I'm a historian - we must debunk lies about Winston Churchill's role in the Bengal Famine

It never ceases to amaze me how bad history takes root. Take the death of Hitler. There was a mass of witnesses and plenty of evidence that he took his own life in the Führerbunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945 – from a sizable chunk of his jaw, confirmed by dental X-rays, to a piece of his skull and blood-stains. Moreover, it was inconceivable that someone as megalomaniacal and narcissistic as the Fuhrer could quietly live out their days incognito in South America. Yet barely a week goes by without someone asking me whether he might have survived. These notions, these historical whims and conspiracy theories, somehow develop roots and, like the toughest thistle, are hard to pull out.

The same is true of Winston Churchill’s part in the Bengal Famine of 1943. Earlier this week, in the face of intense criticism from historians, the National Portrait Gallery pulled a video installation by Helen Cammock accusing the wartime PM of the “willful starvation of the Indian population”. I wonder how much research was undertaken by Cammock, or was she merely echoing accusations from those within her echo chamber? It’s quite a thing to accuse anyone of deliberately starving others, let alone Churchill.

But as a towering twentieth-century figure, he’s an easy target. Churchill saved Britain against the Nazi hordes in 1940; he led the country in the coalition that defeated not only Hitler but the Imperial Japanese too. Because of that, he’s all the more enticing a target. But Cammock is not only calling out Churchill, she’s also provoking those who would naturally leap to his defence. Nonetheless, this vile nonsense deserves to be called out in turn. It’s not good enough to brand the three million who died as victims of unjust imperialism. And it’s all very well saying Churchill could and should have sent more relief, but to do so is to fail to understand how impossible that was in 1943.

The Bengal Famine was caused by a terrible combination of factors. A cyclone in the autumn of 1942 brought three separate tidal waves that had wiped out 450 square miles, badly affected a further 400 square miles and damaged another 3,200 square miles. These ruined or severely damaged the homes and livelihoods of up to 2.5 million Bengalis. A fungus then hit remaining rice stocks, while the misery was heightened by the confiscation of boats earlier in the year when the British had been trying to stem the risk a Japanese invasion of India. Unquestionably a bad decision but one was made in Calcutta and New Delhi, not Downing Street.

And there was a concerted relief effort, not only in terms of food, but also in loans and grants of money for boats and new homes. Most Bengalis lived an extremely precarious existence. Some ten million were utterly dependent on agriculture. There was charity and relief but no social welfare – indeed, there was very little social welfare anywhere at that time.

The state had already been an importer of food for over a decade and most had come from Burma, now closed to India thanks to the Japanese. The Allies never had enough shipping, either. So in August 1943, Churchill was not in a position to suddenly send food. And not all India was facing famine – only Bengal and the north-east. But in 1935, the central government in New Delhi had ceded central powers to the provinces, where the regional governments were democratically elected Indians. In 1942 they had all agreed to introduce trade barriers which now blocked aid.

In the end, British Governor General Lord Wavell forced the issue by threatening legal and even military action, and substantial amounts of grain had finally begun to arrive. It was, however, too little too late to bring a swift end to the humanitarian disaster.

And nor was it the case that Bengal did not receive overseas aid. Only 30,000 tons of grain was sent in 1942 before it was realised how catastrophic the tragedy was likely to be. Yet in 1943, 303,000 tons were sent and 639,000 tons in 1944. It was not enough, but at the height of the war, this was a huge commitment.

Many things can be laid at the feet of Winston Churchill, both good and bad, but the terrible loss of life in the Bengal Famine is not one of them. It is right that the National Gallery has pulled Cammock’s video. Yes, art and history are different, but not art and lies.

• James Holland is author of The Visionaries: The Making of the Post World War II Order in the West, and writes on Substack @james1940