A Historical Memory, - the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.

At least 3 million people died from starvation and malnutrition during a famine in the Indian province of Bengal in 1943.

When British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed regret this week for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar (in which at least 400 unarmed Indian men, women and children were massacred by British soldiers), he omitted any reference to Britain’s role in a far greater tragedy of colonial India: the Bengal famine of 1943. Seventy years ago, at least 3 million people died from starvation and malnutrition during a famine in the Indian province of Bengal - a partly man made disaster that has been largely forgotten by the world beyond northeastern India.

A complex confluence of malign factors led to the catastrophe, which occurred with the world at war, including, as Indian parliamentary member and leading agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan cited in the Hindu newspaper, the Japanese occupation of neighboring Burma and damage to the local rice crop due to tidal waves and a fungal disease epidemic. Swaminathan also blamed “panic purchase and hoarding by the rich, failure of governance, particularly in relation to the equitable distribution of the available food grains, disruption of communication due to World War II and the indifference of the then UK government to the plight of the starving people of undivided Bengal.”

But while famines were not uncommon in India throughout history, largely because of periodic droughts or monsoons, the tragedy in Bengal had the unmistakable hand of man in it, making it an even greater calamity of recent global history. In the prior year, 1942, when Japan seized Burma, an important rice exporter, the British bought up massive amounts of rice but hoarded it. The famine only ended because Bengal thankfully delivered a strong rice harvest by 1944.

Dr. Gideon Polya, an Australian biochemist, has called the Bengal famine a man made “holocaust.” “The British brought an unsympathetic and ruthless economic agenda to India,” he wrote. Polya further noted that the “loss of rice from Burma and ineffective government controls on hoarding and profiteering led inevitably to enormous price rises. Thus, it can be estimated that the price of rice in Dacca (East Bengal) increased about four-fold in the period from March to October 1943. Bengalis having to purchase food (e.g landless laborers) suffered immensely. Thus, it is estimated that about 30 percent of one particular laborer class died in the famine.” Many observers in both modern India and Great Britain blame Winston Churchill, Britain's inspiring wartime leader at the time, for the devastation wrought by the famine.

In 2010, Bengali author Madhusree Mukherjee wrote a book about the famine called “Churchill's Secret War,” in which she explicitly blamed Churchill for worsening the starvation in Bengal by ordering the diversion of food away from Indians and toward British troops around the world. Mukherjee’s book described how wheat from Australia (which could have been delivered to starving Indians) was instead transported to British troops in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Even worse, British colonial authorities (again under Churchill’s leadership) actually turned down offers of food from Canada and the U.S. “If it was someone else other than Churchill, I believe relief would have been sent, and, if it wasn’t for the war, the famine wouldn’t have occurred at all,” Mukherjee told Inter Press Service.“Churchill’s attitude toward India was quite extreme, and he hated Indians, mainly because he knew India couldn’t be held for very long. One cannot escape the really powerful, racist things that he was saying. It certainly was possible to send relief but for Churchill and the War Cabinet that were hoarding grain for use after the war.”  Churchill’s hostility toward Indians has long been documented. Reportedly, when he first received a telegram from the British colonial authorities in New Delhi about the rising toll of famine deaths in Bengal, his reaction was simply that he regretted that nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi was not one of the victims. Later at a War Cabinet meeting, Churchill blamed the Indians themselves for the famine, saying that they “breed like rabbits.” His attitude toward Indians was made crystal clear when he told Secretary of State for India Leopold Amery: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. “According to the BBC, Mukherjee said that Cameron should have apologized for the Bengal famine on behalf of his predecessor in Downing Street from decades ago - indeed, even former Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized for Britain's culpability in the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. 

Outside of India, the Bengal famine of 1943 might only be known through the efforts of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who directed a movie in 1973 called "Ashani Sanket" (“Distant Thunder”), based on a novel by the same name by Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.

Gangtok, Sikkim in 1971.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India.

Preamble of our Constitution says, “we, the people of India, constituted India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic with the objective of securing to all its citizens justice, social, economical and political liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status and opportunity.

Article 39 of our constitution says, ” The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing -

(a) That the citizen, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood.

(b) That the ownership and control of the material resource of the community are so distributed as best to sub-serve the common good.

(c) That the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment.”

Article 37 of the Constitution says that the principles laid down there are fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws. Any indifference or negligence in the direction of implementation of the directive principles of the State policy is bound to be fatal to the very cause of the Constitution.

The Constitutional machinery of the Union and the directive principles of the State policy are meant to achieve the objective of the Constitution. Although the Directive Principles of State Policy are asserted to be fundamental in the governance of the country, they are not legally enforceable. It shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws. Any indifference or negligence in the direction of implementation of the directive principles of the State policy is bound to be fatal to the very cause of the Constitution.

However, In the name of reformation, the Indian government decided to introduce Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in order to balance its budget deficit, boost growth and ward off a credit downgrade. The government reasoned, “FDI was expected to generate a large number of jobs in rural India besides giving remunerative prices to farmers for their products.” It is therefore, assumed that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) shall increase economic growth by dealing with different international products, 1 Crore employment will create in three years, Billion dollars will be invested in Indian market, India will spread import and export business in different countries, Indian agriculture related people will get good price of their goods.

In reality, the decision of FDI could potentially be a game-changer for India’s retail market, which is dominated by neighborhood stores.

FDI means Foreign Direct Investment which is mainly dealings with monetary matters and using this way they acquires standalone position in the Indian economy. Their policy is very simple to remove rivals. In beginning days they sell products at low price so other competitor shut down in few months. And then companies like Wall-Mart will increase prices than actual product price. Introduction of FDI in India shall affect 50 million merchants in India, an economically backward class person suffers from price raise, retailer will face loss in business, since market places are situated too far which will increase traveling expenses, in the policy, workers safety and policies are not mentioned clearly, profit distribution, investment ratios are not fixed, inflation may be increased, again India become slaves because of FDI in retail sector.

Over the last few decades, enormous efforts have been made by developing countries to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). It is commonly agreed upon that, by accelerating economic growth, FDI is a determining feature in poverty reduction. However, various work by the trade economists on the impact of trade on poverty reduction, a simplified framework is suggested which breaks down the influence of FDI into its “growth enhancing” and “distribution” effects. Contrary to (now) conventional wisdom, little evidence is found that FDI is a major instrument for poverty reduction.

Although the potential of FDI as a source of capital and knowledge transfer, but it raises a series of issues essentially related to the abuse by multinational corporations of their market power. The crux of the fact is that multinationals exert pressure on developing country governments that they typically poorly equipped to resist: multinationals distort policy choices, and make control of the domestic economy increasingly difficult. FDI could impede the development of the national economy if multinational corporations ended up dominating local industry and distorting the domestic policy environment to their favour.

The effects of Foreign Direct Investment alleged to be good for development, and hence the rapid expansion of FDI considered a gift from heaven. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine whether the same development level could have been achieved without FDI. Critics, however, contend that FDI leads to more poverty, isolation and a neglect of local capabilities. Difficulties with the privatisation, which involved FDI, appear to tell us that not all shares in the benefits, Observations rather reflect that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) resulted income inequality.

To be continued….

Prescription Drug Information - The People's Medicine Community

Prescription Drug Information - The People's Medicine Community

India Against Corruption IAC Kolkata IAC Bengal IAC Paschimbanga IAC West Bengal

India Against Corruption IAC Kolkata IAC Bengal IAC Paschimbanga IAC West Bengal