Did Churchill Cause the Bengal Famine?
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
| April 8, 2015
Reviewing a recent book, The Churchill Factor, by London Mayor Boris Johnson, a reviewer repeated a widespread canard about Winston Churchill that really needs to be put to rest:
When there was a danger of serious famine in Bengal in 1943–4, Churchill announced that the Indians “must learn to look after themselves as we have done… there is no reason why all parts of the British empire should not feel the pinch in the same way as the mother country has done.†Still more disgracefully, he said in a jocular way that “the starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks.†This is more than amusingly politically incorrect language: it had real consequences. Three million Bengalis died of starvation. A true historian would not have neglected this in order to suggest that the imperialist was making a stand against ‘barbarous practices.â€1
There’s a good reason why Mayor Johnson omits the now-famous accusation that Churchill starved the Bengalis: it is not true. Alas, in the words of a wartime statesman, “a lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.â€2
The charge stems from a 2009 book accusing Churchill of irresponsibility over Bengal that amounted to a war crime, repeated by scores of sources since. As Churchill once remarked, “I should think it was hardly possible to state the opposite of the truth with more precision.â€3
Read more at: https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/did-churchill-cause-the-bengal-famine/
One never heard about that famine and Churchill before and probably only after that book was published. Maybe there are some examples.
Anyway, the whole Churchill Project from Hillsdale College is at:
https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/It's kind of the way, another conservative legend is tarnished with revisionist history.
