Came across this comment on bestof.
How true are the claims made here?
Was $45 trillion stolen from India?
Was Indian industry destroyed to make British industry more competitive?
Did ChurchIll commit mass murder via the Bengal famine?
Were Indians forced to fight the World Wars?
How many British people were there in India? How did they kill millions of Indian on their own?
Thank you.
While more answers are always welcome, for the 45 trillion claim, this thread discusses the claim in detail, and this comment by /u/IconicJester is of particular note. A quote:
But anyone even passingly familiar with trade from the period knows that bills on London banks were effectively the global currency, and the fact that they converted them into rupees in India is just common sense. That the British government paid its bills in India in rupees is not very shocking, nor that they collected their taxes in rupees. What we need to know are the net values for all these taxes and transfers, but that would be a very difficult piece of accounting that would not generate sensational numbers.
Regarding the famine, this thread here with a lengthly writeup by /u/LORDBIGBUTTS and links by /u/jschooltiger to further discussion may be of interest.