BRITAIN’S WORST FAILURE – The Bengal Famine of 1943

Warning: Some of the pictures displayed below may be graphic and disturbing.

In handing over the government of India to these so-called political classes, we are handing over to men of straw, of whom, in a few years, no trace will remain.

Winston Churchill, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945)

The English East India company ruled over India between 1757 and 1858. Post that, came the direct rule of the crown over the Indian subcontinent, which lasted from 1858 till 1947. Between this time period, the British were accused of many atrocities that they committed against the Indians – racial discrimination, lathi charges, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, and the killings of several innocent Indians. One such incident that we tend to forget the most is the Bengal Famine of 1943. In the period between 1873 and 1943, six major famines rocked the Indian subcontinent, but none as severe or nearly as bad as the Bengal Famine of 1943. But what went so wrong?

A photograph in the Statesman that made headlines across the world

The Second World War began in September, 1939 and British-occupied India played a very important role in the war. When the war was at its peak, more than 2.5 million Indian troops were fighting the Axis forces. Additionally, the British government borrowed billions of pounds to help finance the war. What made the Bengal Famine different from the famines that had struck British India so far, was the fact that this one was caused due to Churchill-era British policies, and not due to a serious drought. This article will explore the various ways in which the British policies and the ongoing second world war impacted India and resulted in the worst famine that struck the Bengal province of British India (now Bangladesh and eastern India).

Map depicting the exodus of Indians from Burma into Manipur, Bengal, and Assam, between January and July 1942

The early 20^th century was a witness to the First World War and the resulting Great Depression. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, and originated from the United States. What we don’t realise is the fact that this depression also severely affected British-occupied India, especially the Bengal province. It resulted in an increasing household debt, a rapidly growing population and stagnant agricultural productivity. The province of Bengal like majority of the Indian subcontinent was, and still is, a primarily agrarian economy, and therefore was not able to deal with the sudden shocks that they were now forced to face.

Indian civilians fleeing from Burma into India, along the Prome Road (current day Myanmar) – circa January 1942

The years preceding 1943, were tense years for the Bengal province. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, conducted a series of air raids on the Burmese capital Rangoon between 1941-42. These bombings set off an exodus of more than half of the one million Indians from Burma for India. An approximate of 5,00,000 refugees landed in Bengal and Assam and brought along with them diseases such as dysentery, smallpox, malaria, and cholera. Additionally, this excess population created an excess demand for food, clothing and medical aid. Looking at the conditions of the refugees, the citizens of the Bengal Province began panic buying and hoarding. This too may have been one of the reasons for the onset of the famine. The fall of Rangoon to the Japanese in 1942 cut off the import of Burmese rice into India and Ceylon. This added more pressure on the already distraught population who were struggling to make ends meet. Despite all of this, the British government continued to export rice from Bengal to Ceylon. A lot of the food was also supplied to the British Army who were fighting against the Axis forces in Europe during the Second World War.

A starving mother with her young child along the streets of Bengal, circa 1943

Britain’s “denial policy” is probably what damaged the economy of Bengal, the most. The British government was anticipating a Japanese attack on British India and therefore they launched a preemptive initiative along coastal Bengal. Their main aim was to deny the expected invaders any access to transport, food supplies and any other resources. However, in doing so, they also cut off supplies to the citizens of Bengal itself. The first of these policies that they carried out was the “rice denial” policy. Three districts in Bengal were expected to have a surplus of rice crops. The governor of Bengal John Herbert, issued an urgent directive ordering the surplus stocks of rice and other food items to be removed or destroyed in these cities. Although official figures for the amounts of rice that were confiscated were very small, if they were true, then they would have only resulted in a small scarcity that too only in the surrounding regions.

Some of the orphans who survived the famine

The second policy under this was the “boat denial” policy. The aim of this policy was to deny the Japanese, access to Bengali transport. However, its impact was far-reaching. The British army was ordered to confiscate, relocate and destroy any boats that could carry more than ten people. It allowed them to access any other means of transport such as bicycles, bullock carts, and elephants. The Army ended up confiscating an average of 45,000 rural boats all of which severely disrupted the movement of food, labour and other resources via water. Not only the farmers, but even the local artisans were badly hit because they could not transport their finished goods to the market. What is worse is the fact that none of these workers were offered any kind of compensation for their boats that were seized or damaged.

A starving and homeless family on the sidewalk of Calcutta, circa 1943

When in the later months of 1942 and the early months of 1943, the famine started spreading at a rapid rate, the British government finally began requesting food imports for India through government and military channels. For months together these requests were either completely ignored and rejected or were reduced to a fraction of what the government had originally demanded. Even when they made requests for excess imports, the British-Indian government’s main aim was to feed the industry workers, constantly stressing upon the fact that if Calcutta’s workers were not fed, they would return to the countryside. The government in UK still refused to meet these demands and instead promised a small amount of wheat specifically intended for western India, in exchange for an increase of rice imports from Bengal to Ceylon.

Archibald Wavell, Viceroy of India 1943-1947

In the first half of 1943, Bengal witnessed the worst famine in its history, as the British government idly stood by watching people die, on a daily basis. As things worsened, Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet agreed to send a relatively small amount of food grains and explicitly referred to these as a “token shipment”. Additionally, they also refused food shipment offers from several nations. Finally, when shipments began increasing a little in the later months of 1943, the transport and storage facilities in Bengal were understaffed and inadequate, thus posing yet another problem. When Archibald Wavell replaced Linlithgow as the Viceroy of India, he too began requesting for an excess supply of food grains to Bengal. But once again, his requests were denied. All of this caused Wavell to label the current crisis as –

“One of the greatest disasters that has befallen any people under British rule, and [the] damage to our reputation both among Indians and foreigners in India is incalculable”.

Viceroy of India, Archibald Wavell

Homeless, starving children in the streets of Bengal during the famine

What is interesting is the fact that the Province of Bengal had not seen any famine or drought in its region since 1935. In fact, in late 1943, when the famine was at its peak, rainfall levels were above average. A study conducted recently, was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Its aim was to study the “history of droughts and famines in India and the factors responsible for them”. The researchers analysed a soil moisture database covering the years from 1870 to 2016. During the course of their research, they made a startling discovery –

The Bengal Famine of 1943, is the only famine that does not appear to be linked directly to soil moisture, drought and crop failures.

(Vimal Mishra, the lead researcher and an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology)

In the early months of the famine, the main cause of death was starvation due to an excessive hike in the prices of food. Majority of the people who died due to starvation were the poorer people of the province who could not afford to buy such expensive food. The Famine Inquiry Commission report stated that many of the victims of the famine, both on the streets and in the hospitals were in such a terrible condition that they resembled “living skeletons.” As the famine progressed and entered its later stage, diseases overtook starvation as the prime cause for the high mortality rate. Among the several diseases that were prevalent in Bengal at the time, such as smallpox and cholera, malaria was the biggest killer.

A malnourished child lying on the streets of Bengal

In total, the Bengal Famine of 1943 took the lives of around 2.1–3 million Bengalis out of a population of 60.3 million. In the rural areas majority of the deaths went unreported and thus those numbers were not included in the total figure at all. So, the total number of deaths was surely more than the figure given above. When Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain was asked why he refused to divert supplies to the famine-stricken area of Bengal, he said –

“Famine or no famine, Indians will breed like rabbits.”

Winston Churchill

A picture of a starving family on the roads of the Bengal Province

The Delhi government sent a telegram to him where they painted a picture to him of the devastation caused by the famine and the millions of people who were dying. To this Churchill’s response was –

“Then why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?”

Winston Churchill

Image of a Midnapore famine victim from Chittaprosad’s “Hungry Bengal“, five thousand copies of which were burned by Indian police. The caption read “His name was Kshetramohan Naik.”

The Bengal Famine of 1943-44, which consumed the lives of millions of Bengalis, was not caused by a drought or a failed monsoon, but due to policy failure on account of Winston Churchill’s War Time Cabinet. For the longest time, Churchill despised Indians and he made his feelings about the country and its people pretty evident. At one point he explicitly told his Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery that he “hated Indians” and considered them “a beastly people with a beastly religion”.

Is this why the Churchill government silently watched millions of people in Bengal die due to malnourishment and horrible diseases, and still refused to take any action?

Sources:

Bengal famine of 1943 – Wikipedia

Churchill’s policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – The Guardian

Churchill’s policies to blame for 1943 Bengal famine – Al Jazeera

Bengal famine of 1943 caused by British policy failure, not drought – The Economic Times

The Bengal Famine: How the British engineered the worst genocide in human history for profit – Your Story