TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE INNOCENT ONES THAT DIED IN THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE ... 1

Five million Bengalees died in the famine of 1943 which was man-made, that is, engineered by British apathy to the well-being of Indians. The stock-pile of food-grains was diverted from Bengal to overseas to feed the British soldiers fighting in the World War and the Bengalees had to pay with their lives to support the British cause. Winston Churchill's racial hatred of the Indians fuelled his utter lack of concern for the starving Bengalees as they were left to the elements to perish while the war-effort continued at the cost of Bengalee lives. When Britain raises a hue and cry over Nazi genocide of the Jews to portray Hitler as the devil-incarnate, they should look into the mirror to see if they resemble him in any way for lives are lives, Bengalee or Jewish. The Holocaust remains in human history as the most gruesome perpetration of barbarism and the priceless lives of innocent Jews was lost by the millions, but while the Jews have made it a point to keep the issue alive in the international arena and they gain primacy on account of the historical significance attached to their cause, the Bengalees have sadly failed to take the British to account for their own version of colonial barbarism for which a fraction of the Bengalee population was wiped out from the face of the planet. Such self-apathy is reprehensible and it is time the Bengalees make it an international issue as well as all the civilised countries of the world have done wherever the Axis Powers have wronged their people during the course of the War. And the Allies were no less culpable in this regard but then history is ever recorded by the victor and it paints a picture perfect for even perpetrators of the worst perfidy should they be on the victorious side. This is the tale of the world alas and history remains 'a host of lies agreed upon'. The British and the Americans must twice consider when they talk of human rights and its violation in the world at large. They must delve into history to find their own track-record before offering lessons of democracy and civility to others. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not been forgotten by the Japanese either. Wiping out civilisations is an old European pastime and oppressed peoples must oppose it for the oppressed is as much human as his oppressor. The way the American Indians were butchered en masse needs to be taken cognisance of in understanding American charity and the way the British blew up the rebel soldiers from the mouth of cannons after the 1857 War of Indian Independence needs to be remembered in comprehending British fair-play and justice. That such a nation will cause five million Bengalees to perish of hunger is no surprise considering the fact that British imperialism was wholesale an exercise in barbarism, cloaked however it may have been in the garb of civility through English ingenuity. However, the crime that the British Government committed in Bengal with Churchill's indifference to the plight of the starving masses cannot be allowed by the Bengalees to be a forgotten chapter in history and they must rise en masse to seek redress. The international community must be made aware of this singular episode of catastrophic proportions (death toll = 5 million Bengalees) just as they are ever reminded of Nazi atrocity on the Jews (death toll = 6 million Jews). The British Government owes an explanation to the people of Bengal about this horrific event which was entirely the handiwork of the then British Indian Government with fullest support and directive from the Conservative Government led by Winston Churchill back home. When Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, President of the Provisional Government of Free India, sent a shipload of grains by way of aid to the people of Bengal, the British refused to accept it on justifiable political grounds perhaps but then the famine-stricken people suffered. Swami Ranganathananda of the Ramakrishna Mission had also likewise sent a consignment of food-grains from erstwhile Burma which was accepted by the  authorities that be, though. Anyhow, without going into the details of the famine which has been so famously depicted by Satyajit Ray in his film 'Ashani Sanket', I humbly rest my case here that Bengalees wherever they be must take up this case with the British authorities and highlight before the world this British atrocity on innocent civilian subjects to set the record straight of British civility, fair-play and justice. Jai Hind!