British Holocaust Against Bengal

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THE GREAT HOLOCAUST OF BENGAL

 

Author - Anil Chawla

Genocide committed by British Government in Bengal was bigger, more

ghastly and more cruel than the killing of Jews by Hitler. Time that

the criminals are punished and descendants of victims compensated.

 

 

 

 

History is written by those who win a war and not by the losers. No

wonder, the history of Second World War is written by British and

American authors. We are told that the war was necessary to

eliminate the evil of Nazism and Hitler from the earth. Nazism and

Hitler are painted as devils because they killed six million Jews (a

figure put out by British and Jew historians and disputed by many).

 

The last chapter in the history of Second World War was written in

early October 1945 at the famous Nuremberg trial, when the four

prosecuting nations -- the United States, Great Britain, France and

Russia -- issued an indictment against 24 men and six organizations.

The individual defendants were charged with the systematic murder of

millions of people.

 

Sixty years after the end of the war, time has come to reopen the

case and institute a fresh Nuremberg trial - this time against one

of the prosecuting nations -- Great Britain -- for systematic and

intentional murder of millions of people. This genocide was not

confined to the Second World War. In fact, only its last episode was

played out during the war. The ghastly genocide, which used hunger

and starvation as tools, lasted for about eighteen decades and was

carried out in Bengal, India (at present Bengal is partly in India

and partly in Bangladesh) by the British colonial masters claiming

about thirty million victims.

 

It started in 1770 with a big bang, when approximately one third of

the total population of Bengal died because of a drought. About 10

million people died! East India Company, which had occupied the

country five years earlier, did not even once attempt to introduce

any measures of aid worth mentioning. British officers in India were

happily reporting to their bosses in London about having maximized

their profit through trading and export of food. (Incidentally,

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the prophet of Indian nationalism, wrote

his celebrated novel "Anandamath" with the battle cry 'Bandemataram'

in the context of the agony evoked by the ravages of the famine of

1770.)

 

It must be mentioned here that Bengal is a land of rivers and most

fertile land of Ganges delta. Bengal was a granary of India till

British came in. Every village had, and still has, a pond, which has

fishes that can feed the village even when there is no rice. It

needed British intervention to convert the lush green land of Bengal

into famine-starved land.

 

Bengal had 30 or 40 famines (depending on how one defines famine)

during 182 years of British rule in Bengal. There are no reliable

accounts of the number of people who died in these famines. We have

only the figures put out by British colonialists. But even given the

limited data availability, once can see the barbaric face of British

colonialism in India.

 

The last big famine in Bengal occurred between 1942 and 1945. At

least four million people died during these three years. Some

scholars believe that the number of dead was much higher (remember

that the figure of four million is based on British sources).

Notwithstanding the controversy about the number of dead, it is

widely accepted that the famine was man-made. Nobel laureate,

Amartya Sen, has demonstrated quite convincingly that the famine

deaths were caused by British policies and not by drastic slump in

food production.

 

The following facts deserve attention:

 

In May 1942, Burma fell to Japanese. British were afraid that

Japanese aided by Indian National Army (led by Subhash Chandra Bose)

would invade India from the east. Bose's slogan - Dilli Chalo (Let

us go to Delhi) - had struck fear in the hearts of British. The

British followed a policy of 'scorched earth'. On one hand, this was

to ensure denial of food to invading armies, in case the Japanese

decided to march across Bengal. On the other hand, the British

wanted to break the will and ability of people of Bengal to rise in

rebellion in support of the invaders. It could not be a coincidence

that British executed a military police action in October 1942,

during which 193 camps and buildings of the Congress Party were

destroyed and countless people arrested. Between August 1942 and

February 1943, 43 persons were shot by the British occupation

police. Additionally, British troops were involved in an unknown

number of rapes and lootings of food supplies, among other things.

 

 

Bengal was overcrowded with refugees as well as with retreating

soldiers from various British colonies which were temporarily

occupied by the Japanese. In March 1942 alone, around 2,000 to 3,000

British soldiers and civilians arrived every day in Calcutta and

Chittagong, and in the month of May, a total of 300,000 were

counted. As a result of the massive food purchases by the

government, food prices in the countryside skyrocketed.

 

 

Expecting a Japanese landing in the Gulf of Bengal, the British

authorities enacted the so-called "Boat-Denial Scheme" leading to

confiscation of all boats and ships in the Gulf of Bengal which

could carry more than 10 persons. This resulted in not less than

66,500 confiscated boats. Consequently, the inland navigation system

collapsed completely. Fishing became practically impossible, and

many rice and jute farmers could not ship their goods anymore.

Subsequently the economy collapsed completely, especially in the

lower Ganges-Delta.

 

 

The confiscations of land in connection with military fortifications

and constructions (airplane landing places, military and refugee

camps) led to the expulsion of about 150,000 to 180,000 people from

their land, turning them practically into homeless persons.

 

 

Food deliveries from other parts of the country to Bengal were

refused by the government in order to make food artificially scarce.

This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the

title "Rice Denial Scheme." The purpose of it was, as mentioned

earlier, to deny an efficient food supply to the Japanese after a

possible invasion. Simultaneously, the government authorized free

merchants to purchase rice at any price and to sell it to the

government for delivery into governmental food storage. So, on one

hand government was buying every grain of rice that was around and

on the other hand, it was blocking grain from coming into Bengal

from other regions of the country.

 

 

The blank check of the government (for food purchases) triggered

price inflation. As a result, some merchants did not deliver food to

the government but hoarded it, hoping for higher profit margins when

selling it later. This led to further food shortages on the market

and to further price increases.

 

 

In addition to this inflationary thrust, massive military activities

in Bengal were basically financed by overtime of money printing

presses. Oversupply of paper money by Government led to a general

inflation, which hit the impoverished population in the countryside

especially hard.

 

 

Even though British law in India provided that emergency laws were

to be applied in case of famines, the famine in Bengal was never

officially recognized as such; an emergency was not declared, and

therefore no drastic counter measures were taken for its

amelioration. It was not until October of 1943 that the British

government took notice of the emergency situation, but it still

refused to introduce any supportive measures that would have been

necessary.

 

 

Even though India imported about 1.8 million tons of cereals before

the war, Britain made sure that India had an export surplus of rice

at record levels in the tax year 1942/43.

 

 

The bad situation in Bengal was discussed in the British Parliament

during a meeting at which only 10% of all members participated.

Repeated requests for food imports to India (400 Million people) led

to the delivery of approximately half a million tons of cereal in

the years 1943 and 1944. In contrast to this was the net import to

Great Britain (50 Million people) of 10 million tons in the second

half of the year 1943 alone. Churchill repeatedly denied all food

exports to India, in spite of the fact that about 2.4 million

Indians served in British units during the Second World War.

 

Given a choice, I would rather die in a gas chamber than die of

starvation begging on the streets. Viewed from this perspective,

Hitler appears humane and even angelic, while Churchill puts even

the devil to shame. The thirty million men, women and children who

died slow, painful deaths in the villages of Bengal were not enemies

of the British Empire. They had done nothing to deserve the cruel

fate. Howsoever much one might disagree with Hitler, at least in his

own warped logic, he had a reason to hate Jews. British Government

and Churchill did not even have such a fig leaf of distorted logic

to justify their cruel barbaric act.

 

Amartya Sen has used the Bengal famine to justify democracy and run

down dictatorships. The fact is that Churchill was democratically

elected by British people. After independence, from 1947 till date,

East Bengal (presently known as Bangladesh) has been ruled by

dictators for many years. Yet, during the past five and a half

decades, the number of starvation deaths in East Bengal (or West

Bengal) is not even one per cent of the number of people that died

of starvation during the half-century before independence. The

issue, obviously, is not dictatorship versus democracy.

 

We are also told that the rulers of Bengal, before the British

arrived, were self-centered despots, who did not care about their

people's well being and were spoilt by luxury. British take pride in

the fact that they brought 'good governance' and 'rule of law' to

India, starting from Bengal and spreading to the rest of the

country. In spite of all the alleged misrule that the Indian rulers

of pre-British era indulged in, there is absolutely no historical

account of any major famine in Bengal prior to the arrival of

British in Bengal.

 

Academicians have a tendency to miss the holistic reality when they

go hammer and tongs over fine details. Most academic debates about

Bengal Famine have missed the most essential aspect - criminal act

of the British Government. There is a tendency to study the Bengal

famine in terms of parameters, which were internal to Bengal, like

food supply, disease history of rice, inflation economics, democracy

as a system of governance, weather analysis and many such wonderful

terms. All such studies treat the famine as if it was a product of

some systemic internal parameters peculiar to Bengal; and all that

is needed is to study the parameters with a view to ensure that the

same do not recur. This is a wrong premise.

 

Bengal was a victim of a criminal act perpetrated for more than one

and three quarters of a century. British establishment indulged in

brutal genocide in Bengal, at times to further their own interests

and at other times out of sheer negligence of their duties. In

either case, the British Government stands guilty of the worst crime

in recent human history.

 

The Holocaust in Germany was a minor event compared to what the

British did to a people, who trusted them and were loyal to them.

Nazis have been accused and convicted of the Holocaust in Germany.

Even today, there are attempts to hunt down ex-Nazis and bring them

to justice. A few weeks ago, a court awarded compensation to a

Holocaust victim.

 

Is it not time that the descendants of the victims of The Great

Holocaust of Bengal sought compensation from the present Government

of the United Kingdom? Is it possible to initiate a criminal case

against Winston Churchill and all those who were in power during

1942-45 (or during 1765-1947) in British Government? Is that too

much to ask for? Do you believe that the systematic murder of six

million white-skinned Jews was a crime worthy of punishment, while

the killing of thirty million black-skinned people of Bengal does

not even deserve a footnote in history?

 

The least that people of India and Bangladesh can do is to

construct a memorial in the memory of millions who died at the hand

of a cruel barbaric monster. Let us at least shed a tear for them!

Let us at least rewrite the history!

 

 

 

 

Anil Chawla

4 April 2005

 

Acknowledgement: The author is indebted to many scholars who have

studied Bengal Famine. For the sake of brevity and readability,

detailed references are not provided. However, special thanks are

due to "The Unknown Famine Holocaust - About the Causes of Mass

Starvation in Britain's Colony of India 1942-1945" by Wolfgang

Pfitzner, The Revisionist 1(1) (2003), pp. 71-75;

http://www.vho.org/tr/2003/1/Pfitzner71-75.html.

Sketches given above are by Zainul Abedin (1914-1976).

 

 

 

 

 

Please write to me your comments about the above article.

anil

hindustanstudies

ANIL CHAWLA is an engineer and a lawyer by qualification but a

philosopher by vocation and a management consultant by profession.

http://www.samarthbharat.com/bengalholocaust.htm