Jump to content

Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/Archive 10

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12

The range for mortaility statistics is Dyson/Maharatna (lower) and Sen (upper) . Will revert tomorrow or soon after.

The range for mortaility statistics is Dyson/Maharatna (lower) and Sen (upper). The FIC figure is an under-count by everyone's account, including the guy who did it. Do you know who did it? Do you know how he did it? it was not a "real census" as your edit summary says... Very very incorrectly ... I won't revert today because I don't know if I'm at 3RR. But will revert tomorrow or soon after.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 21:13, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Just for the record, there is (or there was rather, it's just now been moved to archive 9) a whole huge discussion up above on this point specifically (though by mid-way it has devolved into the usual yelling match). The argument is between 2.1 - 3 million (from Devereux 2000 based on Dyson/Maharatna and Sen), or 1.5 - 3 million (according to Banik, though based on FIC and Sen) for the death total. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:39, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
For the record, I am Lingzhi. I scrambled my Lingzhi password and deleted my ling.nut email acct (after ten years!). I am sticking around for a month or so to put this thru FAC again.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 21:49, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm aware, I tried to send you a message. It was about meditating and coming back when you felt better. It did not go through cause you de-activated your e-mail. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:54, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

If you put Chattopadhyay in again, I'll put in all the several sources who say he's totally full of detritus

  • If you put Chattopadhyay in again, I'll put in all the several sources who say he's totally full of detritus. Then it will look pretty silly. It would be best to rm it.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 01:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Expert review promised. Please refrain from major edits

An expert review has been promised. As a courtesy to the reviewer, please refrain from making major edits, so he/she won't be looking at a moving target. Thank you for your patient understanding. Axylus.arisbe (talk) 11:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

American soldiers image

American soldiers at the Calcutta Jain Temple, July 1943. Calcutta became a hub for hundreds of thousands of Allied troops.
Hawker Hurricane Mark IIBs and IICs of No. 67 Squadron RAF lined up at Chittagong.

Lingzhi (now editing as Axylus.arisbe and LegalizeUpDoc) has again removed the image of American soldiers in Calcutta (right), taken in July 1943 as the famine was underway. This was first added by Fowler&fowler on 22 April 2017 to illustrate the paragraphs beginning:

As 1942 and especially 1943 wore on, major urban areas (most especially Calcutta) swelled with ever-increasing numbers of workers in the military industries and troops from many nations. ... Hundreds of thousands of troops arrived into the province from the United States, United Kingdom, India and China ...

On 5 March 2018 Lingzhi removed the American soldiers and added an image of "Hawker Hurricane Mark IIBs and IICs of No. 67 Squadron RAF lined up at Chittagong, India", which dates to 1941–1945. I restored the American soldiers on 15 May and moved the aircraft lower in the same section. He has now removed the soldiers again, and added the aircraft image, so now we have two of the aircraft.)

Surely a photograph of soldiers in Calcutta in July 1943 is a better way to illustrate the presence of troops in the city at that time than aircraft somewhere else between 1941 and 1945. SarahSV (talk) 15:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I have removed one of the pictures of the aircraft, as it is silly to have two identical pictures in the same article, let alone the same section. I agree that the picture of soldiers is a good illustration of the military build up, I have no objection to the picture of the aircraft being used to illustrate the pargraph about population displacements caused by construction of aerodromes. DuncanHill (talk) 16:05, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Two points being discussed, and as for the one about their being two identical pictures, this is the moment where I apologize for making a stupid mistake. There were two? I honestly did not see the second. I was editing moments before I went to sleep. I saw the happy, smiling soldiers and I replaced them without noticing the second img. You might think that's a bit stupid, but.. uh.. you'd be right. As for the the choice of photos between the smiling, happy soldiers versus the airfields, one book makes a minor point about soldiers on leave etc., adding color to the book I guess. However several sources (examples below) list airfields as a cause of inflation/displacement. Logically it would be much better to have a photo of workers constructing an airfield, and I think I even saw one in Commons (IIRC), but alas it was for an area of India very far from Bengal. Quotes about airfields follow:
  • Law-Smith, Response and responsibility: The government of India's role in the Bengal famine, 1943: "... other Central decisions exacerbated the situation... land resumption by the military for air fields and installations, and high wages paid to their workforce, together with the Army's continued food purchasing in Bengal, put additional pressure on supply."
  • Iqbal, Boat Denial Policy and the Great Bengal Famine 1943: "Immediately before and during the famine, inflation was caused by a number of factors. The employment of a large number of unskilled labourers in the construction of airfields and other military projects and the acquisition of land, homes and boats all involved disbursement of a large amount of cash for unproductive purposes."
  • De, Imperial Governance and the Challenges: " Another wartime measure implemented by the government, which displaced a large numbers of villagers in the coastal districts, was the decision to transform extensive tracts of cultivable farms into airstrips for British armed forces to be stationed in Bengal for the last three years of the Second World War. Between 30,000 and 36,000 families, comprising 150,000 to 180,000 individuals, were uprooted overnight from their homes, without any promise of compensation. A large majority of these villagers later augmented the already high figures of famine mortality." Axylus.arisbe (talk) 22:27, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

More about women & children...? Stats or giving them voices

SV, in the FAC, dropped a comment that the section on women and children is very poor. Well... I disagree but let's play it out... In order to improve the section on women and children, we would need more info on women and children. where can we get this info? There are perhaps one or two additional relevant mortality stats that could be plucked from Maharatna etc. Aside from that, however, all we have are a small number of anecdotes from perhaps three sources (Greenough "Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal", Mukerjee "Churchill's Secret War", and Mukherjee "Hungry Bengal"). Do we really wanna bulk up an encyclopedia article up with numerous anecdotes? I made this case in the FAC which absolutely no one at all across the entire length and breadth of Wikipedia considered to be worth reading (for the record, to find this particular bit, search for the string "This is crucial"), but essentially, anecdotes should be used to illustrate factual points, rather than strung up as a narrative that has as its central goal giving the famine victims voices. The encyclopedia genre is not about giving victims voices, I would argue, although their voices can be used from time to support points here and there... If we dial up the count of anecdotes, we first run the risk of being accused of cribbing too much from those sources. We also run the risk of turning the article into an anecdote factory rather than an encyclopedia article..... If anyone has concrete suggestions of sources and info that could be used, please do put them forth here.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 02:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Don't make people click twice to see an author's name

Within footnotes, this article uses some variant of a harv template (e.g., harvtxt, harv, harvnb, etc., exact flavor depends on the syntax of the sentence, whether presented as author-prominent or information-prominent, etc.), rather than {{sfn}}. The logic is straightforward: Don't make people click twice to see an author's name. This is a minor detail that can be cleaned up, but the problem continues. Refer to WPW:CITEVAR. Thanks!Axylus.arisbe (talk) 19:59, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I think, per CITEVAR, we ought to agree on a citation style and stick to it, and the bundling should be undone, or each source should be clarified within the bundle. I've suggested this before and you disagreed, so I was thinking of posting an RfC. As for this other issue, my view is that if we're going to use shortened footnotes we should stick to that, and not introduce parenthetical references too. SarahSV (talk) 20:30, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not a fan of harv or sfn, they seem to me to far too often leave people not knowing what a ref is at all. Far to prone to error, people leaving out information, or errors in formatting that leave readers stranded. In the article at the moment, in Footnote A, e have "Dyson & Maharatna (1991)" which does work, and "Dyson & Maharatna 1991", which doesn't. DuncanHill (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @DuncanHill: Thank you for pointing out these details. i will of course fix any typos etc at a later date but there are many things going on at the moment.
I've restored the previous text in that footnote with just one ref as before. [2] I can't see the point of constantly adding other sources to the bundle, so that people don't know where to look. Lingzhi, you've been asked many times not to keep doing that, given the difficulty of tracking down the sources, so please do stop. SarahSV (talk) 21:21, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I've been asked too many times by you. And you alone. Stop doing that. i specifically recall mr rnddude saying bundling was no prob. So no, I will not stop bundling. Stop violating CITEVAR.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 21:42, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The page is under discretionary sanctions. If you continue to revert like this, I'll take the issue to arbitration enforcement. Bundling in itself is not a problem. But the way you've written the citations here is a problem. And you are the one who is in violation of CITEVAR. SarahSV (talk) 22:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
      • If you're talking about reverting the img, that was... I just did that while restoring the citevar; I was gonna restore it but had to rush off to work. Will check now to see if it's restored... CITEVAR, last time I read, says "Don't change articles' citation formats without consensus". You have been changing it for a long time by 1) adding sfns to footnotes, and 20 deleting budled cites... I just never called your hand on it because at the same time there were even more serious issues going on... but... there is a promise of an expert review. let's drop this for a later date.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
It's the wholesale reverting. [3][4] When you dislike something, no matter how minor, you revert all the changes back to your last preferred version. Sometimes you later undo most of it, sometimes not. Here as Axylus.arisbe on 12 May you revert to your last version as LegalizeUpDoc on 6 May (neither account had been claimed by you at that point), because you wanted to revert the death-toll estimate and decided to ignore the other changes in between. SarahSV (talk) 00:40, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I am sorry that I am not as painstakingly careful as I once was. It is theoretically possible that all this argue argue argue over things that you say are true but are not is causing me to be very very weary, so I cannot focus as well as before... i will try to do better... Meanwhile, please do take a moment to explain how you would like to improve the section on women and children, using what sources, what approach, etc. There is a thread for that above.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 01:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

More about women & children...? Stats or giving them voices

SV, in the FAC, dropped a comment that the section on women and children is very poor. Well... I disagree but let's play it out... In order to improve the section on women and children, we would need more info on women and children. where can we get this info? There are perhaps one or two additional relevant mortality stats that could be plucked from Maharatna etc. Aside from that, however, all we have are a small number of anecdotes from perhaps three sources (Greenough "Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal", Mukerjee "Churchill's Secret War", and Mukherjee "Hungry Bengal"). Do we really wanna bulk up an encyclopedia article up with numerous anecdotes? I made this case in the FAC which absolutely no one at all across the entire length and breadth of Wikipedia considered to be worth reading (for the record, to find this particular bit, search for the string "This is crucial"), but essentially, anecdotes should be used to illustrate factual points, rather than strung up as a narrative that has as its central goal giving the famine victims voices. The encyclopedia genre is not about giving victims voices, I would argue, although their voices can be used from time to support points here and there... If we dial up the count of anecdotes, we first run the risk of being accused of cribbing too much from those sources. We also run the risk of turning the article into an anecdote factory rather than an encyclopedia article..... If anyone has concrete suggestions of sources and info that could be used, please do put them forth here.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 02:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

The philosophy of infoboxes

Ah yes. That beloved (not!) topic, the humble infobox. Is there really any rationale for their existence and use? IMO the answer varies by topic. I strongly sympathize with those who think they are idiotic clutter when added to (for example) the biography of an author. Neither their lives nor their work should be reducible to factoids. OTOH, I strongly believe they are useful (for example) in the case of battles. It's useful to have factoids about the commanders, troop size, duration, casualties, etc available at a glance. This article? Falls somewhere in between. But I think yes, many people will want a reliable range of estimates ready at a glance. I say restore the data to the infobox. If cited. Did anyone remove the cites? I love Wikipedia (not!). Axylus.arisbe (talk) 03:25, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

If you'd told me that famines would be another class of article for which an infobox was expected, I'd say "oh dear". But of course they exist. I could get into a digression about how infobox parameters ought to be as factual as something you would store in a database column (postal code, birth date, ICD code), and if it isn't like that, don't include it. In this case there is significant debate about attributable deaths, needing a long footnote to explain why that number range is used. So it's a poor fit for an infobox. However, I am happy to revert myself. Outriggr (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! ... and the fact that it keeps getting vandalized is proof that many readers care mainly about that number (usually, they want to inflate it by a few million). Ditto for some long-established editors. Axylus.arisbe (talk) 00:00, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Winston Churchill

Tk1810 - I've roll-backed your edits to the article which were accepted by Dawnleelynn. Your change to the section title and insertion of Winston Churchill at the very top of the section is an obvious POV push – that's entirely ignoring the politicized language used. The causes of the famine are a matter of significant debate in modern scholarship, and great care has been exercised in avoiding pushing either the FAD or FEE narratives. Typical procedure is to discuss on the talk page after a bold edit has been reverted. Pinging Lingzhi2 as the main contributor to this article. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:16, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Mr rnddude Sorry about that, I just got the pending changes permit this week. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what's best to do. I'll be sure to work on being more cautious in future and sometimes I just need to skip some cases. dawnleelynn(talk) 07:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Dawnleelynn - The main three things to check for as a PC reviewer is for vandalism, BLP vio's, and obviously inappropriate content. I'd say this met the third threshold, but I'm not holding it against you. I pinged you as a courtesy to let you know I'd undid a change you'd reviewed. If you're unsure about something, try this: Think what you would do, but don't do it. When somebody else does something, see if it aligns with what you would have done. If yes, a good sign you'd have made the right move. If no, why? (check the edit summary – or in this case talk page). That's an easy way to get a feel for more difficult ones. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:46, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Just returned from traveling. Tks to Mr rnddude for handling things correctly. Big changes get discusssed on article talk. Ands tks also to dawnleelynn for good faith patrolling and Tk1810 for good faith editing. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Mr rnddude Lingzhi2 Thank you gentlemen, for your patience and the helpful advice. I should have followed my own notes when I mentioned that the new content probably did not belong at the top of the section. I'm glad you pinged me about this. Some reviews I do are so obvious, and some require more thought. Anyway, onward ho. dawnleelynn(talk) 16:48, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Man-Made Famine?

This Diff — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.165.85.39 (talk) 17:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

  • The article discusses this topic at great length. Scholars disagree. Though "man-made" is the majority position, Wikipedia cannot unilaterally declare it to be the correct one. Done arguing; don't waste your time. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:37, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Newly added paragraph, Safi in the Guardian

1) Straw man. No one and I do mean absolutely no one ever suggested drought caused this famine. Read the article. If natural causes are to blame, then they would be flooding and associated fungal outbreak, not drought. 2) Stop me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Guardian a very very POV publication? So I'll let that paragraph stand for five days or so unless some has a strong argument otherwise. Otherwise delete extraneous. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

2019 Geophysical Research Letters study

User:Lingzhi2 removed this material based on media coverage of an academic study by claiming "straw man" and "irrelevant". This was mentioned by the user on talk, but only this user contributed to the discussion, and the discussion has already be archived before other editors could contribute an opinion. This user also asserts that The Guardian is a biased source. This is absolute bollocks. First of all the peer-reviewed article and The Guardian coverage of it pertains to the subject of this wiki article, making it relevant. And secondly The Guardian is confirmed to be a reliable source. But if this is not enough, the actual study from Geophysical Research Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, is absolutely reliable and should be more than sufficient to include as a citation. I have restored and modified the materials as they are absolutely WP:DUE for this article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:32, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I know you're feeling offended because your contrib was reverted. Your pride is hurt. Your toes are stepped on. You feel your thoughts have been somehow disregarded. And so on. Etc. I know, I get it. But before you get all worked up, could you please 1) actually research this topic in depth, and 2) actually read this Wikipedia article? The argument you seem to be making is "It wasn't a drought, therefore it was man-made." Is that a correct summary? Well... drought was never, never, never, never, never, never a possible explanation for this famine. Never. Never ever. Even worse, if you're gonna go with a "natural causes" argument, the relevant natural cause would be exactly the opposite, that is, flooding (followed by a fungal outbreak). If you take a few minutes to actually read the article: "The three storm surges which followed the cyclone destroyed the seawalls of Midnapore and flooded large areas of Contai and Tamluk.[169] Waves swept an area of 450 square miles (1,200 km2), floods affected 400 square miles (1,000 km2), and wind and torrential rain damaged 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2). For nearly 2.5 million Bengalis, the accumulative damage of the cyclone and storm surges to homes, crops and livelihoods was catastrophic.... And then later, The fungus reduced the crop yield even more than the cyclone.[AJ] According to Padmanabhan (1973), the outbreak compared to the potato blight of the Irish Great Famine, and was so destructive that "nothing as devastating ... has been recorded in plant pathological literature.". But if you take time to read this article from top-to-bottom (an exercise I would suggest before you start edit warring, you'll see that the academic consensus does not favor the "natural causes" explanation. Currently, the voices in that "natural causes" camp are rather emphatic but a very, very clear minority. The overwhlming majority support the "man-made famine" argument. Within that majority, different scholars have different beliefs about what exactly the human actions were that caused it: the "consensus within a consensus", so to speak, follows Sen's arguments of a demand-caused famine, with war-time inflation as the main cause and British incompetence or perhaps malfeasance as a strong second contributor. There's another group that attributes it to outright racism, and Greenough attributes it to sociological factors, and so on. But those camps are united in describing it as man-made. And get this, please: drought is absolutely, completely, starkly irrelevant in this particular case. I... can't see how any journal could make such a massive error by printing an article which argues "It wasn't drought, therefore it was man-made." And finally, all the evidence for most of the man-made arguments is already presented in full in this article, or at least it was in prior versions. Please. Do research. Drought is irrelevant. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Material from the 2019 Geophysical Research Letters study

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Re-closing, since original close was made by a participant. No consensus to include. Voices are about evenly split. In most cases, where there is a dispute whether to include clearly relevant information from a reliable source that has been cited elsewhere, we would include it. But in this case, the article already contains ... I couldn't even count them, maybe 200? ... academic and historical book and article sources, so a new source that doesn't add new information or a different point of view needs to pass a high bar to get in. That the famine was a failure of British colonial policy is not a different point of view, since maybe half the article lead section says as much. So whether to include this source is more of an editorial question, and several Oppose voices say it: is of debatable quality; leaves out important information; is mostly a repetition of sources that our article already cites directly; and is possibly misinterpreted by journalists; so is not worthy of inclusion.
As a side note, User:Fowler&fowler, while you probably meant well, please don't close RfCs you are involved in if they are at all debatable. I hope you can understand why that would trouble people. --GRuban (talk) 01:05, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Should the following passage be included in the article:

Although famine had occurred during other periods in Bengal at times of water shortage due to low rainfall, a 2019 study published in Geophysical Research Letters analyzed weather records and found that rain levels were above average, and asserts that the 1943 famine was "completely due to the failure of policy during the British era".[1][2]

References

  1. ^ Safi, Michael (2019-03-29). "Churchill's policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – study". the Guardian. Retrieved 2019-03-29.
  2. ^ Mishra, Vimal; et al. (2019). "Drought and Famine in India, 1870–2016". Geophysical Research Letters. 46 (4): 2075–2083. doi:10.1029/2018GL081477.

--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support - The materials meet the criteria for inclusion, and are therefore WP:DUE. It's is reliably sourced, given one citation is from a mainstream media source (The Guardian) and the other is the peer-reviewed scientific study itself. Secondly it is notable, given the results of the study not only appeared in The Guardian, but also CNN, Al Jazeera, Yahoo News India and many other media outlets. Finally, the subject of the study pertains directly to this Wikipedia article. The study finds that, unlike other famines in British India, drought did not play a role in this one, but British policy did.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose can we all actually read the research before jumping to conclusions? I don't have Mishra's article yet (will request at WP:RX), but there is a link to "supporting materials", and the supporting materials document links to this Wikipedia article right here (cited to Devereux 2000) as support for the thesis that the 1943 famine was man-made. In other words, I strongly suspect that even the article in question does not make the logical leap "there was no drought, therefore it was man-made". I very strongly suspect the article in question says, "there was no drought, and by the way, Devereux says it was man-made". this article already has Devereux 2000, so citing Mishra citing Devereux is redundant... Let's read the article in question, shall we? ... And if that article actually does make that leap of logic, I could also oppose via WP:UNDUE. The argument would be, this is one little article by one scholar, cited exactly once, and that one cite (the paper is avialable) is in a dissertation, and does NOT relate to the Bengal famine of 1943. So even is the article makes the logical "no drought therefore man-made" argument, it is a very very very minor voice in the debate, and deserves no discussion. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Update Wow that was fast. I need to give a barnstar to Pajz. So anyhow, yep, that article does a nice job of repeating what Wikipedia already says:

      We find that the Bengal famine was likely caused by other factors related at least in part to the ongoing Asian threat of World War II including malaria, starvation, and malnutrition (Sen, 1976). In early 1943, military and political events adversely affected Bengal's economy (Tauger, 2009), which was exacerbated by refugees from Burma (Maharatna, 1996). Additionally, wartime grain import restrictions imposed by the British government played a major role in the famine (FIC, 1945). We note that aside from the 1943 Bengal famine, all the other famines in 1870–2016 appear to be related at least in part to widespread soil moisture drought.

Yep yep yep, follows Wikipedia very very nicely. Uses same sources as we did in this article, etc. What is the point of citing an article which repeats the arguments already listed here in Wikipedia? Moreover, what it does not do is make the logical leap "no drought, therefore man-made famine". What it actually does (in essence), is say, "no drought, and by the way, if you read all these articles that Wikipedia already cites, you can conclude that it was a man-made famine"....and as a final note, another thing the Mishra article does NOT do is adhere to NPOV (as this Wikipedia article does, as scrupulously as possible). That is to say, there is absolutely no mention in Mishra of the floods or the fungal outbreak. None. Zilch. Zip. So... it's odd that the article says "no drought" but doesn't go on to add "...and the reason there was no drought is because there was in fact severe flooding, at least in the southwest region of Bengal". Tut, tut. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Sure, why use citations at all, since all they say is stuff that is already on Wikipedia. You do realize how circular your logic is being here, right? And that Wikipedia should be based on sources and not the other way around, where sources are rejected because "Wikipedia already says that"...PraiseVivec (talk) 12:39, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
This Wikipedia article does use academic sources. It uses the absolute, very best quality sources available. I'm quite sure that Mishra would agree that this article's sources are high quality, since every point Mishra's article makes regarding the Bengal Famine of 1943 was previously made in this article, and Mishra uses precisely the same high-quality sources, cite-for-cite, to make precisely the same points as this article did (before Mishra). So there's nothing circular here: Mishra simply adds exactly zero-point-zero new information.. moreover, Mishra's article does not mention the flood or the fungal outbreak, making the article's text a straightforward POV source, from Wikipedia's perspective. Mishra's expertise is hydrology (not history), so it puzzles me tremendously how he could completely fail to notice a cyclone and storm surges that "...swept an area of 450 square miles (1,200 km2), floods affected 400 square miles (1,000 km2), and wind and torrential rain damaged 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2). For nearly 2.5 million Bengalis, the accumulative damage of the cyclone and storm surges to homes, crops and livelihoods was catastrophic..." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support citing Mishra et al., oppose citing the Guardian. The Guardian is a RS but it has no scientific authority. It can be used for reporting public/political opinions, but not scientific theories. T8612 (talk) 18:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
    • T8612, the Guardian misunderstands or misrepresents Mishra. Yes. But Mishra duplicates everything we already have here. No offense to the august journal who published that work, but quite frankly, it is not immediately clear how this is sufficiently dissimilar from Wikipedia. That's true even to the degree that Mishra's "supporting documents" link to Wikipedia via hyperlinks associated with citations. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
    • MOREOVER, since Mishra does not make the argument "no drought, therefore man-made" (that is, since the Guardian... misunderstood.. or.... misrepresented... Mishra), Wikipedia also cannot make that argument. Since we cannot make that argument, Mishra adds nothing new to this article. Mishra says "no drought", but we got that covered when we say "Yeah, no drought because there was a flood, duh." Mishra also duplicates Wikipedia cite-for-cite in the "man-made" assertion (meanwhile neglecting to follow NPOV by not mentioning floods/fungus) ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I have no issue with removing The Guardian article as a citation.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:48, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. We have a recent paper in what appears to be a reputed journal (I took a look at the editorial board). I'm puzzled why this is even a question. --regentspark (comment) 15:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Oppose because Japanese policy surely had something to do with it. Note in particular the following sentence from the article: "Following the Japanese occupation of Burma (modern Myanmar) rice imports were lost." In light of that, the idea that this was solely a failure of British policy has to be WP:FRINGE, not to mention just plain wrong. Adoring nanny (talk) 07:38, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose The Guardian is not a reliable source in this context. Based on the quote from the Mishra et al article provided below in this edit, the proposed statement does not accurately reflect the contents of that source (and we should be sourcing to the content of the source, not a summary). WP:DUE requires all significant viewpoints to be represented. As far as I can tell, the article already does this, and the Mishra et al article adds nothing new. Factotem (talk) 08:37, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support The suggestion that we should not include a paper because it uses some of the same sources that are already present in the article is absurd. So is the suggestion that this Wikipedia article should be the standard on which other papers should be judged, especially when it is made by a major contributor to this article. The paper clearly makes the assertion quoted in the RfC statement. From the conclusions section:

Among the six famines identified above, 1873 and 1943 provide some important insights. For instance, despite the monsoon failure and drought in 1873 in Bihar and Bengal provinces, there was minimal mortality (Hall‐Matthews, 2008). Moreover, human mortality was substantially higher in the other four droughts than in the 1873–1874 famine, which can be attributed to policy failures and mismanagement (Davis, 2001; Ferguson, 2004). The 1943 Bengal famine was not caused by drought but rather was a result of a complete policy failure during the British era.

There is no reason to exclude this. —Gazoth (talk) 08:53, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Gazoth The fact that it duplicates WP is a tertiary point. The main point is that we can't use the incendiary "this lack of a drought proves it was man-made" because the logic is (frankly) untenable. It's untenable because it completely omits to mention the fungal outbreak, which is the only potentially strong "natural causes" argument. By declining to mention the outbreak, it seems to suggest that drought is the only potential natural cause, and since it goes on to rule out drought, it draws the conclusion that the famine it was man-made." The entire thesis of the article is built on a logical fallacy. [Perhaps it's Denying the antecedent]. There are several other problems with the article, but that is the main one ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:13, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Lingzhi2, you are not a RS. If you think that their arguments are so stupid, please publish a rebuttal in some reputed journal. ∯WBGconverse 14:49, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
I sort of half agree, but meanwhile, we would have our article making a claim that is.. untenable, even based on the text of the article itself! Listen, we just can't make the strong claim that the non-technical summary makes (that the lack of droughts proves it was man-made), as another editor has agreed above, because the actual body text hedges far more. And if we cannot make that claim, all we are left with is "Mishra suggests maybe it was man-made, perhaps". And if that's all we have, then this article barely even deserves to be listed as one source in a relevant {{sfnm}}. It's just a nothing burger, from several perspectives, and for several reasons. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Lingzhi2, I think you are looking for a reason to exclude this article. On 8 June, you removed a citation to Mishra's paper saying that it was irrelevant and you did it again 11 June. Until this point, you hadn't even read the paper, per your own admission on 12 June. If your issue is with the quote about the cause of famine being attributed to British policy after eliminating draught, why exclude the presumably new research about rainfall levels and soil moisture drought? It is possible that the paper fails to consider another natural causes argument, and merely restates the prevailing majority opinion about the famine being man-made after their research found another reason to rebut the minority natural causes argument. However, that is no reason to exclude the article in its entirety. —Gazoth (talk) 15:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. I have a "strong goal" and a "weak goal" (so to speak). My strong goal is not to exclude the paper in its entirety, but to refrain from falling into the trap of parroting the non-technical summary. Any way you cut it, we can not go back to the version that C.J. Griffin had on the page. We cannot make any strong claims about the conclusion(s) of this research. It does not prove the famine was man-made, and in the body text, it does not even attempt to say so. My "weak goal", yeah, the article doesn't even merit a mention. It does NOT find anything new. It does not find a new reason to rebut the minority view. It is not a new discovery to say "there was no drought" and "precipitation levels were high" during a period of horrific (local) flooding. This paper does NOT merit separate, individual discussion, separate mention, separate attention.. If you wanna add a cite to this paper to a relevant {tl|sfnm}} listing papers that restate the majority view, go ahead. If you wanna add Mishra's name to a list of authors who support the majority view, go ahead. I don't think it merits even that, but I wouldn't try to stop you. But the version I reverted cannot be reinserted. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 20:40, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose as we would be giving undue weight to a conclusion that 2+2=5, per comments by User:Lingzhi2. MilborneOne (talk) 15:42, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A single source is not sufficient to make such a tendentious claim: "it wasn't a drought, therefore it was man-made". That's one hell of a POV push on an already difficult subject. Moreover it makes zero sense to append such a statement to a section that indicates that Bengal was experiencing flooding, and a malaria epidemic borne out of it. Excerpt from Greenough 1980, literally the first source I had on hand to look at: Then in mid-October 1942 a devastating cyclone ripped through the coastal districts of Midnapur and 24-Parganas, which were among the most fertile producers of surplus paddy. In Midnapur approximately 7,400 villages in an area of 3,300 square miles were partly or wholly destroyed, and another 1,6oo villages in 900 square miles were badly flooded. Oh yeah, it wasn't a drought. You don't say. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose agree with Lingzhi2's points. Besides: The Guardian is not a reliable source for evaluating technical papers, and the Mishra, Vimal; et al paper doesn't seem to have much of scientific backing yet; in the best case scenario it is probably too early to go with its conclusions --ColumbiaXY (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support, essentially per regentspark, and also because the proposed addition isn't adding this in Wikipedia's voice, but is providing the necessary in-text attribution. We wouldn't be endorsing the views of the paper; we would be reporting their publication in a reliable source, as is required per WP:DUE. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:23, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
    Vanamonde93, WP:DUE also says, "... in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". No one has ever stated that the lack of a drought proves it was a man-made famine (for good reason), and I will go on record as asserting that no one else outside of popular sources such as the Guardian ever will, except potentially in the context of "mention once and immediately disregard". To be honest, I doubt it will garner even that much weak attention. The relevant " in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources" therefore would be to simply name-drop the author in a list of those who feel it was man-made. Giving this article even one sentence of Wikipedia article space is WP:UNDUE. Frankly I don't think it merits even a name-drop, but rules permit it. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 17:49, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
    I don't see this proposal doing anything different. As far as I can tell, the main point being advanced here is that this is yet another author supporting the "man-made famine" argument. The argument advanced by the paper is unconventional. That you or I don't personally buy it isn't particularly relevant; WP:DUE requires that it be mentioned, unless the point is already made at sufficient length. I don't see evidence for that. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
    Looking back, this survey was sparked by an editor inserting a full-on description of the research (capped with a strong claim that is only found in the article's non-technical summary, not the article itself) into Wikipedia text. I deleted it. The MOST you can do is reinsert that sentence with the HEDGED conclusion as it appears in that article's body text, not the STRONG conclusion of the non-technical summary. That is the most permitted by rule, but any reasonable reading of WP:DUE's "in proportion" language would suggest that only a name-drop is acceptable. I could accept a name-drop. No more. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 18:06, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I am the author of the Wikipedia articles: Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, Agra famine of 1837–38, Upper Doab famine of 1860–61, Orissa famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of 1869, Bihar famine of 1873–74, Great Famine of 1876–78, Indian famine of 1896–97, Indian famine of 1899–1900, William Robert Cornish, and Timeline of major famines in India during British rule (1765 to 1947). I wrote these articles around 2007, and for the most part they have remained unchanged. Any cursory reading of these articles will show that all famines of their description were preceded by droughts. The fact of these droughts are known with great certainty from the exhaustive accounts of the British "settlement," or "land revenue" (tax) officers, whose job it was to reduce the land tax in the face of such drought, or in severe cases, entirely eliminate it. For several famines there is also El Nino evidence in the Wikipedia articles. From a cursory reading of Mishra et al, I see that they apply a well-known, but relatively recent, method of reconstruction of soil moisture. I don't have the time now to delve into how the reconstruction is done, and how reliably. At best, once can say that their paper verifies what has long been known from the historical data. Why this is significant for mention in this article is unclear to me.
I have also had the experience of my famine articles being copied (verbatim) by another author, and published by a publisher commonly considered reliable. (See here) My having written these articles, or the fact of some of them having been copied, does not give me any heft in casting a vote here, but it does give me some perspective about, and intuition into, how Wikipedia articles provide a ready summary for relative non-experts in famine (such as Mishra et al) to author a paper in historical agricultural engineering, and extend its scope to an inter-disciplinary one, in famine studies, by interspersing summaries of Wikipedia's summaries. In other words, my sense is that whereas Mishra et al have certainly not copied, they have very likely used the Wikipedia articles or some other tertiary description, and not the original sources. For their discussion lacks insights that would have been gleaned from an in-depth reading. Authors who have held a topic in their imagination for a long period don't make elementary mistakes such as, "The 1873-74 famine occurred in Bihar and Bengal, which were part of the northwestern province and Oudh during the British period." Read the care with which the Bihar famine of 1873–1874 is written. Contrast that with the vague, jargon-ridden, carelessness with which the "famine" sentences of the Mishra et al paper are written. The Wikipedia article says, "The Bihar famine of 1873–1874 (also the Bengal famine of 1873–1874) was a famine in British India that followed a drought in the province of Bihar, (and) the neighboring provinces of Bengal, the North-Western Provinces and Oudh. It affected an area of 140,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) and a population of 21.5 million.[1] The relief effort—organized by Sir Richard Temple, the newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal—was one of the success stories of the famine relief in British India; there was little or no mortality during the famine.[2]" The Mishra et al paper, after making the initial error, says, "About 21.5 million people were affected by the 1873 famine, but little or no mortality was reported." Granted, this could be paraphrasing happenstance, but such unremarkable and opaque historical writing is the norm in the paper. (I'm reasonably sure I could find more faults.)
What then would be the point of adding such writing to a much better, and more comprehensively written, Wikipedia article such as Bengal famine of 1943? Lingzhi's writing could be faulted for some things, but vagueness is not one of them. I could go on about the complexity of the Bengal famine, about how it was more than just a "complete British policy failure," as Mishra et al would want to have it, but I defer to what Lingzhi might have already said (which I haven't read) and also to Arjun Appadurai's eloquent review of Paul Greenough's (still) seminal book:

""Abandonment of dependent children and spouses by adult male household heads is the pattern that Greenough places at the center of the moral drama of the famine. And he reads in this pattern a deliberate set of choices by the decision makers: choices that paralleled similar decisions by the government (which favored urban-based priority classes over the rural needy) and by land-controllers who deliberately abandoned their commitments to rural clients (although "fixed" and "casual" rural clients were abandoned later than those whose relations to the landlord were solely regulated by the market). In the fragmentation of families, especially among those who were most destitute, and in the deliberate decision to favor the chances of survival of adult males, Greenough reads a morality of distress (apad-dharma), which places the continuity of the patriline above the interests of females and children, and which differs dramatically from the Euro-American belief in "Birkenhead's rule" (women and children first), and in which there is no contradiction between male self-interest and the preservation of moral order."

Famine studies, a multidisciplinary field, assumes a methodology, an attention to complexity, which Mishra et al have not internalized. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:49, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose citing The Guardian, largely in agreement with T8612 and Factotem. The Guardian is a reliable source for things that newspapers are generally reliable for - news reporting. It is not a reliable source for interpretation of science or history.
The arguments for citing Mishra et al. are largely of the form that, being a recent peer-reviewed journal article, it's a reliable source. WP:NPOV requires us to fairly and proportionately represent all significant views published by reliable sources. It does not require that we cite every reliable source on the topic. Indeed, the major objection to Bengal famine of 1943 during repeated reviews has been that it is too long, that it is too exhaustive, and that it cites too many sources.
Does Mishra present a new significant view? Mishra models seven major soil moisture droughts, and tests whether they overlap with major famines. Their hypothesis is that there is a link between major famines and soil moisture droughts. The 1943 Bengal Famine doesn't fit their hypothesis, because it doesn't overlap with a soil moisture drought, so they find "that the Bengal famine was likely caused by other factors". No one claims that the 1943 Bengal Famine was caused by a drought, so this is not a new view. The list of things that didn't cause the 1943 Bengal Famine would be endless.
Mishra says it was "related at least in part to the ongoing Asian Theater of World War II including malaria, starvation and, malnutrition (Sen, 1976). In early 1943, military and political events adversely affected Bengal’s economy (Tauger, 2009), which was exacerbated by refugees from Burma (Maharatna, 1996). Additionally, wartime grain import restrictions imposed by the British government played a major role in the famine (FIC, 1945)." These are the predominant views, already covered at much greater length in Wikipedia's article, and Mishra cites a subset of the sources Wikipedia already cites. Mishra's research doesn't add anything new to the world's understanding of what did cause the famine, and in repeating predominant views Mishra doesn't change their due weight.
Therefore also oppose including the proposed passage and citing Mishra, largely in agreement with Factotem and Lingzhi2. --Worldbruce (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. Although some of the rebuttals and criticisms of the source is valid, that doesn't stop this to be included. I am utterly shocked to find this even to be debatable. The soil moisture deficit comparison of the six famines is beyond discussion and it compliments such brutal wartime. Besides, it's nearly impossible to find any sources that are unbiased and have NPOV. The only thing hindering the inclusion here IMO is the Eurocentric POV of some of the editors. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 18:39, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

I decided that, given the incivility and assumptions of bad faith by User:Lingzhi2 (see discussion above) who keeps removing any materials from this study added by myself and others (up to and including even removing the study from the further reading section, which smacks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT), the only was to resolve the issue was to either take it to the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents or start an RfC. I figured the latter would be a more prudent way to resolve the issue.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Comment Agree that The Guardian is not a reliable source in the context of this article. Somewhat concerned that it appears the proposed statement is cited to the plain language summary, and not to any content within the Mishra et al article itself. What does the Mishra et al article add that is not already stated in the article, and on what pages in the Mishra et al article is that information found? Factotem (talk) 15:50, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I suppose it would be tremendously helpful if we all got a copy of the article and read it.
Mishra says on pp 2079–80 in the body text (which is important, given your point about non-technical summaries)

The last major famine in the British era occurred in 1943, which is also known as the Bengal Famine. The famine resulted in 2–3 million deaths (Devereux, 2000). Our SAD analysis identified 1937–1945 as a period under drought based on severity, area, and duration. However, we find the drought was most widespread ring August and December 1941 (Tables S2 and S3)—prior to the famine. This was the only famine that does not appear to be linked directly to soil moisture drought and crop failures(FiguresS13andS14).The famine affected region received 15%, 3%, 9%, and 4% above‐normal precipitation during June, July, August, and September of 1943 (Figure S13). We find that the Bengal famine was likely caused by other factors related at least in part to the ongoing Asian threat of World War II including malaria, starvation, and malnutrition (Sen, 1976). In early 1943, military and political events adversely affected Bengal's economy (Tauger, 2009), which was exacerbated by refugees from Burma (Maharatna, 1996). Additionally, wartime grain import restrictions imposed by the British government played a major role in the famine (FIC, 1945). We note that aside from the 1943 Bengal famine, all the other famines in 1870–2016 appear to be related at least in part to widespread soil moisture drought.

Notice the hedging in the highlighted text. It doesn't draw a strong argument for the causal link "no drought therefore the famine was man-made". Not also that all the text immediately following the highlighted bit is pretty much a straightforward summary of several points made in this Wikipedia article, even citing the same sources to make those points.
But yes there's more. In the non-technical summary, as you pointed out, that causal link is stated much more emphatically/dramatically:"one famine was completely due to the failure of policy during the British era".
And yes there's even more. Looking in the big quote immediately above, see Mishra state the famine "does not appear to be linked to... crop failures". Failure to even mention the fungal outbreak, which I have described in detail in quotes provided on this page, and which is the linchpin of the "natural causes" argument, is.. uh.. there are no words. How big is super big? It's a huge miss. It makes the argument much less valid, IMHO. Ditto for failure to mention the cyclone, the storm surges, the massive damage those caused, etc. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 17:19, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
The fact it doesn't bring anything new does not justify its exclusion, we ought to be comprehensive on the matter. It if is a bad article, then I suppose another academic will write about it dismissing the article (an we'll quote them), but we aren't qualified for doing this. I would however remove the citation from the plain English summary and reword the substance of the text, as indeed the summary is a bit misleading (perhaps it wasn't even written by the authors). It would look like this "a new study using meteorological data shows that there was no drought before the famine, and therefore suggests the British colonial administration was the main factor behind the famine" etc. T8612 (talk) 23:34, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Is it even possible to have a drought immediately following a period of catastrophic flooding? Southwest Bengal was the area affected by flooding and west Bengal had the largest decrease in grain production... Mmm, timespan between floods and famine.... October '42 and May '43, so let's say six months. Is a discussion of drought reasonable in this case? [OH by the way, there was ANOTHER flood, a smaller one not caused by cyclone, not much later.. I don't think this article mentions it because its only real impact was to temporarily disable some train lines. July-August 1943, Burdwan, Damodar river... But it was yet another flood at about the same time, anyhow... so... drought?] Mishra suggests that since most prior Bengal famines were precipitated by drought, the lack of drought hard on the heels of flooding may suggest that the famine was man-made. Drought? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. I think that a lot of the criticism of this sentence and this source strikes me as undue scrutiny because of what the source claims. As User:ImmortalWizard comments above, there is really no such thing as a single source that is totally unbiased. It is our job as editors to make sure that the article as a whole meets NPOV. The inclusion of this source and study would contribute to that for this article. Ganesha811 (talk) 17:45, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India 1907, p. 488
  2. ^ Hall-Matthews 2008, p. 4
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A matter at VPP that may interest you

Given past disputes relating to this article, please note Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WP:JAN / WikiJournals. - Sitush (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Another picture

Indian men in dhoti and loose turbans on 39th Street, leaving Rangoon, Burma, in December 1941, in the wake of Japanese bombings.

@Lingzhi2: Here is another picture, which in a way complements the more superior one already in the article. It is of Indians (in dhoti and loose turbans) on 39th Street, leaving Rangoon, in December 1941. It is poignant in sense, as it shows Burmese, who had no place to which to escape, watching the exodus. I found a little booklet of pictures of the Japanese bombing of Burma in the loft over the weekend. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:11, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

The Burmese were the luckier ones. An interesting account of the march of the Indians is this one. --regentspark (comment) 21:14, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
@RegentsPark: Yes, the long march was tragic. The map: File:Indian exodus from Burma to Manipur, Bengal, and Assam, January to July 1942.jpg which I made for section 2.1 is based on Tinker's article. My edit of June 2017 describes the sad fate of many Indians in more detail. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:00, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes. I read Tinker several times back during the writing process as well. I think I added some Tinker quotes/info & Fowler&fowler added others... I remember reading anecdotes of refugees being ambushed along the way.. beating drums to scare away wild animals (that bit wasn't in Tinker I don't think)... and so on. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Highly evocative. Tamravidhir (talk) 18:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I have also added four pictures to Bombing of Rangoon (1941–1942) that may be of interest to you, and, of course, to @Lingzhi2: and @RegentsPark: There are many more, both of the famine and the Japanese bombing. Perhaps, when I have time, I'll upload both collections on Commons. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:02, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statesman picture

Dead or dying children on a Calcutta street, a picture published in the Statesman, 22 August 1943

@Lingzhi2: Here's something that might interest you. I've just uploaded a higher resolution version of the current infobox picture. It is reproduced on the right, top. Below it is the infobox picture. Please compare the sari border and the woman's bangles to see the difference in resolutions. The new picture does have the newspaper printing artifacts, e.g. speckling, but that does not detract from encyclopedicity and, besides, if needed, can be fixed by the image processing project (I'm assuming one exists). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@Lingzhi: I've reduced the picture to the same size as the infobox image in Bengal famine of 1943. Despite removing some noise, and thereby reducing the focus of the image, is clearer than the infobox image, (examine the sari border), besides the original color of the newspaper is preserved. If you want even more focus, but are prepared to settle for some of the noise in the original image, see this image which is again the same size as the infobox, but even more focused, i.e. than the image on the right. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:25, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Alas, I find I actually like the current one better. I opened two browser sessions side by side, kept one with the current version, edited in the new version in the second browser session, and used CTRL-TAB to flip back and forth between the two versions repeatedly. The current image is darker. You might think that's bad, but I think the contrast with the page's white background makes it more salient...The second reason may have been an artifact of some browser setting or other, but as nearly as I can tell, the current one seems slightly more zoomed in, making the people slightly larger. And while the details on the young woman seem a little sharper in the new one, the setting seems sharper in the current one... look over the young woman's shoulder to the wall and the brick in the street etc. Perhaps you can try flipping between them as I did.. What do you think? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I had noticed that, in fact created it. This is not the raw picture which is very sharp, shows both brick and sari. This is the picture I processed to keep the middle in focus but the fringer slightly out of focus, as it was not the object of interest. I'll add the raw picture as well soon (reduced of course, but without image enhancement.) Thanks. Later, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:26, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
PS @Lingzhi2: Here is that picture. It shows up in the history of the picture above. You can rever to it if you'd like. Note the in-focus bricks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
The article version appears bigger because its size is 387x257. The Statesman version, as reproduced in Aykroyd, had a different aspect ratio. The field of view was wider horizontally, but the same vertically. So, when I changed it to 387, the second became 236, which means some of the brick top became cropped. But it also explains why the article version appears closer. It is cropped horizontally from the original. My version is not. I'll add a uncropped, but slightly bigger, version next. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

(←) OK, when you're finished we'll look at that version too. Meanwhile, I reverted your image back one slot in its history and placed that version atop the article. Thanks for all your help.  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:03, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent RfC?

There was recently an RfC here. It seems to not so much have been closed by a human as to have been disappeared by bots.[5][6] Surely we should have a close.Adoring nanny (talk) 03:10, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

No. I closed it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:49, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Now I'm really confused. You appear to have voted in the RfC.[7] Nothing wrong with that, but an RfC should be closed by an uninvolved user. Furthermore, I don't see any closing commit with a summary of the consensus as one usually sees. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:27, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
Re-closed with summary, in Archive 10. --GRuban (talk) 01:09, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: 3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk · contribs) 14:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)


Great article, covers a vast scale of events. Some minor issues should be addressed, though.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 14:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments

  • When you introduce a scholar or a historian for the first time in the text, you should use his or her full name. The Background section has one example: "it was estimated in 1930 that the Bengali diet was the least nutritious in the world.[31] Ó Gráda writes..." You should write his full name, Cormac Ó Gráda, before only using his last name later on in the article.
  • Japanese invasion of Burma section. "The Japanese campaign for Burma set off an immediate exodus of more than half of the one million Indians from Burma for India". I am wondering if "Indian" is the right term here, considering that the British Raj covered not only India, but also Pakistan and Bangladesh. Maybe Hindus?
  • 1942–45: Military build-up, inflation, and displacement section. "In the case of the textiles industries that supplied cloth for the uniforms of the British military, for example, they charged "a very high price indeed" in domestic markets." The wording should be more fitting, without the "indeed" comment.
  • March 1942: Denial policies section. " John Herbert, governor of Bengal, issued a directive in late March 1942 immediately requiring stocks of paddy (unmilled rice) deemed surplus, and other food items, to be removed or destroyed in these districts,[99].[100]" At the end of the sentence, there is a comma followed by a full stop.
  • You need to format some references which use harvtext. It looks odd. Example: "Bayly & Harper (2005, p. 286) speculate that this reduced..." ("Civil unrest" section). "According to Padmanabhan (1973), the outbreak compared..." ("October 1942: Natural disasters"). Instead of Bayly & Harper (2005, p 286), use "Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper" and then use the reference at the end. Instead of "Padmanabhan (1973)", use "S.Y. Padmanabhan" and then use his source at the end of the sentence. And so on.
  • 1942–43: Price chaos section. " In June, the Bengal government establish price controls for rice...". Established.
  • Social disruption section. "...food relief and medical rehabilitation were supplied too late, while medical facilities across the province were pathetically insufficient for the task at hand." Drop the word "pathetically".
  • The text uses either the term "per cent", "percent" or "%". It should be universal. You should make up your mind on which one of the three to use, and then stick with it.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 14:19, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
    Thank you for your excellent comments. It's late here; I'll get on these tomorrow. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:37, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
    With respect to names, the following is a list of those for which initial mention and subsequent use may not conform to the manual of style: Amery, Auchinleck, Bayly & Harper, Bhattacharya, Bowbrick, Chittaprosad, Collingham, Das, Greenough, Herbert, Law-Smith, Linlithgow, Maharatna, Mukerjee, Ó Gráda, Padmanabhan, Pinnell, Sen, Tauger, Wavell, and Winston Churchill. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:37, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
  • @3E1I5S8B9RF7: I think I got everything... I think "Indians" is the correct word for the sentence about the exodus. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
You still need to clean up the sentences with the removed harvtext, most notably the "1942–44: Refusal of imports" (the whole last paragraph has no source now) and "Causation" section (remove the harvtext).--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
@3E1I5S8B9RF7: I believe I have changed the citation format as per your stylistic tastes & preferences. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Very sorry, but an article with this article's tangled history needs more time, and perhaps more input from others for promotion. Please let a week elapse from the date of nomination. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I want to make clear that I don't have any interest in editing this article, or reviewing it for GA or any for other submission. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
  • {{ping}If I may, I believe the correct process would be to send the article to WP:GAR. I have no objections if you wish to do so. I will even be willing to go through the process of doing it for you, since you say you are uninterested in being a part of the process. think that GAN however is a one-reviewer process. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
I see. I didn't realize that. I think you might want to do that yourself, and collect, perhaps, two more reviews, over a week. I believe it will help you in the future, demonstrating that at each step to an eventual FA, you have sought diverse opinion in an unhurried way. All the best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:54, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Post-close comment

This nomination was closed as listed by 3E1I5S8B9RF7, and although there was an edit made to reverse this on the article talk page by Fowler&fowler, it is not within their power to do so. One thing that might have been done was to request that 3E1I5S8B9RF7 reopen the review to consider other issues, but we seem to have gone past that point. This whole matter can still be taken to the GAN talk page, to see whether the GAN community wishes to sort this out in some other way. However, GAR is the standard way to call for a reassessment if the review isn't voluntarily reopened, and another community member is dissatisfied with the review in some way.

I have added the GA listing to the Article history (along with the PR from earlier this year). As Lingzhi2 has voluntarily opened a community good article reassessment, the GA will be subject to community review. Lingzhi2, if you check the WP:GAR page, you'll see that the thing to do is not to spam potential reviewers, but to notify the original GA reviewer and the various WikiProjects associated with the article that a reassessment has been opened. The goal of the GAR is to have members of the community come to a consensus as to whether the article meets the GA criteria by having them check/review the article, make suggestions of what to adjust/improve, and then give their opinion once the improvements are made as to whether the article meets all the criteria or not. It can be an involved process, and can take a while—because this is a community reassessment, only an uninvolved editor can close it after the community has been given adequate time to weigh in. Best of luck to all concerned. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I challenge the process by which User:Fowler&fowler rejects the GA outcome based solely on a hunch, since he did not read the article nor did he specify what exactly are the problems in it, if any. Nor is he willing to engage himself in the review. As such, in absence of any relevant points, I would argue his objection could be ignored, but I am willing to leave that to you. --3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 09:49, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I am not challenging your assessment. I am sure it is a good-faith assessment. You made some pro forma corrections—involving some punctuation, some grammar, and some WP conventions. And you left a telltale sign, by way of a remark, of someone largely unfamiliar with the historiography of British India. That is not a fault, only the kind of limitation, we all have, in various contexts, including and foremostly myself. That is why, in my view, more than one reviewer is needed for such an article, so that together, the individual limitations, are neutralized or counter-balanced. I may not have read the latest version of the article, but please consider that half a dozen pictures in the article are those I either found in the loft or at some obscure site or that I annotated. The article needs other good-faith assessments. I am merely trying to ensure for Lingzhi's sake that there not be another heartbreak in an eventual FAC (given the article's tangled history and extraordinary scope). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
  • hey @3E1I5S8B9RF7: I'm sitting in a parking lot typing on a cellphone so I can't type many words but there is a new discussion at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Bengal famine of 1943/1 and I have been meaning to invite you to comment there. I apologize for all this confusion etc. I think BlueMoonset mildly disapproved of me opening the new discussion too do sorry sorry. As for your response to F&f let's just let past be past. I know he didn't mean to step on your toes. So the new discussion is the place if you want to express any additional opinions about the article A million thanks for you time & trouble! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:21, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Math errors in table

There is a table in the section headed "Famine, disease, and the death toll". The last column is supposed to be the (second-to-last) death toll column converted to a percent of the total death toll. It isn't. Examples: the first entry is shown as 0.99% instead of just under 3%. The largest entry in the death toll column is clearly less than half of the total death toll, but is shown to be 71% of the total. 24.65.53.250 (talk) 15:49, 23 November 2019 (UTC) Edited to add: drat, the other column of percentages is also wrong. 24.65.53.250 (talk) 15:55, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for reading carefully! The numbers are (or should be) copied straight & verbatim from Maharatna's thesis, which is downloadable here On page 243 see "Table 5.5 Cause-specific death rates and relative importance of different causes of death during pre-famine and famine periods: Bengal". The percentages in question are explained in a Note:"...for both 1943 and 1944 they are the percentage shares to total excess deaths. The excess deaths from each of the above diseases were calculated over the respective average deaths registered during 1937-41." So the figure of 0.99 is I think found like this: ((0.82-0.73)/(28.75-19.46)) * 100 = 0.968783638 or 0.97. I don't know if the 0.02 discrepancy is some sort of rounding error or if I am missing something. So let's try again to get 23.88 for year 1943: ((3.6 - 0.73) / (31.77-19.46)) * 100 = 23.3 again the number is ballpark correct with a small discrepancy... I did the same calculation for the first percentage discussed in the text (43%) and got the same ballpark-correct-with-discrepancy result. I put it in a footnote. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Famous Churchill Line

There is a famous anecdote stating that when Churchill was informed of the famine via a letter he wrote in margins "Why isn't Gandhi dead yet then?"

I think that should be mentioned in this page

It's mention in this video during a debate with an Indian PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4

Not an Indian prime minister, but a part-time opposition member of Parliament and part-time shallow-water wader of Indian history, to whose mill—run unpredictably by shifting waters of intellectual ambition—all random legends are grist. Whether Churchill said that or not I can't say, but this is not a reliable source. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Pro British POV

This articles is extremly pro uk and dismiss or ignore some speech and behaviours that proved malicious intent of the British — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.30.216.217 (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Anyone can make a random drive-by comment such as this. Where is the constructive content that could help improve this page in some fashion? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:00, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
It should not be beyond the bounds of possibility for someone - maybe you, Mr. Unnamed one? - to build up a more balanced perspective. The important thing is that you find and include plausble - best of all for practical purposes at least some of them verifiable online - sources for any "alternative views". In something as complicated and contested as (causes and impact and .. and ... of) the 1943 Bengal Famine it would be amazing if respected commentators and historians had all come together to form a "mainstream view of historical truth". And it's pretty clear that the mainstream views in this case have shifted around a good deal over the last couple of decades. Back in the day (when I was even younger....) the 1943 Bengal famine was dealt with by mainstream British historians and others by ignoring it. I think we've moved on since then. But if there are several mainstream views - and I think there are - please use your familiarity with the topic to give the wiki entry the balance that it needs. And that (y)our readers deserve. And thank you. As an afterthought, adjectives like "malicious" are fine in a talk page, but for the entry itself it is sensible to strive for a "neutral tone". When in doubt, let (adequately sourced, especially if likely to be found contentious) facts speak for themselves. Success Charles01 (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Citation 18(b)

There's a passage in the 'refusal of imports' section that reads "the Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from several different nations", using a citation already used much earlier in the article. It cites two books, Mukerjee 2010 and Mukherjee 2015 (note the extra h). I've managed to get my hands of a copy of Mukherjee and couldn't find anything on the given page numbers, although I supposes it's possible it's a different edition. Can anyone vouch for the source? (if so, I for one would be interested in which countries)WelshDude2 (talk) 14:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I've corrected the page numbers in Mukherjee 2015, which are 141–142, not 241–242. It states that Canadian Prime Minister McKenzie King said a ship with 100,000 tons of wheat could depart [from Vancouver] for India on 12 November 1943. Depending on where you live, you can read most of Mukerjee 2010 pages 191–218 on Google Books. It describes the same Canadian offer, as well as American offers (and possibly others, it has been a while since I read it thoroughly). --Worldbruce (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
The world's largest container ships can now carry almost 200,000 tons each. But in 1943 a Liberty ship, the workhorse of the Allied convoys, carried just 1,000 tons,[citation needed] and a tonnage of 6,000 meant a really seriously big ship. If there was a ship anywhere in the world that could carry anything remotely like 100,000 tons in 1943, that would be... somewhat surprising.
It's also worthy of note that, for instance, Roosevelt refused a direct request from Churchill in spring 1944 to divert US merchant shipping to help with the fallout from the famine, because he just couldn't spare the tonnage. And that the famine did not arise from any shortage of food as such, but from failures of distribution and administration within India itself, and that the Indian provinces had been self-governing since 1935. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
My paraphrase may have been too loose. The actual quote from Mukherjee 2015 is, "A Canadian offer for the immediate shipment of 100,000 tons of wheat to India was considered. Canadian Prime Minister, McKenzie King, had informed Amery that the wheat was available and the ship was all ready to be loaded and could depart on 12 November." Mukerjee 2010 draws a clearer distinction between the amount of wheat offered and the cargo capacity immediately available, saying, "Canada had offered a free gift of 100,000 tons of wheat to India to relieve the famine ... a Canadian ship of 10,000 tons had become available at Vancouver, and Prime Minister McKenzie wanted to fill it with wheat for India." According to Liberty ship, their cargo capacity was 10,856 deadweight tonnes. If that is accurate, then the availability of a "ship of 10,000 tons" is plausible, though Mukerjee isn't clear whether that's deadweight or cargo weight. It isn't clear from the two sources what the plan was for moving the remaining 90,000+ tons of wheat. Since the first ship was refused, they may not have gotten as far as formulating a plan for the remainder. --Worldbruce (talk) 18:57, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

'Several different nations'

A section in the 'refusal of imports' section says "the Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from several different nations". I queried this in a now-archived talk situation back in June (some quick archiving!). Specific passages from the sources were produced showing refusal of imports from Canada. ({{u|Worldbruce} suggested one also alluded to an American offer - I can't see that in the pages available to me via Google books and that seems unlikely given the US rejected some requests for aid, as mentioned in the main article). I don't think two nations can be described as "several" and one certainly can't; also, being specific is more informative. Therefore I think the passage should be changed to "the Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from Canada". Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WelshDude2 (talk • contribs) 17:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The bot was set to archive threads after 30 days, I've adjusted this to 90 days as there is no longer significant activity taking place on the talk page. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Mr rnddude you've said in your edit summary that one of the sources means Iraq and Australia as well as Canada. I've had a look at Mukherjee 2015 and it says food shipments did arrive from both Iraq and Australia, but only "very little" of the Iraqi barley and (in an earlier page than the one cited) "Of the 150,000 tons promised on the 4th of August, only 30,000 tons of Australian wheat had reached India" (as of around three weeks later). I can't see any suggestion this is because the cabinet refused offers of shipments from these nations; in the Iraqi case it references that "hostilities in the Middle East had taken a turn for the worse". I sadly don't have full access to Mukerjee 2010 - does it have anything different?

I also do think that in any case, "the Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from Iraq, Australia and Canada" would be a better/more informative sentence than "the Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from several different nations".WelshDude2 (talk) 09:52, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I meant to say 'mentions' instead of 'means'... yeah, I don't know how I made that mistake either. I don't have full access to Mukherjee 2015, I was able to see the cited pages (141-142) which states that a request for an immediate shipment of 50,000 tons from Australia was rejected by the cabinet as 'impracticable'. Although that appears to conflict with the statement you cite from the same book about 30,000 tons being sent to India. I can add a bit to WorldBruce's mention of the U.S., paraphrase from Mukerjee 2010 p.286: the US consulate in Calcutta offered to help buy wheat from the US and estimated that '20,000 tons or so' of wheat could be shipped 'without great difficulty', but Lord Leathers and other unnamed 'British officials' concluded that there was 'little to be gained from this proposal'. Instead, 5,000 tons of wheat from Canada was loaded onto two American ships for transport to India. Unfortunately the only person adequately familiar with the article text – Lingzhi/OneOffUserName – has given up on the article/Wikipedia – for understandable reasons. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I have checked trove.nla to see whether Mukerjee 2010 is available near me, it is at both my local library and the nearest major city, so I'll take a look at it over the coming days. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Key sources

I thought we might create a section here listing the key primary and secondary sources, and maintain it at the top of the page. SarahSV (talk) 00:20, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

You might want to add a tertiary source: Dyson, Tim (2018), A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, pp. 183–190, ISBN 978-0-19-882905-8 It has only seven or eight pages on the Bengal famine, but offers a good overview. Dyson is best-known of the current-crop of historical demographers of South Asia. He is Maharatna's PhD adviser. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Extended content

Minority view in the article lead?

We probably do not need to include the minority view in the article lead. Reviewing the references and literature, it doesn't seem to warrant a mention in the lead but may be relevant later in the article. One of the two sources backing this minority view is http://bowbrick.org.uk/Senpapers/Food%20Policy%20May%201986.pdf which clearly states that it is "... not a complete analysis of the Bengal Famine" and instead focuses on critiquing the statistical methods used by Sen and as such doesn't advocate for the minority view. --Molochmeditates (talk) 10:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

  • Disagree. Here "minority view" means among SCHOLARS. There are scads of nationalistic Wikipedia editors and vandals (and FAC reviewers) who are dying to move the minority view to the featured view. Do not poke the bear. Do not stir the pot. Besides, it actually is a legitimate minority view.OneOffUserName (talk) 15:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
I am sorry but we are trying to build an encyclopedia here, not try to keep some form of imagined status quo to avoid "poking the bear". Wikipedia is no stranger to controversial topics and there is a right and wrong way to handle things. That's why we source materials from reputable sources - and reputable news sources like The Guardian help filter out the importance of primary sources. This helps prevent every side bring a part of the claim from their side. A site literally called "The Churchill Project" is very unlikely to be an unbiased or authority source on this subject. Those should be avoided. The important thing is to treat this as an encyclopedia article, not some favored pet national interpretation. So going back to the original question, any reason why that primary source should be used to support the minority point of view when the article clearly doesn't say the conclusion the minority view is trying to present? --Molochmeditates (talk) 23:28, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for telling me that we're building an encyclopedia. I was an editor for... eh... well... if you subtract time for getting my PhD etc.. maybe 10 or 11 years? The article clearly says that the minority view is that the famine was NOT man-made (i.e., it was FAD): "The FAD explanation blames famine on crop failures brought on principally by crises such as drought, flood, or man-made devastation from war." The main guy here is Tauger; Bowbrick had his clock cleaned by Amartya Sen. [Ó Gráda suggests there was probably a shortfall, but thinks that the human factor turned a shortfall into a crisis.] ...But in WikiSpeak, the main point of reference here is WP:LEDE. I'm assuming you're read it carefully:
  • "The lead should... summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies... As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources."
So if we read that, we see omitting the minority is a clear violation of WP:LEDE. Meanwhile, back to The Guardian, wow, POV to the supermax. But whatever. I'm not gonna argue about that POV paper; the main point here is WP:LEDE.OneOffUserName (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Molochmeditates, you made a bold edit, it was reverted for breaching NPOV. You don't start an edit-war, you get involved in a discussion. The majority of the sources in this article are not primary sources. They are scholarly secondary sources. The FIC is a primary source ; Sen, Greenough, Maharatna, O'Grada among many others are secondary. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
I seem to have run into some weird nationalistic bias issues here. The reliable sources were removed from the article and a source that clearly says it doesn't support the position that it is being used to advocate for here is being used and the editors refuse to engage in the discussion around whether that source should be present in the article. I am not going to pursue this further - I don't have a horse in this race other than trying to get the most accurate information into the article, but that doesn't seem to be the primary motivation with which the article is being edited. --Molochmeditates (talk) 02:42, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
You are wrong on every count, bar none. 1) You are the one whose edits shift the POV of this article. 2) And this whole discussion is absolutely pointless, groundless and baseless from a purely Wikipedia standpoint. When I quoted WP:LEDE, that's a slam dunk closure on this argument. A minority view exists; therefore, it must be mentioned in the lede and labeled as a minority view. End. Of. Story. 3) Meanwhile, Bowbrick never says he supports FEE; Bowbrick is by far the most bitter and vitriolic opponent of FEE in the literature. He clearly and forcefully said it was due to shortfall. 4) Plus Bowbrick is not afforded any credibility in the literature after he directly attacked Sen's credibility and Sen cleaned his clock. 5) Tauger is the one whom people cite as... maybe... at least possibly valid. 6) And I am not a notably pro- or anti-UK or pro- or anti-India editor. Just a guy who spent years reading all those articles. 7) And if you read the whole Wikipedia article top to bottom, the FEE view is presented as mainstream again and again and again. This is not any attempt to foreground the FAD account. It is simply following Wikipedia's rules. Thanks for your time and attention.OneOffUserName (talk) 07:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

new comment about exports

Because of interprovincial barriers to import, exports from India as a whole are irrelevant. Only exports from Bengal would be relevant.OneOffUserName (talk) 06:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

More about women & children...? Stats or giving them voices

SV, in the FAC, dropped a comment that the section on women and children is very poor. Well... I disagree but let's play it out... In order to improve the section on women and children, we would need more info on women and children. where can we get this info? There are perhaps one or two additional relevant mortality stats that could be plucked from Maharatna etc. Aside from that, however, all we have are a small number of anecdotes from perhaps three sources (Greenough "Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal", Mukerjee "Churchill's Secret War", and Mukherjee "Hungry Bengal"). Do we really wanna bulk up an encyclopedia article up with numerous anecdotes? I made this case in the FAC which absolutely no one at all across the entire length and breadth of Wikipedia considered to be worth reading (for the record, to find this particular bit, search for the string "This is crucial"), but essentially, anecdotes should be used to illustrate factual points, rather than strung up as a narrative that has as its central goal giving the famine victims voices. The encyclopedia genre is not about giving victims voices, I would argue, although their voices can be used from time to support points here and there... If we dial up the count of anecdotes, we first run the risk of being accused of cribbing too much from those sources. We also run the risk of turning the article into an anecdote factory rather than an encyclopedia article..... If anyone has concrete suggestions of sources and info that could be used, please do put them forth here.Axylus.arisbe (talk) 02:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Khan and the two Mukhejees are have errors. In my view, it is best to keep them out. Greenough has written a classic, which needs updating to be sure, but nevertheless a classic. By women and children we obviously mean those who were shafted by the instances of men, that is Hindu Bengali men, abandoning their families in the villages, in order to seek to perpetuate the patriline, Indo-Aryan Hinduism's unfailing obsession and its conventionally chosen last resort in a crumbling moral order, in contrast, for example, to the Birkenhead drill. I had mentioned this somewhat obliquely in the RfC. The Muslims, men and women, in contrast, especially in the eastern regions died in the homes, too exhausted to seek help. The late Christopher Bayly has summed this up poignantly in one of his World War II books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:14, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I seem to recall that Greenough was cited extensively, but my memory is quite honestly extremely poor. As for the Mukerjee/Mukherjee sources, ripping them right out would be very excessive. Individual facts can be challenged and removed. I do recall reading that many simply starved in their homes, though many of course were forced to migrate. I will have time to revisit everything some time in the next week or so but not today. I seem to recall laying out most of my thoughts in this very thread a long time ago. But will revisit soonish. Oh we have Bayly and Harper already too, but if you find new data, jump in. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:49, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
@Lingzhi2: My post wasn't addressed to you, and to be honest, I haven't read this article since I last read it last a few years ago. It was addressed to the insistent queries of Axylus.arisbe, who seems to be hovering here. Whatever our disagreements were at that time, I do know you to have read most of the literature. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:37, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

"Saving many lives"

Chaipau and I attempted to shorten the caption of the infobox image (Aug 1943 Statesman photo) as follows:

−
From the photo spread in The Statesman on 22 August 1943 showing famine conditions in Calcutta. These photographs made world headlines and spurred government action, saving many lives.
+
From the photo spread in The Statesman on 22 August 1943 showing famine conditions in Calcutta. These photographs made world headlines and spurred government action.

Fowler&fowler disagreed with this change and asked that it be brought to this talk page for discussion per BRD, so here I am.

My concern is that it's misleading/inaccurate – the assertion that the British response was so effective after August 1943 that it significantly changed the course of the famine and "saved many lives" does not match the reading I've done on the topic. It implies a reduction in deaths, but the mortality figures continued to increase up until November/December 1943 and remained high until mid 1944. There's also the criticism levelled at the wartime government by both contemporaries and historians to take into account, who claim that it failed to take the famine seriously enough on the basis of its refusal to redirect shipping and remarks by Churchill. I don't have the sources at hand at the moment, but the BBC quotes Toye as saying "it clearly is the case that it was difficult for people to get [the Prime Minister] to take the [famine] seriously" & Charmley as saying "what [Churchill] does tragically in the case of the Bengal famine is show absolutely zero advance [since] the Irish famine 100 years earlier." Now obviously this isn't all about Churchill, Wavell took his responsibility seriously and ended up chastising Churchill for not doing enough, but historians are making these statements on the assumption that the government response to the famine was inadequate and didn't save lives as it could/should have. (To be clear, my objection is a separate issue from the causes of the famine, and I'm not disputing the fact that the government did take action once it realised what was happening).

If I'm understanding Chaipau's rationale correctly (from their edit summary), they felt that it was disingenuous to describe the government as saving many lives as it's possible those lives wouldn't have been lost under a more competent administration, given that the famine is broadly considered to have been anthropogenic. Jr8825 • Talk 14:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

There is always a time lag between government action and mortality reduction. Wavell did make a monumental effort (see Bengal_famine_of_1943#Relief_efforts.) Sometimes, as in the classical famines of late 19th-century British India, the mortality actually increased after the relief works began, usually after the second crop failure in the summer of the year in question. Throngs were crowded in relief camps leading to outbreaks of cholera and usually followed by those of malaria during the next monsoon. Cholera and malaria deaths usually exceeded the deaths from starvation alone, but their victims had been enfeebled by the starvation. In other words, even in those famines, the relief works did save lives, but there was a time lag. There is plenty blame to go around for the Bengal famine, hoarding by grain merchants was a big factor, the unavailability of Burmese rice another, crop failure yet another, ... as I've explained, the abandonment of women and children by Indian men was as instrumental in causing deaths as any governmental incompetence, whether of Britain, British India, or the Province of Bengal. It was these women and children who eventually made their way to Calcutta and died on the sidewalks. Please also see the other pictures I have added of them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:24, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Please look at the lede. The famine was anthropogenic - created by humans. In this case, this is euphemism for failure of government to adequated provide. Sen calls it, again euphemistically, as exchange entitlement. The British government at that time fighting the Japanese and Bengal was under colonial rule of the British. Three million dead stacks pretty high by WW2 standards. The caption is grossly misleading. I just tried to align with the lede. Chaipau (talk) 15:00, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Fowler&fowler: I acknowledge the complexity of judging the precise weight of responsibility for deaths. I don't think the proposed change is about blame though (at least from my perspective), as it's about whether there's adequate sourcing to support the claim that the British administration's response "saved many lives". I don't see how issues such as hoarding by merchants, or civilians leaving women and children to die, speaks to the effectiveness of famine relief efforts in significantly reducing mortality. Regarding Wavell's efforts, while they undoubtedly represented a marked change from the litany of early errors recounted in our 'Relief efforts' section (linked in your reply), Wavell success in lowering prices (from December, according to Greenough) isn't evidence that this came in time to save many lives. Starvation deaths had already peaked by then and disease deaths overtook starvation deaths going forward. I also noticed that Wavell's biography quotes a different source to say his efforts to reduce rice prices were only met with "mixed success", although obviously I can't vouch for its accuracy. As I mentioned above, in 1944 he grew frustrated as he felt the imperial government was providing inadequate resources and imports to support his efforts. Do you know any sources that explicitly discuss how the government response prevented many deaths? Jr8825 • Talk 15:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Anthropogenic does not mean caused by the government of the day. It simply means that the famine was not caused by crop failure alone. WW2, the failure of Suhrawardy (the Muslim League Prime Minister of Bengal province) to stem corruption and hoarding by the Hindu merchants of Calcutta is anthropogenic (Sen mentions hoarding prominently in his explanations and also in his riposte to Madhushree Mukerji in the NYRB). Linlithgow and Churchill's feet-dragging was anthropogenic, as were the (mostly Hindu) men's desertion of their families for the preservation of the patriline, Hinduism's traditional last recourse in times of social stress. Finally, the relentless pressure exerted by the Hindu landlords over Muslim tenant farmers or landless peasants in East Bengal cannot be discounted in the least. All are anthropogenic. But relief efforts were also anthropogenic. The famine mortality did not disappear simply because of natural factors. People, especially in East Bengal, were dying in their homes. They had to be reached. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:27, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I think we should leave it at spurring government action. The text of the article is quite clear that failures in administration (and even recognizing the existence of the famine) were a significant factor in the number of deaths and placing "saving many lives" at the top of the article, even if correct, gives the reader the wrong takeaway and is probably WP:UNDUE. Also, that clause is sourced (in the article) mainly to "a singular act of journalistic courage without which many more lives would have surely been lost", a statement that is different in nuance to "saving many lives". Elevating this into the lead is not a good idea.--RegentsPark (comment) 16:15, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I think RegentsPark's summary of the problem is better than my attempt above. I (and Chaipau) read the caption as saying that government action saved many lives (and presumably other readers will draw the same conclusion), whereas J. Mukherjee is saying the editor of The Statesman helped prevent more deaths by raising awareness. If the current caption was reworded to "these photographs made world headlines, spurring government action and saving many lives" it might reflect the source more clearly – but even then it's placing an emphasis on authorities saving lives that seems illogical given that action in the second half of 1943 was merely mitigating the original botched response by the Indian and Bengal governments (regardless of whether this was due to a lack of contemporary knowledge about the economic causes of famine, as Sen suggests, or plain incompetence). In addition to the inaccurate suggestion it may give readers (that deaths subsequently decreased), I agree there's potentially an issue of undue weight (implying an effective response, when we're explicitly talking about the response after mid 1943, which by that time was already late and was still criticised), even if it's the result of a poor summary of the source rather than misrepresentation. Jr8825 • Talk 17:43, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
Again, may I point to the Relief efforts section, which states: "This assistance was delivered promptly, including "a full division of... 15,000 [British] soldiers...military lorries and the Royal Air Force" and distribution to even the most distant rural areas began on a large scale.[340] In particular, grain was imported from the Punjab, and medical resources[286] were made far more available.[341] Rank-and-file soldiers, who had sometimes disobeyed orders to feed the destitute from their rations,[342] were held in esteem by Bengalis for the efficiency of their work in distributing relief.[343]" Even if we do away with "saving many lives," we will need to tweak "government action," which is anonymous, to "spurred a civil and military relief effort." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree with RegentsPark and Jr8825—it is in the best interest to just leave out this part of the caption: ", saving many lives". Leaving out this part creates a caption that does not prejudice the issue one way or another. Fowler&fowler, the details you mention could go in the text, of course, but these details actually reinforce Sen's "exchange entitlement" argument. Chaipau (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I am suggesting that simply lopping off the participial phrase at the end is not enough; you will need to at the very least also change "spurred government action" to "spurred a civil and military relief effort." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Fowler, the article text doesn't support "civil and military relief effort" but does support "government action".--RegentsPark (comment) 14:01, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
There is an entire section entitled 'relief effort' which has a whole paragraph that discusses civilian efforts absent government intervention and the last paragraph which discusses the use of the military to distribute supplies to rural areas. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:27, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't deny that. The issue is what was directly spurred by the Stateman pictures. Acccording to our article, the pictures drove the "British government to supply adequate relief ...", so we should probably leave it at government action rather than spelling out which branches of the government were "spurred". Civil and Military are both a part of the government and I'm not sure why we should identify them individually (as spurs) when the article does not do so. This is the lead picture and we should try as much fealty to the article text as is possible. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:42, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
My take is that the lead infobox caption should be a brief summary of the image itself, rather than including analysis of the picture as you might expect with a caption in the article body, as that analysis could misleadingly be considered to be a summary of the article subject as a whole. And the suggestion that the government response was adequate (and "saved many lives") is contentious. Jr8825 • Talk 16:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

There is strong and well-studied evidence that there were multiple agents (civil, military wings of government; media etc.) and each of these agents had taken multiple positions over the course of the famine. Here is one evidence of how The Statesman and the government changed their positions The Statesman won accolades for publicizing the famine through a series of graphic photographs published in August 1943 and later. Yet for months beforehand, it toed the official line, berating local traders and producers, and praising ministerial efforts. ([8], p4) It is not possible for a photo caption to capture all these agents and their changing positions and the motives for these changes, as already pointed out by Jr8825. From the quote above, it appears we should use the word "forced" instead of "spurred" in the caption. Nevertheless, what the caption should point out that the photo was instrumental in changing the government position, without pre-judging these agents. This is the most neutral position possible, IMO. Currently, the caption gives the impression that the government was oblivious to what was happening till the pictures appeared in The Statesman, which is patently untrue. Chaipau (talk) 11:01, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: three editors (including myself) have voiced support for this change, and there hasn't been much discussion here over the last two weeks. Do you still feel strongly about this, or can I go ahead and make the change? If it's the former, perhaps an RfC is the best way to receive input from uninvolved editors? Or do you have a different suggestion? Thanks, Jr8825 • Talk 17:55, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
No, no. No need for an RfC. Please go ahead and change it. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:17, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

omitted sources?

Is there any reason as to why the following aren't referenced on this page?

'Bridges, Sir Edward. "CAB 65/41 Second World War conclusions" (PDF). The National Archives. pp. 74–75, 109–110.' 'Bridges, Sir Edward. "CAB 65/42 Second World War conclusions" (PDF). The National Archives. pp. 252–253.'

The two are essential to this topic matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EDJT840 (talk • contribs) 15:45, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Dietmar Rothermund is an unreliable source.

Rothermund is on par with pop "historians" like Indy Neidell, who definitely shouldn' be quoted in an article of this importance. His entire chapter dedicated to WW2 in his shoddy "An Economic History of India" book has 0 citations, and a badly organised chapter wise bibliography only. I urge the immediate removal of all citations made using this particular source.Isonzogame (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

What work would you suggest as a better source for Indian economic history during WW2? Rothermund is unlikely to be removed based solely on your opinion of how he cites his sources. Action would be considered more seriously if you could point to academic consensus that this book is deficient and some other work is superior. --Worldbruce (talk) 14:12, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2022

Consider updating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bengal_famine_of_1943 second sentence: "An estimated 2.1 to 3.8 million Bengalis perished,[A]" expanding the range of estimated deaths from "2.1 to 3.8 million" to 1.5 million to 3.8 million..." , Reference: Chapter 6, The Great Bengal Famine in "Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation" by Amartya Sen, Oxford, 1983 (https://academic.oup.com/book/32827), https://academic.oup.com/book/32827/chapter-abstract/275134605?redirectedFrom=fulltext Db3593 (talk) 13:42, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. – Recoil (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Is Khan 2015 verifiable?

@Germsteel: In a pair of edits,[9][10] you added to Bengal famine of 1943 the clause "and removed thousands of acres from rice production" with a citation of: Khan, Yasmin (2015). India at war: the subcontinent and the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-975349-9..

The burden of proof lies with you to give a citation that is verifiable. You neglected to say which page of this 416-page book supports your claim. I've examined the source, and cannot find anything in it that directly supports what you want to add. Page 162 gives figures for acreage removed from rice production for one airfield in Jharkand (not Bengal). The paragraph into which you inserted the clause is about the war's effects on Bengalis, not Jharkhandis. Airfields built in Bengal may have had a similar effect on Bengalis, but the source doesn't say so.

Consequently, your addition was removed. You reinserted it here and here. In the edit summary of the latter, you wrote "see talk page discussion". I can find no relevant discussion here. Can you be more specific?

If you can show that Khan 2015 directly supports your clause, I have no objection to it being added. Please never insert new sourced text in the middle of old sourced text though, without fixing the citations. Doing so breaks source-text integrity. --Worldbruce (talk) 00:56, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I came here to respond to a ping below by @TrangaBellam:. I do have the book. A quick search reveals that thousands of acres were indeed requisitioned for various military related tasks, indeed some 39,000 were but apparently only 500 are directly characterized to be paddy fields. Hundreds of thousands of humans were indeed displaced according to Khan, but in the version of the book I have, I couldn't find a conversion into how many families the number constituted. (Requisitioning of land is not unusual during war. WPians who might have watched the British series Foyle's War (starring Michael Kitchen will know that it was done in England for building American airfields.)
Here are the full quotes and page numbers all between pages 162 and 164:
Excerpts from Yasmin Khan, India at War
From the WP citation: "Military build-up caused massive displacement of Bengalis from their homes. Farmland purchased for airstrip and camp construction is "estimated to have driven between 30,000 and 36,000 families (about 150,000 to 180,000 persons) off their land" and removed thousands of acres from rice production<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-975349-9| last = Khan| first = Yasmin| title = India at war: the subcontinent and the Second World War| location = New York| date = 2015}}</ref>
From the book: (p. 162) The military had decided that the only way to protect the health of the air force men stationed at the airfields was to destroy and drain paddy fields within a half-mile radius of the aerodrome, which were harbouring deadly mosquitoes and flies, and to evict the local people who had cultivated these fields. The local Indian government obliged, invoking the Defence of India rules. ‘Signatures of as many villagers as possible should be taken on the requisitioning order’, instructed the District Magistrate, Arthur Kemp, from Singhbhum. Over 500 acres of paddy fields were taken over, amounting to 15,000 maunds of paddy.
(p. 163) By July 1942, barely a province of India escaped requisitioning. Central and eastern India were hit hardest. Whole villages and hamlets might be evacuated overnight to make way for aerodromes. In addition, the armies had other demands: for storage space, factory provision and housing. The police seized bicycles, cars and lorries and even took over mansions in prime locations of Bombay and Calcutta and cleared them for offices or depots. In United Provinces they took farmers’ carts. In Satara district 6,000 villagers were ejected; as in Midnapore, it is likely that the later strength of rebellion in 1942 in Satara was connected to this fact. In Manipur, tea factories, lorries, cattle and schools had been co-opted and in Central Provinces there had been ‘considerable acquisition of land’ amounting to some 13,500 acres. In Bihar, on occasion, military authorities stepped in ahead of the local police and took land by force, and ultimately some 25,000 acres were used for aerodromes and defence installations there.
From Punjab a letter reached a sepoy in the Middle East complaining about the requisitioning: ‘All the land of the village has been acquired by
(p 164)
the Government and numerous factories are springing up here. It is a troublesome thing for us.’
The Famine Inquiry Commission, looking back at the war in Bengal, estimated that ‘more than 300,000 families were required to evacuate their homes and land. Compensation was of course paid but there is little doubt that the members of many of these families became famine victims in 1943.'’
Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:32, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Bengal Genocide Question

A new article has been created that copies parts of this article. I thought I would post this here in case anyone was interested -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:47, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, this new article looks like it's largely original research and some of it reads like an essay. Few of the scholarly sources that were copied from this article to the new article actually discuss the "genocide question". The section headers are original research. For example, Churchill's comments and British Denial Policies are listed under "Evidence Towards Genocide", whereas Provincial Trade Barriers is listed under "Evidence Towards Man-Made Famine But Not Genocide", "Natural Calamities" are listed "Evidence Towards Famine As Result of Natural Causes". Unless a reliable source, lists the issues in this way, the whole article structure is original research or synthesis.GreenCows (talk) 10:34, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
That's what I was afraid of, the article was a bit of a mess when I found it. It obviously had large chunks copied from here, but I don't have the subject knowledge to check over the details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:58, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
ActivelyDisinterested, I'm not sure if the article should just be deleted. In it's current state, it's largely original research that reads like an essay. In addition to copying from this article, they also added some poor quality sources and misrepresented them. I also question the motivation for creating the article considering the since deleted comment on the new article's talk page. It's clear the article was created in response to Holodomor genocide question article. On the other hand, if some scholarly sources do discuss the "genocide question" with regards to the famine, then a separate article could be legitimate but it would have to be completely different. GreenCows (talk) 11:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I've pared it down to one sentence and redirected it to this page until someone deletes (AfDs) it altogether. I have also removed the references to many wikiprojects on its talk page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:54, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
Thank you both very much for bringing this to the wider community's notice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:55, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I think the other article should be speedy deleted as per WP:A10. Chaipau (talk) 17:40, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
Could you please do this @Chaipau: whenever is the right time in your opinion? Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:44, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 Done Chaipau (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
(I mean I requested speedy deletion :-)) Chaipau (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the article should be speedily deleted. I will add that another editor recently restored the article to an older version with modifications but I have reverted those changes.GreenCows (talk) 00:02, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bengal_famine_of_1943/Archive_10&oldid=1144503333"