This is not just another book on the horrendous famine in Bengal in 1943-44 when 3 million people died, according to most independent accounts. This book is about how Winston Churchill and his chief advisor Lord Cherwell became responsible for inducing and perpetuating the famine and how their racist and contemptuous attitude towards Indians, particularly Hindus, eventually resulted in millions of deaths and laid the foundations for partitioning India on religious lines resulting in further trag

This is not just another book on the horrendous famine in Bengal in 1943-44 when 3 million people died, according to most independent accounts. This book is about how Winston Churchill and his chief advisor Lord Cherwell became responsible for inducing and perpetuating the famine and how their racist and contemptuous attitude towards Indians, particularly Hindus, eventually resulted in millions of deaths and laid the foundations for partitioning India on religious lines resulting in further tragedy. Most accounts of the famine have often dwelt on the ineptness and callous attitude of the British bureaucratic elite in India as the cause of the tragedies in Bengal in 1943. But Ms.Mukerjee shows how Churchill's personal hatred towards Indians, aided by the dubious and cynical counsel of his scientist and eugenicist friend and colleague Lord Cherwell, devastated Bengal during the famine and later set the stage for the massive bloodshed which accompanied the partition of India. The book is very well researched and the author, being Benglai herself, has talked to many of the survivors of the famine resulting in a book which is at once scholarly as well as personal. Being Indian myself, it was not only heart-wrenching for me to read about the role and prejudices of a British aristocrat in this tragedy but realize how ignorant many of us Indians have been in accepting Western accounts of the greatness of Churchill as a democrat of the free world. Ms. Mukerjee's book places Churchill's hatred towards India and his terrible actions into the larger context of WW 2 and India's freedom. One is left with the feeling of asking, 'what moral right did Churchill have in denouncing Stalin as a brutal dictator'. The author lays bare the machinations of Churchill, Lord Cherwell, Linlithgow and Wavell during the time of famine. Basically Churchill wanted to save foodgrains to feed Greece and Yugoslavia and a post-war Britain as part of his geo-political game in Europe. So, shiploads of foodgrains from Australia passed the Indian ports on the way to Europe without offloading even a kilogram of it to the starving, famine-stricken Indians in Bengal. For Churchill, it was unacceptable that bread should be rationed in Britain but quite acceptable to let millions of Bengalis die of starvation. The only British official who emerges with a clean record was the secretary of state Lord Leopold Amery, who consistently opposed Churchill's plans to promote the Muslim League and partition India as well as plead for grains to feed the millions in Bengal.

The book shows that President Roosevelt, being a genuine liberal, was rather contemptuous of Churchill's aristocratic bearing and Britain's conduct towards freedom for India. His Ambassador to India, William Phillips reported to Roosevelt on the famine and the president was very sympathetic towards Indian independence and the need for America to help India achieve it. But inter-dependencies on the war effort in Europe made it difficult for the US to push Churchill too far on India.

There are a few other observations which were of great interest to me:

In spite of the massive starvation, amazingly, shops holding grains were not looted by the people. The author says that it was initially due to the people clinging ferociously to their values of not taking to crime and later due to the emaciated condition of the population to take on the well-fed shop owners. Another unique feature was that not even a single act of cannibalism was reported all through the famine. In most places of famine, cannibalism was a common occurrence. But the people of Bengal - both Hindus and Muslims- clearly drew the line when it came to cannibalism due to the strong cultural taboo that prevailed probably for millenniums. The author says, '...given the frequency and intensity with which famines hit 19th century India, accounts of anthropophagy are so rare that they point to a prohibition that prevailed across the subcontinent...'

The book has many other points of research regarding the state of Bengal when the East of India co set foot there and life of the many revolutionaries during the 1940s. I feel that this book is a major contribution to Indian history in general and also an important work in the history of the second world war. It is required reading for Indians as well as Britishers, especially those Britishers who often like to believe that Britain was by and large a benevolent colonial power in India. The revelation that massive starvation deaths were brought about during the second world war not only by dictators like Hitler and Stalin but also by Winston Churchill by using the same domineering power, should be a humbling thought to apologists of European colonialism.

Five stars all the way!

