Thoughts on the National Portrait Gallery's Churchill installation

A slight rant on why Churchill did not cause the Bengal famine

The National Portrait Gallery has done a historically illiterate installation, accusing Churchill once again of causing and exacerbating the Bengal Famine. Such accusations are part of the Omni-cause project revolution in which in order to destabilise Western civilisation and sense of self, great historical figures are attacked. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/14/churchill-starved-indians-national-portrait-gallery-video/ or https://archive.ph/ZLLE3

Things need to be put in context and Churchill was not an all-powerful god.

The Bengal Famine happened in 1943 and was at its height in November 1943. By the time it was over at least 3 million people had died. The scenes of the starving were truly shocking and did shake Indian belief in the benefits of being in the British Empire to the core.

The three main causes were a series of cyclones which brought three separate tidal waves destroying 450 square miles the year before, a fungus which attacked the remaining rice crops and Wavell’s destruction of the flat bottomed boats to prevent the Japanese from invading which had unexpected and disastrous consequences for the populace. Bengal was also a net importer of food and had been for a decade previously. Its main food supplier was Burma, a country which becomes cut off due to the Japanese invasion.

In normal times, it might have been possible to supply the famine ravaged country from elsewhere but this was not normal, this was 1943 aka one of the darkest periods of the war where the Axis Powers had not yet been forced to retreat and the Allies were not assured of success.

The logistics weren’t there. There was no spare capacity in world shipping. In fact, if anything there was an extreme scarcity of ships. The war in the Atlantic had sunk thousands of merchant ships. According to a 1944 press release about tonnage lost, the Allies had lost 21 million tonnage of ships. Merchant Ship Losses 1939 to 1943 The sheer scale can be seen if you look at the list of British merchant ships which were lost in the war. Merchant Navy Losses WWII

This figure as bad as it is does not include the human cost — the thousands of experienced Merchant marines who lost their lives. In order to sail a cargo ship, it is not just point and hope. It was practically impossible to stop and rescue the crews as the Wolf Packs would attack the rescuers. Each ship represents a loss of life and more importantly for this essay – expertise. We will never know the precise number of merchant marines lost as accurate records were not kept. If one looks at the US experience, the Merchant Marine had the highest death rate of any service ( approx. 1 in 26 or 3.9%). Overall the US service personnel have a death rate of 1.78% or 1 in 56. This is replicated around the world. So even if somehow the ships could be miraculously found, the experienced crew required to take the treacherous voyages across the Pacific were not there.

What else was going on?

The Allies were attempting to supply a starving Britain as well as mobilise a large number of troops for the invasion of Sicily, Italy and indeed Europe. The Soviet Union required convoys as well. There was also the small problem of supplying the troops in Burma who also desperately needed supplies and at that point were precariously close to losing to the Japanese. (If they had lost Benegal to the Japanese Imperial Army, I suspect the famine would have been far worse) Lord Montgomery and Viscount Slim are constantly complaining about the lack of supplies and ships. The same goes for Matt Clarke in Sicily campaign as making sure the D-day landings could happen was the first priority. In the August, Churchill refused to make the famine the main priority as the effort to defeat the Axis powers, particularly Germany must have primacy as that was in his view the only way to save the world from certain destruction. He was aware of how many others were suffering.

China has its own problems with a starving population – the Henan famine of 1942-43 where approximately 700,000 people perished. Part of the reason for the Communists gaining their first foothold was that they fed the starving population in this period as opposed to the other Chinese factions who ignored the population as Eric Severide pointed out in his WW2 broadcasts from China.

There is no UN with its famine relief programme. That only happens after WW2 with the creation of the various UN relief agencies. At the time, the relief efforts were mainly focused on Europe and the Soviet Union. Clementine Churchill led the relief effort to the Soviet Union, for example. Natalie Wales Latham initially led the US efforts but was eased out. In short no world disaster relief infrastructure existed. I know it is hard to shift baselines but one must. There are reasons, including the terrible impotency in the face of the severe Bengal famine why the UN has relief agencies.

Wavell did belatedly realise the problem which he inadvertently helped to create and did try to supply what food he could. He arranged for loans etc to enable the resupply of flat-bottomed boats and forced the Indian provinces (which had been given far more autonomy in the 1930s – think devolved government) to start to supply grain to Bengal. His efforts were obstructed by local government officials, police etc who wanted to hoard the grain for their own populace in case the famine struck them. Wavell, using his powers as Viceroy-Designate had to threaten to legal action and even military consequences to get the grain moving from those grain rich provinces which were not experiencing famine. Even then the movement was far too slow. In the end Wavell diverted more than 70k tons of food through the use of military transport covering 836,000 miles in the relief effort. Too little, too late with lessons from previous famines not being taken on board until after the crisis happened. Britain has a habit of this btw.

In November 1943 when the famine crisis is at its height, Churchill is incapacitated with pneumonia. He ends up recovering in North Africa but it was hugely touch and go. Mary Soames in her biography of Clementine Churchill describes her mother nursing her father who is basically unconscious. How much of the decision making he is doing at the crucial time is a matter of conjecture.

Thus, it is unfair to solely blame Churchill for this humanitarian disaster but a certain section o the intelligentsia has always tried to blame him. As memories fade, the efforts are redoubled because his success in winning WW2 rankles a certain mindset.

Why? Are Japan and Germany to blame for waging war on the entire world and sinking so many merchant ships? Why are Hitler or Hideki Tojo, the prime minister of Japan not blamed for their part in creating the catastrophe? Why isn’t the lack of worldwide relief infrastructure? What about Wavell who did have some autonomy?

The answer lies in the motivations of the extreme Left and earlier the Quit India Movement who wanted the British gone asap. The Quit India Movement was aligned with the Japanese during WW2 btw. Some overtly, some covertly. Personally given the overt racism of the Japanese towards everyone who was not Japanese, I don’t think it would have gone the way the QIM thought it would but that is me. Ghandi, for example saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate why Britain should go as Britain had failed to look after its people. The scenes are the starving was truly shocking and it did really demonstrate the limits of British power.

The irony is that Liberal Imperialists who were in ascendency in British politics wanted to create a soft power Commonwealth as Britain could no longer truly afford its empire, something which Lord Milner’s ‘kindergarten’ espoused, worked towards and eventually succeeded in creating . Churchill with his unshakable belief in Empire is seen as an obstacle to independence but he was also seen as being behind the times on this point. Thus, it was easier to blame Churchill (who did make such a hash of things at Gallipoli btw) for the entire mess than to accept any Indian culpability in the humanitarian disaster. Even today Hindu Nationalism does not allow for the British Empire to have had a positive impact. (Personally I think the ending of suttee was a big step forward as I don’t approve of throwing living women on bonfires…)

Currently, it suits the extreme Left to attack and attempt to destroy the reputation of one of the most admired men of the 20^th century. Above, Churchill was a man. He wasn’t a superhuman demigod. He could be short tempered, made huge mistakes and had an unshakable self-belief. He did his imperfect best but his best such as it was ended up saving the world from the tyranny of the Axis powers. For that success, rather than his many failures, he is rightly lauded.

One must always remember that the extreme Left wants a revolution to bring in some sort of utopia. They have tried various theories to bring the West to revolution. I am never sure what sort of society they hope to create as past experience has shown that totalitarianism tends to flourish after revolution. Basically how do you undermine the West? One way is through attacking the heroes and stories which nations tell themselves. Destroying Churchill’s standing is all part of this game. (More on this after I finish reading Antonia Senior’s Stalin’s Apostles as there are echoes in the 1930s with today)

I think it is a great shame but not really a surprise that the National Portrait Gallery has fallen for this sort of easily debunked revisionist history.

If you are interested in Asian theatre of WW2, try reading Burma 44 by James Holland which does touch on the Bengal famine etc. He also comes to the same conclusion as I have.

Sorry to rant on but it is something which acts like fingernails against a blackboard for me.