The Opium wars in China: the Indian connection
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Avinandan Choudhury’s research
Opium Wars : The Wars That Devastated India and Crippled China, India Opines
Indpaedia encourages readers to click the above link to view beautiful, and relevant, colour paintings of the era, curated by Mr Avinandan Choudhury
The Opium wars which erupted between the Chinese Qing Empire and the British Empire has to a large extend shaped the Chinese Modern History and it is seen as the beginning of the western domination of China, a period which the Chinese refer to “ The Century of Humiliation”.
Opium Wars : The Wars That Devastated India and Crippled China
Background Of The Opium Wars
The war started because of trade conflicts between the Chinese and the British. In the Early to Mid 19th century the English suffered from a huge trade imbalances with the Chinese. The huge demand for Chinese tea in Britain and the Chinese insistence on selling tea in exchange of silver had led to great outflow of silver and money from Britain.
To reverse this trade deficit the British tried selling their woolen merchandise to the Chinese but it failed as the Chinese were more used to Padded cotton cloths and silk. The British then started trading with China in Opium. There was high demand for opium in China due to its medical and recreational use. This led to a reversal of the British trade deficit with China but it wreaked havoc on Chinese society as thousands of rich and poor Chinese alike were addicted to this drug. This societal degradation led the Chinese to ban trade on opium.
This action didn’t go down well with the English and they, in a bid to further their naked Imperial ambitions and economic interests, declared war on China. The Chinese were defeated and were forced to pay a huge indemnity, cede Hong Kong to the British and open their markets to western capitalists. This war is an example of how colonial powers used their military prowess to economically subjugate Asian countries and undermine the sovereignty of Asian rulers.
How We Indians Suffered
In India, not much significance is attributed to the Opium war. Most people are not even aware of it and the few who are, regard it as a foreign war that was fought far from the frontiers of India. What many people don’t know is the strong connection that the Opium war has with India.
The opium that the British sold to the Chinese was grown in India. It was from the fields of Bengal and Bihar that the opium, which led to an unjust war and deaths of thousands of Chinese, originated. This opium has not only caused trouble in China but also in our own country.
The agricultural fertile lands of Bengal and Bihar were forced fully used to grow poppy and it drove thousands of poor farmers off their lands. These farmers were later shipped to the Caribbean as indentured laborers. The cotton fields of India were transformed into poppy fields. Poppy, grown in these field were transported to Opium factories in Ghazipur and Patna, where these century old opium factories still stand.
High quality processed Opium were then transferred from the factories to Calcutta by the river Ganga. The East India Company then used to auction it off to the English and Indian merchants, who then shipped that to China and made huge profit by selling them. This was the trail of opium that triggered the war in China.
How It Benefited the English Merchants and Parsi Businessmen
It was not only the English Merchants who were eager for profits through the immoral Opium trade. The Parsi business community of India was also heavily engaged in Opium trade. The lack of Opium monopoly of the East India Company in Mumbai helped the Parsis in conducting hugely profitable opium business. Some Parsi businessmen like Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy took advantage of the Opium trade with China and amassed huge wealth, with which he later on started his own merchant fleet.
Mumbai as a city flourished with many prominent building likes the Central Municipal Library and David Sassoon Library being financed by the philanthropic businessmen engaged in Opium Trade. Whereas the farmers in Bengal and Bihar were being exploited by the English, the businessmen in Mumbai flourished.
This brought wealth into the city of Bombay and led to the boom of Banking and Insurance business in Bombay. This boom in business, banking and insurance would later build the foundation of India’s financial capital, Mumbai.
How Indian Soldiers Faces Racial Abuses From Either Sides, and Lost Their Lives in The Foreign War
The war in China was not fought by only British and Chinese soldiers. Indian soldiers were also involved in the battles of the Opium war. 1 coy Madras Rifles, 2nd Madras Native Infantry, 6th Madras Native Infantry and the 14th Madras Native Infantry of the Madras Army took part in the First Opium war. The Indian sepoys were widely used in the battles of Canton, Amoy, Tinghai and Chin-Kiang Fu.
In all the battles the Indian and British forces were vastly outnumbered but the discipline, morale and better weaponry of the British forces prevailed. The Indian forces had to face severe racial abuses by both the British and the Chinese.
The Indian soldiers would be used by the British Empire in other overseas war and conflict of the future. It was the exploitation and use of Indian resources and soldiers which kept the British Empire strong and made it an Empire where ‘the sun never sets’.
The Opium Wars Devastated India ~ What Next?
The opium wars had a profound effect on India. Its repercussions on the Indian economy and society have largely remained ignored. It was a war where the British used the resources of one vanquished Asian Giant to vanquish the other. It’s been 176 years since the Opium war but still the basic nature of geopolitics hasn’t changed much. Even now the West coaxes India to join the western security apparatus to ‘contain’ China and the west dominated IMF and world bank forces poor Nations to open their markets for foreign players, so that they all can enjoy the so called ‘fruits’ of Western model of Free Market Capitalism.
The history of the Opium wars and its relation to India should not be ignored and further research needs to be done in this context. History is the greatest teacher to Mankind and whenever man fails to take lessons from it, History repeats itself.
II
Amarka adds:
In Shanghai: City for Sale, pp. 6-7, published in 1940 by Harcourt-Brace & Co., New York, we read:
"This British desire for a wider sphere of operations precipitated Britain's first war with China" (in 1842). "It was called the 'Opium War' because the British urge to swamp China with India-grown opium and Chinese refusal to take it were its tangible cause.
"There is no doubt about the wanton aggression that marked the beginning of this undeclared war, nor about the singular brutality with which the British soldiers sacked peaceful cities, burned public buildings, looted, plundered and murdered . . . There was much ruthless bayoneting. Sacred temple quarters were soiled, exquisite wood carvings were used for camp fires. And British soldiers watched old men, women and even children cutting each other's throats in utter despair, or drowning themselves. 'The lament of the fatherless, the anarchy, the starvation, and the misery of the home- less wanderers', says the East India Committee of the Colonial Society in London in 1843, 'are the theme of a frightful triumph.' "
The famous Sassoon family, probably the most influential Jewish family in England today and one of the few intimate with the last three generations of the Royal Family, established their wealth and power in the Opium Wars.
"Davi'd Sassoon began with a rug factory and banking establishment, but he soon recognized the opportunities in opium . . . deft maneuvering netted him the most valuable prize an Indian merchant could strive for - a monopoly of the opium trade."
Amitav Ghosh’s findings: I
masoom gupte, SPOILS OF WAR, Nov 27 2016 : The Times of India
`History of capitalism is written like this heroic tale of great entrepreneurs. It's nonsense'
Amitav Ghosh on India Inc's link to the opium war, the resultant climate change and the 19th century rhetoric that is still repeated today
What role did India Inc play in the opium trade war?
They [Indian companies] played a pioneering part.In large parts, the opium war was financed by Indian money -by old Bombay money. M a ny of t he bi g Indian families made their money in opium. This is equally true about America.
Even institutions like Yale and Brown. Singapore and Hong Kong wouldn't exist today without opium.Essentially opium was the most important commodity of the 19th century.
Are companies hesitant to acknowledge their past connections to opium?
Ve r y h e sit a nt . Jardine Matheson was one of the most important opium trading companies in the 19th c ent u r y. T hei r close st partner was Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy, who built half of Bombay. To this day, Jardine Matheson does not like this connection mentioned. In fact, they've been known to threaten journalists. Similarly, people who've been trying to work with papers of various Indian companies find it very difficult to access documents. Let me just say it tactfully that several companies don't like this to be spoken of in public.
Would it have been difficult for companies to hide their past if there was social media at that time?
The opium war was a very modern war. It was sold to the British government by merchants. They collected money and sent William Jardine to London to bribe politicians i nto sta r ti ng this war. It's a collusion between the State and the pri vate sector, which benefited not only from the policies of the opium trade, but also from the whole war being sub-contracted to them, in terms of provisions, supply ships etc. It was the template of the Iraq war. First, you pick up something, drum it up by publishing some articles about it, the people will get worked up, then you start the war. You keep hidden what is actually happening.
Opium was produced in India under an East India monopoly. The only part that entrepreneurs played was taking it from here to China and selling it. It was essentially a smuggling trade.
The history of capitalism is sold to us as a great history of financial innovations.That too is nonsense. To give you a minor example -if you look up commodities futures market on Wikipedia or any standard business history, what they'll tell you is that it started in Chicago in the 1850s. But the commodities futures markets ex isted in India going back to the early middle-ages. There was a very active opium futures exchange in Calcutta from the 18th century onwards. British tourists used to go see it. It wasn't a secret.
II
Amitav Ghosh came across the untold facts during his research for the third book of Ibis trilogy – 'Flood of Fire'.
History says opium wars in China was not only fought but initiated by Britain which objected to the then Chinese government's ban on abolishing opium trade. However India's noted author Amitav Ghosh has a completely different story to tell.
Ghosh definitely did not go back to history to explore the events of the war between the Chinese government and Britishers ruling India in the 1830s. He was merely researching for his last book of 'Ibis' trilogy – which revolves majorly around migration – when he came across completely different facts that the Indians are unaware of.
It was apparently co-incidental that he happened to turn the pages of history – the 1830s – when two major events were happening simultaneously – Indians were migrating from India and opium trade was at its peak.
At this juncture he found that the first opium war in China was an Indian undertaking. "The first opium war (was) planned in India, it was financed by Indian money, it was fought with Indian soldiers. But it has all completely vanished from our historical memory," Ghosh, whose third book of Ibis series 'Flood of Fire' is all about migration in the 1830s, told IANS.
China's Opium War
"The putting together of the expeditionary force took place in India. The British naval ships for the expedition were accompanied by 50 supply ships, all provided for by Parsi merchants in Bombay (now Mumbai). From top to bottom, it was a completely Indian enterprise; all the wherewithal for it came from India," he added.
History however has no mention of Indians being involved in the war against China over the trade of opium that was extracted from the plantation poppy plants in India.
According to historical facts, the British government which was ruling India at that time called a war against China when the Chinese government called off import of opium to its nation in view of mounting cases of opium addicts.
Along with the ban, the Chinese seized tons of opium, which was not at all welcomed by Britishers and as a result they declared war and defeated China, which surrendered Hong Kong to the British.
Two wars were fought with China, one between years 1839–42 and other from 1856 to 1860. The second opium war is also called 'Anglo-French expedition to China' as Britain was assisted by the second French Empire led by Napoleon III.
