Before you make disingenuous remarks about this grim and grave subject read the "Sunday Times" review on 7th August 2010 by Sir Max Hastings of Madhusree Mukerjee's devastating indictment of Churchill over the Bengal Famine of 1943. The review states the basic points very concisely, and is by a known UK Conservative historian who is an ex-editor of Conservative UK "Daily Telegraph", and an expert on Churchill:  "The 1943 Bengal famine was one of the second world war's greatest scandals. This book lays the blame squarely on Churchill's shoulders  Title Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II Author Madhusree Mukerjee Publisher Basic Books Length 368 pages Price £17.09  WINSTON Churchill told the House of Commons after Pearl Harbor in December 1941: "The great thing is that we have four-fifths of the world's populations on our side." This was a terminological inexactitude. It would have been more correct to say that the allies had many of the world's peoples under their control, which was somewhat different.  A significant proportion, including many Arabs and Indians, were alienated from the allied struggle for freedom, because it included no commitment to liberate them from colonial mastery.  Even Churchill's greatest admirers cannot escape the fact that British misgovernment of the Raj represented a blot on his wartime leadership.  "He is really not quite normal on the subject of India," wrote Leo Amery, secretary of state for India. Churchill defied American opinion by resisting serious negotiation with Nehru's Congress party about self-government. He wrote in his war memoirs that President Roosevelt's commitment to this represented "an act of madness… Idealism at other people's expense and without regard to the consequences of ruin and slaughter which fall upon millions of humble homes cannot be considered as its highest and noblest form".  He claimed that British policy was based on a refusal to desert the Indian people in their hour of need, "leaving them to anarchy or subjugation". He caused most of the nationalist leadership to be imprisoned for much of the war, and endorsed ruthless repressive measures in response to strikes, demonstrations and acts of sabotage. The British authorities copied Stalin's policy in Russia by confiscating all accessible private radios to prevent disaffected Indians from listening to Axis broadcasts.  All this was narrowly defensible in the context of Britain's struggle for survival, especially when the Japanese were at the gates. On January 21, 1942, the viceroy Lord Linlithgow reported to London: "There is a large and dangerous potential fifth column in Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Orissa, and…indeed, potentiality of pro-enemy sympathy and activity in eastern India is enormous."  But the scandal, one of the great horrors of the war, was the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least 1m and perhaps 3m Indians perished. In the clubs of Calcutta sahibs continued to enjoy unlimited eggs and bacon, while a few yards from their doors people died in the streets.  This is the story Madhusree Mukerjee tells in her significant and - to British readers - distressing book. A soldier of left-wing sympathies, Clive Branson, was appalled by what he found in India during war service there: "Let our imperialists boast… Never will any of us…forget the unbelievable, indescribable poverty in which we have found people living wherever we went." If the British people knew the truth, "there would be a hell of a row - because these conditions are maintained in the name of the British".  Bengal was especially vulnerable. Its principal source of imported rice was cut off when neighbouring Burma was occupied by the Japanese. The British confiscated or disabled most of the coastal region's transport, including boats and bullock carts, to prevent its use by the enemy. This crippled both fishing and trade.  Much traditional crop-growing land had been turned over to jute production, vital for sandbags - indeed, India became a major source of war material for the empire. Then in November 1942 a cyclone struck today's Bangladesh, killing 30,000 people and ravaging the countryside. As hunger began to give way to starvation, the authorities were slow to respond. Large quantities of food continued to be exported to Sri Lanka.  When the crisis was belatedly recognised and the new viceroy, Wavell, appealed to London for food aid, his repeated and increasingly urgent requests received woefully inadequate responses. He wrote: "Apparently it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries from starvation than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in [Britain]."
LEO TOLSTOY died one hundred years ago today, aged 82.  His last days and hours succumbing to pneumonia in a railway master’s house were followed by the entire world. A