Bengal famine of 1943

By 1943, Bengal’s agricultural system was a ticking clock. The province was a "land of rice growers and rice eaters," with 75–85% of daily calories coming from a single crop. While the population surged by 43% between 1901 and 1941, agricultural productivity remained among the lowest in the world. The "green revolution" was decades away; instead, the region suffered from soil exhaustion and silting rivers caused by poorly designed colonial railway embankments.

Economic historians describe Bengal’s pre-famine condition as having a "slender margin" over subsistence. Between half and three-quarters of the rural poor lived in a state of permanent semi-starvation even in "good" years. When the 1942 aman (winter) rice harvest failed due to a combination of a cyclone and crop disease, there was zero buffer to prevent a total collapse.

The famine’s high death toll was not evenly distributed; it targeted a specific social class created by debt. Under the British land tenure system, wealthy "jotedars" (landowner-traders) gained power by providing high-interest informal loans to peasant smallholders. When crops failed, these peasants were forced into a cycle of "land-grabbing," where they forfeited their ancestral plots to settle debts.

By the time the famine hit, millions of Bengalis had been reduced to landless laborers. They no longer owned the food they grew and relied entirely on cash wages to buy rice. When wartime inflation caused rice prices to skyrocket, these laborers—who possessed no assets to sell and no grain reserves—became the first and most frequent victims of starvation.

The onset of World War II turned Bengal into a frontline against the Japanese Empire, leading the British to prioritize military logistics over the local economy. To prevent a Japanese "scorched earth" advance, the British implemented "denial policies," confiscating or destroying thousands of boats and rice stocks in coastal regions. This crippled the internal transport system and removed the very food reserves needed for emergencies.

Simultaneously, the government funded the war through massive currency expansion, triggering hyperinflation. While the Bengal Chamber of Commerce secured "Foodstuffs Schemes" to ensure cheap grain for "priority classes" (soldiers, civil servants, and war industry workers), the rural poor were left to compete in a broken market. This effectively "forced the transference of purchasing power" from the starving peasantry to the Allied war machine.

Historically, Bengal relied on rice imports from Burma to stabilize prices during local shortages. The Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942 permanently severed this lifeline. This geopolitical shock was compounded by an influx of over 500,000 refugees fleeing the Japanese advance.

These refugees arrived in Bengal destitute and carrying diseases like dysentery and malaria. Their presence increased the demand for food and medical supplies just as the province’s resources were being diverted to the military. The closure of the Burma border didn't just stop food from coming in; it trapped a vulnerable population in a region where inter-provincial trade barriers prevented grain from moving between different parts of India.

The human cost of the famine was exacerbated by a refusal to admit its scale. The provincial government never formally declared a "state of famine," a move that would have legally mandated specific relief measures. Instead, they attempted failed price controls that only fueled black markets and hoarding. Winston Churchill’s war cabinet has faced heavy criticism for refusing to divert global shipping to deliver food aid, citing a shortage of vessels despite evidence that stocks were available elsewhere.

Relief only became effective in October 1943, when the British Indian Army took over the distribution of supplies. By then, the social fabric had disintegrated; families had abandoned their homes, and men had joined the army or fled to cities, leaving women and children as homeless migrants. Ironically, effective aid arrived just as a record harvest began in December 1943, though the dying was far from over.

The famine did not end when the rice returned. More than half of the total deaths occurred in 1944, a year after food security had technically improved. The prolonged period of starvation had decimated the population's immune systems and displaced millions into unsanitary, crowded conditions in cities like Calcutta.

This "syndemic"—a synergy of epidemics—saw malaria, cholera, and smallpox sweep through a population weakened by malnutrition. The breakdown of public health infrastructure and the lack of safe water (partially due to the disrepair of tube wells during the war) meant that even those who finally had food to eat often succumbed to preventable water-borne and mosquito-borne illnesses.