A recent book on the Bengal famine of 1943, in which recent studies say 5-6 million people starved, finds documentary evidence that it was the result, not of “ineptness,” but of the calculated policy of Winston Churchill.

Churchill is the hero of empire-lovers in America, who promote it as “good for the natives.” Natives, left to themselves, would have nothing.

That is the imperial position, even though it doesn’t explain why, before the arrival of the British empire, India was one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Remember also that large numbers of Indian soldiers had been deployed to fight on behalf of the British empire (as they always had) at the very time Indians were being starved in a humanitarian catastrophe that has been white-washed by British academic historians.

Churchill, it should be noted, often expressed his hatred for Indians and Hindus and his preference for Islam.

(Lila: Not that I object to WC expressing his preferences, but it’s a bit odd to claim then that the imperialists were in India for the good of India).

Mind you, the findings of Ms. Mukherjee, a nuclear physicist and Guggenheim fellow, contradict the well-known thesis of economist Amartya Sen that the Bengali famine was avoidable.

Note also that Sen, married to historian Emma Rothschild, is supported in this thesis by Jeffrey Sachs, ideological architect of the looting of Russia through “privatization” in the 1990s, who is feted in this Time article.

Note further that Sachs is also one of the folks, along with Joseph Stiglitz, advising OccupyWallStreet…

[Correction: For some reason, the names Summers and Greenspan got pasted next to Stiglitz’s name. I’ve deleted them].

Note the number of agendas to which the Bengal famine can be put: It can be white-washed to show that the British were “good” for India; it can be blamed on Churchill, thus absolving imperial policy (Mukherjee, although that doesn’t seem to be her intention); it can be blamed on lack of democracy the empire, thus attacking the government in Bengal, while saving Churchill (Sen); it can be used to show British hatred for Hinduism, thus undermining the Islamicist-Marxist nexus….

Oh dear. I sense a mine-field…

Telegraph:

“According to a new book on the famine, Sir Winston ignored pleas for emergency food aid for millions in Bengal left to starve as their rice paddies were turned over to jute for sandbag production and supplies of rice from Burma stopped after Japanese occupation.

Between one and three million died of hunger in 1943.

The wartime leader said Britain could not spare the ships to transport emergency supplies as the streets of Calcutta filled with emaciated villagers from the surrounding countryside, but author Madhusree Mukerjee has unearthed new documents which challenge his claim.

In her book, Churchill’s Secret War, she cites ministry records and personal papers which reveal ships carrying cereals from Australia were bypassed India on their way to the Mediterranean where supplies were already abundant.

“It wasn’t a question of Churchill being inept: sending relief to Bengal was raised repeatedly and he and his close associates thwarted every effort,” the author said.

“The United States and Australia offered to send help but couldn’t because the war cabinet was not willing to release ships. And when the US offered to send grain on its own ships, that offer was not followed up by the British,” she added.

The man-made famine and the contrast between the plight of starving Indians and well-fed British officers dining in the city’s many colonial clubs has been described as one of the darkest chapters in British rule on the Indian subcontinent.

Miss Mukerjee blames Churchill’s ‘racism’ for his refusal to intervene.
He derided Gandhi as a “half-naked holy man” and once said: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
He was known to favour Islam over Hinduism.
“Winston’s racist hatred was due to his loving the empire in the way a jealous husband loves his trophy wife: he would rather destroy it than let it go,” said Miss Mukerjee.”

Lila: I’ll come back to this topic again….which interests me not only in itself, but in the way it’s being deployed in current debates.