Produced by: Manoj Kumar
Behind Britain’s global power was a dirty secret: its second-biggest income in colonial India came from pushing opium—fueling foreign addiction while impoverishing its own subjects.
Millions of Indian farmers didn’t choose to grow opium—they were forced into it. With fixed prices, unpayable loans, and state-backed threats, poppy cultivation became a prison.
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Unlike today’s drug cartels, Britain’s opium network was legal, state-run, and brutally efficient. It ran on bureaucrats, beatings, and British law—all under a colonial flag.
Britain’s tea addiction drove China to opium. With nothing to trade, the empire sent drugs instead. And the poppy came from India—sown by coercion, reaped in suffering.
British officials handed out forced loans for poppy cultivation—then underpaid farmers for the harvest. The result? Perpetual debt, with no exit but compliance or punishment.
Though illegal in China, British merchants smuggled Indian opium by the ton. When China pushed back, Britain responded with warships—triggering the devastating Opium Wars.
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Fields that once grew food now bloomed with opium poppies. Colonial quotas turned food security into famine risk—adding hunger to the human cost of imperial greed.
Colonial records knew the damage—but the money was too good. British administrators turned a blind eye as addiction soared abroad and poverty deepened at home.
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Under British law, refusing to grow opium meant arrest. Agents could raid homes, destroy crops, and jail dissenters. The rule of law was weaponized to enforce a drug trade.
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