Janam Mukherjee, "Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire" (Oxford UP, 2015)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Mar 6, 2025 · 55m

The years leading up to the independence and accompanying partition of India mark a tumultuous period in the history of Bengal. Representing both a major front in the Indian struggle against colonial rule, as well as a crucial Allied outpost in the British/American war against Japan, Bengal stood at the crossroads of complex and contentious structural forces - both domestic and international - which, taken together, defined an era of political uncertainty, social turmoil, and collective violence. While for the British the overarching priority was to save the empire from imminent collapse at…