Bengal Famine - 1943

Introduction
The Bengal famine of 1943 struck the Bengal Province of pre-partition British India (present-day
West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Bangladesh) during World War II following the Japanese
occupation of Burma. Approximately 3 million people died due to famine. Generally the
estimates are between 1.5 and 4 million, taking into account death due
to starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal's 60.3 million population. Half of the
victims died from disease after food became available in December 1943. Generally it is
thought that there was a serious decrease in food production during that time, coupled with
Bengal's continuing export of grain. 

Cause
The proximate cause of the famine was a reduction in supply with some increase in demand.
The winter 1942 ‘aman’ rice crop, which was already expected to be poor or indifferent, [13] was
hit by a cyclone and three tidal waves in October. 450 square miles were swept by tidal waves,
400 square miles affected by floods and 3200 square miles damaged by wind and torrential
rain. Reserve stocks in the hands of cultivators, consumers and dealers were destroyed. This
killed 14,500 people and 190,000 cattle.[14] ‘The homes, livelihood and property of nearly 2.5
million Bengalis were ruined or damaged.’[15] 

A fungus causing the disease known as "brown spot", hit the rice crop and this was reported to
have had an even greater effect on yield than the cyclone. [16] The fungus, Helminthosporium
oryzae, destroyed 50% to 90% of some rice varieties.[17]

It was argued that the normal carryover stocks did not exist in Bengal, because 1941 was a
short year, and people started eating the December 1941 crop as soon as it was harvested (as
they certainly did when the December 1943 crop was harvested). As a result, the good
December 1941 crop did not mean the normal surplus stocks were carried over into 1943. In
other years and in other provinces, there had been several good or average crops between bad
years, and stocks had built up.[18]

Bengal had been a food importer for the last decade. Calcutta was normally supplied by Burma.
The British Empire had suffered a disastrous defeat at Singapore in 1942 against the Japanese
military, which then proceeded to invade Burma in the same year. Burma was the world's
largest exporter of rice in the inter-war period.[19] By 1940 15% of India's rice overall came from
Burma, while in Bengal the proportion was slightly higher given the province's proximity to
Burma.[20] After the Japanese occupation of Burma in March 1942, Bengal and the other parts of
India and Ceylon, normally supplied by Burma, had to find food elsewhere. However, there were
poor crops and famine situations in Cochin, Trivandrum and Bombay on the West coast and
Madras, Orissa and Bengal in the East. It fell on the few surplus Provinces, mainly the Punjab,
to supply the rest of India and Ceylon.[21]

India as a whole had a deficit, but still exported small quantities to meet the urgent needs of the
British-Indian Army abroad, and those of Ceylon.[citation needed]

Food Prices
Food prices were high in mid-1942, reflecting the belief that India was in deficit. They rose sharply
when the cyclone destroyed a quarter of Bengal's rice crop, and evidence of shortage elsewhere in
India and elsewhere in the region emerged, and they continued to rise sharply as the famine bit.
Repeated efforts to ‘break the Calcutta market’ and reduce prices by dumping grain on the market
failed: the quantities of grain available for intervention were minuscule in relation to the shortage.

Supplies from Other Countries

By August 1943 Churchill refused to release shipping to send food to India. Initially during the famine
he was more concerned with the civilians of Nazi-occupied Greece (who were also suffering from a
famine) compared with the Bengalis, noting that the "starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less
serious than that of sturdy Greeks".

Government Inaction
Whatever the cause of the famine, deaths could only be prevented by supplies of food from
elsewhere in India. This was not forthcoming.
In normal regional famines the Indian Government had provided the starving with money, and
let the trade bring in grain which worked for regional famines, though this had been disastrous in
Orissa in 1888 when, as in 1943, the shortage was not regional but national. In 1942, with the
permission of the central government, trade barriers were introduced by the democratically
elected Provincial governments. The politicians and civil servants of surplus provinces like the
Punjab introduced regulations to prevent grain leaving their provinces for the famine areas of
Bengal, Madras and Cochin. There was the desire to see that, first, local populations and,
second, the populations of neighbouring provinces were well fed, partly to prevent civil unrest.
Politicians and officials got power and patronage, and the ability to extract bribes for shipping
permits. Marketing and transaction costs rose sharply. The market could not get grain to
Bengal, however profitable it might be. The main trading route, established for hundreds of
years was up the river system and this ceased to operate, leaving the railway as the only way of
getting food into Bengal. Grain arrivals stopped and in March 1943,Calcutta, the second biggest
city in the world, had only two weeks food supply in stock.[42]

The Government of India realized a mistake had been made and decreed a return to free trade.
The Provinces refused. ‘In this, again, the Government of India misjudged both its own influence
and the temper of its constituents, which had by this time gone too far to pay much heed to the
Centre.’[43] The Government of India Act 1935 had removed most of the Government of India's
authority over the Provinces, so they had to rely on negotiation.

Thus, even when the Government of India decreed that there should be free trade in grain,
politicians, civil servants, local government officers and police obstructed the movement of grain
to famine areas.[44] In some cases Provinces seized grain in transit from other Provinces to
Bengal.[45] 

Conclusion
Contemporary commentators believed that there was substantial hoarding by those consumers
who could afford it, by firms and by those farmers who produced surpluses. This started in July
1941 when war with Japan was inevitable, increased when Burma was attacked in December
1941 and when Ceylon, then Calcutta were bombed in 1942. India would have entered the
famine year with substantial surplus private stocks. These stocks do not appear to have been
released and there was no political drive to get people to give or sell the surpluses. An official
‘Food Drive’ in Bengal did not result in release of hoarded stocks.[52] It was believed that fear of
the famine actually increased hoarding.
The orthodox explanation of the famine, from the Famine Inquiry Commission of 1945 was that the
Indian provincial and national governments and the British government chose to believe, without
evidence and in denial of the evidence, that Bengal had plenty of food available, and so they
provided far less food relief than was needed, and many people died. Amartya Sen (1976)
challenged this orthodoxy, reviving the claim that there was no shortage of food in Bengal and that
the famine was caused by inflation, with those benefiting from inflation eating more and leaving less
for the rest of the population. Sen claimed that there was in fact a greater supply in 1943 than in
1941, when there was no famine. This is the explanation that the Bengal Government and other
governments believed and acted on in 1943.[80]