"Despite being one of the most frequently used weapons of war, hunger is still treated as inevitable suffering rather than deliberate violence. In the week ending September 18 there were 1,319 deaths Since August 16, 4,338 sufferers from starvation have been admitted to the city's hospitals of whom 972 have died. Corpses of starved people removed from the streets and hospitals by the police Corpse Disposal Squad and the two non-official agencies since August 1 have been 2,527. September 23, 1943, The Statesman"
"In September 1943, Bengal was in the grip of a man-made famine that claimed thousands of lives each week. India, still under British colonial rule, had entered World War II in 1939 as a supplier of troops, exports and credit, and as a strategic theatre in the Allied campaign against Japan. In 1942, the colonial authorities imposed a modified scorched earth policy across Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and parts of Madras."
In 1943 Bengal experienced a man-made famine that killed thousands weekly and eventually millions. Wartime measures, including a modified scorched-earth policy across northeastern provinces, removed or destroyed food stocks and disabled transport routes, leaving civilians without food. London received urgent appeals to send large grain shipments, but the war cabinet allocated substantially less than requested and often dismissed the crisis. Official responses emphasized relief narratives and framed hunger as a longstanding social problem, while press censorship attempted to suppress alarming accounts. Reported hospital admissions, deaths, and corpses on streets reveal the scale of starvation and mortality.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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