Andreas Koureas posted an extremely long thread on Twitter, outlining the complex situation he and his government faced during the Bengal Famine of 1943, along with more biographical details of Churchill’s views of India as a whole (edits and reformats as needed):
The most misunderstood part of Sir Winston Churchill’s life is his relationship with India. He neither hated Indians nor did he cause/contribute to the Bengal Famine. After reading through thousands of pages of primary sources, here’s what really happened.
A thread 🧵
I’ve covered this topic before, but in a recent poll my followers wanted a more in-depth thread. Sources are cited at the end. I’m also currently co-authoring a paper for a peer reviewed journal on the subject of the Bengal Famine, which should hopefully be out later this year.
I’ll first address the Bengal Famine (as that is the most serious accusation) and then Churchill’s general views on India. It goes without saying that there will be political activists who will completely ignore what I have to say, as well as the primary sources I’ll cite. I have no doubt, that just like in the past, there will be those who accuse me of only using “British sources”.
This is not true. I have primary sources written by Indians as well as papers by Indian academics.
Moreover, I have no doubt that such activists will, choose to “cite” the ahistorical journalistic articles from The Guardian or conspiratorial books like Churchill’s Secret War by Mukerjee — a debunked book that ignores most of what I’m about to write about, and is really what sparked the conspiracy of Churchill and the Bengal Famine. For everyone else, I hope you find this thread useful.
On October 16th 1942, a cyclone hit Bengal & Orissa, wiping out the rice crop harvest in the process. Surrounding areas previously used to purchase foodstuff to alleviate famines/shortfalls had all, fallen to Japan. This being Burma, Malaya, the Philippines & Thailand.
The cyclone also damaged roads, telecom systems and railways — tracks needed to move food were washed away. Another byproduct of the cyclone was that it stopped the normal winter harvest in Northern India, preventing this food aid internally.
Japan maintained a military presence in the Bay of Bengal from April 1942. From submarines to battlecruisers & carriers, these posed a threat to merchant shipping. Enemy submarines didn’t just sink ships in the Bay of Bengal but also in the Arabian Sea, the South East African coast and Australia.
Dated 01/03/1944, Churchill’s copy of a paper for the Chiefs of Staff Committee of the War Cabinet demonstrated the closeness of potential Japanese battleship/carrier raiding force in the Bay of Bengal. They had surrounded the region from near the Maldives all the way to the south coast of Burma. Japan had invaded India, Imphal & Kohima and was conducting many Eastern/Southern bombing raids. These raids worsened the shortages as they destroyed shipping at the ports.
In Dec. 1943, severe backlogs were at the ports in Calcutta from Japanese bombing. Accidents worsened the crisis — April ’44 a ship caught fire & blew up. [NR: Wikipedia – my late father-in-law was onboard another ship in the harbour and helped in the rescue and recovery efforts] 36,000 tonnes of foodstuff lost.
Constitutionally, the famine was a responsibility of the local administration, majority Muslim natives. They failed to deal with it. Lack of grain supply paired with general inflation crisis encouraged hoarding.
So how did Churchill respond?
The news of the severity of the famine did not reach Westminster till August of 1943. Immediately upon hearing of this, Churchill and his administration authorised 100,000 tons of barley from Iraq and 50,000 tons of wheat from Australia. Leo Amery, secretary of state for India, would write to Wavell, later Viceroy, that he “may come back to the Cabinet if that fails to help the situation”. From there Churchill summoned the war cabinet on many occasions to discuss the famine, relief and aid.
This is despite the Japanese threat to shipping during a shipping crisis of the Allies, where resources were deeply stretched. For example, on 10th November 1943, war cabinet authorised 100,000 tons of food grain to be shipped first 2 months of ’44. From August 1943- end of 1944, over 900,000 tons of grain is shipped to India, under orders of the war cabinet.
So given this, why do so many people pretend the opposite happened?
Well, for one it has to do with Mukerjee’s ahistorical text: Churchill’s Secret War.
In his analysis for Hillsdale College, historian Zareer Masani accurately summaries Mukerjee’s conspiratorial text, “Even Mukerjee never blames Churchill for actually causing the Bengal famine, but for compounding it by refusing to allow shipments of grain from Australia and Canada, bound for Europe, to be diverted there.”
What we have seen before, paired with what comes later in this thread, completely destroys this outrageous, ahistorical claim.
(However, for those wondering, Hillsdale College is a private liberal arts college in the US. It is one of the leading institutions on research on Sir Winston Churchill. They completed & now print the official biography of Churchill, the longest biography in history — 8 biography volumes and 23 companion volumes (primary sources). […]
Those who haven’t bothered reading the primary sources but consider themselves experts nonetheless (in other words, twitter intellectuals) try to refer to the events of November 1943 as evidence that Churchill “refused grain aid” from Canada.
The truth is starkly different:
Correspondence between Churchill & M. King in Nov 1943 (PM of Canada) shows that rather sending 100,000 tons of grain from Canada where shipping was stressed, he would have it sent from Australia as it would India quicker and was less of a logistical nightmare. Churchill did his best to aid India despite the shipping crisis and time constraints. Had shipments gone from Canada it would take up to 2 months compared to 3-4 weeks from Australia. As Churchill wrote in his telegram to M. King on the 4th November 1943:
“Your offer is contingent however on shipment from the Pacific Coast which I regret is impossible. The only ships available to us on the Pacific Coast are the Canadian new buildings which you place at our disposal. These are already proving inadequate to fulfil our existing high priority commitments from that area which include important timber requirements for aeroplane manufacture in the United Kingdom and quantities of nitrate from Chile to the Middle East which we return for foodstuffs for our Forces and for export to neighbouring territories, including Ceylon.”
Then adding in the same telegram,
“Even if you could make the wheat available in Eastern Canada, I should still be faced with a serious shipping question. If our strategic plans are not to suffer undue interference we must continue to scrutinise all demands for shipping with the utmost rigour. India’s need for imported wheat must be met from the nearest source, i.e. from Australia. Wheat from Canada would take at least two months to reach India whereas it could be carried from Australia in 3 to 4 weeks. Thus apart from the delay in arrival, the cost of shipping is more than doubled by shipment from Canada instead of from Australia. In existing circumstances this uneconomical use of shipping would be indefensible.”
During this period, after the famine’s severity became apparent, there was an equal transfer of grain for rice between the Raj and British Ceylon. This, however, wasn’t diverting stocks away from India — it was an attempt to alleviate shortfalls in the entire region (hence why the war cabinet ensured the transfer was replaced).
So what of Churchill’s supposed hatred of Indians which drives a large part of the conspiracy that he caused/worsened the Bengal Famine? In order to fully understand Churchill’s views on race, India & Empire, we must first place him in his historical context. People must be judged by the confines of their times.
Churchill was born in 1874 when the concept of a hierarchy of races was considered scientific fact in the West. We know that to be rubbish & ludicrous today but it was the normal view then. Context, the Civil Rights Act wouldn’t pass till the end of Churchill’s life. Though Churchill believed in this hierarchy, he was a paternalist. He saw Britain’s Empire as a way and moral obligation to uplift its peoples and natives. Yes, this is deeply condescending. But it was far benign compared to many of his contemporaries. For example, the Neo-Darwinists like Hitler who thought that inferior races could be enslaved [or] murdered.
Churchill saw Britain as a positive force in India. Yes, today most people would disagree but that’s because the Empire Churchill defended is not the Empire we discuss today. His early travels throughout India in the late 1890s, further vindicated his paternalistic, romantic view of British imperialism. Three quotations, all from his autobiography My Early Life, demonstrate this:
“On the whole, after forty-eight hours of intensive study, I formed a highly favourable opinion about India.”
“We certainly felt as we dropped off to sleep the keenest realisation of the great work which England was doing in India and of her high mission to rule, these primitive but agreeable races for their welfare and our own.”
Again, this is without question extremely condescending and based upon the then accepted idea of a hierarchy of races. However, it wasn’t genocidal — though many pretend it to be. Moreover, Churchill saw the low number of Britons running India as proof of stability of the Indian Empire,
“The great triangular plateau of Southern India comprise the domains of the Nizam and the Maharajah of Mysore. The tranquillity of these regions, together about the size, of France, is assured in the ultimate resort by two British garrisons of two or three thousand troops apiece at Bangalore and Secunderabad.”
Churchill was in favour of Indian self-governance within the British Empire (Dominion status) but he believed this process shouldn’t be rushed – and if it were to be done properly, the process probably wouldn’t be completed during his lifetime. Churchill wanted power devolved to the Raj “with sureness and safety”. He opposed federal Home Rule “until the provinces have proved that they can govern themselves well”.
Another example of Churchill’s paternalism is where he speaks of what he views the outcome of too hastily removing British authority,
“If that authority is injured or destroyed, the whole efficiency of the services, defensive, administrative, medical, hygienic, judicial; railway, irrigation, public works and famine prevention, upon which the Indian masses depend for their culture and progress, will perish with it.”
Another concern for Churchill was Brahmin oppression of the Untouchables (ie, within the caste system) and religious violence between the Hindu and Moslems. Given that all were British subjects, he viewed it as a dereliction of British duty to allow such prejudice and violence to occur. His reasoning was that British governance suppressed such issues,
“To abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence. It would shame for ever those who bore its guilt. These Brahmins who mouth and patter the principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as philosophic and democratic politicians, are the same Brahmins who deny the primary rights of existence to nearly sixty millions of their own fellow countrymen whom they call “untouchable”, and whom they have by thousands of years of oppression actually taught to accept this sad position. They will not eat with these sixty millions, nor drink with them, nor treat them as human beings.”
All of this paired together is why Churchill was so vehemently against the India Act 1935.
It’s not because he had this cartoon villain like hatred of Indians. Perhaps most representative of Churchill’s views on India & its peoples is in his meeting & later correspondence with the Indian industrialist GD Birla. Birla, an important connection to members of the independence movement first met Churchill in August 1935, after the India Act 1935 had been passed. Despite Churchill losing his political battle against this Act, he nonetheless invited Birla to lunch at his country home, Chartwell and was hospitable & friendly.
Birla wrote to Gandhi that his lunch with Churchill was, “one of my most pleasant experiences”. Though he saw Churchill as uninformed on India, he saw him as a “remarkable man”. Birla then passed on a message to Gandhi from Churchill who said he’d be “delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are 50 Indias. But you have got the things now; make it a success and I will advocate your getting much more.” Churchill’s paternalistic mindset is further shown in his later correspondence with Birla. In a letter to Birla on the 30th April 1937, Churchill wrote that,
“If Great Britain were persuaded or forced for any cause, Indian or European, to withdraw her protection from India, it would continuously become the prey of Fascist dictator nations, Italy, Germany or Japan, and then indeed with the modern facilities there would be a severity of Government even worse than any experienced in bygone ages. The duty of the Indian electorate and of Congress is to take up the great task which has been offered them, and show that they can make India a happier country; and at the same time do everything they can to win the confidence of Great Britain, and offer to her gratitude and loyalty for being the guardian of Parliamentary government and Indian peace.”
Again, this is without question very condescending. However, to pretend (as some do) that this was in some way genocidal, is wholly wrong.
Furthermore, post-WW2 Churchill opposed the Attlee administration’s policy of rushing out of India without much of a care to what happened to the citizenry (ie, partition etc.) On 12 December 1946 he spoke of the need for “agreement between the Indian races, religions, parties and forces”. He deplored “the ruthless logic to quit India regardless of what may happen there”. Later, in his war memoirs, Churchill would call the Attlee administration’s policy of a swift exit “a violently factional view”.
Moreover, as Churchill would recount in his war memoirs, “The unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu shine forever in the annals of war […] the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire.”
Factor all of this in when we look at the few outlandish, and wrong comments he blurted when angry in the war cabinet. This does not excuse his language, but it shows that Winston did not hate India, he was stressed.
Churchill had a tendency of lashing out when having a mental breakdown in the war rooms. According to Amery’s diaries, Churchill had accused Indians of breeding like rabbits in a Famine meeting. However, he immediately asked afterwards what could be done to help Indians. The latter part shows he didn’t actually believe his outlandish statements.
Another example is when Churchill said that he hated Indians and their beastly religion. Contextually, this was after the Quit India movement refused to compromise over Independence when Japan was launching an invasion of the subcontinent.
Of course these comments are racist and wrong. However, when you factor in all above, it is clear that he did not hold this genocidal hatred towards India, as some of his detractors try to say. Those hell bent on making the case that Churchill held hatred over Indians can at best, in my view, claim that he greatly disliked upper class and caste Brahmins who wanted to expel the British from India. That is below 5% of the Indian population. To generalise that to all Indians seems intellectually dishonest. Moreover, can’t we forgive a man in bad health at the centre of a world war for saying a few stupid things?
It’s also important to note that many quotations attributed to Churchill, he never said or wrote. For example, he never asked why Gandhi hasn’t died yet. He actually wrote, “Surely Mr. Gandhi has made a most remarkable recovery, as he is already able to take an active part in politics. How does this square with the medical reports upon which his release on grounds of ill-health was agreed to by us? In one of these we were told that he would not be able to take any part in politics again.”
Furthermore, we must separate words from policy. As the eminent historian Tirthankar Roy wrote of Churchill & the famine (in his academic text, How British Rule Changed India’s Economy: Paradox of the Raj):
“Churchill’s reactionary views on the empire notwithstanding, the context for almost everything he said about Indians and the empire was related to the Indian nationalist movement. Negotiating with the Indian nationalists during the war could be pointless and dangerous because the moderate nationalists were demoralised by dissensions and the radical nationalists wanted the axis powers to win on the eastern front. Racist or not, no Prime Minister would be willing to fight a war and negotiate with the nationalists at the same time.”
Part of the problem with discussing Churchill is that he has become so enveloped in the culture wars. Those who want to completely destroy the statesman’s reputation based on ahistorical conspiracies are just as bad as those who few who pretend Churchill was a flawless, god-like man. Winston had many faults and failures. Be it Gallipoli, the abdication crisis, women’s suffrage, the fudging of the gold standard — just to name a few. We, of course, need to remember these. But we cannot make ahistorical accusations to further our political motivations — which is what I think is happening with those who are committing character assassination on the man.
Furthermore, none of this negates from his achievements.
Sir Winston Churchill was, and will always be, a great man. He held the light of freedom whilst the world descended into one of its darkest periods in history.
If you enjoyed this thread and want to support my research, please follow & share.
Also, please consider joining my Patreon if you want to help fund my research (from only £3.00/ a month) – research trips are expensive.
Thank you!
Here are the relevant sources.
