A little known story
This story goes back to the 17th century perhaps. China was the only producer of tea. No one else on earth had the plant. And the British developed a taste for tea. They wanted more. It became a craze for them and unfortunately China charged for it in gold and silver.
Despite the plundering and pilferage of indian coffers by the then East India Company, the British needed more gold than they could afford to meet the tea demand back home. They came upon a crooked idea. They started feeding opium to the chinese villages near the borders. Soon the youth was addicted and wanting more. Thr chinese villages paid in chinese money and this in turn helped buy tea in china for the British. But the British needed more.
So they started paying cash to the farmers of Bihar and United Provinces (now called Uttar Pradesh or UP in short) in India for growing Opium. Unlike south India and Bengal, these states did not get enough rainfall for paddy cultivation and preferred to grow millets, which was a staple food for the masses. It was a cheap and robust crop that could withstand droughts as well, unlike wheat or rice. So the farmers started growing opium in place of millets. It was lucrative because of the cash incentive, but the grain market of India started running short of millets. The British were able to feed opium to China and get their favourite tea in return.
The British trained the masses to shift to rice and wheat as this was abundantly grown in the colonial empire. The public distribution system pumped in rice and wheat to the millet eating indian masses and though they were costlier, the masses had little choice.
Then came the famines. Drought. Poor monsoons. Milions of deaths in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. If India grew millets, this could have been avoided. And unlike millets, wheat and rice were sensitive to droughts. But the British ruined the millennium old traditional grains of India for the tea they loved.
Of course, later they stole the plant from China and grew it in Darjeeling, India. But the lost millet and the lost lives, all for the want of tea for the English fancy is a little spoken of story.
🙂 Hope you found this interesting. Since i came across a section for indian food, thought of writing this.
Despite the plundering and pilferage of indian coffers by the then East India Company, the British needed more gold than they could afford to meet the tea demand back home. They came upon a crooked idea. They started feeding opium to the chinese villages near the borders. Soon the youth was addicted and wanting more. Thr chinese villages paid in chinese money and this in turn helped buy tea in china for the British. But the British needed more.
So they started paying cash to the farmers of Bihar and United Provinces (now called Uttar Pradesh or UP in short) in India for growing Opium. Unlike south India and Bengal, these states did not get enough rainfall for paddy cultivation and preferred to grow millets, which was a staple food for the masses. It was a cheap and robust crop that could withstand droughts as well, unlike wheat or rice. So the farmers started growing opium in place of millets. It was lucrative because of the cash incentive, but the grain market of India started running short of millets. The British were able to feed opium to China and get their favourite tea in return.
The British trained the masses to shift to rice and wheat as this was abundantly grown in the colonial empire. The public distribution system pumped in rice and wheat to the millet eating indian masses and though they were costlier, the masses had little choice.
Then came the famines. Drought. Poor monsoons. Milions of deaths in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. If India grew millets, this could have been avoided. And unlike millets, wheat and rice were sensitive to droughts. But the British ruined the millennium old traditional grains of India for the tea they loved.
Of course, later they stole the plant from China and grew it in Darjeeling, India. But the lost millet and the lost lives, all for the want of tea for the English fancy is a little spoken of story.
🙂 Hope you found this interesting. Since i came across a section for indian food, thought of writing this.
56-60, M
