How did the British officials react to the 1918 pandemic in India? What do you think is the
reason for such apathy?
Answers
Answer:
Due to the dual gov. system in india during that period the british had income and the ruler only ha the responsibility of ruling. So no one gave relief to the people.
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In India, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, a staggering 12 million to 13 million people died, the vast majority between the months of September and December. According to an eyewitness, “There was none to remove the dead bodies and the jackals made a feast.”
At the time of the pandemic, India had been under British colonial rule for over 150 years. The fortunes of the British colonizers had always been vastly different from those of the Indian people, and nowhere was the split more stark than during the influenza pandemic.
Due to the dual gov. system in india during that period the british had income and the ruler only ha the responsibility of ruling. So no one gave relief to the people.
The influenza killed between 17 and 18 million Indians, more than all the casualties in World War One. India bore a considerable burden of death - it lost 6% of its people. More women - relatively undernourished, cooped up in unhygienic and ill-ventilated dwellings, and nursing the sick - died than men. The pandemic is believed to have infected a third of the world's population and claimed between 50 and 100 million lives.
While India was exposed to influenza as a global event and to the effects of its involvement in the Great War, the influenza episode needs to be more fully understood in terms of local conditions. The impact of the disease was overshadowed by the prior encounter with bubonic plague, by military recruitment and the war, and by food shortages and price rises that pushed India to the brink of famine.
Influenza did not strike everyone equally. Most British people in India lived in spacious houses with gardens and yards, compared to the lower classes of city-dwelling Indians, who lived in densely populated areas. Many British also employed household staff to care for them – in times of health and sickness – so they were only lightly touched by the pandemic and were largely unconcerned by the chaos sweeping through the country
The reason for this apathy was World war 1. Our colonial masters wanted more men on the front. Our country's best doctors were out at the front. These were a few reasons for this cause.
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