The Cause of Poverty

The Cause of Poverty

1989 8 August 20 The Cause of Poverty (334) Historical records show that during Muslim rule India was very prosperous. It was during British rule that, for the first time, it became poor. After freedom, under home rule, it became still poorer. Even now poverty is on the increase.

Just over a century ago, during the days of British rule, an English officer by the name of W. W. Hunter, observed in the course of a speech which he made in London that “at this time India is facing a basic problem. And that is the problem of the poverty of the people.” He said that we must give thought to how India, which was once held to be so rich, now proved to be so poor. (News item in the Times of India, December 4, 1880, reproduced in the Times of India supplement, Society, November-December, 1988, p. 34.)

Historical records show that during Muslim rule India was very prosperous. It was during British rule that, for the first time, it became poor. After freedom, under home rule, it became still poorer. Even now poverty is on the increase.

The reason is that the wealth acquired from the country by the old Muslim rulers was spent within the country. Thus the wealth of the country continued to flow inwards. The British, on the contrary, took country’s wealth abroad, so that the country’s prosperity started draining away. This is the real reason for India having prospered during Muslim rule and having become impoverished during British rule.

This process of the outward circulation of money is still going on a large scale in “Free India.” The indigenous rulers of India, business magnates and industrialists are taking the country’s wealth away to deposit in European and American banks.

Likewise smuggling, which is the biggest business of present-day India, is transmitting huge amounts of wealth to foreign countries. In this way, the wealth of which India is at present being deprived, is greater even than that appropriated by the British throughout the entire period of their rule.