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Articles
Women queuing for rice during the Bengal Famine, Lake Market, Calcutta, 1943. (South Magazine)
Madhusree Mukerjee , Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II. New York: Basic Books, 2010, reprinted, 368pp., $13.28 (Amazon), $11.99 (Kindle).
The Mukerjee Thesis
Voltaire once said the problem with the Holy Roman Empire was that it was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire. One could say of Churchill’s Secret War that it is neither a secret nor a war, nor has it much to do with Churchill.
Ms. Mukerjee, who is no historian, gets herself entangled in three separate and contentious issues. There was Britain’s battle with Indian nationalists like Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose; Churchill’s often tempestuous views on India; and the 1943-44 Bengal famine. Out of them Mukerjee attempts to build a plausible cause-and-effect narrative. All she manages is to mangle the facts regarding all three, doing a disservice to both historical and moral truth.
In mid-October 1942 a devastating cyclone ripped through the coastal regions of east Bengal (today lower Bangladesh), killing thousands and decimating the autumn rice crop up to forty miles inland. Rice that should have been planted that winter was instead consumed. When hot weather arrived in May 1943, the rice crop was a fraction of normal for Bengal’s peasantry, who had spent centuries living on the edge of starvation.
Turning bad news into disaster were the Japanese, who had just overrun Burma, the main source of India’s rice imports. Within a month, the entire southeastern portion of the subcontinent faced starvation. The governments in New Delhi and Bengal were unprepared, and as the heat intensified, people began to die. It was the greatest humanitarian crisis the British Raj had faced in more than half a century.
Causes and Effects
One might easily blame the disaster on the Japanese, but there were other problems of India’s own making. Many local officials were either absent (Bengal’s governor fell ill and died); distracted by the eruption of Bose’s Quit India movement; or simply too slow and corrupt to react. Bengal’s Muslim majority ministry did nothing, while many of its Hindu members were making huge profits trading in rice during the shortage. Finally, the magnitude of what was happening did not reach the attention of London and Churchill until it was too late.
No Churchill critic, not even Mukerjee, has yet found a way to blame Churchill for actually triggering the famine in the way that, for example, Stalin caused the Great Famine in the Ukraine or Mao the mass starvations during China’s “Great Leap Forward.” Instead, the claim is that Churchill’s callous racist attitudes, developed during his years in India in the 1890s and typical of the British imperialist ruling elite, not only blinded him to the human suffering but led him to make decisions that prolonged and aggravated the death toll. This included deliberately halting shipments of food that might have relieved the suffering, while insisting that food exports from India to Britain continue despite a famine that by mid-October 1943 was killing 2,000 a month in Calcutta.
Today, of course, no accusation against a statesman of the recent past carries more gravity than that of racism. But Churchill’s position in mid-1943 needs to be appreciated before we begin accusing him—as Mukerjee does—as all but guilty of war crimes.
Famine amidst war
During that crucial summer, the Anglo-Americans had just prevailed in the Atlantic U-boat war. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt then knew how decisive was their success. Germany had suffered a crucial setback at Kursk; Japan at Guadalcanal. Yet both remained deadly opponents. Japan was still poised on the border of India, where a massive uprising instigated by Gandhi against British rule had just been suppressed. Meanwhile, both America and Britain were bracing for their impending landings in Italy.
How likely was it that Churchill would respond to the news of the Bengal famine—whose seriousness was yet unrealized by his India advisers Viceroy Linlithgow and Secretary for India Leo Amery—as anything more than an unwelcome distraction?
Past doubt, Churchill’s feelings toward India at that time were far from charitable. He and British officials had narrowly averted disaster by suppressing the Quit India movement, which had threatened to shut down the country even as the Japanese threatened India with invasion. Contrasted to the millions of loyal Indians helping fight the war, the rebels made him see red.
Yet the truth runs more deeply against Mukerjee than she is willing to admit. Her evidence of Churchill’s intransigence on India stems mainly from Leo Amery’s diary, where he recorded every one of the Prime Minister’s furious outbursts whenever Amery brought up the famine in the War Cabinet—whether Churchill meant what he said or not Amery privately decided that “on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane.” He recorded in August 1944 Churchill’s remark that relief would do no good because Indians “breed like rabbits” and will outstrip any available food supply. “Naturally I lost patience,” Amery records, “and couldn’t help telling him that I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s, which annoyed him no little.”
What Churchill Did to Help
This invidious comparison of Churchill with Hitler is the thematic hinge of the book. Unfortunately for the author, the actual record contradicts her account at almost every point.
When the War Cabinet became fully aware of the extent of the famine, on 24 September 1943, it agreed to send 200,000 tons of grain to India by the end of the year. Far from seeking to starve India, Churchill and his cabinet sought every way to alleviate the suffering without undermining the war effort. The war—not starving Indians or beating them into submission—remained the principal concern.
Reading Mukerjee’s account, one might never know there was a war raging in Europe and the rest of Asia. Germany barely rates a mention. Japan appears mainly as the sympathetic ally of anti-British Indian nationalists like Subhas Chandra Bose. In reality, Japan and Germany had far more dire plans for India than any Britain had.
Even Amery admitted, during the Quebec Conference, the “unassailable” case against diverting vital war shipping to India. Far from a racist conspiracy to break the country, the Viceroy noted that “all the Dominion Governments are doing their best to help.” While Churchill and the War Cabinet vetoed a Canadian proposal to send 100,000 tons of wheat to India, they pushed for Australia to fulfill that commitment—and 250,000 tons more.
How Churchill ended it
The greatest irony of all is that Churchill appointed, in October 1943, the viceroy who would halt the famine in its tracks. General Archibald Wavell immediately commandeered the army to move rice and grain from areas where it was plentiful to where it was not, and begged Churchill to send what help he could. On 14 February 1944 Churchill called an emergency meeting of the War Cabinet. He needed a way to send more aid without wrecking the coming Normandy invasion. “I will certainly help you all I can,” Churchill telegraphed Wavell, “but you must not ask the impossible.”
The next day Churchill wired Wavell. “We have given a great deal of thought to your difficulties, but we simply cannot find the shipping.”
Amery told the Viceroy that Churchill “was not unsympathetic” to the terrible situation. But no one had ships to spare with military operations in the offing. On April 28th Churchill spearheaded an appeal to Roosevelt and the Americans. They too proved resistant to humanitarian appeals with the invasion of Europe pending.
Another irony: the harvest of 1943 was one of the largest in India’s history. Claims of starvation and civil unrest seemed, from 5,000 miles away, far-fetched. They also seemed so in Washington. And Wavell thanked Churchill for “your generous assistance” in getting Australia to send 350,000 tons of wheat to India.
Mukerjee senses none of these ironies. To truly undermine nationalists like Gandhi and Bose, Churchill could have done no better than divert resources. But Churchill focused his attention on another goal: winning the war. Amery admitted as much in a note to Wavell on 26 June, three weeks after D-Day: “Winston, in his position, will naturally run any risk rather than one which immediately affects the great military stakes….”
Summary
Churchill could be ruthless in pursuing his main objective. The citizens of many German cities were about to find that out. But no racist or imperialist motives can be imputed there.
Of all the people who ignored the Bengal famine, perhaps the most curious case is Mukerjee’s hero, Mohandas Gandhi. For all his reputation as a humanitarian, Gandhi did remarkably little about the emergency. The issue barely comes up in his letters, except as another grievance against the Raj. Yet in peacetime throughout the 20th century, the Raj always handled famines with efficiency.
In February 1944 Gandhi wrote to Wavell: “I know that millions outside are starving for want of food. But I should feel utterly helpless if I went out and missed the food [i.e. independence] by which alone living becomes worthwhile.”
Gandhi felt free to conduct his private “fast unto death” even as the rest of India starved. He reasoned that he was playing for far bigger stakes. As was Winston Churchill.
About the Author
Dr. Herman is author of Gandhi & Churchill (2008), a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, and is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book is Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder. See also his Hillsdale College lecture, “Lenin and the Russian Revolution.”
Note: I first published this review in 2011. Unfortunately, the canard that Churchill exacerbated the Bengal famine is still circulated by many writers and speakers. I therefore requested Mr. Herman’s permission to reprint his review for a wider audience.
—Richard M. Langworth.
Further reading
Dr. Tirthankar Roy, “The Bengal Famine of 1943: Is There One Story to Tell?” in History Today, July 2019. A pdf is available on request.
_______, “Were Indian Famines ‘Natural’ or ‘Manmade’?”, London School of Economics, June 2016.
Soren Geiger, “Winston Churchill the Racist War Criminal.”
Oh yes, Churchill the fascist – a lovely line for the idiotic and vicious left. It was win the war or lose it all. India is lucky Churchill was in the seat.
You lost me at “the eruption of Bose’s Quit India movement.” Subhas Chandra Bose escaped British custody and left India in January 1941, over a year before the Bengal famine began.
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From Wikipedia: “Bose left but his movement survived him. He was welcomed in Germany, where he broadcast on German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio. He founded the Free India Center and created the Indian Legion, which was attached to the Wehrmacht, and later to the Waffen SS…. “He was also, however, prepared to envisage an invasion of India via the USSR by Nazi troops, spearheaded by the Azad Hind Legion; many have questioned his judgment here, as it seems unlikely that the Germans could have been easily persuaded to leave after such an invasion, which might also have resulted in an Axis victory in the War.”
So, let me get this straight. Churchill was in India and wanted Britain to stay in India, because he just loved being in India, he just loved Indian people so much and he just couldn’t stop defending India against the rising Germany. Some 2.5 million Indians who were forced to join the British military was just a minor detail. Most of the supplies and food was imported from India on credit, and never even acknowledging, was another minor detail. Churchill was racking daily payment of one million pounds to India during the war, not because India wanted to extend credit, was just typical Churchill going to bank and taking money with no loan documents. Of course, you will never bring that up in your sermons.
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A brief sermon in reply, from the economic historian Tirthankar Roy:
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“These statements turn a normal wartime emergency into a sinister scheme that Churchill hatched at the expense of the Empire. Churchill did not make this scheme, and the colonies were not short-changed by it.
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“Britain borrowed from its colonies personnel and materiel on a promise to pay back later. This meant that it sold sterling securities to the central bank (India had one since 1935), which released rupees against the rising reserves. There is no state in the last 500 years that did not fund a war by borrowing. It is the only way known to finance a war. Churchill may or may not have a hand in the arrangement with the colonies, but certainly the Bank of England and the Treasury would have a bigger say in the arrangement. The war ended with a huge credit balance in India’s favour, called the ‘sterling balance.’ That credit helped India’s early industrialization. I don’t think either Indian soldiers who joined, or the Indian businesses who supplied the material, were unhappy or felt cheated by the arrangement. A part of the army got involved in nationalist politics, but only in the last months of the war.”
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To that we can only add that the 2.5 million Indians who fought with Britain were volunteers, not conscripts. Churchill wrote of “the glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops who fought in the Middle East, who defended Egypt, who liberated Abyssinia, who played a grand part in Italy, and who, side by side with their British comrades, expelled the Japanese from Burma…the unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine for ever in the annals of war.”
The unsigned comment from Aug 31 2020 is a prime example of ahistorical methodology and lack of any knowledge in history. SAD!
Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why do our heroes have to be perfect?
Churchill was a hero for Britain in wwii. He also had no small amount of contempt for India and didn’t want to give them their freedom.
These don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
At least Hitler was not dishonest. He built army of his people, developed his own arms and paid for by his own people’s government. However, that was hardly the case with Churchill. Churchill had no qualms in taking arms from the U.S., man, material and money from India and had no intention of repaying. And Churchill never did.
President Roosevelt had to send the U.S. Navy and force Churchill to repay war debt and which were only paid back fully after 50 years later in 2006.
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Indian government never agreed to participate in the British war and Churchill forced war on India. It is ludicrous to force millions of Indian to fight war for the U.K. all the while Churchill talking about self-determination, freedom from tyranny and democracy.
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Even after 80 years, war debt of 1.25 billion pounds, what you call sterling loans, have still not be repaid to India. With modest interest of 2% accumulated debt and interest amounts to 80 billion pounds today and additional unpaid wages to 2.3 million Indian soldiers during the war years. So much for the civilized British and the claim of “morally superior race.”
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Without supplies, soldiers and real cash from India, it is very doubtful that Britain would be independent today. Yet Churchill had the gall to keep on lecturing others in the name of “victory at all costs.” Sure, using other people’s money and young men. Today there is not a single monument anywhere in Britain commemorating the fallen Indian soldiers in the war but there are monuments for pigeons deployed in the war.
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In the course of history, Churchill’s fiscal recklessness bankrupted Britain and leaders of India were successful in kicking out the repressive and plundering regime of the Britain. If Churchill had been smarter and a long-term thinker, Britain would have been still at the center of power. But he could hardly see beyond himself. Absent Churchill, Britain may have been better off but the world certainly is with 62 countries liberated from British and Churchill’s imperialism.
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DR. HERMAN REPLIES
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This writer has an unfortunate habit of saying things she believes to be true, but which are not. For example, the claim that Hitler “built an army of his people, developed his own arms, and paid for by his own people’s government” is patently false. Hitler’s war machine was to a very large degree appropriated from factories and facilities in occupied Czechoslovakia, Austria, France, and Poland. Without the hundreds of thousands of slave laborers working around the clock in inhuman conditions, including Jews, the Nazi military would have collapsed years before it did.
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By contrast, the U.S. material support for the British war effort was negotiated under the terms of the Lend-Lease agreement which was enacted by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt. The assertion that Roosevelt “had to send the U.S. Navy and force Churchill to repay war debt” is a fantasy.
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So is the notion that “without supplies, soldiers and real cash from India, it is very doubtful that Britain would be independent today.” In fact, India’s very real contribution was directed to enabling Britain and the U.S. to defend India from Japanese invasion, and to sustain China’s resistance against its Japanese occupiers. If anyone owes a special debt to India’s contribution during the Second World War, it is China—a debt Beijing pays back today in peculiar ways, e.g., by engaging in lethal cross-border incursions into Indian territory and seeking to turn India’s hostile neighbor Pakistan into a client state.
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The assertion that Indian soldiers went unpaid is similarly untrue. Indian soldiers were professionals who enlisted, among other reasons, for a defined “pay and benefits package” which the British administration was careful to uphold, both for self-interested reasons (i.e. to keep its Indian troops loyal) but also for honor’s sake.
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I discuss Britain’s debt to India in my book Gandhi and Churchill. Contrary the writer’s claims, the government in London let India pay for its normal peacetime military budget with an additional supplement for troops serving overseas, e.g., in the Middle East and Africa, while the British government assumed the cost for virtually everything else, including modernizing India’s defense industries. While Britain spent a quarter of its national wealth to fight Germany and Japan, India’s industrial sector came out strong and thriving.
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In short, it was British capital and British government wartime promissory notes that laid the foundation for India’s economic takeoff at the end of the last century. If New Delhi had really wanted to settle up the issue of its outstanding debt claims against the British government, which came to £1.5 billion at war’s end, it could have chosen to remain a British dominion as a way to smooth negotiations on repayment. Instead, independence and then partition severed relations with London and ended any opportunity for a long-term installment payment strategy such as the UK worked out with both the U.S. and Canada (it was not until the end of December 2006 that London finally paid that last installment, with 83.25 million US dollars (equivalent to £42.5 million) to the U.S and $22.7 U.S. dollars to Canada).
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Finally, the assertion that “Absent Churchill, Britain may have been better off but the world certainly is” will not resonate with the tens of millions of people who, absent Churchill, would have been permanently subjected to a victorious Nazi tyranny on the European continent, but also the millions in Asia who would have been enslaved by a victorious imperial Japan—including the Indians themselves.