8. Winston Churchill and the 1942 Bengal Famine
Winston Churchill is celebrated for his tenacity against the Nazis. However, Churchill was a complex man, with more to him than the year or so when he and Britain held the line against Hitler, until joined by the USSR and USA. During a public career that lasted six decades, Churchill had no shortage of missteps, or outright monstrosities, that jarringly contrast with the nobility of his WWII heroics. One such monstrosity was his handling of the 1942 Bengal famine, which killed about 3 million Indians.
Relief efforts were hampered by Churchill’s decision to divert food shipments intended for the starving Bengalis to already well-supplied British soldiers. Simultaneously, offers of Canadian and American food aid to the starving Indians were turned down, while India was prohibited from using its own funds or ships to import food. Indeed, India was made to export over 70,000 tons of rice in the first half of 1943. When informed that millions were dying in India, he churlishly replied: “Then why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” Indeed, he seemed viciously gleeful about it. As he put it: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits“.