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WINSTON Churchill’s views about Indians have reeked of contempt, disdain and an apparent abhorrence. Madhusree Mukerjee’s book discloses that it was not merely an abstraction, but there is definitive evidence of how this deep-rooted prejudice triggered one of the deadliest famines in modern history. The prologue of the book commences with an insight into his thought process: "No great portion of the world population was so effectively protected from the horrors and perils of the World War, as were the peoples of Hindustan," Winston Churchill wrote in the 1950 history of the 20th century’s most lethal conflict that "they were carried through the struggle on the shoulders of our small Island". What a great deception this statement was, is revealed in this searing account of the horrific Bengal famine! Mukerjee’s contention is that British sovereignty over India ended with a famine in Bengal and began with one, thus setting the stage not only for the British Raj but also the chain of famines that occurred throughout their reign (or rather South Asia) to become impoverished and strife torn. Mukerjee, a physicist who worked with the Scientific American, critiques Churchill and his advisers for utilising Indian resources to wage war against Germany and Japan causing an immense scarcity and inflation within the colony.
"I felt if I can understand famine I will understand poverty." So she decided to study the Bengal famine of 1943, which led her to point the accusative finger at Churchill. Like any novice, since she was straying away from her discipline of science journalism, she assumed that everything but the questions that were unleashed by her scientifically trained mind were undiscovered. Thus, they culminated in deep research and a volatile book. "Could Churchill’s government have prevented the famine, which took a toll of some three million lives? More importantly, did he deliberately choose to deny food relief to starving Indians?" To find answers to these questions, she spent years researching at the archives in the UK and discovered that Churchill’s War Cabinet shot down Viceroy Lord Linlithgow’s plea to send grain to India to ward off a catastrophe in July, 1943. There was more than enough grain in Australia to feed Indians but Churchill claimed that there was a severe shortage of ships to take the grain to India. Mukerjee pursued her hunt to find the veracity of Churchill’s statement only to discover his inherent prejudice towards the Indians. At this juncture, he actually had at his command a profusion of ships, some of which were being used to supply white bread to the UK and the rest to stockpile food in preparation for Britain’s planned liberation of the Balkans. The other excuse strangely was that "Bengalis would sooner starve than eat wheat". Of the 6,00,000 tonnes of grain the Viceroy requested to avert disaster, India received less than 5 per cent. Even that stayed in Calcutta for the priority class, with small amounts sent to districts for official use. Worse even at the height of famine when hundreds of thousands of villagers crawled towards Calcutta and other towns and died in masses on the streets, 71,000 tonnes of rice were exported on the directions of the War Cabinet to feed rubber tappers in Ceylon. In London, Churchill’s adviser physicist Frederic Alexander Lindemann was unmoved. A firm believer in the Malthusian population theory, he blamed Indian progenitiveness for the famine, saying sending more food would worsen the situation by "encouraging Indians to breed more". In her continuous and unflinching criticism against Churchill, Mukerjee has accused him of major omissions from his six massive volumes of the historiography of World War II, which is major source of material for contemporary historians. The Bengal famine has been glossed over as she bolsters her contention with proof that hints of a cover-up abound. "Amerys’ (Leopold Amery) diaries do not contain any mention of scorched earth and his papers are missing the pertinent correspondence with India. The testimonies submitted to the famine commission are reported to have been destroyed (except for one copy that survived as the Nanavati papers). The unpublished memoir of civil servant Olaf Martin, written some time after the war, is missing pages that appear to have dealt with his refusal to serve as Chief Secretary of Bengal." Mukerjee deserves credit
for exposing this holocaust (eclipsed by historians) with forensic
precision. She has unearthed a plethora of riveting facts about the
ravages of colonialism. This detailed rendition of imperial brutality is
a must read for historians and diehard imperialists.
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Undoubtedly,
she has spurned a debate in the West (she lives in Berlin) after her
book was reviewed in Harper’s magazine. Yet, facts are to the
contrary to the defence in support of Churchill who continues to be one
of Britain ’s greatest icons in the interwar and post-war period. In
the West, criticism did emerge with Max Hastings’ book Winston’s
War which drilled holes in Churchill’s reputation as a war
strategist. Hastings opined that had he died in 1942, "Germany
might have been defeated earlier". Mukerjee similarly indicts
Churchill after she ferrets out historical data as she endeavours her
expos`E9 on Churchill. Poverty being a complex subject, she was
determined to break it down to "its least possible dimension —
food".