How was Churchill different from Hitler?

"Churchill's Secret War", by Madhusree Mukherjee, a physics scholar and author is an expose which shows how Churchill in particular and the British war cabinet in general took decisions that led to deliberate starving to death of many millions in India particularly Bengal. It was all done in the name of serving freedom and fighting Nazism. It was done in the best interest of the British people. Because of the calculated nature of the policy that led to millions of deaths, one is forced to question the quantum of moral force that was in the Western fight against Nazism. How different was Churchill from Hitler and in which way?

* * *

Churchill was a racist in simple terms and made no effort to hide it. While discussing his plan on post war India, Churchill explained it on the following terms that India could no longer be ruled by locals and the 'numerous babus who infest the government of Indian offices would have to be replaced by England re-educators who would uphold' "our historic right to govern India in accordance with our own ideas and interests." Churchill goes on to say that English 160,000 instructors would be required to create this new British India. "Any criticism in the British parliament of this 'new dawn over India' would be banned'. This extreme vision was similar to the one held by the South African apartheid regimes and Churchill was a friend of Smuts, the then South African PM.

* * *

Churchill hated Gandhi, a man's power he could not understand and whom he loathed with undisguised passion. At that time, Gandhi was trying to put pressure on the Brits and gain space and he threatened to fast unto death. The Indian viceroy was concerned about this as were the Indian members of the Viceroy's Council. But the position in London and the war cabinet under Churchill was different. In fact, the war cabinet had long decided that if Gandhi fasted and died, he would be allowed to die. When informed that some of the Indian council members might resign, Churchill referring to the Indians wrote, "What did it matter if a few black moors resign… We could show the world that we were governing.' Black Moor is a racial epithet for people who are black or dark skinned. On the consequence if Gandhi died, Churchill said, "We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the empire." "This was not the time to crawl before the miserable old man who had always been our enemy."

In fact his tirade on Indians would reach such extreme levels that Lord Amery, the Secretary of India wrote, "Naturally, I lost my patience; couldn't help telling him that I didn't see much difference between his outlook and Hitler's…"

* * *

Leopold Amery, Secretary of State for India, and Lord Wavell, had planned to send food ships to India but Churchill stopped them. Lord Wavell writes, "Apparently, it is more important to save the Greeks and liberated countries than the Indians and there is reluctance either to provide shipping or to reduce stocks in this country".

Amery, the Secretary of State for India who was a colonialist but also a critic of Churchill states. "Winston may be right in saying that the starvation of anyhow under-fed Bengalis is less serious than sturdy Greeks, but he makes no sufficient allowance for the sense of Empire responsibility in this country."

In this meeting on which both report, the fate of millions of Bengalis was sealed.

* * *

The Bengal famine was caused by several reasons but they had all to do with the British war effort. The food shortage was created to protect British citizens and their war. It was caused by large-scale exports of food from India for use in the war theatres and consumption in Britain. India exported more than 70,000 tonnes of rice between January and July 1943, even as the famine set in. This would have kept nearly 400,000 people alive for a full year. Churchill turned down pleas to export food to India citing a shortage of ships. Thus was when shiploads of Australian wheat, would pass by India to be stored for future consumption in Europe. As imports to India declined, prices shot up and hoarders made money. Soutik Biswas on his BBC blog says, "Churchill also pushed a scorched earth policy — which went by the sinister name of Denial Policy — in coastal Bengal where the colonisers feared the Japanese would land. So authorities removed boats (the lifeline of the region) and the police destroyed and seized rice stocks."

The description of this policy added up to three million dead.

* * *

Madhusree Mukerjee, the author says this about the policy, "It was basically preserving Britain at all cost, even at the cost of Indian lives."

The moral and human implications of this starve and win policy for the empire brings up troubling moral questions. One has to ask if this was just racism or a question of putting the interest of one group of people over the other to a point where people actually die by the millions. One also remembers that the British had caused famine in India particularly in Bengal as soon as they arrived. In 1770, the famine caused by the East India Company killed 10 million people.

* * *

How was Churchill different from Hitler, a secret concern of some British people even who knew him? Hitler killed Jews as part of a final solution considering all Jews bad. It was part of a European heritage which saw anti-Semitism as a justified way of thinking. It was common in many circles including continental Europe and the US. Hitler did what many wanted to do or supported that approach. He also killed many others including Romanis (gypsies), disabled people and gays.

He did believe that the Germans were a 'master race' and deserved better than others. He was a monster.

* * *

Churchill too believed in a master race, that is the British people. In the interest of the British people, he was willing to let millions die through starvation by looting food to keep Britain fed. He thought that half-fed Bengalis were not worth saving; so he starved them and let them die after taking much of their food away. He destroyed their boats, burnt their food. It was a deliberate policy, neither a mistake nor an accident.

What does that make him? Not a racist annihilator like Hitler but a different kind of a racist who used his power to starve and kill millions in the name of his own people. By doing so he made the British people an accomplice of his actions. It's up to the British people to accept or reject this act.

* * *

Questions therefore are raised about purity of the allied powers. They were certainly racist who ensured that no black man participated in the victory march to Paris. That double standards or hypocrisy is not even shocking now but it puts a question mark on the intent of the allied power. Was it for freedom and safety of the Western people only using colonial labour? The notion of absolute evil of axis and absolute good of the allied are eroded everyday. Both were capable of murdering millions to achieve their goals.

The difference perhaps is in the absolute madness and banality of Hitler's actions against the Jews while Churchill and his war cabinet deliberated over the famine of Bengal that killed many on behalf of the Britain and its people with intelligence.

——————————

Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and researcher