Great Famine of 1943 and North Bengal: Revisiting its Genesis and its Impact

Abstract

Most catastrophic event which took a heavy death-toll in Bengal was the great famine of 1943. It shattered the socio-economic foundations of the then Bengali society. The people of North Bengal also went through this calamity which became very acute in the districts of Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Rangpur. Millions of people suffered from hunger, mal-nutrition, epidemics etc. which altogether accelerated the mortality rate during 1943-1944. Their age-old professions were at stake and they lost the capacity to purchase the foodgrains and other essential commodities from the open markets which practically went in the hands of the black marketeers. Peoples’ sufferings were further multiplied with the outbreak of the ‘cloth famine’ at different places of North Bengal. Thus the famine of 1943 dealt a heavy blow on the life and livelihood of the people of North Bengal and led them into an ‘existential crisis’.