Supplies From Other Countries
Any imports would have had to come from Australia, North America or South America. Some supplies from Australia entered the region. The main constraint was shipping. The Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak from mid 1942 to mid 1943, with submarine wolf packs sinking so many ships that the Allies were on the verge of defeat, so shipping could not be spared for India.
By August 1943 it was clear that the Allies had won the battle and there was plenty of shipping available. Mukkerjee (2011) analyses why Churchill still failed to send food to India. In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India Archibald Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of that time responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn’t died yet." Initially during the famine he was more concerned with the civilians of Greece (who were also suffering from a famine) compared with the Bengalis.
Any aid from abroad would have arrived too late to prevent most deaths: apart from the usual delays in assembling and shipping, and the long shipping route, it would have had to be delivered at west coast ports – the Allied navies did not operate east of Ceylon, and the Bay of Bengal was covered by Japanese naval and air power. The railways were overstretched, with men and equipment sent to war zones, most of the capacity devoted to supplying the Burma front, sabotage by Congress, major flood damage to the main routes etc. And they were not geared to shipping large quantities of bulk goods. Distributing the food to the famine areas was extremely difficult and time consuming, even with Army help.
Read more about this topic: Bengal Famine Of 1943
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