The Man-Made Holocaust: Churchill’s Political Decisions vis-à-vis The Bengal Famine of  1943 
 

Ranked as the greatest disaster in the Asian subcontinent during the 20th century, the  Bengal Famine of 1943 caused over 3.5 million deaths in the Bengal district of India (now  Bangladesh). The famine is considered a partly man-made catastrophe created by the British government, led by Winston Churchill, a man glorified for his leadership skills that led Britain successfully through World War II. Churchill’s faulty decision of diverting the food supply to the already well-fed British soldiers who were fighting in the World War II and stockpiles in  Britain, Greece, and former Yugoslavia, transporting wheat from Australia to British troops in the  Balkans and the Mediterranean regions and denying food offers from the U.S. and Canada catalysed the famine. Bengali writers like Bhabani Bhattacharya and Bibhutibhushan  Bandyopadhyay have brought Churchill’s atrocious decision to the forefront through their novels reminding the world of the heinous holocaust which had been forgotten in the wake of independence and partition of India. An in-depth analysis of Bhattacharya’s So Many Hungers! and Bandyopadhyay’s Distant Thunder coupled with Mukherjee’s Churchill’s Secret War help in visualising the famine and Churchill’s role in fabricating the famine in a more vivid light. 

Keywords: Hunger, Bengal famine, Churchill, Holocaust, World War II 

About Urmi Bose:

 

Urmi Bose is a Master’s student of E-SC from India and is one of the organisers of the MasterVision 2.0 conference. She is currently in the third semester of her master’s degree and  is researching on South Asian novels in English about the Bengal Famine of 1943 for her  master thesis. Her research interests are postcolonial literature, refugee literature, and South  Asian writings in English.