New soil study confirms 1943 Bengal famine was caused by Winston Churchill’s policies, not drought

A group of Indian and American researches simulated soil moisture content during major Indian famines to come to the conclusion.

The 1943 Bengali famine was caused by then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s policies and not drought, a group of Indian and American researchers have found in a study published in the journal, Geophysical Research Letters.

The researchers came to this conclusion by using weather data to simulate the amount of moisture present in the soil during six major Indian famines, those of 1873-’74, 1876, 1877, 1896-’97, 1899 and 1943. Deficit of soil moisture is a key indicator of poor rainfall and high temperatures.

Wikimedia Commons

According to the study, the first five famines were a result of drought, as concluded by the soil moisture study, but not the one that happened in 1943.

“There have been no major famines since independence,” Vimal Mishra told CNN, “And so we started our research thinking the famines would have been caused by drought due to factors such as lack of irrigation.”

Mishra, an associate professor of Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, has co-authored the study, along with Amar Deep Tiwari, Saran Aadhar, Reepal Shah, Mu Xiao, DS Pai and Dennis Lettenmaier.

The 1943 Bengal famine led to the deaths of an estimated three million people, and is widely believed by several historians to have been caused or made worse by British policies of the time.

A destitute mother and child on the sidewalk in Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943-44. Courtesy Kalyani Bhattacharyee, and Sj. Manoj Sarbadhikar/Wikimedia Commons.

The study showed that though the eastern region of India experienced severe drought in the early-1940s, the amount of rainfall was above average in late-1943, a period considered to be the peak of the famine.

The British policies alleged to be the cause of the famine were the heavy distribution of food and vital necessities to the military during the second world war, halting import of rice, and the British government not declaring famine in India.

According to the study, another factor that exacerbated the mortality count of the 1943 famine was the Japanese capture of Burma (now Myanmar), which was a major source of rice imports in India. The study noted that in the past, famines, despite being deadly, could not cause much damage due to rice imports from Myanmar and the British government’s relief aid.

Speaking to CNN, Mishra said that during the 1873-’74 famine, the Bengal lieutenant governor, Richard Temple, saved many lives by importing and distributing food. But the British government criticised him and dropped his policies during the drought of 1943, leading to countless fatalities.

That the 1943 Bengal famine was a result of wilful negligence by the British government was accepted and believed strongly across India for quite a while. In 1981, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said that supplies should have been in abundance during 1943 to control the deaths brought about by the famine.

Madhushree Mukherjee’s 2011 book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, notes that the famine was caused by heavy exports of food from India. As the famine got worse, she wrote, 70,000 tons of rice were exported from India between January and July, 1943.

Despite Churchill’s War Cabinet being warned about the famine at the time, Mukerjee wrote, the British Prime Minister was reluctant to devote time and resources to fix the Indian problem, and instead, strengthen his military operations and accumulate stocks at home.

“A concession to one country at once encourages demands from all the others,” Churchill commented in a memo on March 10, 1943, as quoted in Mukerjee’s book. “They must learn to look after themselves as we have done. The grave situation of the UK import programme imperils the whole war effort and we cannot afford to send ships merely as a gesture of good will.”

In 2017, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said about Churchill, “This is a man the British would have us hail as an apostle of freedom and democracy, when he has as much blood on his hands as some of the worst genocidal dictators of the 20th century.” He chronicled the havoc wreaked by the British empire on India in his book, Inglorious Empire.

Image of Midnapore famine victim from Chittaprosad's Hungry Bengal, five thousand copies of which were burned by Indian police. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Since independence, India’s population has increased manifold, but famine deaths have been brought under control. “Expansion of irrigation, better public distribution system, rural employment, and transportation reduced the impact of drought on the lives of people after the independence,” Mishra’s study said.

The revelations of Mishra and his fellow researchers’ study vindicated several Indians as well as others, as seen on Twitter. One user questioned the validity of a study complimenting Churchill as a human rights crusader.

Hi @rights_info, "Human Rights Website", you still have this piece up on "Churchill's Fight for Human Rights". Care to have a rethink? https://t.co/u2lbXcWHOm

— Gautam Bhatia (@gautambhatia88) March 30, 2019

Need to calculate how much “3 million Indian lives” converts to in Western lives and see if it’s enough to make people reevaluate his legacy.

— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) March 30, 2019

And when told of death by starvation of 3 million Indians, Churchill famously asked why Gandhi was not amongst them. He was a ruthless callous racist https://t.co/lS5WFY9h24

— Shekhar Kapur (@shekharkapur) March 29, 2019

Indians have been forever saying Churchill was a flaming bigot. His racist policies killed 3mn in a single year - it was among the swiftest genocide.

But let the white folks do some soil analysis before they make up their mind. https://t.co/9PcMGP0HEJ

— Vidya (@VidyaKrishnan) March 30, 2019

You could’ve just listened to the historians on this one... https://t.co/r50wahf7Ke

— Audrey Truschke (@AudreyTruschke) March 29, 2019

He diverted all essential supplies to military stockpile causing the great Bengal famine, denied acknowledging the tragedy & when conscience stricken British officials confronted Churchill about the famine, he said, "why hasn't Gandhi died yet?" Yes. Those were his exact words. https://t.co/b4P8X67hi9

— Sanjay Gautam (@Sanjayg551) March 30, 2019

(Source: Scroll)

'Low rains, a heatwave. Then floods': Bad harvest pushes North Korea to the brink

Millions of North Koreans are being forced to rely on meagre rations after the nation's worst harvest in a decade.

The country is 1.36m tonnes of food short following a series of weather disasters, compounded by longstanding international sanctions.

A UN assessment found North Koreans had been surviving on just 300g (10.5 oz) of food a day so far this year.

In previous years rations have been cut so low only during the "lean season" - the last few months before harvest.

A series of events have led to North Korea's worst harvest in a decade

About 70% of the North Korean population rely on food rations, according to UN figures. They have fallen from 550g in early January to 300g per person. There are fears they could be cut further before the next harvest, which is still six months away.

"It used to be they only reached this low level in July, August, and September," said Mario Zappacosta, a senior economist at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), who visited North Korea last month.

"If the international community does not take action somehow, and quickly, there are some social groups who will suffer - the kids, the pregnant women, lactating mothers," he said.

'Low rains, a heatwave. Then floods'
North Korea has struggled for decades with food production. The nation suffered a famine in the 1990s which is thought to have killed hundreds of thousands. Today, some 770,000 malnourished women and children are being fed in part by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).

The WFP estimates that 10.1 million people are now suffering from severe food shortages, following the worst harvest since 2008/09. "This year they have had a real series of weather shocks - they had everything," Mr Zappacosta told the BBC. "Low rains, then a heat wave, then floods."

The weather extremes were followed by a lower than usual amount of snow, which would usually cover the ground and protect the "early harvest" - including wheat, barley and potato crops.

The deficit was made worse by a lack of fuel and spare parts, which are in short supply due to economic sanctions. That meant some of the food which did survive last year's weather shocks was left in fields for weeks - where it became fodder for rats and other vermin.

While it appears that North Korean officials were aware of the scale of the problem at the start of the year, it was only open about it with the UN in March, when North Korean officials invited a team from the WFP and Food Agriculture Organisation to make an assessment of the situation.

The delegation visited in April 2019 and found the production of the early harvest alone to be down by about 20% on last year.

They also found families surviving "on a monotonous diet of rice and kimchi most of the year, eating very little protein", according to a report by the WFP. The report said some families were eating protein only a few times a year.

(Source: BBC)

North Korea regime slashes food rations to just 300g per person, per day

World Food Programme warns famine could take hold within next few months if action is not taken

North Korea has slashed official food rations to just 300g per person per day after suffering its worst harvest in more than a decade, the United Nations (UN) has said.

The country could face famine within a matter of months, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned.

A year of unexpected dry spells, heat waves and flooding, as well as well as ongoing international economic sanctions have all been blamed for the severe shortages.

The dire assessment comes after authorities in the secretive communist state asked the WFP to assess its food security.

It found the country was some 1.36m tonnes short of supplies and estimated 40 per cent of the population – about 10.1 million people – do not have enough to last until the next harvest in the autumn.

Mario Zappacosta, a senior economist at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, who worked on the assessment in April, said: “It used to be they only reached this low level in July, August, and September. If the international community does not take action somehow, and quickly, there are some social groups who will suffer - the kids, the pregnant women, lactating mothers."

Speaking to the BBC, he added: "This year they have had a real series of weather shocks. They had everything. Low rains, then a heat wave, then floods."

The US blamed the North Korean government, saying its chronic mismanagement was responsible for the potential tragedy.

A spokeswoman for the state department said the "regime continues to exploit, starve, and neglect its own people in order to advance its unlawful nuclear and weapons programme."

North Korea has continually struggled with food production under the decades of its one-party rule.

A famine is estimated to have killed up to three million people in the mid-1990s, while, even at times of high production, most citizens live off just 500g of food a day, mainly consisting of rice and kimchi.

(Source: Independent)

The Bengal Famine: How the British engineered the worst genocide in human history for profit

“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”  --Winston Churchill

The British had a ruthless economic agenda when it came to operating in India and that did not include empathy for native citizens. Under the British Raj, India suffered countless famines. But the worst hit was Bengal. The first of these was in 1770, followed by severe ones in 1783, 1866, 1873, 1892, 1897 and lastly 1943-44. Previously, when famines had hit the country, indigenous rulers were quick with useful responses to avert major disasters.

After the advent of British rule, most of the famines were a consequence of monsoonal delays along with the exploitation of the country’s natural resources by the British for their own financial gain. Yet they did little to acknowledge the havoc these actions wrought. If anything, they were irritated at the inconveniences in taxation the famines brought about.

The first of these famines was in 1770 and was ghastly brutal. The first signs indicating the coming of such a huge famine manifested in 1769 and the famine itself went on till 1773. It killed approximately 10 million people, millions more than the Jews incarcerated during the Second World War. It wiped out one-third the population of Bengal. John Fiske, in his book “The Unseen World”, wrote that the famine of 1770 in Bengal was far deadlier than the Black Plague that terrorised Europe in the fourteenth century.

Under the Mughal rule, peasants were required to pay a tribute of 10-15 percent of their cash harvest. This ensured a comfortable treasury for the rulers and a wide net of safety for the peasants in case the weather did not hold for future harvests. In 1765, the Treaty of Allahabad was signed and the East India Company took over the task of collecting the tributes from the then Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.

Overnight the tributes, the British insisted on calling them tributes and not taxes for reasons of suppressing rebellion, increased to 50 percent. The peasants were not even aware that the money had changed hands. They paid, still believing that it went to the Emperor.

Partial failure of crops was quite a regular occurrence in the Indian peasant’s life. That is why the surplus stock, which remained after paying the tributes, was so important to their livelihood. But with the increased taxation, this surplus deteriorated rapidly. When partial failure of crops came in 1768, this safety net was no longer in place. The rains of 1769 were dismal and herein the first signs of the terrible drought began to appear.

The famine occurred mainly in the modern states of West Bengal and Bihar but also hit Orissa, Jharkhand and Bangladesh. Bengal was the worst hit. Among the worst affected areas were Birbum and Murshidabad in Bengal. Thousands migrated from the area in hopes of finding sustenance elsewhere, only to die of starvation later on. Those who stayed on perished nonetheless. Huge tracts of farmland were abandoned. Wilderness started to thrive here, resulting in deep and inhabitable jungle areas. Tirhut, Champaran and Bettiah in Bihar were similarly affected.

Prior to this, whenever the possibility of a famine had emerged, the Indian rulers would waive their taxes and see compensatory measures, such as irrigation, instituted to provide as much relief as possible to the stricken farmers. The colonial rulers continued to ignore any warnings that came their way regarding the famine, although starvation had set in from early 1770.

Then the deaths started in 1771. That year, the Company raised the land tax to 60 percent in order to recompense themselves for the lost lives of so many peasants. Fewer peasants resulted in fewer crops, which in turn meant less revenue. Hence the ones who had not yet succumbed to the famine had to pay even greater taxes so as to ensure that the British treasury did not suffer any losses during this travesty.

After taking over from the Mughal rulers, the British had issued widespread orders for cash crops to be cultivated. These were intended to be exported. Thus, farmers who were used to growing paddy and vegetables were now being forced to cultivate indigo, poppy and other such items that yielded a high market value for them but could be of no relief to a population starved of food. There was no backup of edible crops in case of a famine.

The natural causes that had contributed to the drought were commonplace. It was the single-minded motive for profit that wrought such devastating consequences. No relief measure was provided for those affected. Rather, as mentioned above, taxation was increased to make up for any shortfall in revenue. What is even more ironic is that the East India Company generated higher profits in 1771 than they did in 1768.

Although the starved populace of Bengal did not know it yet, this was just the first of umpteen famines, caused solely by the motive for profit, that were to scourge the country side. Although all these massacres were deadly in their own right, the deadliest one to occur after 1771 was in 1943, when three million people died and others resorted to eating grass and human flesh in order to survive.

Winston Churchill, the hallowed British War prime minister who saved Europe from a monster like Hitler was disturbingly callous about the roaring famine that was swallowing Bengal’s population. He casually diverted the supplies of medical aid and food that was being dispatched to the starving victims to the already well supplied soldiers of Europe. When entreated upon, he said, “Famine or no famine, Indians will breed like rabbits.” The Delhi Government sent a telegram to him painting a picture of the horrible devastation and the number of people who had died. His only response was, “Then why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?”

This Independence Day, it is worthwhile to remember that the riches of the West were built on the graves of the East. While we honour our brave freedom fighters (as we should), it is victims like these, the ones sacrificed without a moment’s thought, who paid the ultimate price. Shed a tear in their memory and strive to make the most of this hard won independence that we take for granted today. Pledge to stand up for those whose voice the world refuses to hear because they are too lowly to matter. To be free is a great privilege. But as a great superhero once said, “With great freedom comes great responsibility.”

(Source: Your Story)