Several actions of war-time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's government had directly and inevitably led to the death of some three million Indians in the 1943 famine, argues a new book.
Churchill's Secret War by physicist-turned-researcher Madhusree Mukherjee, which investigates unexamined parts of the statesman's records, provides evidence of how the Prime Minister and his advisors chose to use the resources of India to wage war against Germany and Japan, which caused food scarcity and inflation in the empire.
Also, says the author, the deprivation and anarchy of the era had torn the fabric of India's society and Churchill's efforts to retain the colony by means of divide and rule also contributed to partition.
The book notes that Churchill had a profound contempt of native Indians especially Mahatma Gandhi who for him came to represent a "malignant subversive fanatic" and a "thoroughly evil force." He had remarked in a conversation, "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
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