Stories from the 1940s

I just finished reading two very interesting books. "The Storm of War" is Andrew Roberts' superb history of WWII. Roberts is opinionated, but backs up his conclusion that "the real reason why Hitler lost the Second World War was exactly the same one that caused him to unleash it in the first place: he was a Nazi" with good arguments.

In "Churchill's Secret War", Madhusree Mukerjee investigates the role of the British Government in causing the Bengal Famine of 1943. Churchill hated India and his chief scientific adviser Lord Cherwell was an extreme racist. Together, opposing the repeated pleas of Secretary of State for India Lord Amery, Viceroy Linlithgow and Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army Lord Wavell, they delayed and denied modest but vital grain shipments to India that could have prevented a famine that killed atleast 3 million. In one dramatic moment on August 4, 1944 Lord Amery responded to a familiar tirade by Churchill against Indians by comparing him to Hitler! In a British War Cabinet Meeting, no less!

Of all the interesting - and depressing, relating to the famine - revelations in the book, the most prominent for me were the financial arrangements between the UK and the Indian colony. I somehow imagined that all war-time material requirements from India would have been obtained for free by the British. But there actually was cost-sharing, with the British government promising to pay the Indian government an agreed proportion of the costs after the war. Indeed I realised that my grasp of colonial Indian macroeconomics is extremely poor. Next stop: an economic history of modern India :)