explain the causes for bengal economic crises
Answers
Bengal's economy was predominantly agrarian. In the years before the famine, between half and three-quarters of the rural poor were living in a "semi-starved condition". Stagnant agricultural productivity and a stable land base were inadequate for the rapidly increasing population, resulting in both a long-term decline in the per capita availability of rice and growing numbers of land-poor or landless laborers.A high proportion also laboured beneath a chronic and spiraling cycle of debt that ended in debt bondage and the loss of their landholdings due to land grabbing. More proximate causes of the crisis involved large-scale natural disasters in southwestern Bengal and the consequences of the war. Military buildup and financing sparked war-time inflation, while land was appropriated from thousands of Bengalis. Following the Japanese occupation of Burma (modern Myanmar) rice imports were lost, then much of Bengal's market supplies and transport systems were disrupted by British "denial policies" for rice and boats (a "scorched earth" response to the occupation). The British government also pursued prioritised distribution of vital supplies to the military, civil servants and other "priority classes". These factors were compounded by restricted access to grain: domestic sources were constrained by emergency inter-provincial trade barriers, while access to international sources was largely denied by Churchill's War Cabinet, arguably due to a wartime shortage of shipping.[G] The relative impact of each of these contributing factors to the death toll and economic devastation is an ongoing matter of controversy.
The provincial government's policy failures began with denial that a famine existed. Humanitarian aid was ineffective through the worst months of the food crisis, and the government never formally declared a state of famine. It first attempted to influence the price of rice paddy (unmilled rice) through price controls. These measures created a black market and encouraged sellers to withhold stocks. Hyperinflation resulted from speculation and hoarding after controls were abandoned. Aid increased significantly when the Indian Army took control of aid in October 1943, but effective relief arrived only after a record rice harvest that December. Deaths from starvation began to decline, but over half the famine-related deaths occurred in 1944, after the food security crisis had abated, as a result of disease.❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Answer:
Explanation:
The Bengal famine of 1943 was a major famine of the Bengal province[B] in British India during World War II. An estimated 2.1–3 million,[A] out of a population of 60.3 million, died of starvation, or of malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and social fabric. Historians have frequently characterised the famine as "man-made",[C] due to the fact that the Bengal famine was a "war famine" that occurred in the context of World War II[10]. A minority view holds that the famine arose from natural causes despite the fact that there were major natural disasters during the famine.
Country-
British India.
Location-
Bengal and Orissa.
Period-
1943–1944.
Total deaths-
Estimated 2.1 to 3 million in Bengal alone.
