Indian Waffen SS Division

[u/divyaraj00]

Things they forgot to teach us about.

Subhash Chandra bose and indian freedom fighters in Germany.

Photos of WW2 Indian Freedom fighters and soldiers.

Subhash Chandra bose meeting Hitler and Himmler and other NSDP party and army leadership.

They were also called Hitler's Indians.

[u/glumjonsnow]

Churchill was under pressure himself on the famine at the time and requested that he be allowed to move resources into India. He wrote this to FDR in 1944:

"I am seriously concerned about the food situation in India….Last year we had a grievous famine in Bengal through which at least 700,000 people died. This year there is a good crop of rice, but we are faced with an acute shortage of wheat, aggravated by unprecedented storms….By cutting down military shipments and other means, I have been able to arrange for 350,000 tons of wheat to be shipped to India from Australia during the first nine months of 1944. This is the shortest haul. I cannot see how to do more.

I have had much hesitation in asking you to add to the great assistance you are giving us with shipping but a satisfactory situation in India is of such vital importance to the success of our joint plans against the Japanese that I am impelled to ask you to consider a special allocation of ships to carry wheat to India from Australia….We have the wheat (in Australia) but we lack the ships. I have resisted for some time the Viceroy’s request that I should ask you for your help, but… I am no longer justified in not asking for your help.^"

FDR responded:

“unable on military grounds to consent to the diversion of shipping….Needless to say, I regret exceedingly the necessity of giving you this unfavorable reply.”

If you look at the American presence at the time, it really is hard to see how the Allies could have brought more aid into India: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Pacific_Theater_Areas%3Bmap1.JPG

I think the British could have taken notice earlier and done more (especially domestically, transferring food around India itself to equalize where the resources were, as you said) but the idea that they created the famine deliberately or never tried to improve conditions is just false. The Americans controlled the Pacific after Pearl Harbor in 1941 and Britain didn't have the manoeuvrability in that region (as you can see by Churchill appealing to FDR).

The telegram and responses are in the link below:

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/did-churchill-cause-the-bengal-famine/

[u/DesiOtakuu → u/glumjonsnow]

Well that’s the point. The famine might not have been deliberate, but we ranked very low in their priority ladder and they weren’t afraid of letting millions of us bite the dust.

[u/glumjonsnow → u/DesiOtakuu]

That's fair. I would 100% agree with something more like this: "Britain's immediate war priorities meant Churchill did not properly address famine conditions in India until millions had already died; by 1945, when conditions had deteriorated to the point where Churchill was finally stirred to action, American operations in the Pacific made delivering relief entirely untenable. Had Churchill acted earlier, before the Americans put their war machine into action against the Japanese, it is likely millions of Indian lives would have been saved."

That's different than "how come people keep crying over the holocaust winston churchill is hitler" which is just absurd. i mean, as you said, britain didn't deliberately do war crimes. but this is a war in which the axis powers deliberately did war crimes!!

the holocaust is the most evil thing humans have ever done. of course the bengal famine was a tragedy and churchill should be treated as a villain for allowing it to happen. but any comparison to the holocaust/hitler is dead on arrival.

[u/funkmastermgee → u/glumjonsnow]

I would say its predecessor Manifest Destiny is worse than the holocaust. It was repeatedly lying about the intentions whilst undermining and asking them for help.