Bengal famine of 1943: Difference between revisions

Sen does not deny that British misgovernment contributed to the crisis, but sees the policy failure as a complete misunderstanding of the cause of the famine. This misunderstanding led to a wholly misguided emphasis on measuring non-existent food shortages rather than addressing the very real and devastating inflation-driven imbalances in exchange entitlements.{{sfn|A. Sen|1977|pp=52–53}} In stark contrast, although Cormac Ó Gráda notes that the exchange entitlements view of this famine is generally accepted,{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2015|p=90|ps=: "The 1943–44 famine has become paradigmatic as an 'entitlements famine,' whereby speculation born of greed and panic produced an 'artificial' shortage of rice, the staple food."}} he lends greater weight to the importance of a crop shortfall than does Sen, and goes on to largely reject Sen's emphasis on hoarding and speculation.{{sfnm|1a1=Ó Gráda|1y=2008|1pp=25–28|2a1=Ó Gráda|2y=2015|2p=90}} He does not stop there but emphasises a "lack of political will" and the pressure of wartime priorities that drove the British government and the provincial government of Bengal to make fateful decisions: the "denial policies", the use of heavy shipping for war supplies rather than food, the refusal to officially declare a state of famine, and the [[Balkanization|Balkanisation]] of grain markets through inter-provincial trade barriers.{{sfnm|1a1=Ó Gráda|1y=2015|1p=90|1ps= "...the lack of political will to divert foodstuffs from the war effort rather than [market] speculation... was mainly responsible for the famine"|2a1=Ó Gráda|2y=2008|2pp=20, 33}} On this view, these policies were designed to serve British military goals at the expense of Indian interests,{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2009|pp=190–191}} reflecting the War Cabinet's willingness to "supply the Army's needs and let the Indian people starve if necessary".{{sfnm|1a1=Wavell|1y=1973|1pp=68, 122|2a1=S. Bose|2y=1990|2pp=716–717}} Far from being accidental, these dislocations were fully recognised beforehand as fatal for identifiable Indian groups whose economic activities did not directly, actively, or adequately advance British military goals.{{sfn|J. Mukherjee|2015|pp=251–252}} The policies may have met their intended wartime goals, but only at the cost of large-scale dislocations in the domestic economy. The British government, this argument maintains, thus bears moral responsibility for the rural deaths.{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2010|p=39}} Auriol Law-Smith's discussion of contributing causes of the famine also lays blame on the British Government of India, primarily emphasising Viceroy Linlithgow's lack of political will to "infringe provincial autonomy" by using his authority to remove interprovincial barriers, which would have ensured the free movement of life-saving grain.{{sfn|Law-Smith|1989|p=64}}