Myth.

British taxation policy ruined the autonomous economies of India’s villages and local landownership, making agricultural development dependent entirely on the whim of urban (and foreign) capital — great for tea and opium “planters”, not so good for feeding, clothing and educating India’s hundreds of millions of rural villagers (the population of India was a little under 300 million in 1700 at the dawn of the Raj, and barely over 300 million by 1900).

British opportunists took techniques and tools from India to propel the British Industrial Revolution — and the colonial administration then used unofficial violence and official tarriffs to destroy Indian industry and turn India into a source of cheap raw materials and a captive market for British value-added exports.

http://www.indianscience.org/

When food crop harvests failed in colonial India — thanks in part to the colonists’ conversion of some of its richest agricultural land and labour to non-food cash crops such as tea, jute, cotton and opium — the colonial rulers put a million unemployed labourers in debtors’ prisons on starvation rations, threw grand imperial jubilee parties, pursued costly wars in Afghanistan with Indian troops, and continued exporting rice to Europe. An estimated 19 million Indians died in the 1896-1902 famine thanks not so much to inclement weather as to deliberate colonial policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts

Busted.

Before Obama, I thought the same reasons applied to the silence regarding the (Bush (and therefore Howard) supported) Arroyo regime in the Philippines.

Surely the media, regardless of whether the source is “right” or “left” wing (it’s the same stupid bird to me) doesn’t cherry-pick the most convenient victims of oppression and abuse to support their agendas? Imagine that!

Thanks Charles for adding another name to the map.

Samarnews.com is a good source for the running press-release battle for the hearts and minds of Samaranons. People who (depending on which media outlet you work for) are either harassed and killed or served and protected by their country’s army.