The Bengal Famine

For decades the famine was attributed to a 1942 cyclone, fungal blight on the rice crop, and the loss of Burmese rice imports after the Japanese advance. Amartya Sen's 1981 work Poverty and Famines demonstrated that aggregate rice availability in Bengal in 1943 was within 5% of normal years^[4]. People starved while food was in the warehouses.

The 2019 study by Mishra and colleagues, using soil-moisture reconstruction, confirmed that 1943 was not a drought year — eliminating climate as a primary cause^[4].

The British "denial policy" of 1942, anticipating a Japanese invasion of Bengal from Burma, confiscated rice stocks and small boats across coastal Bengal so they could not fall to the enemy. The boats were the spine of riverine Bengal's food distribution. They were destroyed.

War priorities re-routed rail transport, sucked labour into military supply, and pushed prices beyond what landless rural workers could pay. Speculation flourished. By spring 1943 the cities — particularly Calcutta — were rationed; the rural districts were not. People walked into Calcutta to die on the pavement.

Imperial grain reserves built up in Europe and the Mediterranean were not released. Australian wheat shipments offered to Bengal were diverted to Ceylon, Egypt, and the Balkan strategic reserve. Canadian offers were refused. Churchill's personal correspondence shows him obstructing relief he was repeatedly told was needed^[4].

Leo Amery, Secretary of State for India, wrote in September 1943 that "Winston may be right in saying that the starvation of anyhow under-fed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks, but he makes no sufficient allowance for the sense of Empire responsibility." Field Marshal Wavell, who became Viceroy in October 1943 and finally forced through relief shipments, wrote in his journal: "Famine policy of His Majesty's Government has been one of the worst chapters in the history of the British connection with India."

The photographs that survive — taken by Statesman editor Ian Stephens, who defied wartime censorship to publish them — show the bodies of the dead being eaten by dogs in central Calcutta. Stephens's editorial of 22 October 1943 was the moment the British public learned, in any specific way, what was being done in their name.

Bengal in 1943 sat under more than 150 years of British rule. The administrative infrastructure to prevent famine existed and had been refined since the 1880s Famine Codes. The policy choices that produced the famine were made not by absent officials but by a War Cabinet that received accurate information and acted against it.

This is the answer to "but every empire did it": every empire did not have the choice and the briefing and the relief ships and refuse. This one did.

1. 1942 Jan

   Japanese seize Rangoon. Burmese rice imports to India end.

2. 1942 Mar

   British 'denial policy' confiscates rice and boats in coastal Bengal.

3. 1942 Oct

   Cyclone hits Midnapore; damages aman rice crop, though within historical norms.

4. 1943 spring

   Rural rice prices triple; landless labourers, fishermen, and weavers become destitute.

5. 1943 Jul

   Famine breaks. Refugees pour into Calcutta.

6. 1943 Aug

   Churchill rejects Australian and Canadian relief shipments.

7. 1943 Oct

   Statesman publishes the photographs. Wavell becomes Viceroy and begins forcing relief through.

8. 1944

   Excess deaths continue from cholera and smallpox in displaced populations.

9. 1945

   Famine Inquiry Commission report — softened on Churchill's personal role.