Great Famine of 1943 and North Bengal: Revisiting its Genesis and its Impact
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Date
2021-03
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Publisher
University of North Bengal
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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’.