Bengal famine 1943

Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in British-ruled Bengal during the Second World War. About 3 million people died; estimates range from roughly 2 to 3 million. The main cause was not a total lack of rice. Wartime inflation, the loss of rice from Burma after Japan conquered it, army buying, hoarding, crop damage and government neglect put rice beyond the reach of the poor.

It matters because it is the clearest modern example of the entitlement idea: people starve because they cannot buy or grow enough food, even when some food exists. It also became a strong nationalist charge against British rule in its last years.

Explanation

Background: a countryside with no cushion

• Bengal entered the 1940s already poor. Colonial rule had brought a long chain of famines.
• Cash land revenue had to be paid whether or not the crop came in. So peasants sold their grain right after harvest and kept no reserve.

• Debt to moneylenders led many peasants to lose their land. A large class of landless labourers grew up who had to buy their food.

• Earlier famines showed the same pattern. In the Great Famine of 1876–78, India exported about one million tonnes of rice per year. The Famine Commission of 1880 found that India had an overall foodgrain surplus of 5.16 million tons, including Burma [1].

• The Indian Famine Code of 1883 was the first modern rulebook for famine relief. It classified levels of food scarcity and set out what the government must do at each level [1]. In 1943 the government was slow to declare a famine at all, so this machinery was not used in time.

Causes: war turned scarcity into catastrophe

• Loss of Burma rice (1942). Japan conquered Burma in 1942. Bengal had depended on rice imports from Burma, and that supply stopped.
• Wartime inflation. The government printed money to pay for the war. Huge army spending in eastern India pushed up the price of rice much faster than wages rose.
• Army and official buying. Food was bought to feed soldiers, war workers and Calcutta (Kolkata). Calcutta's industrial workers were given priority supplies. Villages were left to the open market.
• "Denial policy" (1942). The British feared a Japanese invasion. So they removed or destroyed boats and surplus rice in coastal Bengal so that an invader could not use them.
• Fishermen and boatmen lost their work.

• Local rice trade by river collapsed.

• Crop damage. A cyclone and floods hit coastal Bengal, especially Midnapore, in October 1942. Crop disease also cut the winter rice harvest.

• Hoarding and speculation. Traders, big farmers and even ordinary families who could afford it held back rice, expecting prices to rise. This made prices jump even faster.
• Policy failure.
• Provinces put up barriers on moving grain between them.
• Price control in Bengal was tried and then dropped.
• Requests for food imports were refused or delayed by the War Cabinet in London under Winston Churchill. Shipping was kept for war needs.

How it unfolded (1942–44)

• Late 1942: Burma is lost, the denial policy is in force, and the cyclone strikes. Rice prices begin to climb.
• Early to mid-1943: Rice prices rise several times over. Landless labourers, fishermen, artisans and small peasants can no longer buy food. Families sell land, cattle and tools.
• Mid to late 1943: Starving people walk from the villages to Calcutta. Many die on the streets. Deaths peak in the second half of 1943.
• October 1943: Lord Wavell replaces Lord Linlithgow as Viceroy. He uses the army to carry food and run relief.
• 1944: Deaths go on into 1944. Disease killed many people as well as hunger: cholera, malaria and smallpox spread among weak, starving people.

Results

• About 3 million deaths, as an estimate; figures differ by source. Most of the dead were rural poor, not the middle class in towns.
• Rural society was broken further. Land passed from small peasants to richer buyers, and families split up.
• The famine deepened Indian anger at British rule in the final years before 1947.
• It shaped free India's later food policy: public distribution of grain and government grain stocks to protect the poor.

Time, place and evidence

• When: 1943, with the crisis building from 1942 and deaths continuing into 1944. This was during the Second World War, at the same time as the Quit India Movement (1942).
• Where: Bengal province of British India, which includes today's West Bengal and Bangladesh. Coastal districts such as Midnapore were hit hard. Calcutta became the place where crowds of starving migrants gathered.
• Key people:
• Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy until October 1943.
• Lord Wavell, Viceroy from October 1943, who organised army relief.
• Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, whose War Cabinet limited food imports.

• Bengal's provincial ministry: A.K. Fazlul Huq until early 1943, then Khwaja Nazimuddin, with H.S. Suhrawardy in charge of civil supplies.

• How we know:

• Famine Inquiry Commission (Woodhead Commission), 1944–45. This was the official enquiry. It blamed the Bengal government's failures and supply problems.
• Newspaper reports, especially The Statesman of Calcutta, which printed photographs of the dead in 1943.
• Art and literature: the drawings of Zainul Abedin and Chittaprosad, and the play Nabanna by Bijon Bhattacharya, staged by IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association).
• Amartya Sen's book Poverty and Famines (1981). It used 1943 Bengal as its main case to argue that the famine came from a collapse of entitlements, not a collapse in food supply.

Don't confuse with

• Bengal famine 1770–72: This was under East India Company rule, soon after the Company got the Diwani (right to collect revenue) of Bengal in 1765 [2]. It followed two years of crop failure and harsh revenue demands. It killed about 10 million, nearly one-third of Bengal's population. 1943 was under the Crown, in wartime, with about 3 million dead.
• Great Famine 1876–78: It hit mainly the Deccan plateau, with up to 8 million dead, under Viceroy Lytton [1]. The key policy failure was his "free market" refusal to lower food prices. In 1943 the key failures were wartime: inflation, the loss of Burma and the denial policy.
• Famine Commission 1878–80 vs Famine Inquiry Commission 1944–45: The first led to the Indian Famine Code of 1883 [1]. The second, the Woodhead Commission, investigated the 1943 Bengal famine.
• Food Availability Decline (FAD) vs entitlement failure: FAD says people starve because total food falls. Sen's entitlement view, built on 1943 Bengal, says people starve because they lose the ability to buy or grow enough food.

Prelims Hooks

• Bengal famine of 1943: about 3 million deaths (estimates c. 2–3 million), during the Second World War.
• Major trigger: Japanese conquest of Burma (1942) cut off rice imports to Bengal.
• Viceroy when it began: Linlithgow. He was replaced in October 1943 by Wavell, who used the army for relief.
• Official enquiry: Famine Inquiry Commission, chaired by Sir John Woodhead (1944–45).
• Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines (1981): uses 1943 Bengal as the classic case of entitlement failure.
• Chronology trap, in the right order: Bengal famine 1770 → Great Famine 1876–78 → Indian Famine Code 1883 [1] → Bengal famine 1943.

Mains Points

• Entitlement, not availability.
• Rice did exist in 1943, but prices rose far beyond the wages of labourers, fishermen and artisans.
• This continues a colonial pattern. Even in 1880 the Famine Commission found a 5.16 million ton foodgrain surplus while people starved [1].

• The lesson for an answer: famine is about who can command food, not only how much food exists.

• War priorities over Indian lives.

• Army buying, priority for Calcutta, the denial policy and London's refusal or delay of imports show imperial war aims put ahead of Indian survival.

• The Famine Code existed from 1883 [1], but famine was not declared in time. So the system built to prevent famine was not used.

• A long chain ending in 1943.

• Cash revenue, debt, loss of land and deindustrialisation had created a mass of landless, cashless rural poor with no reserve.
• War shocks in 1942–43 pushed this weak society over the edge.
• The famine strengthened nationalist criticism and shaped free India's food security policy. Historians still debate how much blame belongs to London, New Delhi, the Bengal ministry and private hoarders.

Related concepts

• Bengal famine of 1770
• Great Famine of 1876-78
• Lord Lytton
• Famine Commissions
• Famine Code
• Colonial famines

Read more

• Famines under colonial rule