Bengal famine of 1943

Bengal famine of 1943
From the photo spread in The Statesman on 22 August 1943 showing famine conditions in Calcutta. These photographs made world headlines and spurred government action.
Country	British India
Location	Bengal Orissa
Period	1943–1944
Total deaths	Estimated 0.8 to 3.8 million[A] in Bengal alone

The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal and eastern India) during World War II. An estimated 0.8–3.8 million people died,^[A] in the Bengal region (present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal), from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions, poor British wartime policies and lack of health care.^[7] Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. Eventually, families disintegrated; men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to join the British Indian Army, and women and children became homeless migrants, often travelling to Calcutta or other large cities in search of organised relief.

Bengal's economy had been predominantly agrarian, with between half and three-quarters of the rural poor subsisting in a "semi-starved condition". Stagnant agricultural productivity and a stable land base were unable to cope with a rapidly increasing population, resulting in both long-term decline in per capita availability of rice and growing numbers of the land-poor and landless labourers. A high proportion laboured beneath a chronic and spiralling cycle of debt that ended in debt bondage and the loss of their landholdings due to land grabbing.

The British "inflation policy" during World War II aimed to reduce the consumption of the poor to free up resources for British and American troops, exacerbated the famine in Bengal. This policy, along with other economic measures, led to a "forced transfer of purchasing power" from ordinary people to the military, diverting food supplies and resources to support military operations during the war with Japan. John Maynard Keynes, in his capacity as advisor on Indian financial and monetary affairs for the British Government, had remarked that the intention of the policy was “reduce the consumption of the poor” in order to extract wealth to better finance Allied war spending. According to Indian economist Utsa Patnaik, this inflationary strategy caused food prices to soar sixfold while wages had remained stagnant, resulting in widespread starvation and the deaths of three million people. Patnaik argues that this economic manipulation that deliberately "pushed food out of reach of the poor ", was part of a broader systematic colonial exploitation, prioritizing British interests over the welfare of the colonized populations.^[8][9][10]

Many workers received monetary wages rather than payment in kind, and when prices rose sharply, their wages did not keep pace, leaving them less able to purchase food. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, rice imports were lost due to disrupted market supplies and British "denial policies," including scorched earth.^[11] The Bengal Chamber of Commerce, with the approval of the Government of Bengal, had devised a Foodstuffs Scheme to ensure preferential distribution to high-priority workers, further restricting access to grain. Aid from Churchill's war cabinet was limited, and domestic sources were constrained by trade barriers and natural disasters, compounding the crisis. Additional proximate causes included large-scale natural disasters in south-western Bengal (a cyclone, tidal waves and flooding, and rice crop disease). The relative impact of each of these factors on the death toll is a matter of debate.

The provincial government never formally declared a state of famine, and its humanitarian aid was ineffective through the worst months of the crisis. It attempted to fix the price of rice paddy through price controls which resulted in a black market which encouraged sellers to withhold stocks, leading to hyperinflation from speculation and hoarding after controls were abandoned. Aid increased significantly when the British Indian Army took control of funding in October 1943, but effective relief arrived after a record rice harvest that December. Deaths from starvation declined, yet over half the famine-related deaths occurred in 1944 after the food security crisis had abated, as a result of disease. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has been criticized for his role in the famine, with critics arguing that his war priorities and the refusal to divert food supplies to Bengal significantly worsened the situation.^{[12][13][14][15]}

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