The photographer was William Vandivert.

9:21 am  •  25 February 2011

A friend Sent this news from http://www.ipsnews.net Churchill Denied Relief to Bengal Famine Victims, Book Says Sananda Sahoo WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (IPS) - A new book on the Indian famine of 1943, also known as the Bengal famine named after the specific region where it occurred, has squarely put the responsibility for the famine on then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The famine killed roughly three million people and devastated the countryside of then undivided Bengal as World War II raged on the eastern flanks of the Indian subcontinent. Early in 1942, Japan took over Burma, a major rice exporter, and the British government reacted by buying up rice supplies and thereby denying it to the people in Bengal, another major rice-producing region. The British government in London, the book says, turned away from sending relief to the famine victims even when it was evident that people were dying of hunger. According to archival materials, the Bengal government controlled by the British was also hoarding rice for its employees in Calcutta, the seat of the government in eastern India, and was buying up grains for Allied soldiers fighting the war in Middle East and Africa, says author Madhusree Mukerjee in her new book “Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II”. Hoarding, rice denial to the people, and inflationary financing of war efforts by printing money to pay for the goods the government was buying, coupled with the panic in government ranks when they realised there wasn’t enough grain, all perpetuated the famine. It raged on for nearly a year before coming to an end thanks to Bengal’s own rice harvest. Mukerjee’s research also shows Churchill’s contempt for the lives of ordinary Indians that helped him ignore pleas for help. “If it was someone else other than Churchill, I believe relief would have been sent, and if it wasn’t for the war the famine wouldn’t have occurred at all,” Mukerjee told IPS from Frankfurt. “Churchill’s attitude toward India was quite extreme and he hated Indians mainly because he knew India couldn’t be held for very long. One can’t escape the really powerful, racist things that he was saying.” While a vast body of literature exists on the famine, Mukerjee’s book explores whether it was possible to send relief to the victims. “It certainly was possible to send relief but for Churchill and the War Cabinet that were hoarding grain for use after the war,” Mukerjee said. The British government had drawn up the Indian Famine Codes during the 1880s to help avoid famine and food scarcity following natural disasters. In October 1942, when there were signs of food scarcity following a cyclone, these codes were not invoked. As economists Jean Dr

5:17 am  •  24 February 2011

1:19 am  •  24 February 2011