Famine in India Quotes

“Wikipedia: Famine in India”

“They have sucked out blood, they have carried away with them millions of our money, while our people have starved.”

“The mighty peril is the entire starvation of the country [India] by foreign exploiters and its complete and hopeless dependence on aliens for almost all articles of common use.”

“Nixon bitterly said, “The Indians need—what they need really is a—” Kissinger interjected, “They’re such bastards.” Nixon finished his thought: “A mass famine.””

“Famine is India's specialty. Elsewhere famines are inconsequential incidents — in India they are devastating cataclysms; in one case they annihilate hundreds; in the other, millions.”

“Although the drought in Kalahandi was a moderate natural disaster, the starvation deaths were a completely avoidable man-made disaster.”

“...the imperialistic drain of wealth from the backward parts of the globe and its piling up in capitalistic areas of the West that causes poverty and starvation in one part and plentitude in another part of the world.”

“How do we weigh smug claims about the life-saving benefits of steam transportation and modern grain markets when so many millions, especially in British India, died along railroad tracks or on the steps of grain depots?”

“...amidst wretchedness, poverty and starvation it is too difficult to preach Advaitism and realize the grand dream of Universal Unity...poor must be given bread first and then religion.”

“The greater part of the soil is under irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of the year. . . . It is accordingly affirmed that famine has never visited India, and that there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food.”

“Then comes a year of famine; but the nose-rings and gold elbow-bangles are gone and people starve by thousands. What matters it? They die in Christ, and Rome scatters her blessings over their corpses, of which thousands float yearly down the sacred rivers to the ocean.”

“"So great an economic drain out of the resources of the land," says Dutt, "would impoverish the most prosperous countries on earth; it has reduced India to a land of famines more frequent, more widespread, and more fatal, than any known before in the history of India or of the world."”

“How marvellous are the Lord’s way? One might almost say that the divine intention has been to make the parents disappear in order that their children might be led to the mission……… The last two periods of famine have brought to the Catholic Mission thousands of orphans………”

““The famine has wrought miracles. The catechumenates are filling, baptismal water flows in streams, and starving little tots fly in masses to heaven… A hospital is a readymade congregation. There is no need to go into the highways and hedges and ‘compel them to come in’. They send each other.””

“It is true that lack of rain causes famine but it is also true that the people of India have not the strength to fight the evil. The poverty of India is wholly due to the present rule. India is being bled till only the skeleton remains…all the vitality of the people is being sapped and we are left in an emaciated state of slavery.”

“...in the name of civilizing our country [India] they exploited our country making us poorer day by day. There were perpetual famine and starvation in India. But the British had always been callous to it.”

“The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 reminds us that taxes have a destructive power, and may be used to deny freedom of religion or belief as well.
This is why we support Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples) in their protest—and support the “Declaration of the International Day Against Judicial and Tax Persecution by State Power” as well.”

“Twenty years from 1860-1908 were the years of famine. Nearly 29 million people died during famines from 1854-1901. These famines revealed that poverty and chronic starvation had taken firm roots in colonial India.”

“And what lesson did the British draw from these catastrophes? The most comprehensive official survey, the Report on the Famine in Bombay Presidency, 1899-1902, conceded that much of the excess mortality might have been avoided by "widespread gratious [home] relief from the beginning," but insisted that "the cost could have been such as no country would bear or should be called upon to bear"...”

“Inhabitants were reduced to the direst extremity. Life was offered for a loaf, but none would buy. Dog’s flesh was sold for goat flesh. The pounded bones of the dead were mixed in flour and sold. Men began to devour each other, and the flesh of a son was preferred to his love. The number of deaths caused obstructions in the roads. Those lands which had been famous for fertility and plenty of resources retain no traces of production.”