
“Amnesia” or Fantasy? The Indian Contribution in World War II
Indian amnesia? “Dunkirk, the War, and the Amnesia of the Empire,” by Yasmin Khan. New York Times Opinion page, 2 August 2017.
__________________________________
We should be grateful to Professor Yasmin Khan. Why? Because in deploring the absence of Indian troops in the new movie Dunkirk, and the tragic 1943 Bengal famine, she blames “the imperial state,” not the usual culprit, Winston Churchill:
At least three million Bengalis died in a catastrophic famine in 1943, a famine that is almost never discussed. The famine’s causes were a byproduct of the war, but as Madhusree Mukerjee has proved in her book Churchill’s Secret War, the imperial state also failed to deliver relief.…