Bengal famine of 1943

The Bengal famine of 1943 occurred in undivided Bengal (now independent Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal) in 1943. It is estimated that over three million people died from starvation, malnutrition and related illnesses during the famine.

Diseased rice

In the rice growing season of 1942- 1943, weather conditions were exactly right to encourage an epidemic of the rice disease brown spot. Brown spot in rice is caused by the fungus Helminthosporium oryzae; the outbreak of the disease caused almost complete destruction of the rice crop. Severe food shortages were worsened by the Second World War, with the British administration of India exporting foods to Allied soldiers and the cessation of rice imports from Burma following the Japanese control of the country.

The shortage of rice forced rice prices up, and wartime inflation compounded the problem. The civil administration did not intervene to control the price of rice, and so the price of rice exceeded the means of ordinary people. People migrated to the cities to find food and employment; finding neither, they starved.

The lack of rice due to fall in production being the cause of the famine has by now been effectively debunked by Amartya Sen. He quotes official records for rice production in Bengal in the years leading up to 1943 as follows: 1938 8.474 1939 7.922 1940 8.223 1941 6.768 1942 9.296 1943 7.628 (all figures in million tons) In fact, 1943 actually witnessed a bumper crop! The diseased rice crop story needs careful re-examination and certainly does not deserve the importance that has been bestowed on it.

Political complications

The United Kingdom had suffered a disastrous defeat at Singapore in 1942 against the Japanese military, which then proceeded to conquer Burma from the British in the same year. British authorities feared a subsequent Japanese invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal (see British Raj), and emergency measures were introduced to stockpile food for British soldiers and prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion.

The exports of food, appropriation of arable land, and price inflation dangerously disrupted the local Bengali harvests and agriculture, leading in 1943 to the onset of a massive famine similar to those which had killed over 30 million Indians in the late 1800s. Lord Mountbatten, the British commander in Southeast Asia, and Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India at the time, both endeavoured to draw attention to and provide food aid to citizens in the famine-stricken regions. However, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was opposed to any changes in the Bengal policy and let approximately 3 million people die of starvation. Some have suggested this constituted a War Crime parallel to the starving of jews under Hitler or the starving of Ukraine under Stalin but Churchill the hero of World War 2 like Stalin was never charged with a crime.

American author Mike Davis and Indian author Amartya Sen specifically linked the 1943 famine and its predecessors in the region to British policies in the state of Bengal. Sen was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his studies of the Bengal and other famines in Asia and Africa.

The Famine in Bengali culture

Artists, novelists and film-makers have tried to capture the enormity of the famine in their works. The renowned Bengali painter Zainul Abedin was one of the early documentarians of the famine, with his sketches of the dead and dying. The novelist Bibhuti Bhusan Bandyopadhhay penned his novel Ashani Sanket with the famine serving as both backdrop and protagonist. The novel was adapted in 1973 by Satyajit Ray into an award-winning film, also titled Ashani Sanket. Mrinal Sen also made a film about the famine, titled Akaler Shondhaney (In Search of Famine).

References

• Davis, M. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, 2001, Verso. ISBN# # 1859847390
• Padmanabhan, S.Y. The Great Bengal Famine. Annual Review of Phytopathology, 11:11-24, 1973
• Pfitzner, Wolfgang The Unknown Famine Holocaust
• Sen, A. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1984, Oxford University Press. ISBN# 0198284632