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Severe food shortages developed in Bengal after the fall of Burma (1942). Historians debate the cause of the famine. Several factors have been identified. Burma was a major exporter of rice before the War. After the Japamese occupied Burma, this supply of rice was no longer available to India. Estimates suggest that about 15 percent of the Indian food supply was supplied by Burma. As Burma bordered on Bengal, that proportion was even higher in Bengal. The war boom in Calcutta drove up food prices (1942). The poor increasingly found it difficult to buy even their minimal requirements. Then the harvests failed, various historians disagree on the extent of the failure. British military authorities, braceing for a Japanese invasion, seized control of food supplies. And there were exports from India to supply British forces in the Middle East. The relative importance of these various factors is argued by historians. What is more clear is that the response of authorities was inadequate. Local officials appealed to colonial administrators in London for aid. Some food was sent, but the British Government was primarily focused on first the war in Europe and than the Japanese threat from Burma. Some sources claim that some 3 million Indians died in the Bengal famine (1943-44). [Bayly and Haeper] Estimates of the victims vary, but even lower estimates are as high as 1.5 million. The British as part of their justification for colonisl rule claimed that they had eliminated the plague of famine in India. The failure of the Raj to respond effectively futher strengthened the call for independence. The Bengal Famine was the largest single disaster within the British Empire during World War II. Since independence there have been no famines of such dimensions. Some argue that this is due to India's democratic government. This may well have been important. The Green Revolution resulting from American research which substantially increased crop yields has been another factor.
Bengal was a heavily populated province of northeasern India during the British Raj. The province was a vast alluvial plain with some hills in the southeast. The province was dominated by deltas of large rivers flowing from the Himalayas mountains to the north, The Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna to eventually flow out into the Bay of Bengal. The land as a result is very low lying and large areas are flooded by the annual monsoon (June to October). The largest city was Calcutta. After independence, Bengal was partitioned (1947). The Hindu west went to India. The Nuslim east became East Pakistan which after an uprishing became Bangladesh (1971). .
The Japanese forced a sympsathetic Thai military regime to join the Axis. This allowed them to launch an attack from Indichina into Burma. The British in Burma were unprepared and poorly equipped. They and Chinese troops were unable to stop the Japanese. The small American Flying Tiger force offered some suppport, but were unable to blunt the much larger Japanese air forces. The British along with the Chiese and Americans to execute a very difficult retreat to keep from being captured by the Japanese. India thus went from colonial combatant in distant war to a potential battlefield when Japanese armies reached the borders of eastern India (modern Bangladesh).
Severe food shortages developed in Bengal after the fall of Burma (1942). Historians debate the cause of the famine. Several factors have been identified. Burma was a major exporter of rice before the War. After the Japamese occupied Burma, this supply of rice was no longer available to India. Estimates suggest that about 15 percent of the Indian food supply was supplied by Burma. As Burma bordered on Bengal, that proportion was even higher in Bengal. There were other factors. There was damage to the local rice crop due to tidal waves and a fungal disease epidemic. One Indian agricultural expert also blames “panic purchase and hoarding by the rich, failure of governance, particularly in relation to the equitable distribution of the available food grains, disruption of communication due to World War II and the indifference of the then UK government to the plight of the starving people of undivided Bengal.” [Swaminathan] The war boom in Calcutta drove up food prices (1942). The poor increasingly found it difficult to buy even their minimal requirements. Then the harvests failed, various historians disagree on the extent of the failure. British military authorities, braceing for a Japanese invasion, seized control of food supplies. And there were exports from India to supply British forces in the Middle East.
The relative importance of these various factors is argued by historians. What is more clear is that the response of authorities was inadequate. Local officials appealed to colonial administrators in London for aid. Some food was sent, but the British Government was primarily focused on first the war in Europe and than the Japanese threat from Burma.
Indian sources are especually critical of the role Primeminister Churchill. One daming inditementment of Churchill's role explicitly blames Churchill for worsening the starvation in Bengal by ordering the diversion of food away from Indians and toward British troops around the world. She points out that wheat from Australia could have been delivered to starving Indians, but was shipped to British troops in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. She charges tht this British colonial authorities turned down offers of food from Canada and the United States. This author writes “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. It certainly was possible to send relief but for Churchill and the War Cabinet that were hoarding grain for use after the war.” [Mukherjee] Much of the information presented by this author are accurate, but there is also evidence of historical bias that lead one to question her objectivity and thus her conclusions. She makes much if shipping fod to British soldier. Britain was at War and criticising Churchill for giving oriority to feing British (and Indian) soldiers is absurd. Now criticising Churchill fir rejecting offers from america and Canada are muchmore valid. Another example of bias is riticising Britain for using Indian resources. This is also absurd as Britain was also using its own resources to defend Indoia from the Japanese who were killing Asians in unprecdented numbers. It is statements like this that lead one to question the historical value of her work.
Some sources claim that some 3 million Indians died in the Bengal famine (1943-44). [Bayly and Haeper] Estimates of the victims vary, but even lower estimates are as high as 1.5 million.
The British attempted to convince Congress to support the war effort. Gandhi and Nehru demanded independence in exchange for Indian participation. Churchill refused. India thus disolved into political upheaval, including rioting and strikes. Mahatma Gandhi delivered a ground breaking sppech (August 8, 1942). It would launch the Quit India Movement. Ghndi called for determined, but still passive resistance to the British. Ghandi spoke saw this as a ground-breaking step and was not sure about the British rection. He called for a Do or Die effort. He did not proposee attacking the British or joining the Axis. He did propose not cooperating with British rule. He spoke at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai, now known as August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). At the time the Japanese after seizing Singapore and Malaysia had driven the British out of Burma and were at the gates of India. The event is now a major national celebrtion in India. Mostly it is seen as the beginning of Indian independence. Virtully never considered in India is what would have happened to India under Japanese rule. The British reacted decisely by banning Congress. Virtually the entire Congress leadership, including provincil leaders, were arrested and interned within 24 hours of Gandhi's speech. Most were to spend the rest of the war in internment camps. Martin Luther King, Jr., would draw from Gandhi's speech in his "I Have A Dream" speech that promoted nonviolence and racial justoice in America. NAZI propaganda tried to portray Gandhi as an Axis supporter. Gandhi made no effort to reach Germany or Japan or any effort to support Britain's enemies. Nor did he lend any creditability to Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army (INA).
The British as part of their justification for colonisl rule claimed that they had eliminated the plague of famine in India. The failure of the Raj to respond effectively futher strengthened the call for independence. The Bengal Famine was the largest single disaster within the British Empire during World War II. Since independence there have been no famines of such dimensions. Some argue that this is due to India's democratic government. This may well have been important. The Green Revolution resulting from American research which substantially increased crop yields has been another factor.
One of the most important, but least recognized events of the Cold War was the Green Revolution. While the Communisrs (Soviets, Chinese Communits, Ethioppia, Kymer Rouge, and North Koreans) like the Facists before them caused famines, America generated an explosion of farm productivity. Even before World War II, populations in many developing countries began to grow at extremrly fast rates. These high rates were in part the results of historical trends. A major factor was also improvements in health care made possible by health care programs financed by Europe and America. While populations were increasing, farming technology in much of the Third World had remained unchanged for centuries. Economists by the 1950s began to talk about a world-wide Malthusian famine because population growth would outrun the food supply. Agromists had been increasing crop yield by using mpre and more nitrogen fertilizer. This was possible because a German Jewish scientist, Fritz Huber, before World War I had figured out a chemical process for fixing nitrogen. This made possible increased food production by increasing the avialabilitt and cost of fertilizer. Farmers by the 1950s, however, had reached limits on the use of nitrogen. They found that seed heads were growing so heavy that stalks would collapse. An American agricultural scientist, Norman Borlaug, began working for the Rockefeller Foundation and began working on a project to help Mexico conquer hunger. Borlaug found a strain of wheat with a stubby stalk that could support a heavy seed head. He then transferred the gene to tropical weat and produced a strain that could support large sead heads. Bourlaug's work resulted in a wheat strain that could produce yields four times per acre than what was previously possible. This was just the first step in what is now known as the Green Revolution that eliminated famine in much of the Third World. The number of lives he saved are virtually impossible to calculate, but musr be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. About half the world now eats grains descended from Borlaug's work. Bourlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1970), surely one of the indivuals most deserving of the award.
Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (Belknap/Harvard, 2005).
Mukherjee, Madhusree. Churchill's Secret War.
Swaminathan, M.S.
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