RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
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.
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