Bengal Famine - Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death

[Assassin 2.0]

Hunger, starvation and Indian soldiers in World War II
5 min read . 08 Nov 2019
Diya Gupta
On the 80th anniversary of the start the war, we need to look beyond a narrative glorifying it as a fight against fascism
Understanding the Bengal famine of 1943 as a product of World War II is crucial to its legacy
Topics
World War IIBritish empireChurchill’s Secret War

An Indian havildar, or junior officer, who was part of a Sappers and Miners unit stationed in Egypt during the height of World War II, wrote back home in June 1943: “From my personal experience I can tell you that the food we get here is much better than that we soldiers get in India. But whenever I sit for my meals, a dreadful picture of the appalling Indian food problem passes through my mind, leaving a cloudy sediment on the walls of my heart which makes me nauseous and often I leave my meals untouched."

The soldier identified with this imagined community of sufferers in his homeland through his own body, as the pain of distant hunger reached out, resulting in him being heartsick and unable to eat. Another havildar clerk, writing to relatives, related his feelings of helplessness to the extraordinary conditions of the Indian wartime marketplace: “I am terribly sorry to learn about the food situation in India and it seems as if there is no salvation for me.… What is the use of money when we are unable to obtain the necessities of life in exchange for it? The situation would drive even the most level-headed of us to madness and when we think of conditions in India we become crazy as lunatics."


Yet another sepoy, also from the Middle Eastern and North African theatres of war, declared in 1943 that his colonial war service was no longer doing him any economic good. “You write to me so often that things have become very expensive and you ask me to send you more money and more money. Where can I get money? Why doesn’t your land which supplied us all before all this produce enough for you to eat something?" he complained to his family. “I know what mistake I have committed. But it is too late. It was better if we had all worked on the land, at least we would have lived as before. Now I cannot earn even enough grain to last you two months."

Tanks of the British army manned by Indian troops in Italy.
Tanks of the British army manned by Indian troops in Italy.
These letters are from military censorship reports archived at the India Office Records at the British Library, UK. Nausea, helplessness, madness and despair—Indian accounts from World War II convey a spectrum of emotional responses to global conflict and its atrocities that claimed over 60 million lives, and changed the face of geopolitics across the world. In 2019, in the 80th anniversary year of the start of this war and with Remembrance Sunday services being held on 10 November, it is more important than ever that we move beyond American and Eurocentric frames of reference. We need to make space in our public memory for the forgotten voices from the former British empire, and continue to uncover its complicated afterlives. Understanding the Bengal famine of 1943 as a product of World War II is one such legacy.

What happened in Bengal—and other parts of India, such as the princely state of Travancore in south India—in 1943? As Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s Poverty And Famines—An Essay On Entitlement And Deprivation (1981) argues, the famine was manufactured and not natural. Later research has confirmed that those people whose lives were already financially precarious starved because they couldn’t afford to buy food rather than there being an overall shortage of its supply. Historians have compared food prices in wartime Britain to those in India, and found that prices were controlled by government subsidies in Britain and rose by 18%, whereas here the price of even rationed food during the 1940s rose by an extraordinary 300%. It is this lack of price control which became a crucial factor leading to famine. More recently, Madhusree Mukerjee has shown, in Churchill’s Secret War (2011), that it was the colonial government’s agricultural, economic and export decisions, informed by war priorities, that resulted in death from starvation and the associated diseases of cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery in Bengal.

War and hunger, then, remained inextricably connected as violence spilled over from international battlefronts to claim civilian lives on the home front. Indian soldiers who were killed or injured in World War II numbered around 90,000; the famine claimed over three million victims.


Indian troops of the British empire in Mandalay.
Letters written by Indian soldiers during the war tell us that although the men themselves were far removed from hunger and were well looked after by the colonial authorities, they empathized and commiserated with one another’s familial misfortunes. A havildar clerk wrote home to west India, a region that was also experiencing food shortages, although to a lesser degree: “(A)s you say, that it is difficult, dear, and grain is unobtainable. But look at these people in Bengal. Their situation is ten times worse than our home district. There are many Bengalies (sic) in the army here with me, and when they get their letters from home, they seem to be very worried and by their appearance, I guess that the public in Bengal is suffering badly. Many times they have shown me their letters and when I read their sufferings, it breaks my heart."

Extracts from letters composed from the heart of hunger in Bengal survive today. But many of the writers were unable to formulate words to describe the enormity of witnessing the famine. A doctor in the wartime Indian Medical Service received a letter from his home in Bengal that simply said, “The plight of our country is beyond description." Another letter, addressed to a captain in the Indian Medical Service, asked: “What will happen if the war lasts longer? Can you imagine?"

These writings by soldiers and their loved ones at home reveal that there was no homogenous Indian war experience. The letters become evocative fragments, testament to a complex range of emotions that cannot be contained within the narrow prisms of “heroism" and “sacrifice" with which we are made to remember this war today. More than wreaths and monuments, it is these narratives—letters, diaries, memoirs, even novels and poetry—that bring the range and depth of such experiences alive. Remembering Indian involvement in this anniversary year through soldiers’ and civilians’ letters means that we recognize how colonial participation complicates the story of the “good war" that was World War II. It was not simply a fight against fascism, but one where imperialism of all hues was implicated.

Diya Gupta’s doctoral research, from King’s College London in 2019, is a literary and cultural examination of Indian experiences in World War II.

 

[asianobserve]

Even in 1943 more than 3 million people died in india in Bengal because of human made famine.
Everyone have their fair share history of human rights abuse mass killing genocide and other things.
The only reason why i like Germany is they own the things which they did even tho that made their society RW phobia.

The Bengal famine deaths was different. These deaths while tragic and horrendous were not premidetated murders. It was the result of confluence of environmental, economic, political and social factors that at most can be attributed to lack of foresight, planning, organization, and maybe due to priority needs and natursl difficulties in times of war.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

There was no official British policy to intentionally starve Indian people for purpises of exterminating them. In fact, if there was a policy to kill Indians then why do it only in Bengal region after all the whole of the Indian subcontinent was under British rule?

There were either no order or list of Bengalis to kill during that time. No Bengalis were intentionally and in masse removed from their homes and deprived of possessions by the British like what the NAZIs did to the Jews in Europe. Go dig in the archives.

The economic policies which they running to grow the crops the caused destruction of food crops in bengal destroyed very large number of food growing land and heavy taxation was also one of the biggest factors in causing the famine.
Btw if you don't have imposed these things then in Great Bengal famine of 1770 didn't have happened which took the life of 10 million people and whole india was having famine in bihar in Orrisa because of brutal tax collecting regime and food production laws these were implemented to gain highest amount of tax from the people of india.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

There was no official British policy to intentionally starve Indian people for purpises of exterminating them. In fact, if there was a policy to kill Indians then why do it only in Bengal region after all the whole of the Indian subcontinent was under British rule?

There were either no order or list of Bengalis to kill during that time. No Bengalis were intentionally and in masse removed from their homes and deprived of possessions by the British like what the NAZIs did to the Jews in Europe. Go dig in the archives.

The policy of taxation was intentionally the policy of maximum agricultural policies were intentionally and moreover when millions of people were dying the policy of not supplying food to them was intentionally idiot.

mod edit: personal attack removed

 

[asianobserve]

But idiotic people like you come and bark things and go down?
The policy of taxation was intentionally the policy of maximum agricultural policies were intentionally and moreover when millions of people were dying the policy of not supplying food to them was intentionally idiot.
I don't know why but it looks like you just want to remove this thing from the history and continue with your BS.

Note that Churchill did not become UK PM until 1940 while Europe has started to burn under Hitler's onslaught and the NAZIs threatening to invade UK after France's rout. Thereafter, Churchill was more focused on defeating the Nazis, Italians and Japs. Bengal Famine happened in 1943-44 at the height of the War when everything was still uncertain.

From what's available in public, the Bengal Famine had roots that go much further or much earlier tham WW2. As I said it was a combinatination of several factors like increasing population without correlative increase in cropland or advancement of technology to increase yields in existing croplands, predatory lending to farmers and landgrabbing of their farms, natural disasters and crop diseases that devastated crops, inflation due to increased spending for WW2, and difficulties of importation of good from other countries or provinces that had excess rice production due to shipping shortage. At most the local Governal there shares the most blames for not having controlled the factors within their control like increasing productivity and curbing predatory lending and landgrabbing of farmlands by lenders.

The policy that made the Bengal problem worse that can be directly attributed to Churchill was the disruption of Burma rail connection to India to prevent easy Japanese invasion of India. But this too was motivated not by an intention to starve the Bengalis but to prevent the Japs from easily invading India.

Re British taxes, I believe it was raised on all its territories including all of India. So why did the famine only happened in Bengal?

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Re British taxes, I believe it was raised on all its territories including all of India. So why did the famine only happened in Bengal?

Because Bengal was mostly dependent on rice 70-75% of meal in bengal was rice and mass inflation made destroyed the affordability

During a famine in Bihar in 1873-74, the local government led by Sir Richard Temple responded swiftly by importing food and enacting welfare programmes to assist the poor to purchase food.

Almost nobody died, but Temple was severely criticised by British authorities for spending so much money on the response. In response, he reduced the scale of subsequent famine responses in south and western India and mortality rates soared.

Note that Churchill did not become UK PM until 1940 while Europe has started to burn under Hitler's onslaught and the NAZIs threatening to invade UK after France's rout. Thereafter, Churchill was more focused on defeating the Nazis, Italians and Japs. Bengal Famine happened in 1943-44 at the height of the War when everything was still uncertain.

Mukerjee has presented evidence the cabinet was warned repeatedly that the exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort could result in famine, but it opted to continue exporting rice from India to elsewhere in the empire.

Rice stocks continued to leave India even as London was denying urgent requests from India’s viceroy for more than 1m tonnes of emergency wheat supplies in 1942-43. Churchill has been quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive.

You have bigger than life picture of that man.

The policy that made the Bengal problem worse that can be directly attributed to Churchill was the disruption of Burma rail connection to India to prevent easy Japanese invasion of India. But this too was motivated not by an intention to starve the Bengalis but to prevent the Japs from easily invading India.

Re British taxes, I believe it was raised on all its territories including all of India. So why did the famine only happened in Bengal?

That was only done to protect empire not india or it's locals everyone was to ignorant to care about some poor Indians in bengal who were going to die.
Rest of the food was forcefully snatched and exported to foreign countries. How many famine UK had when world War 2 was going on.
Mukerjee and others also point to Britain’s “denial policy” in the region, in which huge supplies of rice and thousands of boats were confiscated from coastal areas of Bengal in order to deny resources to the Japanese army in case of a future invasion.

And population of india is now 1.2 billion but still cannot see famine happening which is causing millions of death.

 

[asianobserve]

Churchill was Secretary of the Colonies from 1921-22, too far earlier to effect the Bengal Famine. Also, as I said it's absurd to essentially claim that Churchill single out the Bengalis for starvation.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Note that Churchill did not become UK PM until 1940 while Europe has started to burn under Hitler's onslaught and the NAZIs threatening to invade UK after France's rout. Thereafter, Churchill was more focused on defeating the Nazis, Italians and Japs. Bengal Famine happened in 1943-44 at the height of the War when everything was still uncertain.

From what's available in public, the Bengal Famine had roots that go much further or much earlier tham WW2. As I said it was a combinatination of several factors like increasing population without correlative increase in cropland or advancement of technology to increase yields in existing croplands, predatory lending to farmers and landgrabbing of their farms, natural disasters and crop diseases that devastated crops, inflation due to increased spending for WW2, and difficulties of importation of good from other countries or provinces that had excess rice production due to shipping shortage. At most the local Governal there shares the most blames for not having controlled the factors within their control like increasing productivity and curbing predatory lending and landgrabbing of farmlands by lenders.

The policy that made the Bengal problem worse that can be directly attributed to Churchill was the disruption of Burma rail connection to India to prevent easy Japanese invasion of India. But this too was motivated not by an intention to starve the Bengalis but to prevent the Japs from easily invading India.

Re British taxes, I believe it was raised on all its territories including all of India. So why did the famine only happened in Bengal?

You want to pain white wash image of a man who's hands are bloody isn't goin to work here.

You can believe and think of him as a hero no one is gonna stop you but we will never forget this.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Churchill was Secretary of the Colonies from 1921-22, too far earlier to effect the Bengal Famine. Also, as I said it's absurd to essentially claim that Churchill single out the Bengalis for starvation.

Lol he have extracted 1m tons of emergency wheat from india he and his administration didn't payed two hoots about famine which is happening in india didn't allowed export.
1 million ton of wheat could have saved thousands of life in india.

 

[asianobserve]

Because Bengal was mostly dependent on rice 70-75% of meal in bengal was rice and mass inflation made destroyed the affordability

During a famine in Bihar in 1873-74, the local government led by Sir Richard Temple responded swiftly by importing food and enacting welfare programmes to assist the poor to purchase food.

Almost nobody died, but Temple was severely criticised by British authorities for spending so much money on the response. In response, he reduced the scale of subsequent famine responses in south and western India and mortality rates soared.

Mukerjee has presented evidence the cabinet was warned repeatedly that the exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort could result in famine, but it opted to continue exporting rice from India to elsewhere in the empire.

Rice stocks continued to leave India even as London was denying urgent requests from India’s viceroy for more than 1m tonnes of emergency wheat supplies in 1942-43. Churchill has been quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive.

You have bigger than life picture of that man.

That was only done to protect empire not india or it's locals everyone was to ignorant to care about some poor Indians in bengal who were going to die.
Rest of the food was forcefully snatched and exported to foreign countries. How many famine UK had when world War 2 was going on.
Mukerjee and others also point to Britain’s “denial policy” in the region, in which huge supplies of rice and thousands of boats were confiscated from coastal areas of Bengal in order to deny resources to the Japanese army in case of a future invasion.

And population of india is now 1.2 billion but still cannot see famine happening which is causing millions of death.

Here's more info on the surrounding facts of the Bengal Famine:

Throughout 1942 and early 1943, military and political events combined with natural disasters and plant disease to place widespread stress on Bengal's economy.[71] While Bengal's food needs rose from increased military presence and an influx of refugees from Burma,[72] its ability to obtain rice and other grains was restricted by inter-provincial trade barriers.[73]

In other words, the factors I already mentioned were exacerbated during the War by:

1) Influx of soldiers fighting tge Japs;
2) Influx of Burma refugees that further added to the overpopulation of Bengal region;and,
3) Inter-provincial trade barriers (protectionism).

It really pains some to accept the fact that there was no policy to deliberately starve Bengal but that it was a mix of factors that were years in the making, environmental and harsh realities of WW2. But these are the facts.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Here's more info on the surrounding facts of the Bengal Famine:

Throughout 1942 and early 1943, military and political events combined with natural disasters and plant disease to place widespread stress on Bengal's economy.[71] While Bengal's food needs rose from increased military presence and an influx of refugees from Burma,[72] its ability to obtain rice and other grains was restricted by inter-provincial trade barriers.[73]

In other words, the factors I already mentioned were exacerbated during the War by:

1) Influx of soldiers fighting tge Japs;
2) Influx of Burma refugees that further added to the overpopulation of Bengal region;and,
3) Inter-provincial trade barriers (protectionism).

It really pains some to accept the fact that there was no policy to deliberately starve Bengal but that it was a mix of factors that were years in the making, environmental and harsh realities of WW2. But these are the facts.

According to experts, following the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942, rice imports stopped, and Bengal's market supplies and transport systems were disrupted. The British government also prioritised distribution of vital supplies to the military, civil servants and other "priority classes".
The policy failures began with the provincial government's denial that a famine existed. Humanitarian aid was ineffective through the worst months of the food crisis, and the government never formally declared a state of famine.

Nothing was done because no one wanted to stop the famine. In this world their is always enough food to stop the famine.
Even if the British government under Churchill could have thought about the conditions in india he could have easily stop the non urgent food exports from india but no one ever did that. No was even willing to acknowledge it.
Churchill said one thing very rightly history is written by the winners.
No one acknowledged the loss of india.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Here's more info on the surrounding facts of the Bengal Famine:

Throughout 1942 and early 1943, military and political events combined with natural disasters and plant disease to place widespread stress on Bengal's economy.[71] While Bengal's food needs rose from increased military presence and an influx of refugees from Burma,[72] its ability to obtain rice and other grains was restricted by inter-provincial trade barriers.[73]

In other words, the factors I already mentioned were exacerbated during the War by:

1) Influx of soldiers fighting tge Japs;
2) Influx of Burma refugees that further added to the overpopulation of Bengal region;and,
3) Inter-provincial trade barriers (protectionism).

It really pains some to accept the fact that there was no policy to deliberately starve Bengal but that it was a mix of factors that were years in the making, environmental and harsh realities of WW2. But these are the facts.

That fact is you ignore everything which ask for accountability from British india government UK government Churchill the people who didn't stopped the export the people who didn't even focused on a famine. Everyone knows with appropriate efforts this famine could have been stopped but cabinet never allowed it.
You can live with your personal bias. No one cares dude.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

After analysing over 150 years of data for the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers identified seven major droughts and six major famines in India.
"Out of six major famines (1873-74, 1876, 1877, 1896-97, 1899, and 1943) that occurred during 1870-2016, five are linked to soil moisture drought, and one (1943) was not," researchers wrote in the study.
"At the time, there was not much irrigation, groundwater pumping was not happening because electricity or mechanical pumps were not available," Mishra said.
The last major famine in the British era occurred in 1943, which is also known as the Bengal famine. The famine resulted in two-three million deaths.
"We identified 1935-45 as a period under drought, but the famine-affected region, which was Bengal, had no drought during this period," said Mishra.
"We find that the Bengal famine was likely caused by other factors related at least in part to the ongoing threat of World War II -- including malaria, starvation and malnutrition," he added.
Previous research has shown that in early 1943, military and other political events adversely affected Bengal economy.

The famine was over in 1874, with 17 per cent surplus monsoon rainfall and good food production. But Temple was heavily criticised by the British for over expenditure," said Mishra.
In the 1876-77 famine, which affected south India in 1876 and north India in 1877, over 30 million people were impacted. The study suggests that at least six-10 million people died, because measures to provide relief and employment were not taken at the time.
According to the study, the expansion of irrigation, better public distribution system, rural employment, and transportation reduced the impact of drought on the lives of people after Independence.
Mishra expressed the hope that a comprehensive analysis of the history of droughts and famines in the country can help prepare for such disasters in the future.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

really pains some to accept the fact that there was no policy to deliberately starve Bengal but that it was a mix of factors that were years in the making, environmental and harsh realities of WW2. But these are the facts.

Because it was not doing of hitler or any other nibba which Asian observe hate is the doing of most probably one of his most admired man that's why it's hard for you to swallow .

I really don’t like BIAS people they don't accept the reality the facts. The fact was no one paid attention to famine cabinet deliberately allowed it to happen.

 

[Knowitall]

There was no official British policy to intentionally starve Indian people for purpises of exterminating them. In fact, if there was a policy to kill Indians then why do it only in Bengal region after all the whole of the Indian subcontinent was under British rule?

There were either no order or list of Bengalis to kill during that time. No Bengalis were intentionally and in masse removed from their homes and deprived of possessions by the British like what the NAZIs did to the Jews in Europe. Go dig in the archives.

Such bias britain looted the whole of India the kingdoms in India used to have huge Treasuries which would be used for the growth and development of the people in that region.

What did the british do they not only looted us in whole but continued to take tax and spent it on their wars and left us to rot.

You must be brain dead to understand that british never wanted to eliminate us they wanted to use us as slaves you think they were kind and benevolent people who let us live out of kindness.


They wantes to use our manpower they wanted to use us. Look what happened to us when we asked for freedom (jallianwala bagh you might have heard so many instances where we were tortured and killed when we rose against them.

Don't act like the british have any moral high ground.

Your whole point of they didn't kill you all like Nazis oh see is bullshit since they did what was much more beneficial to them.

If eliminating us would have favored them you can bet they would have done that.

 

[LurkerBaba]

2) Influx of Burma refugees that further added to the overpopulation of Bengal region;and,
3) Inter-provincial trade barriers (protectionism).

It really pains some to accept the fact that there was no policy to deliberately starve Bengal but that it was a mix of factors that were years in the making, environmental and harsh realities of WW2. But these are the facts.

Independent India has never faced a famine (except isolated droughts). The refugee argument is laughable. The 1971 war triggered a much bigger refugee crisis in India, but that didn't result in a famine.

And yup, Churchill was complicit. Statements like "the starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks" shows his perspective. It's no surprise that the 3rd Reich took inspiration from the British Empire

 

[asianobserve]

According to experts, following the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942, rice imports stopped, and Bengal's market supplies and transport systems were disrupted. The British government also prioritised distribution of vital supplies to the military, civil servants and other "priority classes".
The policy failures began with the provincial government's denial that a famine existed. Humanitarian aid was ineffective through the worst months of the food crisis, and the government never formally declared a state of famine.

Nothing was done because no one wanted to stop the famine. In this world their is always enough food to stop the famine.
Even if the British government under Churchill could have thought about the conditions in india he could have easily stop the non urgent food exports from india but no one ever did that. No was even willing to acknowledge it.
Churchill said one thing very rightly history is written by the winners.
No one acknowledged the loss of india.

A lot of Indians benefited from the prioritization of wartime supplies. The British military in India included a lot of Indian soldiers. The civil servants in India were mostly Indians. I mean, the argument that Churchill delibetately starved Bengal during the War is really absurd. The fact is simply that the rest of India did not suffer from such kind of starvation. These facts neutralize any claim that the Bengal Famine was a deliberate policy to kill Bengalis (which at the time of the famine included a lot of Burmish refugees) in the same fashion as the holocaust, Stalinist purges, Mao's purges, or Pol Pot's maniacal political, economic and social experiment.

 

[asianobserve]

Because it was not doing of hitler or any other nibba which Asian observe hate is the doing of most probably one of his most admired man that's why it's hard for you to swallow .

I really don’t like BIAS people they don't accept the reality the facts. The fact was no one paid attention to famine cabinet deliberately allowed it to happen.

Look who's talking about being biased. You're already confronted with facts that cannot be denied and yet you cling to the absurd claim that Churchill ordered the starvation of 3 Million Bengalis.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

A lot of Indians benefited from the prioritization of wartime supplies. The British military in India included a lot of Indian soldiers. The civil servants in India were mostly Indians. I mean, the argument that Churchill delibetately starved Bengal during the War is really absurd. The fact is simply that the rest of India did not suffer from such kind of starvation. These facts neutralize any claim that the Bengal Famine was a deliberate policy to kill Bengalis (which at the time of the famine included a lot of Burmish refugees) in the same fashion as the holocaust, Stalinist purges, Mao's purges, or Pol Pot's maniacal political, economic and social experiment.

Lol this is literally showing your helplessness.
To protect your hero that's why i said that everyone have different mass murderers.
Food was provided to those who were capable enough to run the British india government. Soldiers are important part of that.

Prioritization? They never acknowledged a famine shows how much they prioritized the things.

Yeah yeah food exports of 1 million tons of wheat which could have saved millions of life was a very nice move

 

[Assassin 2.0]

Look who's talking about being biased. You're already confronted with facts that cannot be denied and yet you cling to the absurd claim that Churchill ordered the starvation of 3 Million Bengalis.

You are the one who is running from the fact that imports for local population never came. Government didn't even acknowledged that famine even happened.
Import of food was practically done for only elite people and soldiers which were serving the empire no one thought about poor kids which were dyin. Exports of food from india was at full speed data showed that 1 million ton of wheat which was not even required was exported and you are saying that no one deliberately killed indians in famine are you blind?
Bias also have a limit grow up.