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The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Search results for 'bengal famine'
Conclusions of the 1943-44 Bengal Famine Commission
23
Oct
2023
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
“It has been for us a sad task to inquire into the course and causes of the Bengal famine. We have been haunted by a deep sense of tragedy. A million and a half of the poor of Bengal fell victim to circumstances for which they themselves were not responsible. Society, together. with its organs, failed to protect its weaker members. Indeed, there was a moral and social breakdown, as well as an administrative breakdown.” —Commission conclusion
The Effects of Race and Caste on Relief in the Bengal Famine, 1943-44
29
Jan
2021
4
By ABHIJIT SARKAR
Communalization and politicization of food during the Bengal famine widened the chasm in Bengali society along the lines of religion.
Churchill and the Genocide Myth: Last Word on the Bengal Famine
27
Jan
2021
11
Did Churchill Exacerbate the Bengal Famine?
08
Apr
2015
25
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
Reviewing a recent book, The Churchill Factor, by London Mayor Boris Johnson, a reviewer repeated a widespread canard that Winston Churchill caused the Bengal Famine. This allegation false; Churchill did everything he could in the midst of world war to save the Bengalis, and without him the famine would have been worse.
Absent Churchill, Bengal’s Famine Would Have Been Worse
13
Oct
2017
11
“Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” Another Remark Churchill Never Said
16
Jul
2022
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Wavell’s and Churchill’s actions to ease the Bengal Famine are explained elsewhere. We focus here only on a misrepresentation of Churchill based on Viceroy Wavell’s diary: “Winston sent me a peevish telegram to ask why Gandhi hadn’t died yet!” Wavell did write this but it was not a quote—and fairly peevish itself. Why don’t the critics publish what Churchill actually said? Here it is…
Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?
06
Sep
2017
8
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
A popular weekly half hour podcast, Revisionist History takes aim at shibboleths, real and imagined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel. The villain, aside from Sir Winston, is his scientific adviser, Frederick Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell, aka “The Prof.” You’ve probably never heard of him, says narrator Malcolm Gladwell. You should have. It was Lindemann who made Churchill bomb innocent German civilians and starve the Bengalis. Accompanied by background music, uplifting or ominous as required, Mr. Gladwell unfolds his case. He claims to have read six books on Lord Cherwell (whose title he mispronounces). But his only two quoted sources are the British scientist C.P. Snow (very selectively; Snow admired Churchill); and Madhusree Mukerjee, author of a widely criticized book on the Bengal Famine. There are no contrary opinions or evidence.
“Fighting Retreat” by Walter Reid: Did Churchill Really Hate India?
26
Feb
2024
By ZAREER MASANI
The promise of Dominion status required only that Congress, the Muslim League and the princes agree on power-sharing at a federal Centre. To blame Churchill for the internal divisions that obstructed such a coalition obfuscates reality. A power-sharing deal between Nehru and Jinnah would have made nonsense of Churchill’s fears. Instead, India’s fragile imperial unity fell apart under majoritarian strains. That gave Churchill the dubious distinction of being proved right.
“The Cambridge Companion to Winston Churchill”: a Review
06
Jul
2023
By ANDREW ROBERTS
Academics revel in pointing out their subjects’ feet of clay, but all too often pay too little attention to the marble in the rest of the statue. This is a relatively new phenomenon. The words that free peoples employ in their defence of the liberty to express contested ideas will largely be those of Sir Winston Churchill: the subject—but sadly not the hero—of this book.
Kishan Rana on Churchill and India: A Misunderstood Relationship
15
May
2023
2
By ANDREAS KOUREAS
The most common misconceptions about Churchill and India are no better misrepresented than by former Indian Ambassador Rana. Ladled on wholesale are false accusations of genocide, imperial hatred and invented conspiracies. The ridiculous price for so short a book may do more than anything to prevent people from reading it. Which, given the contents, may not altogether be a bad thing.
Abstract: Judging the British Empire by its Aims and Intentions
22
Mar
2023
By ZAREER MASANI
The costs and benefits of empire are not morally commensurate and incapable of being compared in those terms. Outcomes good and bad are historically and ethically complex. The best we can do is to make balanced moral judgments of the Empire’s aims and intentions, even if their execution was often flawed or the consequences sometimes unintended. As for the charge of imperial nostalgia, there can be none, since the British Empire, so long past, never can return.
Alan Saltman Looks at Churchill’s Decision to Fight On—Again
09
Mar
2023
1
By William John Shepherd
Once Churchill became prime minister, ignominious vassalage à la Vichy France was never a serious possibility. But Saltman's psychological profile of why Churchill fought on omits a crucial dimension: Churchill’s belief in constitutional democracy. That didn’t come from his upbringing or the military, but from his wide reading of the classic philosophers, and broad understanding of representative government.