a reader asked about Japan’s post-invasion plans for India, on which I had offered the Japan’s occupation of the Philippines:

A better example would be Malaya where there was a large resident Indian community. How many Indians did the Japanese slaughter there? And how could the Japanese have topped the British record for allowing famines in its colonies? While you’re at it, could you please present any evidence that Japan had actually intended to conquer India? Did it have the capability to do so without compromising its main objective in China?

This is easily answered: Imperial Japan sought to change Malaya’s official language to Japanese. Malayans were expected to bow to Japanese. Chinese fared particularly harshly, but Malays and Indians were not exempt. The 11/43 Greater East Asia Conference did not include Malaya because the Japanese military wished to annex it. Japan’s plans for India are well detailed. Of course, in 1941, Imperial Japan believed it could do much that turned out to be a little optimistic.

The occupations moderated when Japan started to lose the war. Thanks, in part, as Churchill said, “to the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu [and] the response of the Indian peoples.” As Arthur Herman wrote, in the 20th century in peacetime, the Raj “handled famines with efficiency.” For balanced pros and cons on Britain’s role in India see Dr. Tirthankar Roy, How British Rule Changed India’s Economy.