By British and American authors, we are told that the war was necessary to eliminate the evil of Nazism and
Hitler
from the earth. Nazism and Hitler are painted as devils because they killed six million Jews (a figure put out by British and Jewish historians and disputed by many).
The last chapter in the history of Second World War was written in early October 1945 at the famous Nuremberg trial, when the four prosecuting nations -- the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia -- issued an indictment against 24 men and six organizations. The individual defendants were charged with the systematic murder of millions of people.
Sixty years after the end of the war, time has come to reopen the case and institute a fresh Nuremberg trial, this time against one of the prosecuting nations -- Great Britain -- for systematic and intentional murder of millions of people. This genocide was not confined to the Second World War. In fact, only its last episode was played out during the war. The ghastly genocide, which used hunger and starvation as tools, lasted for about eighteen decades and was carried out in Bengal, India (at present Bengal is partly in India and partly in Bangladesh) by the British colonial masters claiming about thirty million victims.
It started in 1770 with a big bang, when approximately
one third of the total population of Bengal died because
of a drought. About 10 million people died! East India
Company, which had occupied the country five years
earlier, did not even once attempt to introduce any
measures of aid worth mentioning. British officers in
India were happily reporting to their bosses in London
about having maximized their profit through trading and
export of food. (Incidentally, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee,
the prophet of Indian nationalism, wrote his celebrated
novel "Anandamath" with the battle cry 'Bandemataram' in
the context of the agony evoked by the ravages of the
famine of 1770.)
It must be mentioned here that Bengal is a land of rivers
and most fertile land of Ganges delta. Bengal was a
granary of India till British came in. Every village had,
and still has, a pond, which has fishes that can feed the
village even when there is no rice. It needed British
intervention to convert the lush green land of Bengal
into famine-starved land.
Bengal had 30 or 40 famines (depending on how one defines
famine) during 182 years of British rule in Bengal. There
are no reliable accounts of the number of people who died
in these famines. We have only the figures put out by
British colonialists. But even given the limited data
availability, once can see the barbaric face of British
colonialism in India.
The last big famine in Bengal occurred between 1942 and
1945. At least four million people died during these
three years. Some scholars believe that the number of
dead was much higher (remember that the figure of four
million is based on British sources). Notwithstanding the
controversy about the number of dead, it is widely
accepted that the famine was man-made. Nobel laureate,
Amartya Sen, has demonstrated quite convincingly that the famine deaths were caused by British policies and not by drastic slump in food production.
The following facts deserve attention: In May 1942, Burma fell to Japanese. British were afraid that Japanese aided by Indian National Army (led by
Subhash Chandra Bose) would invade India from the east.
Bose's slogan - Dilli Chalo (Let us go to Delhi) - had struck fear in the hearts of British. The British
followed a policy of 'scorched earth'. On one hand, this
was to ensure denial of food to invading armies, in case
the Japanese decided to march across Bengal. On the other hand, the British wanted to break the will and ability of
people of Bengal to rise in rebellion in support of the
invaders. It could not be a coincidence that British
executed a military police action in October 1942, during
which 193 camps and buildings of the Congress Party were
destroyed and countless people arrested. Between August 1942 and February 1943, 43 persons were shot by the British occupation police. Additionally, British troops
were involved in an unknown number of rapes and lootings
of food supplies, among other things.
Bengal was overcrowded with refugees as well as with retreating soldiers from various British colonies which were temporarily occupied by the Japanese. In March 1942 alone, around 2,000 to 3,000 British soldiers and civilians arrived every day in Calcutta and Chittagong, and in the month of May, a total of 300,000 were counted. As a result of the massive food purchases by the
government, food prices in the countryside skyrocketed.
Expecting a Japanese landing in the Gulf of Bengal, the
British authorities enacted the so-called "Boat-Denial
Scheme" leading to confiscation of all boats and ships in the Gulf of Bengal which could carry more than 10 persons. This resulted in not less than 66,500
confiscated boats. Consequently, the inland navigation
system collapsed completely. Fishing became practically
impossible, and many rice and jute farmers could not ship
their goods anymore. Subsequently the economy collapsed
completely, especially in the lower Ganges-Delta.
The confiscations of land in connection with military
fortifications and constructions (airplane landing
places, military and refugee camps) led to the expulsion
of about 150,000 to 180,000 people from their land,
turning them practically into homeless persons.
Food deliveries from other parts of the country to Bengal
were refused by the government in order to make food
artificially scarce. This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the title "Rice Denial Scheme." The purpose of it was, as mentioned earlier, to deny an
efficient food supply to the Japanese after a possible
invasion. Simultaneously, the government authorized free
merchants to purchase rice at any price and to sell it to
the government for delivery into governmental food
storage. So, on one hand government was buying every
grain of rice that was around and on the other hand, it
was blocking grain from coming into Bengal from other
regions of the country.
The blank check of the government (for food purchases)
triggered price inflation. As a result, some merchants
did not deliver food to the government but hoarded it, hoping for higher profit margins when selling it later. This led to further food shortages on the market and to further price increases.
In addition to this inflationary thrust, massive military
activities in Bengal were basically financed by overtime
of money printing presses. Oversupply of paper money by
Government led to a general inflation, which hit the
impoverished population in the countryside especially
hard.
Even though British law in India provided that emergency
laws were to be applied in case of famines, the famine in
Bengal was never officially recognized as such; an
emergency was not declared, and therefore no drastic
counter measures were taken for its amelioration. It was
not until October of 1943 that the British government
took notice of the emergency situation, but it still
refused to introduce any supportive measures that would
have been necessary.
Even though India imported about 1.8 million tons of
cereals before the war, Britain made sure that India had
an export surplus of rice at record levels in the tax
year 1942/43.
The bad situation in Bengal was discussed in the British
Parliament during a meeting at which only 10% of all
members participated. Repeated requests for food imports
to India (400 Million people) led to the delivery of
approximately half a million tons of cereal in the years
1943 and 1944. In contrast to this was the net import to
Great Britain (50 Million people) of 10 million tons in
the second half of the year 1943 alone.
Churchill
repeatedly denied all food exports to India, in spite of the fact that about 2.4 million Indians served in British
units during the Second World War.
Given a choice, I would rather die in a gas chamber than
die of starvation begging on the streets. Viewed from this perspective, Hitler appears humane and even angelic, while Churchill puts even the devil to shame. The thirty million men, women and children who died slow, painful deaths in the villages of Bengal were not enemies of the British Empire. They had done nothing to deserve the
cruel fate. Howsoever much one might disagree with Hitler, at least in his own warped logic, he had a reason to hate Jews. British Government and Churchill did not even have such a fig leaf of distorted logic to justify
their cruel barbaric act.
Amartya Sen has used the Bengal famine to justify
democracy and run down dictatorships. The fact is that
Churchill was democratically elected by British people. After independence, from 1947 till date, East Bengal
(presently known as Bangladesh) has been ruled by dictators for many years. Yet, during the past five and a
half decades, the number of starvation deaths in East
Bengal (or West Bengal) is not even one per cent of the number of people that died of starvation during the half-
century before independence. The issue, obviously, is not
dictatorship versus democracy.
We are also told that the rulers of Bengal, before the
British arrived, were self-centered despots, who did not care about their people's well being and were spoilt by luxury. British take pride in the fact that they brought
'good governance' and 'rule of law' to India, starting
from Bengal and spreading to the rest of the country. In
spite of all the alleged misrule that the Indian rulers of pre-British era indulged in, there is absolutely no historical account of any major famine in Bengal prior to the arrival of British in Bengal.
Academicians have a tendency to miss the holistic reality when they go hammer and tongs over fine details. Most academic debates about Bengal Famine have missed the most
essential aspect - criminal act of the British Government. There is a tendency to study the Bengal famine in terms of parameters, which were internal to Bengal, like food supply, disease history of rice, inflation economics, democracy as a system of governance,
weather analysis and many such wonderful terms. All such
studies treat the famine as if it was a product of some
systemic internal parameters peculiar to Bengal; and all that is needed is to study the parameters with a view to ensure that the same do not recur. This is a wrong
premise.
Bengal was a victim of a criminal act perpetrated for more than one and three quarters of a century. British
establishment indulged in brutal genocide in Bengal, at times to further their own interests and at other times out of sheer negligence of their duties. In either case, the British Government stands guilty of the worst crime in recent human history.
The Holocaust in Germany was a minor event compared to
what the British did to a people, who trusted them and
were loyal to them. Nazis have been accused and convicted
of the Holocaust in Germany. Even today, there are attempts to hunt down ex-Nazis and bring them to justice. A few weeks ago, a court awarded compensation to a Holocaust victim.
Is it not time that the descendants of the victims of The Great Holocaust of Bengal sought compensation from the
present Government of the United Kingdom? Is it possible to initiate a criminal case against Winston Churchill and
all those who were in power during 1942-45 (or during
1765-1947) in British Government? Is that too much to ask for? Do you believe that the alleged murder of six million white-skinned Jews was a crime worthy of punishment, while the killing of thirty million black-skinned people of Bengal does not even deserve a footnote
in history?
The least that people of India and Bangladesh can do is to construct a memorial in the memory of millions who died at the hand of a cruel barbaric monster. Let us at least shed a tear for them! Let us at least rewrite the history!
Anil Chawla
4 April 2005
Acknowledgement: The author is indebted to many scholars
who have studied Bengal Famine. For the sake of brevity
and readability, detailed references are not provided.
However, special thanks are due to "The Unknown Famine
Holocaust - About the Causes of Mass Starvation in
Britain's Colony of India 1942-1945" by Wolfgang
Pfitzner, The Revisionist 1(1) (2003), pp. 71-75;
http://www.vho.org/tr/2003/1/Pfitzner71-75.html
Sketches given above are by Zainul Abedin (1914-1976).
Please write to me your comments about the above article.
[email protected]
[email protected]
ANIL CHAWLA is an engineer and a lawyer by qualification
but a philosopher by vocation and a management consultant
by profession.
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