During the Japanese occupation of Burma, many rice imports were lost as the region's market supplies and transport systems were disrupted by British " denial policies" for rice and boats (a " scorched earth" response to the occupation). When prices rose sharply, their wages failed to follow suit this drop in real wages left them less able to purchase food. Many workers received monetary wages rather than payment in kind with a portion of the harvest. The financing of military escalation led to wartime inflation. A high proportion laboured beneath a chronic and spiralling cycle of debt that ended in debt bondage and the loss of their landholdings due to land grabbing. Stagnant agricultural productivity and a stable land base were unable to cope with a rapidly increasing population, resulting in both long-term decline in per capita availability of rice and growing numbers of the land-poor and landless labourers. īengal's economy had been predominantly agrarian, with between half and three-quarters of the rural poor subsisting in a "semi-starved condition". Others argue that the famine was the result of natural causes. Some scholars characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made), asserting that wartime colonial policies exacerbated the crisis. Eventually, families disintegrated men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to join the British Indian Army, and women and children became homeless migrants, often travelling to Calcutta or other large cities in search of organised relief. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. An estimated 800,000 to 3.8 million Bengalis perished, out of a population of 60.3 million, from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care due to a combination of factors, including government policies, war-time disruption of food distribution, and high cyclones and floods. The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal, Odisha and eastern India) during World War II. These photographs made world headlines and spurred government action.Įstimated 0.8 to 3.8 million in Bengal alone From the photo spread in The Statesman on 22 August 1943 showing famine conditions in Calcutta.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |