Timeline of major famines in India during British rule 1871 to 382 million in 1941. At least 15-35 million people may have died in famines caused by droughts and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation phenomenon during the British rule. The year 1765 is chosen as the start year because that year the British East India Company, after its victory in the Battle of Buxar, was granted the "Diwani" (rights to land revenue) in the region of Bengal (although it would not directly administer Bengal until 1784 when it was granted the "Nizamat", or control of law and order.) The year 1947 is the year in which the British Raj was
Colonial surplus Colonial surplus A colonial surplus is a way of measuring the effects of the relationship between colony and metropolis. A colony, in the sense of a region being ruled by a foreign overseas power, was in a different position from that of an independent country. As Maddison remarked some time ago of India, ‘The major burden of foreign rule arose from the fact that the British raj was a regime of expatriates.’ Such expatriates generate a flow of funds out of the colony. Something similar would have occurred in Latin America during the post-Spanish period of ‘informal rule’ by British