Part III > 11 China and Inda > 11.2 What Put China Ahead?
Finally, it is important to note that despite the gigantic size of excess mortality in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former. Comparing India's death rate of 12 per thousand with China's of 7 per thousand, and applying that difference to the Indian population of 781 million in 1986, we get an estimate of excess normal mortality in India of 3.9 million per year. This implies that every eight years or so more people die in India because of its higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine of 1958–61.37 India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame.
37. This is so with the highest of the estimated mortality figures, viz. 29.5 million (due to Ashton et al. 1984). If instead we take, say, Peng's figure of 23 million, then every six years there is more extra mortality in India than in the Chinese famine of 1958–61.