Churchill's Secret War
| Company type | Book |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | August 10, 2010 |
| Founder | Madhusree Mukerjee |
| Products | Non-fiction book |
| Website | penguin |
Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II is a work authored by Madhusree Mukerjee that centers on the Bengal famine of 1943 occurring under British colonial administration in India. Released in August 2010 by Basic Books and Tranquebar Press, the book investigates the involvement of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the famine and the eventual partition of India in 1947. Mukerjee contends that Churchill’s decisions exacerbated the famine by placing wartime priorities above humanitarian relief, disregarding Bengal’s suffering. The narrative exposes Churchill’s indifferent stance and his choice to persist with food exports from India amid the crisis, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to three million individuals.[1] Additionally, it underscores British India’s substantial wartime contribution, supplying goods and services valued at over £2 billion.[2]
Synopsis
Mukerjee outlines how colonial governance set the stage for the Bengal famine. She argues that Churchill’s racial prejudices and political attitudes influenced discriminatory food distribution policies, as highlighted by Lord Wavell, who noted that only those "actually fighting or making munitions or working some particular railways" were prioritized for sustenance.[3] The book also closely examines Frederick Lindemann, Lord Cherwell—Churchill’s trusted advisor—whose Malthusian and racist perspectives shaped policy decisions affecting Indians.[3]
Throughout the war, India manufactured 600,000 miles of cotton fabric for Allied forces, which led to shortages and rising prices that left many impoverished Indians with insufficient clothing.[4] In 1942, after the Japanese conquest of Burma, the colonial administration enacted a "denial policy" in Bengal—a scorched earth tactic advocated by Churchill—to prevent resources from reaching Japan. This involved confiscating and destroying surplus rice stocks and seizing 46,000 boats along with bicycles, carts, and elephants, severely undermining Bengal’s fishing industry.[5] Despite this widespread destruction, Churchill later asserted that India was "effectively protected from the horrors and perils of the World War," a statement that sharply contrasts with the actual circumstances.[6]
Mukerjee maintains that tolerance of the famine was driven not only by racial bias but also by entrenched power disparities within colonial rule. She references economist Amartya Sen’s insight that famines do not occur in democracies where leaders are answerable to their citizens.[7]
The book further details Lindemann’s influence in persuading Churchill to redirect more than half of British merchant shipping away from the Indian Ocean toward the Atlantic Ocean, despite warnings from the Ministry of War Transport about severe disruptions to maritime trade in Southeast Asia. This shift intensified shipping shortages, worsening famine conditions.[3]</ref>[8]
Reception
Anthropologist Felix Padel, writing in Economic and Political Weekly, emphasized the book’s revelation of the British Raj’s economic consequences, particularly how it stifled Indian industrial development and transformed India into a source of raw cotton and agricultural goods crucial to Britain's economy. Historian Chandak Sengoopta, in a review for The Independent, commended Mukerjee’s meticulous investigative approach and characterized her depiction of imperial cruelty as both intense and deeply troubling.
In The Sunday Times, Max Hastings highlighted that millions of Indians suffered starvation to prioritize shipping resources for British wartime needs, challenging Churchill’s assertions about safeguarding Indian welfare. While Hastings disagreed with Mukerjee on Churchill's involvement in Subhas Chandra Bose’s demise and the 1947 partition, he endorsed the book's overall compelling and disturbing argument.
Janam Mukherjee, historian and author of Hungry Bengal: War, Famine, Riots and the End of Empire (2015), situated the work within the framework of Indian nationalist historiography but acknowledged its vivid portrayal of London's callousness toward Bengal’s famine. Shashi Tharoor contrasted Churchill’s self-focused war memoirs with Mukerjee’s stark presentation of a harsher reality in his review for Time.
On the other hand, historian Zareer Masani offered a critical perspective in The Critic (2020), labeling the book as "sensationalist" and conspiratorial, disputing its primary attribution of Bengal’s famine to Churchill’s remote policy decisions.
Publication details
- Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, Basic Books, New York, 10 August 2010, ISBN 978-0465002016
- Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, Tranquebar Press, Chennai, 16 August 2010, ISBN 978-9380658476
Further reading
- Joseph Lelyveld, "Did Churchill Let Them Starve?", The New York Review of Books, 23 December 2010
- Brian Chatterton, Madhusree Mukerjee, Amartya Sen, "The Bengal Famine. In response to: Did Churchill Let Them Starve?", The New York Review of Books, 24 February 2011
- Madhusree Mukerjee, "The Most Powerful Scientist Ever: Winston Churchill's Personal Technocrat", Scientific American, 6 August 2010
- Madhusree Mukerjee, "Winston Churchill's Plan for Post-war India", Economic and Political Weekly, 7–13 August 2010, Vol. 45, Issue 32, pp. 27–30
- T. G. Narayanan, Famine over Bengal, The Book Company, Calcutta, 1944 (Author was a journalist with The Hindu during the famine)