Quote (Thor123422 @ Jun 8 2020 10:05pm)
Please talk more about this. I'm not familiar with either side
Alright.
Winston Churchill was born to a wealthy aristocratic family (much like Scaly's) in 1874 and brought up with Britain still being the most powerful nation in the world. This backstory is important because it provides the narrative as to why Churchill was a colonialist and, yes, a racist. The vast majority of British people were similarly racist and had colonialist views.
During WW2, India was still part of the British Empire. Bengal was an extremely poor province even by India's standards; a significant proportion of the population were malnourished in peacetime and agriculture was the main source of income. The familiar land owner - peasant dynamic was in full force between Indians in the caste system.
In 1942, Japan invaded the British colony of Burma (known as Myanmar today). This caused the displacement of many ethnic Indians who then fleed West, and if they survived they made it to Bangladesh or Bengal. Burma was a big exporter of rice and with the Japanese now controlling the supply chain, it was rerouted towards the Imperial Army. The Japanese caused havoc in the Bay of Bengal and sunk thousands of merchant boats carrying grain, medical supplies, etc.
With the supply of food already waning, prices started to increase rapidly...
The British Army were expending the majority of their resources on the Western Front, and so they knew they could not win against the Japanese in Asia. As the Japanese advanced, Bengal became a strategic location with a necessary increased military presence. British troops came in, took control of some farmland in the East and began a scorched earth policy in East Bengal, to deny the Japs of a key resource in the war. The shortage of food was almost at breaking point now.
With the situation getting worse, the Indian government imposed price caps. They banned trading between provinces. It was a disaster and left the Western provinces in relative luxury compared to provinces closer to the action.
Food was now being prioritised to the military and 'military-related' sectors. Within the Indian caste system this mainly ended up with food in the hands of the rich at the expense of the poor.
It's now 1943. India were requesting food imports from Britain as a matter of urgency. People were dying. Churchill and his government refused to allow it - in their eyes, the diversion of resources away from the homeland and centre of the fighting was not appropriate.
About 2 million people died of starvation as a result of all the above. I feel that was an honest and unbiased explanation of events as they occurred.