For those that may not have seen it, this are Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's latest comments on the subject I can find (Dec 2010) which are instructive and important (source: http://history.wvu.edu/r/download/143345):-
STARTS 'Madhusree Mukerjee seems satisfied with little information. Mark Tauger’s data come from exactly two “rice research stations” from two districts in undivided Bengal, which had twenty-seven districts. Since weather variations have regionally diverse effects, it would require more than this to “seriously challenge” the analysis I made, using data from all districts, which indicated that food availability in 1943 (the famine year) was significantly higher than in 1941 (when there was no famine). Ignoring the range of data I used in my study, she misdescribes my estimates as being based only “on projections.” On the other point mentioned by Mukerjee, she makes a story out of a typo in my quotation from a statement of the secretary of state for India, omitting to mention that the typo has not the slightest bearing on my assessment of the food situation. Moreover, even a “shortage” of 1.4 million tons is a small proportion of the total crop of “60/70 million tons” (as the secretary of state mentioned). The confounding issue, of course, is the idea of “shortage” itself, as Lelyveld has noted. There was indeed a substantial shortfall compared with demand, hugely enhanced in a war economy, as I too have described in detail, but that is quite different from a shortfall of supply compared with supply in previous years. Mukerjee seems to miss this crucial distinction, and in her single-minded, if understandable, attempt to nail down Churchill, she ends up absolving British imperial policy of confusion and callousness, which had disastrous consequences.' Amartya Sen, Dec. 2010 ENDS Arif Zaman On 10 September 2012 at 15:06, Editor, Finest Hour <tcc-...@sneakemail.com> wrote: > : >> >> Amartya Sen, for example, does not blame the famine on Churchill, though >> he does place a great deal of the blame on the mechanisms of the Raj that >> Amery ran. His classic paper on the subject points to precisely malthusian >> thinking that allowing prices to rise while wages were stagnant that was >> the driving factor of turning shortage into famine. He noted that even with >> shipments taken into account there was more actual supply of food in Bengal >> at the time of the famine than at other times. There are lessons here, but >> blaming Churchill, the way one can, in fact, blame Stalin for the Ukraine >> is not one of those lessons. >> >> > That really does require the posting here of some of Arthur Herman's > review in Finest Hour 149 (read the whole thing at http://bit.ly/mh2aox). Mr. > Herman, nominated for a Pulitzer for his book, "Gandhi and Churchill," is a > measured student of the facts--qualities that are not always demonstrated > by writers on the matter: > > In mid-October 1942 a devastating cyclone ripped through the coastal > regions of east Bengal (today lower Bangladesh), killing thousands and > decimating the autumn rice crop up to forty miles inland. Rice that should > have been planted that winter was instead consumed. When hot weather > arrived in May 1943, the rice crop was a fraction of normal for Bengal’s > peasantry, who had spent centuries living on the edge of starvation. > > > Turning bad news into disaster were the Japanese, who had just overrun > Burma, the main source of India’s rice imports. Within a month, the entire > southeastern portion of the subcontinent faced starvation. The governments > in New Delhi and Bengal were unprepared, and as the heat intensified, > people began to die. It was the greatest humanitarian crisis the British > Raj had faced in more than half a century. > > One might easily blame the disaster on the Japanese, but there were other > problems of India’s own making. Many local officials were either absent > (Bengal’s governor fell ill and died), distracted by the eruption of Bose’s > Quit India movement; or simply too slow and corrupt to react. Bengal’s > Muslim majority ministry did nothing, while many of its Hindu members were > making huge profits trading in rice during the shortage. Finally, the > magnitude of what was happening did not reach the attention of London and > Churchill until it was too late. > > When the War Cabinet became fully aware of the extent of the famine, on 24 > September 1943, it agreed to send 200,000 tons of grain to India by the end > of the year. Far from seeking to starve India, Churchill and his cabinet > sought every way to alleviate the suffering *without undermining the war > effort. *The war—not starving Indians or beating them into > submission—remained the principal concern. > > The greatest irony of all is that it was Churchill who appointed, in > October 1943, the viceroy who would halt the famine in its tracks: General > Archibald Wavell immediately commandeered the army to move rice and grain > from areas where it was plentiful to where it was not, and begged Churchill > to send what help he could. On 14 February 1944 Churchill called an > emergency meeting of the War Cabinet to see if a way to send more aid could > be found that would not wreck plans for the coming Normandy invasion. “I > will certainly help you all I can,” Churchill telegraphed Wavell on the > 14th, “but you must not ask the impossible.” > > The next day Churchill wired Wavell: “We have given a great deal of > thought to your difficulties, but we simply cannot find the shipping.” > Amery told the viceroy that Churchill “was not unsympathetic” to the > terrible situation, but that no one had ships to spare with military > operations in the offing. On April 28th Churchill spearheaded an appeal to > Roosevelt and the Americans, but they too proved resistant to humanitarian > appeals with the invasion of Europe pending. > > Of all the people who ignored the Bengal famine, perhaps the most curious > case is Ms. Mukerjee’s hero, Mohandas Gandhi. For all his reputation as a > humanitarian, Gandhi did remarkably little about the emergency. The issue > barely comes up in his letters, except as another grievance against the > Raj—which, in peacetime, had always handled famines with efficiency. > > In February 1944 Gandhi wrote to Wavell: “I know that millions outside are > starving for want of food. But I should feel utterly helpless if I went out > and missed *the* food [i.e. independence] by which alone living becomes > worthwhile.” > > Gandhi felt free to conduct his private “fast unto death” in order to > force the British out, even as the rest of India starved, because he felt > he was playing for far bigger stakes. As was Winston Churchill. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "ChurchillChat" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/churchillchat/-/h3S4Z269m5EJ. > > To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
