Japanese had occupied most of Burma monsoon season Bengal Bihar severe cyclone Bengal famine of 1943 Lord Wavell Operation Overlord matter of controversy Allied
Meanwhile, the Japanese had occupied most of Burma by the end of April 1942. Counter-offensives were hampered by the monsoon season and by disordered conditions in Bengal and Bihar, as well as a severe cyclone which devastated the region in October 1942. A combination of factors, including the curtailment of essential rice imports from Burma, poor administration, wartime inflation and a series of large-scale natural disasters such as flooding and crop disease led to the Bengal famine of 1943, in which an estimated 2.1–3.8 million people died. From December 1942 onwards, food shortages had prompted senior officials in India to ask London for grain imports, although the colonial authorities failed to recognise the seriousness of the emerging famine and responded ineptly. Churchill's government was criticised for refusing to approve more imports, a policy it ascribed to an acute wartime shortage of shipping. When the British realised the full extent of the famine in September 1943, Churchill ordered the transportation of 130,000 tons of Iraqi and Australian grain to Bengal and the war cabinet agreed to send 200,000 tons by the end of the year. During the last quarter of 1943, 100,000 tons of rice and 176,000 tons of wheat were imported, compared to averages of 55,000 tons of rice and 54,000 tons of wheat earlier in the year. In October, Churchill wrote to the newly appointed Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, charging him with the responsibility of ending the famine. In February 1944, as preparation for Operation Overlord placed greater demands on Allied shipping, Churchill cabled Wavell saying: "I will certainly help you all I can, but you must not ask the impossible". Grain shipment requests continued to be turned down by the government throughout 1944, and Wavell complained to Churchill in October that "the vital problems of India are being treated by His Majesty's Government with neglect, even sometimes with hostility and contempt". The relative impact of British policies on the death toll of the famine remains a matter of controversy among scholars.
