Brilliant and prophetic. I've read this story before, and even taught Sen's writing on the Bengal famine, but rarely have I seen this history laid out in such a clear and compelling manner. My only question is this: what can we do? What can we do, right now, to stop what I fear may be a worst case scenario by this fall?
Annia, thank you. And if you’ve taught Sen on Bengal, you already know the answer to your own question — which is that there rarely is one, at least not in time.
Sen showed us that famine is not a food problem. It is a political problem wearing food’s clothes. What we can do is refuse the disguise. Keep naming what is actually happening, to whom, and by whose design. That is not nothing.
The fall window you’re worried about — I share that worry.
The signals I watch are not the headlines. They are the insurance withdrawals, the vessel reroutes, the quiet suspension of trade finance. By the time those become news, the harm is already banked.
Very informative and eye-opening! Loved to read your article! Unfortunately, the probability of something like this happening again seems very possible under this current regime. The way the population was abandoned by the British then, and the current political situation now, are not different; the current one has darker undertones. Men in power are choosing to weaken the country.
Thank you for reading so carefully — and for saying what many feel but few articulate this plainly.
You have identified the thread that runs through the piece: the danger is never the crisis itself, but the pre-existing architecture that turns a crisis into a catastrophe. Bengal was not starved by the war. It was starved by a system that had already decided whose hunger was tolerable. The question you raise — whether that architecture is being rebuilt today — is precisely the one I hoped this essay would provoke.
History does not repeat its events. It repeats its logic. And the logic of treating civilian welfare as a variable to be managed rather than a covenant to be honoured has never required a particular regime to operate. It only requires silence from those who see it clearly.
Brilliant and prophetic. I've read this story before, and even taught Sen's writing on the Bengal famine, but rarely have I seen this history laid out in such a clear and compelling manner. My only question is this: what can we do? What can we do, right now, to stop what I fear may be a worst case scenario by this fall?
Annia, thank you. And if you’ve taught Sen on Bengal, you already know the answer to your own question — which is that there rarely is one, at least not in time.
Sen showed us that famine is not a food problem. It is a political problem wearing food’s clothes. What we can do is refuse the disguise. Keep naming what is actually happening, to whom, and by whose design. That is not nothing.
The fall window you’re worried about — I share that worry.
The signals I watch are not the headlines. They are the insurance withdrawals, the vessel reroutes, the quiet suspension of trade finance. By the time those become news, the harm is already banked.
I’ll keep writing. Stay with me on this.
Very informative and eye-opening! Loved to read your article! Unfortunately, the probability of something like this happening again seems very possible under this current regime. The way the population was abandoned by the British then, and the current political situation now, are not different; the current one has darker undertones. Men in power are choosing to weaken the country.
Dear Purvi,
Thank you for reading so carefully — and for saying what many feel but few articulate this plainly.
You have identified the thread that runs through the piece: the danger is never the crisis itself, but the pre-existing architecture that turns a crisis into a catastrophe. Bengal was not starved by the war. It was starved by a system that had already decided whose hunger was tolerable. The question you raise — whether that architecture is being rebuilt today — is precisely the one I hoped this essay would provoke.
History does not repeat its events. It repeats its logic. And the logic of treating civilian welfare as a variable to be managed rather than a covenant to be honoured has never required a particular regime to operate. It only requires silence from those who see it clearly.
Thank you for not being silent.
With gratitude,
Nazem