How Britain Got Rich From India — The $45 Trillion Question

How did Britain get rich from India, and did it really take $45 trillion? Economist Utsa Patnaik estimated that British colonial rule drained around $45 trillion from India between 1765 and 1938. In this documentary we follow the money and ask whether that number holds up. We start with the East India Company, a trading company with its own army, from Robert Clive's victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the takeover of Bengal's taxes in 1765 and the Bengal famine of 1770. Then we break down the "drain of wealth": how Indian taxes were used to buy Indian goods, how Council Bills and the Home Charges kept India's export earnings in London, and how India went from the textile workshop of the world to a supplier of raw materials. We meet Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian elected to the British Parliament, look at the famines of the British Raj, and finally test the $45 trillion figure against its critics, and follow part of the money all the way to the railroads of the United States. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 1:30 A Company With an Army 5:30 The Perfect Trick 9:30 Workshop of the World 13:30 The Man Who Did the Math 17:00 Is $45 Trillion Real? 20:00 What Britain Really Took SOURCES & FURTHER READING Utsa Patnaik – "Revisiting the 'Drain'", in Agrarian and Other Histories (2017) Dadabhai Naoroji – Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) Tirthankar Roy – The Economic History of India, 1857–1947 Angus Maddison – The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective Mike Davis – Late Victorian Holocausts William Dalrymple – The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company Do you think the $45 trillion number is fair, or does it exaggerate what happened? Should Britain pay anything back today? Let me know in the comments. Watch next: How Empress Cixi Spent China's Navy Money on a Palace Subscribe for more of the money behind history's biggest events. #history #india #britishempire