Bengal Famine: An Unpunished Genocide (A Commentary on Syama Prasad Mookerjee's Panchasher Manwantar)

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This Man Manwantar by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a political stalwart of the time. In his book, Syama Prasad argues that the famine of 1943-44 that is said to have caused the death and displacement of three million people, tearing apart Bengal's social and economic fabric, was a man-made disaster. The acute food shortage was deliberately created by the Churchill government to punish a rebellious, militant Bengal. The colonial government adopted a 'scorched-earth' policy, burned the boats that carried grain, promulgated an anti-hoarding act that prevented farmers and householders from keeping even small buffer stocks, while hoarding by private lobbies was allowed resulting in huge price rise. This policy was actively supported by the communal practices of the local Muslim League government.

Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee's contribution to India's national life is unparallel but unfortunately has largely been ignored or misrepresented.

The academia and intelligentsia who marginalised and suppressed Dr Mookerjee's legacy ensured that generations of Indians and Bengalis grew up without ever hearing of Dr Mookerjee's contribution to cementing India's integration and unity. Generations stayed unaware of his epic effort of launching a massive movement supported by the Hindus of Bengal including the leading thought-leaders of the state for demanding that a portion of Bengal be carved out and retained in the Indian Union. "We must have our own territory where we can live as free men, and build up our own culture, our own social and economic life in accordance with our best tradition, "Whe said. A section among the ideology-driven gate-keepers of Indian history have tried to portray the demand for the creation of West Bengal as a motivated move by 'caste Hindus, all belonging to the 'upper class", "Bhadralok" intelligentsia, both political and commercial, in order to safeguard their monopolies. But the truth is far removed from such a motivated assessment.

Syama Prasad's contribution to the cause of India and Indian people has not been objectively assessed as yet. Its enormity on one hand and the tendency on the part of the left-dominated historians to downplay it partly explains the reason for this disregard.

Several of his political contemporaries - who had supported the demand of Pakistan, with some of them having advocated the case of an independent Bengal and opposed his struggle for West Bengal - later on sought refuge in that very province. They and their kindred probably did not want to acknowledge their debt to Syama Prasad, driven by their meanness or for the fear of exposing their own past actions of indiscretions.

For the past some years, research activities have been underway on his life and contribution, thanks to the initiative by the Government of India. Hopefully, these will fill the gap in the public domain about Syama Prasad's life, ideology and contribution.

Briefly speaking, he was a rare amalgam of several exalted qualities like merit and erudition, vision and statesmanship, courage and confidence, honesty and integrity, humanism and compassion, leadership and organising abilities, alongside a keen sense of justice and fair play. Simultaneously, he was vehemently against injustice, cowardice, hypocrisy and believed in taking these practices in politics head on. With all these attributes, he was a nationalist to the core and his life glittered with genuineness and truthfulness.

With equal felicity he worked for the cause of education and used politics for the welfare of his countrymen. Although he first represented the University Constituency at hardly 28 years of age in 1929, he entered into mainstream politics in 1940 under compulsion of circumstances. Bengal was then sinking in the abyss of communal politics under a Muslim League-led government. The State's secular fabric in general and the lives of the Hindus - the religious minority in the province were coming under increasing strain.

Syama Prasad exhibited consummate political skill in joining hands with Sarat Bose, marshalling the spectrum of secular forces in the province and replacing the League ministry with an alternative broad-based secular cabinet in less than two years, following his entry into mainstream politics.

Never one to be daunted by any challenge, however formidable or diabolical, he came forward as a saviour of the distressed victims of the man-made Bengal famine 1943.