It was 1943

Sir, - This refers to Ms. Vandana Shiva's ``At the mercy of globalisation''. The Bengal Famine occurred in 1943 not 1942. I was 16 years old and living in Calcutta then. Neither Ms. Shiva nor Prof. Amartya Sen was born then and all they have to say is based purely on hearsay and their ideology.

The famine occurred due to failure of crops, instigated by East Bengali Communists in an attempt to sabotage the British war effort, in what the Communists called the people's war, mass migration to cities of peasants from rural area and war conditions prevailing such as refugees from South-east Asia and the allied armies' presence.

I had personally witnessed the then Viceroy Lord Wavel and his wife distributing food among the famished, and rice, though rationed, still being sold at half a rupee only per seer. It was impossible to feed an army and civilians at the same time at that crucial time in the war.

And, there was no such thing as globalisation then.

R.H. Putran,

Kolkata

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