Bengal Famine of 1943 - Government Inaction

Government Inaction

Whatever the cause of the famine, deaths could only be prevented by supplies of food from elsewhere in India. This was not forthcoming.

In normal regional famines the Indian Government had provided the starving with money, and let the trade bring in grain which worked for regional famines, though this had been disastrous in Orissa in 1888 when, as in 1943, the shortage was not regional but national. In 1942, with the permission of the central government, trade barriers were introduced by the democratically elected Provincial governments. The politicians and civil servants of surplus provinces like the Punjab introduced regulations to prevent grain leaving their provinces for the famine areas of Bengal, Madras and Cochin. There was the desire to see that, first, local populations and, second, the populations of neighbouring provinces were well fed, partly to prevent civil unrest. Politicians and officials got power and patronage, and the ability to extract bribes for shipping permits. Marketing and transaction costs rose sharply. The market could not get grain to Bengal, however profitable it might be. The main trading route, established for hundreds of years was up the river system and this ceased to operate, leaving the railway as the only way of getting food into Bengal. Grain arrivals stopped and in March 1943, Calcutta, the second biggest city in the world, had only two weeks food supply in stock.

The Government of India realized a mistake had been made and decreed a return to free trade. The Provinces refused ‘In this, again, the Government of India misjudged both its own influence and the temper of its constituents, which had by this time gone too far to pay much heed to the Centre.’ The Government of India Act 1935 had removed most of the Government of India’s authority over the Provinces, so they had to rely on negotiation.

Thus, even when the Government of India decreed that there should be free trade in grain, politicians, civil servants, local government officers and police obstructed the movement of grain to famine areas. In some cases Provinces seized grain in transit from other Provinces to Bengal. ‘But men like Bhai Permanand say that though many traders want to export food the Punjab Government would not give them permits. He testified to large quantities of undisposed-of rice being in the Punjab’

Eventually there was a clear threat by the Government of India to force the elected governments to provide grain, when the new Viceroy, Wavell, who was a successful general, was about to take office. For the first time substantial quantities of grain started to move to Bengal.

The Government of Bengal was slow in starting relief measures and at one stage in 1943 it limited relief to save money, though the money could have been obtained. The supporters of the two Bengal Governments involved, that of A. K. Fazlul Huq (December 1941 to March 1943) and of Khawaja Nazimuddin’s Muslim League (April 1943 to March 1945) each held the other government responsible for the catastrophe, because of its inaction and corruption.

Contemporary commentators believed that there was substantial hoarding by those consumers who could afford it, by firms and by those farmers who produced surpluses. This started in July 1941 when war with Japan was inevitable, increased when Burma was attacked in December 1941 and when Ceylon, then Calcutta were bombed in 1942. India would have entered the famine year with substantial surplus private stocks. These stocks do not appear to have been released and there was no political drive to get people to give or sell the surpluses. An official ‘Food Drive’ in Bengal did not result in release of hoarded stocks. It was believed that fear of the famine actually increased hoarding.