Madhusree Mookerjee’s book deepens our understanding of colonialism (Churchill’s Famine, Sep 6). In recent days, there has been a growing body of literature shedding light on Churchill’s unabashed, uncompromising imperialism—for instance, Churchill’s Empire by Richard Toye. Churchill’s views on India and Indians were repugnant, and at different points in his career, he said deeply offensive things about the leaders of India’s freedom struggle. Yet, when he died in 1965, India honoured him with flags flown at half-mast.

H.N. Ramakrishna, Michigan, US

The book sounds promising, but will have a hard time matching up to the gold standard of Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis. The 1943 Bengal famine was just the last of the mega famines in India under the British—a regular occurrence from 1770 (when the Great Bengal Famine wiped off one-third of the population) to the late 1800s. The British empire has never been brought to justice over this methodical genocide during its rule; instead homegrown brown sahibs keep saying ‘things worked better under the British’. Can they counter such facts as: over 50 million Indians were killed by famines in the 1800s; the life expectancy of the average Indian dropped to 30 years; there was a 25 per cent decrease in life expectancy between 1870 to 1920; there was a flight of capital of the order of one million pounds annually for over 100 years to finance Britain’s industrial revolution, its wars and its welfare schemes.

Shubhang, New Delhi

Is it necessary to dredge up old history like this? In 2010, we should be pleased that either in percentage or absolute terms, more Indians today have access to adequate nutrition. The Brits were here to make money and loot, and they did so efficiently.

Gaurab Banerjee, Calcutta

Although I have no sympathies for Churchill, I admire him for his staunch defiance in the teeth of fascist aggression. And for those who only castigate Britain for its colonial misdeeds in India, they did give us a sense of an united India, and helped us, in some way, to undo the evils of our society.

Bonti, Birmingham, US

As per Amartya Sen’s article on the famine, there were enough supplies even in Bengal at that time, but people “did not have the monetary means to acquire food as its price rose rapidly due to factors that include British military acquisition, panic buying, hoarding and price gouging, all connected to the war in the region.”

Amit Thakur, Tokyo

Ms Mukherjee ought to be congratulated for a fantastic piece of research. I hope the British get to know of this.

R. Roy, Birmingham, UK

And what about Sharad Pawar, who lets millions of tonnes of foodgrain rot rather than give it to the starving millions? What a shame!

Amar Bhalla, on e-mail

Churchill had no qualms in acting with duplicity. Even as First Lord of the Admiralty during the first world war, he ordered British ships to fly the neutral US flag, disguised armed navy ships as civilian trawlers (the Q ship programme), and should take responsibility for the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. In Iraq in the 1920s, he was responsible for the mass bombing of civilians and the use of poison gas on the Arabs, who had rebelled against the Ottomans hoping for freedom, only to find themselves enslaved by the British empire. And in WWII, his enthusiasm for the fire-bombing of overwhelmingly civilian German cities like Hamburg and Dresden is well-known. For such a man, the lives of 3 million poor Indians would be loose change.

Biswapriya Purkayastha, Shillong

I congratulate Madhusree Mukherjee on her book on Churchill’s culpability in the Bengal famine (Churchill’s Famine?, Sep 6). It’s a welcome book on India written by an Indian. For the general reader though, a reading of Amartya Sen’s essay on the subject would be instructive and educative as well.

B.B. Mishra, Milan

Winston Churchill can now be given a new moniker—the invisible butcher of Bengal.

Sanjay, Hyderabad

The article Churchill’s Famine? (Sep 6) was one-sided. It is easy to blame Churchill, who was trying to manage a massive war effort and fighting for his country’s very existence thousands of miles away. The famine was certainly exacerbated by the wartime situation, but responsibility for the tragedy lay squarely with authorities in India (from Viceroy Linlithgow down), and Bengal’s provincial government (comprising a Muslim League ministry and a British governor). They failed abjectly to enforce time-proven famine codes (a legacy of British rule that has since been adapted and served independent India well) and provide proper relief. The whole British population was itself under strict rationing, yet, despite knowing wartime exigencies, Bengali authorities failed to introduce rations in Calcutta, Dhaka and other cities.

Even if the British PM was reluctant to sanction shipping, there was a sixfold increase in food imports to Bengal in 1943—scandalously, much of it piled up in depots as nobody, until the arrival of Lord Wavell in mid-’43, thought to ask the army to distribute it where needed. That thousands of troops were engaged in famine relief in undivided Bengal, with the unbeaten and ruthless Japanese army breathing down their necks from across the border with Burma, is hardly a genocidal act of imperialist rulers—though had it been done two months earlier, the death toll would have been halved. Recent research by Mark Tauger shows other parts of India too had food shortages during the war years, but no famine. The suggestion that Lord Irwin would have been more sympathetic toward India might well have been true, but he was one of the appeasers who were willing to sue for peace with Hitler in 1940! And it’s absurd to suggest Churchill was responsible for the Partition (as he was close to Jinnah)—he was out of office in 1945! And before that he had his hands full, even as Wavell kept him at arm’s length from Indian affairs.

Churchill was an A-Hole.

 Some interesting links ... (Courtesy:Gajanan)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/24/bengal-famine/

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/truth-about-bengal-famine/

http://www.bowbrick.org.uk/index.htm

http://www.bowbrick.org.uk/Famine%20pages/famine.htm

Churchill was bogus from beginning to end.

The Anglo-French tried mightily to get Hitler to attack the Soviet Union by concluding the Munich agreement with him. Unfortunately for them, Stalin outsmarted them by doing his own deal with Adolf.

The Anglo-French then were forced to make a pretence of fighting Germany - what even THEY called the "Phony war". It was just play acting by the Allies until Hitler called their bluff by invading France. Even then, the Allies did no serious fighting: just ran away as fast as their cowardly heels could take them.

The racist braggart Churchill then pranced around comically, depicting as heroic the laughable evacuation of a pathetically diorganised rabble of British troops left alone contemptuously by the Nazis on the Dunkirk beaches.

Churchill got conceited and tried out an adventure in Norway and got thoroughly smashed.

There were some silly escapades by the inefficient Brit armies with the Italian comic opera forces in North Africa and Ethiopia.

Then Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, a serious enemy, and sealed his defeat.

Such is the REAL history of Churchill's exploits. He was a bragging, gluttonous, cowardly con artist from start to finish, efficient only in starving millions of hapless Indians.

Attlee, asked what Chuchill had done in the War, sneered accurately: "Talked".
 

Just who are the British to give snivelling advice to Indians how to sort out the problems of their own country?

What is the worth of THEIR national hero?

British commemorations of their World War Two dead are utterly ludicrous, because they overlook the Indian elephant in the room: the simple fact kept out of British histories that over 90 per cent of the dead on the British side due to World War Two was Indian - the three MILLION victims of the Bengal Famine deliberately allowed to happen by Winston Churchill.

Someone remarked of Hitler: "Untold millions of blameless died as a result of the toxic brew of incompetence, racial obsession and utterly fantastical beliefs."

The same could be said validly of Churchill. Mukerjee shows how three MILLION Bengalis died in the Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill DELIBERATELY decided not to
send food shipments, though India was part of the British Empire and had contributed two million soldiers to the war effort, as well as much war material and (ironically) even food.

Churchill accompanied his chilling decision with ferocious racial abuse of Indians, recorded by his colleagues

I request all Indians to bring this splendid and heroic piece of historical research and analysis of a scandalously covered up Holocaust to the notice of as many people as possible.

RIPPETH:

In the businress of covering up for a genocidal racist, aren't you? Can't give up the bogus Churchill legend?

Someone remarked of Hitler: "Untold millions of blameless died as a result of the toxic brew of incompetence, racial obsession and utterly fantastical beliefs."

You will conclude the same about Churchill by the time you have finished the new startlingly revealing book on Churchill by the distinguished US journalist Madhusree Mukerjee: "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War Two" (Basic Books). You will never view Churchill in the same way again.

The author shows how three MILLION Bengalis died in the Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill DELIBERATELY decided not
send food shipments, though India was part of the British Empire and had contributed two million soldiers to the war effort, as well as much war material and (ironically) even food.

Churchill accompanied his chilling decision with ferocious racial abuse of Indians, recorded by his colleagues.
 

RIPPETH:

In the businress of covering up for a genocidal racist, aren't you? Can't give up the bogus Churchill legend?

Someone remarked of Hitler: "Untold millions of blameless died as a result of the toxic brew of incompetence, racial obsession and utterly fantastical beliefs."

You will conclude the same about Churchill by the time you have finished the new startlingly revealing book on Churchill by the distinguished US journalist Madhusree Mukerjee: "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War Two" (Basic Books). You will never view Churchill in the same way again.

The author shows how three MILLION Bengalis died in the Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill DELIBERATELY decided not
send food shipments, though India was part of the British Empire and had contributed two million soldiers to the war effort, as well as much war material and (ironically) even food.

Churchill accompanied his chilling decision with ferocious racial abuse of Indians, recorded by his colleagues.
 

Just who are the British to give snivelling advice to Indians how to sort out the problems of their own country?

What is the worth of THEIR national hero?

British commemorations of their World War Two dead are utterly ludicrous, because they overlook the Indian elephant in the room: the simple fact kept out of British histories that over 90 per cent of the dead on the British side due to World War Two was Indian - the three MILLION victims of the Bengal Famine deliberately allowed to happen by Winston Churchill.

Someone remarked of Hitler: "Untold millions of blameless died as a result of the toxic brew of incompetence, racial obsession and utterly fantastical beliefs."

The same could be said validly of Churchill. Mukerjee shows how three MILLION Bengalis died in the Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill DELIBERATELY decided not to
send food shipments, though India was part of the British Empire and had contributed two million soldiers to the war effort, as well as much war material and (ironically) even food.

Churchill accompanied his chilling decision with ferocious racial abuse of Indians, recorded by his colleagues

I request all Indians to bring this splendid and heroic piece of historical research and analysis of a scandalously covered up Holocaust to the notice of as many people as possible.

Churchill was bogus from beginning to end.

The Anglo-French tried mightily to get Hitler to attack the Soviet Union by concluding the Munich agreement with him. Unfortunately for them, Stalin outsmarted them by doing his own deal with Adolf.

The Anglo-French then were forced to make a pretence of fighting Germany - what even THEY called the "Phony war". It was just play acting by the Allies until Hitler called their bluff by invading France. Even then, the Allies did no serious fighting: just ran away as fast as their cowardly heels could take them.

The racist braggart Churchill then pranced around comically, depicting as heroic the laughable evacuation of a pathetically diorganised rabble of British troops left alone contemptuously by the Nazis on the Dunkirk beaches.

Churchill got conceited and tried out an adventure in Norway and got thoroughly smashed.

There were some silly escapades by the inefficient Brit armies with the Italian comic opera forces in North Africa and Ethiopia.

Then Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, a serious enemy, and sealed his defeat.

Such is the REAL history of Churchill's exploits. He was a bragging, gluttonous, cowardly con artist from start to finish, efficient only in starving millions of hapless Indians.

Attlee, asked what Chuchill had done in the War, sneered accurately: "Talked".
 

 Some interesting links ... (Courtesy:Gajanan)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/24/bengal-famine/

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/truth-about-bengal-famine/

http://www.bowbrick.org.uk/index.htm

http://www.bowbrick.org.uk/Famine%20pages/famine.htm

Churchill was an A-Hole.