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Whilst Winston Churchill is trending, a short thread from my first book about how he helped cause a famine that killed more than 3 million people: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07SXCP243/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
If in the Avengers Thor flew down, killed Thanos and saved the universe, then turned around and started twatting orphans with his hammer there would many articles written about how "ok bravo on killing Thanos but I think we need to talk about how Thor is a bit of a mixed bag".
Well, Churchill, one of Britain's greatest heroes, who stood up to Hitler (with the help of many allies) and won, also caused the death of 3 million people in India, and we should probably acknowledge that a bit.
In 1943, famine was sweeping through India, still one of Britain's colonies at the time. The situation was dire. People were dying in their millions. Parents dumped the bodies of their starved children into rivers, and took their own lives by jumping in front of trains.
There were reports of dogs eating piles of dead bodies in the villages of Bengal. During this time, under instruction from the British, India exported more than 70,000 tonnes of rice to Britain, which could have kept around 400,000 people alive for a year.
Officials in India requested several times that food be imported towards the millions of starving people rather than away from them, but were denied by Churchill on most occasions, or given a tiny amount of what they asked for to mitigate the famine.
Accounts at the time from Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell say that Churchill thought that giving food to "already underfed Bengalis is less serious than [giving it to] sturdy Greeks".
Sometimes the food wasn't even to be used immediately. Rather than deal with a crisis where millions were starving, Churchill allowed food imported from Australia to sail right on past India, to be stored in Europe in case we fancied a bit of a snack later on.
Like hearing an ice-cream truck go by when you're hungry, except you're starting to get a feeling that the truck driver might be a massive racist. Mr Whippy seems to be happy to stop for all the European kids, that's all I'm saying.
Food prices shot up as a result of fewer imports, and hoarders took advantage, stockpiling and shooting the prices up even higher, making food unaffordable for the millions of poor.
I know it doesn't seem likely, but it gets worse. Historian Madhusree Mukerjee writes that Churchill operated a scorched earth policy, in order to make sure supplies were low and transport was not around if Japan were to invade Bengal.
Under this policy, rice deemed "surplus" would be thrown in the water, and boats were confiscated from fishermen, killing the local fishing industry which would have been quite useful when there was no food.
In essence, we starved and bankrupted a lot of Indian people in reality in order to starve the Japanese in an imaginary scenario in our heads.
It would be easy to try and dismiss this as a grave mistake by Churchill, or a tactical error. It would be even easier to dismiss it, had he not once said "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion" to the Secretary of State for India*
and said the famine was the fault of Indians for “breeding like rabbits” which is fairly indefensible whilst they were farming enough food to sustain themselves if you personally weren't shipping it out the country for yourself.
I know, I know: Churchill is a national hero, and people feel that by attacking Churchill, somehow you attack our own national sense of identity.
So by all means celebrate the good things Churchill did. Helping to stop Hitler, that was good. Why not just add a caveat your praise a bit. Does it really diminish our national character to say "apart from all the ruthless fucking murder by omission Churchill was alright"?*
*Yes. Yes it does.
My first book is out of stock due to weirdly high demand, but should you like my style of writing about history my new book Sunburn is available and makes a great gift. Audiobook read by Alexei Sayle. https://linktr.ee/SunburnJamesFelton
