Latest news with #BengalFamine
News18
15-07-2025
- Politics
- News18
60 Lakh Died But We Don't Read About It In History Books: Ajit Doval On 1943 Bengal Famine
Last Updated: Despite the staggering death toll, estimated at around 3-6 million, the Bengal Famine remains largely absent from history textbooks and public discourse National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has raised a sharp question about one of the deadliest yet often ignored chapters of history – the Bengal Famine of 1943. Speaking at the convocation of IIT Madras on Friday, July 11, Doval pointed to the staggering scale of the disaster and asked why it finds so little space in the country's collective memory. 'In 1947, our GDP was just $20 million. Millions died of starvation during the Bengal famine. If five lakh people were to die of hunger today, the entination would rise," he said, asking why we don't talk about the Bengal incident. 'The road ahead is just as demanding. You must dedicate yourself to these next 22 years," he further said. Doval's remarks dragged into the light a tragedy that saw people reduced to eating grass, mud, and animal waste just to stay alive. In some cases, they sold their children for a handful of rice. Within months, lakhs were dead. It wasn't a natural disaster, it was man-made. The year was 1943. India was still under British rule, and World War II was raging. Japan had just invaded Burma, and the British feared that Bengal would be next. What followed was a series of policy decisions that turned fear into famine. The British colonial administration seized thousands of boats in the coastal districts of Bengal to prevent their use by the Japanese military. They also emptied grain warehouses in the villages and destroyed standing crops, effectively choking off food supply lines to vast rural populations. Prices skyrocketed. Food disappeared. The people starved. Despite the staggering death toll, estimated at around 3-6 million, the Bengal Famine remains largely absent from history textbooks and public discourse. There are no national memorials. No annual remembrance. No reckoning. Doval underscored this erasure. 'History should not be just the story of those who won," he said, adding that it must also remember those who suffered and had no voice. For him, the famine is not just a historical footnote but a cautionary tale about the deadly consequences of political apathy and policy failure. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! view comments First Published: July 15, 2025, 13:03 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
News18
06-07-2025
- Politics
- News18
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee: A Quasquicentennial Tribute
The Modern Review editorial spoke of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who, it pointed out, had said that Syama Prasad had 'sacrificed himself for a cause in which he had faith". And 'what more can any man do?", the Modern Review lamented, 'By his last supreme sacrifice he has proved that he was free of parochialism, which is more than can be said of our tinsel gods of today." Anyone who came in touch with Dr Mookerjee, was struck by his boldness of purpose, his compassion and steadfast adherence to principles, his resolute stance in support of the beleaguered and by his complete disregard for personal safety and danger. 'In all his political career," the Modern Review tribute noted, 'he never failed to answer any call for assistance by the distressed and his disregard for personal danger was apparent to all but the crooked or deliberately blind. He was a man of action…His qualities and metal were recognised by Sardar Patel, the only man of his stature in the Nehru cabinet and it was at the Sardar's insistence that he was included" in the first cabinet of free India. This compassion for the distressed was seen when he rushed to bring relief to the cyclone hit people of Contai in Midnapore in October 1942, or when he organised a massive relief operation during the great Bengal Famine of 1943. He did not merely halt at criticising the Khawaja Nazimuddin-led Muslim League government for its acute apathy in providing relief and plunged instead in organising relief. The Bengal Relief Coordination Committee was set and by November, the provincial Hindu Mahasabha, under Dr Mookerjee's leadership, operated 160 canteens serving 60,000 people daily across the province. His appeals and efforts elicited response from across India, from Balochistan to Assam, from the northern recesses of the Himalayas to the Cape Comorin. That fearlessness, sense of justice and the trait of standing by the marginalised and the oppressed was seen by many who met Syama Prasad and worked with him in various fields throughout his short life. Sisir was desperately running from pillar to post, trying to get his first cousin Dwijendra Nath, then lodged in the Alipore Central Jail, released on parole to perform the last rites of his brother Ganesh who had died of an attack of cerebral apoplexy. Sisir tried to get ministers who owed their position to his father Sarat Bose to intervene, but with no result. One minister shrugged him off, while premier Fazlul Huq, speaking to the police chief, was curtly told that he would need clearance from the Government of India. 'I then telephoned the finance minister, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who asked me to come to his chamber at Writers' Building", recalled Sisir Bose. 'That was my first ever-visit to the Writers' Buildings. There were instructions left at the gate and I had no trouble getting in. In my presence Syama Prasad spoke on the telephone to the additional home secretary of the Government of India, Richard Tottenham. I could sense that the British official was very unwilling to help." But Syama Prasad 'would not give up and persisted, saying repeatedly: 'This has to be done! This has to be done!' Eventually Tottenham relented and half agreed. Syama Prasad asked me to go home. After a tug-of-war that lasted the entire afternoon, order arrived for Dwijen to be taken from the jail under heavy police escort directly to the cremation ground — and returned to jail as soon as the cremation was over." Syama Prasad's fearless stance had made a great impression on Sisir, 'Father and Uncle Subhas had fundamental political differences with Syama Prasad Mookerjee; they followed different ideologies. But I was greatly impressed by how Syama Prasad stood up to the British authorities in the context of this family tragedy of ours." Numerous such episodes are scattered throughout Dr Mookerjee's life as an educationist, as the leader of Bengal and of Bengali Hindus, as a Parliamentarian, Union Minister and as the founder of a new political movement in free India. 'Fight was in his blood. He never courted it. Never did he run away from it either", wrote peripatetic journalist and writer Saint Nihal Singh in a moving 'intimate impression" of the 'lion-hearted leader." Singh discerned ever since he saw Syama Prasad, that 'his thoughts were not at all for himself" but for his people and of how 'he could conserve freedom in jeopardy, how he could make maximum contribution to his country's welfare?" His entry into politics was caused, Nihal Singh argues, 'by the mental conflict over the mode and means of his service to his country," what 'would be best for the people" was the question that drove him at this decisive turn in his life when he stepped out of the academia into the larger arena of national politics and national regeneration. One is often asked on how and why did Dr Mookerjee transition from a visionary educationist to a leader of people and of epochs? That question is answered in the inspiring analysis in Nihal Singh's intimate impression. 'It would be wrong to say that he was sucked into politics," Singh observes, 'No. His choice was deliberate. It was made with much search of heart. This is not because he would have to give up something certain for something uncertain. He did not have any doubt that he would succeed in the political sphere as he had done in the educational one. Success or failure, in fact, did not matter to him. Not, personally. His concern was only that he must not hang back when the call of duty rang in his ears — call from the mother in anguish at the misdeeds plotted and perpetrated by an unholy alliance of indigenous and alien forces. And he did not." This intense propensity of not hanging back when service to the Motherland beckoned was one of the greatest and finest traits that dominated Syama Prasad's life at every moment, defining his actions and his politics. It is thus deeply symbolic and significant that his 125th birth anniversary is being heralded under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra, at a time when the political movement he had conceived and launched is in power for a record third term. The commemoration comes at a time when Syama Prasad's ideal and vision for India is being steadily fulfilled and coming to fruition. The occasion of his 125th birth anniversary also offers us a historic scope to recall and to contemplate his struggles, his achievements and his life of epic proportions.
New Indian Express
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
From Ray's alter ego to cultural icon
In the beginning of the book Soumitra Chatterjee and His World, author Sanghamitra Chakraborty recounts a memory of the actor when he was six years old. 'One day, because he was sick, Soumitra could not go to school. His elder brother Sambit returned from school earlier than scheduled. Their mother, Ashalata, asked Sambit the reason. Here is how Soumitra remembered that moment: 'Rabindranath Tagore is dead, so our headmaster announced a holiday,' Dada said flatly.' Ashalata was an ardent admirer of Tagore. Like his mother, later in life, Soumitra worshipped Tagore as a sage, prophet, great artist, and social reformer. An ardent bibliophile, Soumitra read Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay when he was a teenager. Later, he wrote, 'I had no idea then that playing the role of the grown-up Apu [protagonist of Pather Panchali] would be the birth of my acting career.' But it was not always an idyllic life. He saw some tragedies firsthand. During the Bengal Famine of 1943, in which 30 lakh people died, Soumitra recalled the unbearable stench of dead bodies piling up on the streets in Krishnanagar.
NHK
28-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Gathering testimonies of 1943 Bengal famine
In 1943, the Bengal region of eastern India was hit by unprecedented famine that killed an estimated 3 million people. One man in Bengal is determined to pass on memories of this tragic incident to future generation.
Hindustan Times
24-04-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
An emotion called East Bengal
Kolkata: It was only after a couple of matches that we really understood what this was all about, says Jamshed Nassiri near the halfway mark of the documentary 'Shotoborshe East Bengal,' to commemorate the club turning 100. The year was 1980 and Nassiri was part of an East Bengal side whose roster had been severely depleted. Yet, like Shyam Thapa who spoke of a hilsa being given to him on the pitch during East Bengal's historic 5-0 win against Mohun Bagan in the 1975 IFA Shield final, what Nassiri remembered was how fiercely the fans loved the players who wore the red-and-gold shirt. With PK Banerjee as coach, East Bengal, riding mainly on the exploits of Nassiri and Majid Baskar were joint-winners of the Federation Cup and the Rovers Cup that year. That, in essence, was what the documentary directed by celebrated film maker Gautam Ghose sought to convey. That, for their ability to defy the odds, East Bengal became an emotion, a totem for a displaced people. A temple, says the actor Soumitra Chatterjee in the film. One whose 'mashal' became more than a torch after it was lit in protest against the Indian Football Association (IFA) when Bengal's apex body had tried to stall East Bengal's promotion to the first division. The 'mashal' became a beacon of hope for the marginalised. It was where those uprooted from their moorings, first by Partition and then by the wars in 1965 and 1971 felt at home, said Kalyan Majumdar, the club's long-time former secretary. The documentary is dedicated to the 'homeless people of the world.' So, it fit that Jyotish Guha, the general secretary for 28 years spanning the Bengal Famine, World War 2 and mass migration from across the West Bengal border, would take on state chief minister Bidhan Ray and refuse to change the name of the club. A name that, the documentary says, was taken from a defunct indoor sports club in the house of the freedom fighter 'Deshbandhu' Chittaranjan Das. Stories like this fill the early part of the documentary released on Thursday in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, a number of former players, East Bengal's Indian Women's League (IWL) winning team and current men's team coach Oscar Bruzon. It was good to see and hear many of those who have died – Banerjee, Chatterjee and Chuni Goswami among them – and also proof of how long this was in the making. Incidents of players being kept in safe houses before they signed for the club, a tradition in Kolkata from the 1960 to the 1990s, are recalled through interviews as are the club's famous wins in India's blue riband competitions, most of which are now defunct. Of the interviews though there are too many and the pace slackens with one former player talking after the other. There are also factual inaccuracies such as Emeka Ezuego playing in the 1986 World Cup when he did that eight years later and the 5-0 match being played at Eden Gardens when it was on Mohun Bagan ground. The English subtitles had a number of names spelt wrongly and the club's rich tradition in hockey is mentioned as an afterthought. And if sport is all about timing, the release nearly five years after East Bengal turned 100 is questionable. But because the documentary archives the storied history of one of the extant clubs in Asia and is a rare thing in Indian sport, it, warts and all, makes for worthwhile viewing. In a country where archival footage is rare, and even harder to source, Ghose and the club deserve credit. Their effort may not be consistently memorable but monumental it certainly is.
