mind_messing
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quote:
ORIGINAL: warspite1
“Even you” - well that set the tone nicely......
You genuinely don’t see any difference between Holland and Bengal? No difference in terms of populace, infrastructure, shipping, road and rail logistics, health of the general populace, geography, potential for the spread / containment of disease? Well the differences could hardly have been greater and the solutions to ease the Dutch suffering could hardly have been less difficult to implement compared to Bengal (not that there weren’t challenges for the situation in the Netherlands - after all we are talking about starving people here).
Nah, I just feel that this is the old colonial vs post-colonial debate that we seem to have on a semi-regular basis.
How so?
If anything, the Bengal famine was even easier to aid given that:
- The rest of India was unaffected.
- Bengal (and India as a whole) was not subject to enemy occuption.
- Bengal was not occupied, nor was it subject to occupation.
- The logistical network was in place to support Allied troops in the region.
The Netherlands had German occupiation since 1940, had been transited twice by invading armies and most of the transportation network, bridges and barges had been bombed.
In Bengal, the local shipping had been seized (note seized, not destroyed), and besides bombing raids on Calcutta and sub operations in the Indian Ocean, Japan did not manage to inflict the same destruction of infrastructure as the Allies in Europe.
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So yes, by definition (and they way things were back then) it was very much her war (whether fair or not by the standards of today) and, as said, many in the independence movement understood this.
There's a reason they put Ghandi and the INC in jail for the duration of the war; the Quit India movement made it quite clear that not all Indian's felt it was "their war".
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I’ll come back to the INA, but sorry, no, while of course the military has been an active recruiting ground for those seeking employment and a way out of poverty in all countries since the start of time, the sheer size of the army (given the political situation) suggests its more than that.
“The happy, motivated, all-volunteer force that you’d like it to be” again, a very unnecessary snide remark and as you should know full well, does not reflect my thinking.
The '41 census reported some 318 million persons living in India. An army of 2.5 million represents 0.7% of the total population. Granted, that goes up considering the young, the old and women that wouldn't fight, but is it any suprise that so many jumped at the oppertunity to buck the system that was designed to keep India an undeveloped nation to consume British goods?
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“ The people in Bengal were starving, and were given token measures of aid. Why do you think that was?”
There are - as touched upon previously - myriad reasons for the cause of the famine and the resulting disease suffered by the Bengallis. This subject has been much debated, the ‘experts’ can’t even agree on the main cause, Why do I think the famine and resultant disease outbreaks happened? Well I could believe that the cabinet and the Viceroy’s office sat round twirling their moustaches malevolently while agreeing on a policy of mass murder (like all good conspiracy theorists) or I could believe that this tragedy was caused by numerous factors that came together to create a situation that, with hindsight, could have been better handled, but was not for all the usual reasons that can and do from time to time engulf humans. You choose to attach blame to British denial of food but no blame to the Japanese (remember them? they declared war on the British in December 1941) and the effect of the invasion of Burma, the World War that was going on (do you know the shipping situation at the time?) the local conditions, crop disease, typhoons, the corrupt practices of local politicians, the strife between the Hindu and Moslem elements, the health of the locals even before the problem, the climate, the poor infrastructure, the terrain, the geography, the competing claims on food and supplies in southern Europe etc etc etc. All this going on but you expect those in charge to have exactly the right answer to all the questions and problems as they arose over a period of time..... and if they muck up (tragically so in this case) its not for excusable reasons - it has to be for what reason? Why do you think that was?
Bolded sections are factors where you can attribute blame to the colonial government.
The decision to implement measures to deny foodstuff to the Bengal region was made in India, not Tokyo.
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No not at all. The campaign for a different status for India - whether entirely free, as a Dominion or whatever - was being waged (and was accelerated due to the war). The campaign to free herself (or have Dominion status) would all be a bit pointless if Hitler/Mussolini and later Tojo had won the war. As said, many forward thinking, wiser Indians understood this - even some within the independence movement. The campaign to change India’s status would continue, but there was a bigger picture and a war to be won first. Sadly not all Indians thought this way - and British high-handedness did not help their own cause. I regard those in the first category in the highest regard, and whilst I understand the latter, they have been ultimately proved wrong. They risked simply replacing the British with something far, far worse.
The ones that disagreed found themselves in jail...
< Message edited by mind_messing -- 11/16/2018 2:26:49 PM >
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