Churchill's Secret War

Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee, Basic Books, 2010. 

Indian Textiles

In fact, India was the world’s number one producer of textiles before the British Industrial Revolution. To protect Britain’s nascent textile industry, the British slapped high tariffs on textile imports from India. Thereafter, India could export only the raw material, the cotton, to Great Britain, and not its manufactured goods, the textiles. India was reduced from a manufacturing country to an agricultural country.

World War I

Sixty thousand Indian soldiers died fighting for the British during World War I. 

World War II

After the fall of Burma and Thailand to the Japanese in 1942,  the British turned to India for the rice they needed for Arabia and Ceylon. In a further reaction to the Japanese threat, the British removed rice, boats, carts, and bicycles from the Bengal coast, so that they would not fall into the hands of the Japanese when they invaded India. The British in India requisitioned large amounts of grain at fixed, low prices to feed the Allied army. The British took more food from India than they needed for the war effort. This was because Britain took Indian food not just for their current needs, but also for anticipated post-war needs. Also, the British created a grain stockpile in Europe for their planned invasion of the Balkans. But the Americans rejected British plan to invade Balkans, so the stockpile, which was created at India’s expense, proved to be unnecessary. The food was not returned to India. 

Ships

The British moved many more ships from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean than they needed for the war effort. The British ended up not needing as many ships as they thought they would. The need for ships was less than expected, due to better Allied defenses against German U-boats and to increased American ship building. But the British did not return the excess ships to India. And Britain would not allow India to use its own ships to import grain. Australia had lots of grain ready to give to India during the Bengal famine, but Britain would not allow the grain to be shipped to India.

Bad Weather

In October 1942 a cyclone and floods in Midnapore (west of Calcutta) damaged Bengal’s rice harvest, and marked the beginning of the Bengal Famine.

Starving Bengalis

At Chittagong, on the northeast coast of the Bay of Bengal, British soldiers were forbidden to give food to starving Bengalis. Ninety thousand tons of grain were stored at the Royal Botanical Gardens near Calcutta, but the British would not share this food with the starving Bengalis. The huge quantity of food that the British took away from the Indian market caused food prices to soar so high that poor Indians could not afford to eat. Many British thought that the Bengalis were hoarding grain to drive up the price, when actually the Bengalis had no food and were starving to death. The British also blamed Bengali poverty on their high birth rate. Orphanages and brothels saved thousands of starving children. Some babies were eaten by dogs. But the Bengali people were too moral to resort to cannibalism during the famine. Many Bengalis died from malaria, smallpox, and cholera.

British Prisons

The Bengalis were victimized by an increased crime rate, due to two causes: (a) common criminals and violent criminals were removed from prison to make room for Quit India political prisoners, and (b) many police were busy enforcing grain requisitions.

British Censorship

The British censored the Bengali press so it could not report on the famine. Starting in the summer of 1943, The Statesman newspaper of Calcutta (Ian Melville Stephens, chief editor) publicized the famine.  Thus informed of the famine in Bengal, the Punjabis shipped wheat to Calcutta. The famine ended at the end of December 1943.