Madhusree Mukerjee

Every once in a while, someone will venture forth with a pseudo-academic diatribe about how colonialism and imperialism were ultimately valuable for nations captured by European mercantile and military might.

They also tend to be the people who will tell you how clever Churchill was, how The British Raj created modern India and how the British Empire should be a source of pride.

In such cases, I recommend you point such committed imperialists to the staggering body of documentation and evidence that Madhusree Mukerjee has collected in Churchill's Secret War.

The picture that emerges of British efforts to starve India for political gain is monstrous.

Mukerjee doesn't even have to take a side. She lets British officials both close to Churchhill's administration and The Raj flay the PM and the empire in their honest assessment of the quiet genocide perpetrated during World War II.

An empire of famine, condescension and pride: Churchill and Britain are impossible to apologize for after you've read this book.… (más)

Nokkuð góð yfirferð yfir stjórn Breta á Indlandi fyrir og á meðan seinni heimsstyrjöldinni stóð. Mukerjee er harðorður í garð breta og þá sérstaklega Churchills varðandi sinnuleysi þeirra og aðgerða sem stuðluðu að víðtækri hungursneyð og mannfalli hundruða þúsunda í Indlandi á meðan á stríðsárunum stóð og gögnin virðast styðja dóm hans. Bretar stuðluðu gagngert að klofningi Indlands á milli Hindúa og Múslima og kynþáttafordómar ásamt draumi breta um nýlenduveldi virðast hafa ráðið miklu um aðgerðir þeirra.… (más)

An erudite and carefully researched account of 1943's Bengal famine, a tragedy that killed millions yet is often forgotten or unheard of in the west. Beyond reporting on the atrocity itself, author Madhusree Mukerjee exposes its causes: intentional acts by Winston Churchill's War Cabinet that routed food stores around the starving continent to be shipped to Europe, only to sit unused until the end of the war.

This book, beautifully sourced and footnoted, must have taken years of deep research. It telescopes between the bureaucratic ineptitudes of the British War Office and often-horrific personal accounts of individual Bengali citizens. More historical and cultural context would have helped novice readers (like me) who may have needed more background to fully appreciate the collapse of the social order. Churchill (and more so, his horrifically racist advisor Lord Cherwell) seemed to be playing a shell game in response to the famine, and it would've been lovely for Mukerjee to help guide us as readers where to focus our eyes.

Highly recommended read.

… (más)