Letters | Churchill and the 1943 Bengal famine: if not guilty, not innocent either
- Accusations of genocide against Churchill and the British wartime cabinet can be disputed, but their callous indifference leading to millions of deaths is difficult to dismiss
There were indeed multiple factors that contributed to the Bengal famine – the Japanese occupation of Myanmar (then Burma) which affected rice imports, a cyclone that ravaged local crops and an inflationary crisis – but to completely absolve Churchill of responsibility is to stretch the facts. As for blaming the Bengal famine on the war alone, that is just passing the buck.
The British government imposed a scorched-earth policy in Bengal then, also called the “denial policy”. Boats belonging to local fishermen and local rice stocks were confiscated as a pre-emptive measure against a Japanese invasion that never happened. Rice stocks continued to leave India even though shortages were acute. Churchill and the war cabinet ordered the stockpiling of grain for British, and tonnes of wheat bypassed India. The British administration refused to export food to India, citing a shortage of ships.
Many argue that Churchill’s policies were made in the midst of a full-blown war, but diverting food from a land in the throes of famine to fill the granaries of troops is debatable in any context.