[Teveth]

Sir Winston Churchill may be one of Britain's greatest wartime leaders, but in India he has been blamed for allowing more than a million people to die of starvation.

According to a new book on the famine, Sir Winston ignored pleas for emergency food aid for millions in Bengal left to starve as their rice paddies were turned over to jute for sandbag production and supplies of rice from Burma stopped after Japanese occupation.
Between one and three million died of hunger in 1943.

The wartime leader said Britain could not spare the ships to transport emergency supplies as the streets of Calcutta filled with emaciated villagers from the surrounding countryside, but author Madhusree Mukerjee has unearthed new documents which challenge his claim.
In her book, Churchill's Secret War, she cites ministry records and personal papers which reveal ships carrying cereals from Australia were bypassed India on their way to the Mediterranean where supplies were already abundant.
"It wasn't a question of Churchill being inept: sending relief to Bengal was raised repeatedly and he and his close associates thwarted every effort," the author said.
"The United States and Australia offered to send help but couldn't because the war cabinet was not willing to release ships. And when the US offered to send grain on its own ships, that offer was not followed up by the British," she added.
The man-made famine and the contrast between the plight of starving Indians and well-fed British officers dining in the city's many colonial clubs has been described as one of the darkest chapters in British rule on the Indian subcontinent.
Miss Mukerjee blames Churchill's 'racism' for his refusal to intervene.
He derided Gandhi as a "half-naked holy man" and once said: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
He was known to favour Islam over Hinduism.
"Winston's racist hatred was due to his loving the empire in the way a jealous husband loves his trophy wife: he would rather destroy it than let it go," said Miss Mukerjee.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ia-famine.html

Racist, sexist, a drunk....and now we can add genocidal monster to the list of reasons why this despicable inbred man is a blight on our country's history. The fact that the Conservatives still hold him in high esteem - a heroic figure, if you like - tells us all we need to know about Tories.

[Barden]

This isn't gonna end well...

[Jackthevillain]

To be honest in wartime troops come first a lot of people were starving even in Britain but they had to deal with that and give up a lot of stuff.

[HDS]

Do you have an off button? Seriously, I mean do you ever stop or are you just a 24/7 propaganda machine?

[LaughingBro]

England's Hitler.

[usainlightning]

(Original post by Teveth)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ia-famine.html

Racist, sexist, a drunk....and now we can add genocidal monster to the list of reasons why this despicable inbred man is a blight on our country's history. The fact that the Conservatives still hold him in high esteem - a heroic figure, if you like - tells us all we need to know about Tories.

I'd be a tad more greatful if i were you. He's part of the reason you're not speaking german and the tyranny of the Nazis did not spread across the entirety of Europe.

[OMG TOOTHBRUSH]

People are just grateful he did a lot for this country and was a great leader, and tend to overlook the negative aspects of his politics as it's nice to think of him as a heroic wartime leader.

[OMG TOOTHBRUSH]

(Original post by OMG TOOTHBRUSH)
People are just grateful he did a lot for this country and was a great leader, and tend to overlook the negative aspects of his politics as it's nice to think of him as a heroic wartime leader.

Yeah this. He was a really good leader

[Aspiringlawstudent]

I would sooner elect another Adolf Hitler than another tony blair, or indeed any labour candidate.
Haters gonna hate.

[Redreynard]

churchill was a good war time leader because he could see where the threats to england lay.
firstly germany. but he also saw the threat of islam:-
from his book river
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

[Teveth]

(Original post by usainlightning)
I'd be a tad more greatful if i were you. He's part of the reason you're not speaking german and the tyranny of the Nazis did not spread across the entirety of Europe.

Surely you don't actually believe that?

Firstly, the part Churchill played in Britain's success during the war is almost certainly overstated. Secondly, even if Churchill was solely responsible for Britain's success (which of course he wasn't), it would have been negligible in the context of the war and what you are suggesting I be grateful for because Britain was just one of a number of countries that won the war. Britain could have folded in 1944 and Hitler would have been defeated by the Soviet Union, if not the United States in 1945 regardless. The idea that Britain, let alone Churchill, is the reason I'm not speaking German is laughable on so many levels.

If you want a hero, look to the soldiers who fought on the front line. Not to the drunken Tory oath who sat in Downing Street and his country houses, knocking back brandy and slurring out the occasional sexist and racist remarks.

[shebelongs]

yes, i'm sure he "decided" to thwart attempts at providing food to starving people for no apparent reason

[Bax-man]

(Original post by Teveth)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ia-famine.html

Racist, sexist, a drunk....and now we can add genocidal monster to the list of reasons why this despicable inbred man is a blight on our country's history. The fact that the Conservatives still hold him in high esteem - a heroic figure, if you like - tells us all we need to know about Tories.

The fact you hold someone who chose not to steal from one group to give to another in such low regard tells us all we need to know about you and the party you support - you are authoritarian and repellent to the greatest extreme.

[Aspiringlawstudent]

(Original post by Teveth)
Surely you don't actually believe that?

Firstly, the part Churchill played in Britain's success during the war is almost certainly overstated. Secondly, even if Churchill was solely responsible for Britain's success (which of course he wasn't), it would have been negligible in the context of the war and what you are suggesting I be grateful for because Britain was just one of a number of countries that won the war. Britain could have folded in 1944 and Hitler would have been defeated by the Soviet Union, if not the United States in 1945 regardless. The idea that Britain, let alone Churchill, is the reason I'm not speaking German is laughable on so many levels.

If you want a hero, look to the soldiers who fought on the front line. Not to the drunken Tory oath.

I think you mean "oaf".

Please learn to spell before criticising former prime ministers.

[x_muneeb_x]

How can you call some one a good leader if he LET people die ? seriously

What makes him different from Hitler or Stalin?What makes Lyndon B Johnson or Bush different from Mussolini? Nothing!
The fact is they killed Human beings.It doesnt matter if they were jews or indians or vietnamese or if they didnt kill people from their own countries.They all were murderers and that is the fact.

[Alastor]

Why does the OP insert such seething venom and hatred into everything he writes?

[Aodhán]

Yep, Churchill was a massive bastard. Nothing new there.

[maljebo]

(Original post by Aspiringlawstudent)
I would sooner elect another Adolf Hitler than another tony blair, or indeed any labour candidate.
Haters gonna hate.

i sense you haven't thought it through

[giran]

oh ffs I'm asian and I forgive him. plus I'm not even from India.

now stfu all of you.

[shebelongs]

(Original post by Teveth)
Britain could have folded in 1944 and Hitler would have been defeated by the Soviet Union, if not the United States in 1945 regardless.

and this kind of statement is qualified by what exactly? have you heard of chaos theory?

The idea that Britain, let alone Churchill, is the reason I'm not speaking German is laughable on so many levels.

historians significantly wiser than you would (and have) contested that.

If you want a hero, look to the soldiers who fought on the front line. Not to the drunken Tory oath who sat in Downing Street and his country houses, knocking back brandy and slurring out the occasional sexist and racist remarks.

perhaps not the best angle given churchill's military background?

i really am not in the mood to get into another boring ass debate about why churchill was significant in ww2. go and read any number of books on the subject. infact, first, given that you're evidently a man who enjoys satisfying himself with complex fundamental questioning, ask yourself this: are you an idiot? if so, don't bother.