ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) on Friday, said that if allegations mentioned in Madhusree Mukerjee’s recent book “Churchill's secret war: the British empire and the ravaging of India during World War II” (Basic Books, New York) were true, Britain should tender a formal apology for what was described as a preventable catastrophe caused by intentional negligence of Britain.

This book by Mukerjee, nuclear physicist with doctorate from University of Chicago and former editor of Scientific American who lives in Germany, reportedly alleges that millions of people of Bengal were left to starve ignoring repeated pleas to Britain for emergency food aid. Some other countries offered to help but were prevented.

Her book says, then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s racism, prejudice and callousness were blamed for this easily stoppable famine. Britain apparently did not consider Indian lives worth saving and it was said to be a deliberate decision to let Indians starve. During this famine, babies were said to be abandoned like stray cats, children picked undigested grain from faeces, and sheer number of corpses created disposal problem.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, argued that this was simply inhuman, immoral and ungodly; a disaster brought by British policy towards India at that time.