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The Bengal famine of 1943 ((ベンガル語:পঞ্চাশের মন্বন্তর)) struck the Bengal Province of pre-partition British India (present-day West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Bangladesh) during World War II following the Japanese occupation of Burma. Approximately 3 million people died due to famine. Generally the estimates are between 1.5 and 4 million, taking into account death due to starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal's 60.3 million population. Half of the victims died from disease after food became available in December 1943.〔See Dyson and Maharatna (1991) for a review of the data and the various estimates made.〕 Generally it is thought that there was a serious decrease in food production during that time, coupled with Bengal's continuing export of grain.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://pooreconomics.com/sites/default/files/14.73_Food_Lecture4.pdf )〕 However, according to Amartya Sen, there was no decrease in food production in 1943 (in fact food production was higher compared to 1941).〔 As in previous Bengal famines,〔Frere (1874); Hunter (1873); Bengal Administration (1897).〕 the highest mortality was not in previously very poor groups, but among artisans and small traders whose income vanished when people spent all they had on food and did not employ cobblers, carpenters, etc.〔Mahalanobis, Mukkerjee, and Ghosh, (1946).〕 The famine also caused major economic and social disruption, ruining millions of families.〔Greenough(1982)〕 ==Onset== The food situation in India was tight from the beginning of the Second World War, with a series of crop failures and localized famines which were dealt with successfully under the Indian Famine Codes.〔Knight, 1954; Tauger, 2009, p.186〕 In Bengal in 1940-41 there was a small scale famine, although quick action by the authorities prevented widespread loss of life.〔Tauger, 2009, p.187〕 Food prices increased throughout India, and the Central Government was forced to undertake meetings with local government officials and release regulations of price controls〔Tauger, 2009, p.188; Tauger〕 The proximate cause of the famine was a reduction in supply with some increase in demand. The winter 1942 ‘aman’ rice crop, which was already expected to be poor or indifferent,〔Mansergh 1971 Doc 265 p357〕 was hit by a cyclone and three tidal waves in October. 450 square miles were swept by tidal waves, 400 square miles affected by floods and 3200 square miles damaged by wind and torrential rain. Reserve stocks in the hands of cultivators, consumers and dealers were destroyed. This killed 14,500 people and 190,000 cattle.〔Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a p32 65, 66, 236; Mansergh1971 p357〕 ‘The homes, livelihood and property of nearly 2.5 million Bengalis were ruined or damaged.’〔(Greenough, 1982, pp. 93-96)〕 A fungus causing the disease known as "brown spot", hit the rice crop and this was reported to have had an even greater effect on yield than the cyclone.〔Braund 1944, quotes the February 1943 evidence to the Second Food Conference on this. See also Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a p32〕 The fungus, ''Helminthosporium oryzae'', destroyed 50% to 90% of some rice varieties.〔Padmanabhan (1973), pp. 11-26.; Tauger 2006; Tauger 2009.〕 It was argued that the normal carryover stocks did not exist in Bengal, because 1941 was a short year, and people started eating the December 1941 crop as soon as it was harvested (as they certainly did when the December 1943 crop was harvested). As a result, the good December 1941 crop did not mean the normal surplus stocks were carried over into 1943. In other years and in other provinces, there had been several good or average crops between bad years, and stocks had built up.〔Government of India (1942); Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a esp. pp 179-200〕 Bengal had been a food importer for the last decade. Calcutta was normally supplied by Burma. The British Empire had suffered a disastrous defeat at Singapore in 1942 against the Japanese military, which then proceeded to invade Burma in the same year. Burma was the world's largest exporter of rice in the inter-war period.〔Nicholas Tarling (Ed.) ''The Cambridge History of South East Asia'' Vol.II Part 1 pp139-40〕 By 1940 15% of India's rice overall came from Burma, while in Bengal the proportion was slightly higher given the province's proximity to Burma.〔Bayly and Harper (2004), p.284〕 After the Japanese occupation of Burma in March 1942, Bengal and the other parts of India and Ceylon, normally supplied by Burma, had to find food elsewhere. However, there were poor crops and famine situations in Cochin, Trivandrum and Bombay on the West coast and Madras, Orissa and Bengal in the East. It fell on the few surplus Provinces, mainly the Punjab, to supply the rest of India and Ceylon.〔Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a, 1945b. Knight 1954 gives a contemporary account of the Indian situation. Tauger (2006), (2009) covers both India and the region.〕 India as a whole had a deficit, but still exported small quantities to meet the urgent needs of the British-Indian Army abroad, and those of Ceylon. Bengal's food needs rose at the same time from the influx of refugees from Burma. The enormous expansion of the Indian Army probably did not increase total food demand in India, but it did mean significantly more local demand in Bengal (up to 200,000 tons grain imported,〔Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a p18, 43, 173.〕 as well as an unknown quantity of grain and a lot of fresh food bought in Bengal). However, the effects of army consumption in causing the famine was clearly limited, as 'the army, mainly wheat-eaters, consumed very little extra in relation to India's supplies, and the army in Bengal was supplied externally'〔Peter Bowbrick, ''How Amartya Sen's Theories Cause Famines'' (Nottingham, 1999), page 36; Amartya Sen, 'Famines as failures of exchange entitlements', ''Economic and Political Weekly'', Special Number, August 1976, p.1279; Paul R. Greenough, ''Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943-1944'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p.261〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bengal famine of 1943」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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