Source:- @muthushiv / Twitter.
4. A famine in the lower Gangetic plain of India from Bihar to Bengal by British in 1769-73 (Chhiattōrer monnōntór). The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of up to 10 million people. Warren Hastings's 1772 report estimated that a third died of starvation. pic.twitter.com/iwq6Jm6QbH
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
5. The plunder of wealth by British following conquest of Bengal, accompanied by a failure of rains and the hoadings of stocks by officials lead to this terrible famine. Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen describes it as a man-made famine, noting that no previous famine had occurred pic.twitter.com/sqUXxTYb59
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
6. The poor infrastructure investments, devastation from war & exploitative tax revenue maximization policies of the British East India Company after 1765 crippled the economic resources of the rural population. All they cared was profit year by year. pic.twitter.com/XkpkVlzlHA
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
7. Bankim Chandra Chatergee writes how grave the situation was in his novel “AnandaMath”. People sold their cattle, plough, ate up seed grains, sold their houses, even their daughters and sons,finally left with none. They fed on weeds, leaves, grass and dogs. Many fled and died pic.twitter.com/EdJqOal8je
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
8. Even this news was much talked in East India Company's London office. This morning the purser of the Lapwing Packet, (late) Capt. Gardner, came to the East India House, with the news of the above packet being safe arrived at Falmouth from Bengal.
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
9. She brings an account of the terrible famine which has made dreadful ravages amongst the natives of Bengal; and that about two million of persons had died; so that there were not people enough left to bury the dead. pic.twitter.com/vL39oEYJhD
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
10. But for British, all they wanted was £££. But our #Sanyasis who uphold Dharma couldn’t be quite & they are used to starving. W.W. Hunter writes that Sanyasis formed as Bands of armies, fifty thousand strong and simply fought with army of British, defeated again and again. pic.twitter.com/GqIWnfzBXC
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
11. British called our sanyasis Banditiis..after all they don’t know six stages of Sanyasa Dharma "1. Kutichakra – ashram dweller, 2. Bahudaka -supported by many, 3. Hamsa, 4. Paramahamsa 5. Turiyatita- beyond the fetters of nature, & 6. Avadhuta – free of all worldly attachments pic.twitter.com/bvel2fHoE1
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
12. In the years subsequent to famine, Sanyasi’s ranks were swollen by a crowd of starving peasants who had neither seed nor implements to recommence cultivation only compounded by a cold weather in 1772 , plundering, ravaging, “in the bodies of fifty thousand men”. pic.twitter.com/knB9tIj6rA
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
13. This Army of Sanyasis started rebellion. W.W.Hunter, reported this in his Annals of Rural Bengal “The collectors called out the military, but after a temporary suggest our sepoys “were at length totally defeated & Captain Thomas (their leader), with almost who party cut off”. pic.twitter.com/RNASNjsI8P
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
14. It was not until winter, they could report to the court of directors, that a battalian, under the experienced commander, had acted successfully against them”. And a month later, even that even that tardy intimation had been premature. pic.twitter.com/EHu7kFySK1
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
15. Warren Hastings, the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, & thereby the first de facto Governor-General of India from 1773 to 1785, plainly acknowledges that commander Thomas “unhappily underwent the same fate” pic.twitter.com/b7584D59G2
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
16. What they are saying is, one of the most organised army, British East India Company, couldnt beat Sanyasis's Army. Must be they are far more organised that any Army. 4 battalions of the British Army were then actively engaged against the banditti.
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
17. But that, in spite of the militia levies called from the holders, their combined operations had been fruitless. The revenue couldn’t be collected, the inhabitants made common cause with marauders and the whole rural administration was unhinged.
— Siva 🔱 🇮🇳 (@muthushiv) April 7, 2018
