Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
The reality of famine
As famine strikes in Gaza, JOHN GREEN welcomes a timely reissue of a communist pamphlet that is a model of excellent research, humanitarian commitment and a clear anti-imperialist perspective
Mother in shreds of clothing with child begging on the streets of Calcutta during the Bengal famine of 1943 [Bengal Speaks/Public domain]

India’s Famine by Ben Bradley
First published in 1943, republished in 2024 by the CPB
Introductions from Shahriar Bin Ali of the Bangladeshi Workers Council and Vijay Prashad of Tricontinental

BECAUSE of its large population, its feudal landholding system and the ravages of British imperialism, India had been subject to regular food shortages and famines over many years.

However, the Bengal Famine, dealt with here, was one of the most iniquitous and devastating because it was avoidable and was hidden from the world by the British colonial administration.

Ben Bradley’s superb exposure of how the famine came about as a result of deliberate British policy and its government’s extreme callousness, is a model of excellent research, humanitarian commitment and a clear anti-imperialist perspective. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
A Palestinian boy walks amid debris after Israeli military strikes in a tent camp for displaced people near Al-Aqsa Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, August 21, 2025
Gaza / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025
An Israeli army tank maneuvers in the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel, May 4, 2025
World / 4 May 2025
4 May 2025

Ministers vote to escalate war on starving Palestinians

Kathe Kollwitz, Charge, sheet 5 of the cycle Peasants War, 1
Culture / 13 April 2025
13 April 2025
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
(L) Map of the world from al-Idrisi’s Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi
Exhibition Review / 14 October 2024
14 October 2024
BEN CHACKO finds many parallels with present-day peaceful Chinese influence, as well as evidence of exploitation, in a historical exhibition