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The Bengal famine of 1943 (Bengali: পঞ্চাশের মন্বন্তর) struck the Bengal province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 7 and 10 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal’s 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943^[1] As in previous Bengal famines,^[2] 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.^[3]

Background and Churchill role[link]

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.^[4] In Bengal in 1940-41 there was a small scale famine although quick action by the authorities prevented widespread loss of life.^[5] Food prices increased throughout India, and the Central Government was forced to undertake meetings with local government officials and release regulations of price controls^[6]

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^[7] 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.^[8] A fungus hit the weakened crop and this was reported to have had an even greater effect on yield than the cyclone.^[9] The fungus, Helminthosporium oryzae, destroyed 50% to 90% of some rice varieties.^[10]

It was argued that the normal carry over 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.^[11]

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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.^[14]

India as a whole probably had a deficit, but 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,^[15] 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' ^[16]

Lack of statistics[link]

Lack of statistics was an important cause of the failure to recognize and tackle the famine. It was known by administrators and statisticians^[17] well before the famine that India’s agricultural production statistics were ‘not merely guesses, “but frequently demonstrably absurd guesses”',^[18] ‘entirely untrustworthy’ ^[19] ‘useless for any purpose’^[20] that ‘no dependable statistics existed in Bengal’^[21] and that what statistics existed ‘were disbelieved by the very Government which issued them’^[22] and that there were ‘no meaningful production statistics’ ^[23] The raw data were guesses or were ‘invented’.^[24] and the averaging procedure increased the error.^[25] Senior officers then changed the calculated figures according to their whim: about half the estimates were adjusted and adjustments of 30-40 per cent were common; changes of 60-70 per cent were not unknown.^[26] Bengal’s agricultural statistics were particularly bad because of its land tax system.^[27] In 1942 a revenue officer would guess at the area planted and the probable yield for a 750,000 acre [310,000 ha] area to give a crop forecast for that area. These forecasts were aggregated and ‘adjusted’ by successive levels of Department of Agriculture officials.^[28] It is not known if the forecasts were adjusted after the cyclone, or on what basis this could be done. There were no measures of actual yields or area. The official First Crop Forecast on 5th October, before the cyclone, was reduced by 6% for the Second Crop Forecast in December, at harvest time, and by a further 6% for the final Third Crop Forecast in February, making it 1.2m tons lower than the ten year average of 6.2m tons.^[29] It is not known if these adjustments were meant to allow for the cyclone. However, the Director of Agriculture had believed before the cyclone that his department’s official forecast overstated actual expected production by a quarter.^[29] The officials responsible for food, such as Pinell and Braund, used a wide range of other estimates, cross checking them against observable facts. They were able to make use of information revealed in mail censorship such as letters from farmers, landlords and traders on crop yields, as well reports from Special Branch (the secret police), reports from other departments etc. Traders acted on their belief of a serious shortage and made a lot of money. They warned the Bengal Government of a famine situation.^[30] These sources all indicated that a famine was imminent, and that the Crop Forecasts were wrong. Subsequent research done by the Indian Statistical Institute using statistically valid samples and crop cutting showed large errors, with survey estimates being between 47% and 153% of the official estimate. The discrepancies also vary from year to year, with the sample estimate of the jute crop being 2.6 % above the official estimate in 1941 and 52.6% above it in 1946.^[31] This rules out analysis based on the level of the production forecast and, in particular, on year to year differences in production forecasts.

There are some figures on shipping and rail deliveries of rice to Calcutta, but none on imports by Bengal as a whole – most trade being informal, by river boat. There are no statistics on public or private stocks, until some commercial stock figures were kept in 1943.^[32]

The number of people to be fed was not known. The Census of Population was known to be unreliable at best, and the 1941 Census was particularly badly conducted.^[33] There are no statistics on the number of refugees from Burma, nor the refugees from Bengal, escaping war, bombing and famine. Details of military requirements and procurement have not been published. There is no indication of how much food the military provided to Bengali soldiers and war workers.

Government inaction[link]

Whatever the cause of the famine, deaths could only be prevented by supplies of food from elsewhere in India. This was not forthcoming.

In normal regional famines the Indian Government had provided the starving with money, and let the trade bring in grain which worked for regional famines, though this had been disastrous in Orissa in 1888 when, as in 1943, the shortage was not regional but national. In 1942, with the permission of the central government, trade barriers were introduced by the democratically elected Provincial governments. The politicians and civil servants of surplus provinces like the Punjab introduced regulations to prevent grain leaving their provinces for the famine areas of Bengal, Madras and Cochin. There was the desire to see that, first, local populations and, second, the populations of neighbouring provinces were well fed, partly to prevent civil unrest. Politicians and officials got power and patronage, and the ability to extract bribes for shipping permits. Marketing and transaction costs rose sharply. The market could not get grain to Bengal, however profitable it might be. The main trading route, established for hundreds of years was up the river system and this ceased to operate, leaving the railway as the only way of getting food into Bengal. Grain arrivals stopped and in March 1943, Calcutta, the second biggest city in the world, had only two weeks food supply in stock.^[34]

The Government of India realized a mistake had been made and decreed a return to free trade. The Provinces refused ‘In this, again, the Government of India misjudged both its own influence and the temper of its constituents, which had by this time gone too far to pay much heed to the Centre.’ ^[35] The Government of India Act 1935 had removed most of the Government of India’s authority over the Provinces, so they had to rely on negotiation.

Thus, even when the Government of India decreed that there should be free trade in grain, politicians, civil servants, local government officers and police obstructed the movement of grain to famine areas.^[36] In some cases Provinces seized grain in transit from other Provinces to Bengal.^[37] ‘But men like Bhai Permanand say that though many traders want to export food [to Bengal] the Punjab Government would not give them permits. He testified to large quantities of undisposed-of rice being in the Punjab’^[38]

Eventually there was a clear threat by the Government of India to force the elected governments to provide grain, when the new Viceroy, Wavell, who was a successful general, was about to take office. For the first time substantial quantities of grain started to move to Bengal.^[39]

The Government of Bengal was slow in starting relief measures and at one stage in 1943 it limited relief to save money, though the money could have been obtained. ^[40] The supporters of the two Bengal Governments involved, that of A. K. Fazlul Huq (December 1941 to March 1943) and of Khawaja Nazimuddin’s Muslim League (April 1943 to March 1945) each held the other government responsible for the catastrophe, because of its inaction and corruption.^[41]

Contemporary commentators believed that there was substantial hoarding by those consumers who could afford it, by firms and by those farmers who produced surpluses. This started in July 1941 when war with Japan was inevitable, increased when Burma was attacked in December 1941 and when Ceylon, then Calcutta were bombed in 1942. India would have entered the famine year with substantial surplus private stocks. These stocks do not appear to have been released and there was no political drive to get people to give or sell the surpluses. An official ‘Food Drive’ in Bengal did not result in release of hoarded stocks.^[42] It was believed that fear of the famine actually increased hoarding.

Why Bengal was refused food[link]

Distribution of Food among people

The democratically elected Provincial governments, their public servants and some key people in the Indian civil service believed, or said they believed, that Bengal had plenty of food, which could be made available with good administration. There were no meaningful production statistics which could support this, and those ‘hopelessly defective’ production statistics that did exist indicated a serious shortage.

There were claims that hoarding was the cause of the famine, and this should be dealt with administratively, not by providing starving people in Bengal with food. ‘And at the Third Food Conference in Delhi on the 5th to the 8th July, … the suggestion that “the only reason why people are starving in Bengal is that there is hoarding” was greeted at the Conference by the other Provinces with applause.’ ^[43] Similarly, some officials in the Government of India refused to accept the evidence on the ground, preferring their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the market: as late as November 1943, ‘The Government of India would admit no intrinsic shortage in Bengal in the Spring of 1943 and, even in November, at the height of the famine, the Director-General of Food in the Council of State said that “the major trouble in Bengal has been not so much an intrinsic shortage of essential foodgrains as a breakdown of public confidence.’ ^[44] On 19 October 1943, when the famine was at its peak, Wavell noted in his journal “On the food situation Linlithgow [The outgoing Viceroy] says chief factor morale.[i.e. panic hoarding]”^[45] For hoarding to have created the amount of hunger and death recorded if there had, indeed, been adequate supplies, it would have been necessary that the richest 10% of Bengal's population, the only ones who could afford it, to lay in two years' rice supply for themselves, in addition to the stocks accumulated in the previous two years, and to keep it in stock until the end of the war, while their neighbours starved. There was never any suggestion that anything of the sort happened, which is strong evidence against the hoarding explanation.

There was a widespread claim, unevidenced, that there was no shortage really, that there was plenty of rice available but traders were stockpiling it to make speculative profits. In fact, there was strong evidence that this was not so: extensive investigations by police, special branch and officials, backed up by rewards for information, found no examples; raids on traders found that they had significantly smaller trading stocks than they had in normal years.^[46] This was confirmed when there was no release of surplus stocks when the famine ended. Only if speculators had stored more than usual, and not released it during the famine year, would they have increased the number of deaths: there is ample evidence that they did not.^[47] Such claims of speculation causing famine have been ridiculed by economists since Adam Smith.

Similarly, it was claimed, without evidence or calculation, that the 1% to 2% of the Bengal population whose purchasing power increased because of the wartime inflation and war expenditure ^[48] ate so much more than usual that two thirds of the population went hungry – 10 % very hungry indeed,^[49] with half of this 10% dying of starvation and disease. A quick calculation would have shown that this explanation requires that on 1st November 1942 the small group with increased purchasing power started eating 12 to 46 times more than usual per head and that they reverted to normal consumption in December 1943.^[50]

Most contemporary sources refer to massive corruption by public servants, politicians and trading companies.

Most contemporary commentators thought the Hindu-Muslim conflict a serious factor.^[51] It was even claimed by a leading politician that ‘Bengal had been deliberately starved out by other provinces’ which refused to permit the export of grain.^[52]

It was believed that some British-born Indian Civil Service officers, as well as some British politicians and civil servants, were disposed to accept uncritically any story which would show that a democratically elected Indian government could, by incompetence and corruption, create a famine where there was plenty.

Supplies from other countries[link]

Any imports would have had to come from Australia, North America or South America. Some supplies from Australia entered the region. The main constraint was shipping. The Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak from mid 1942 to mid 1943, with submarine wolf packs sinking so many ships that the Allies were on the verge of defeat, so shipping could not be spared for India.^[53]

By August 1943 it was clear that the Allies had won the battle and there was plenty of shipping available. Mukkerjee (2011) analyses why Churchill still failed to send food to India. In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India Archibald Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of that time responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn’t died yet."^[54][55] Initially during the famine he was more concerned with the civilians of Greece (who were also suffering from a famine) compared with the Bengalis.^[56]

Any aid from abroad would have arrived too late to prevent most deaths: apart from the usual delays in assembling and shipping, and the long shipping route, it would have had to be delivered at west coast ports – the Allied navies did not operate east of Ceylon, and the Bay of Bengal was covered by Japanese naval and air power. The railways were overstretched, with men and equipment sent to war zones, most of the capacity devoted to supplying the Burma front, sabotage by Congress, major flood damage to the main routes etc. And they were not geared to shipping large quantities of bulk goods. Distributing the food to the famine areas was extremely difficult and time consuming, even with Army help.

Administrative and policy failures[link]

The Famine Inquiry Commission (1945) documents a large number of administrative, civil policy and military policy failures. Significantly, no other famine-struck country has published such criticisms of its own government’s actions. The failure to set up a food administration in 1939 and prepare for rationing was the key failure. The failure to enforce an India-wide food policy with an equality of sacrifice was another. Without this, the administrative controls must prevent any meaningful intervention. Political and administrative failures to set up a system for seizing surplus food in surplus areas also contributed (it was acceptable in deficit areas). There were many others which added to local shortages or otherwise increased the death rate, (e.g. Boat Denial Policy, Rice Denial Policy, various purchasing policies) but were not causes of the famine. During the Famine Inquiry Commission's investigation, one official stated that 'We felt difficulty about one thing. That was lack of one co-ordinating authority at the time of famine'^[57]

In the middle of 1942, British authorities feared that the Japanese would follow up their conquest of Burma with an invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal. A scorched earth policy was hastily implemented in the Chittagong region, nearest the Burmese border, to prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion. In particular, the Army confiscated many boats (and motor vehicles, carts and even elephants), fearing that the Japanese would commandeer them to speed an advance into India. The inhabitants used the boats for fishing and to take goods to market, and the Army failed to distribute rations to replace the fish and the food lost through the stoppage of commerce.^[58] The dislocation in the area forced many of the male inhabitants into the Military Labour Corps, where at least they received rations, but the break-up of families left many children and dependents to beg or to starve.^[59]

In December 1942 there was a shortage in Calcutta itself. Therefore government focused on getting supplies to Calcutta.^[60] by trying to buy surplus stocks in the region. The quantities that District Officers were able to locate and purchase were considered too small to end the famine, so the Government introduced free trade in rice in Eastern India, hoping that traders would sell their stocks to Bengal, however this measure also failed to move large stocks to Bengal.^[61] In April and May there was a propaganda drive to convince the population that the high prices were not justified by the supply of food, the goal being that the propaganda would induce hoarders .^[62] to sell their stocks. When these propaganda drives failed, there was a drive to locate hoarded stocks. When these drives continually failed to locate large stocks it convinced the government that the scale of the loss in supply was larger than they initially believed.^[63]

The Indian Army and allied troops acted only after Wavell became Viceroy and got permission from the Bengal Government. They had vehicles, fuel, men and administrators, which the civil authority did not, so were much more effective than the civil authority in getting food to the starving outside Calcutta. The distribution was difficult and continued for five months after the November/December 1943 crop was harvested. They did not have much food to distribute though.

During the course of the famine, 264 thousand tons of rice, 258 thousand tons of wheat and wheat products and 55 thousand tons of millets were sent to Bengal for the purposes of famine relief from the rest of India and overseas.^[64] One ton feeds 5.75 people for a year at normal consumption, perhaps 8.2 at emergency survival rates.^[65] Various guesses were that the rice production in Bengal was 1.2m to 2.5 million tons below the ten year average.

Food prices[link]

Food prices were high in mid-1942, reflecting the belief that India was in deficit. They rose sharply when the cyclone destroyed a quarter of Bengal’s rice crop, and evidence of shortage elsewhere in India and elsewhere in the region emerged, and they continued to rise sharply as the famine bit. Repeated efforts to ‘break the Calcutta market’ and reduce prices by dumping grain on the market failed: the quantities of grain available for intervention were minuscule in relation to the shortage.^[66] There was the normal seasonal speculation which puts up prices, forcing the population to reduce consumption and so spread what is available throughout the year (as economists from Adam Smith have pointed out). The high prices determine who is to die, the poor, rather than increase the number of deaths.

The Bengal Famine may be placed in the context of previous famines in Mughal and British India. Deccan Famine of 1630-32 killed 2,000,000 (there was a corresponding famine in northwestern China, eventually causing the Ming dynasty to collapse in 1644). During the British rule in India there were approximately 25 major famines spread through states such as Tamil Nadu in South India, Bihar in the north, and Bengal in the east; altogether, between 30 and 40 million Indians were the victims of famines in the latter half of the 19th century (Bhatia 1985).

News Reports and Literature[link]

Hungry Bengal : a tour through Midnapur District in November, 1943 by Chittaprosad -- This book included many sketches of the Bengal Famine drawn from life, as well as documentation of the persons depicted. The book was immediately banned by the British and 5000 copies were seized and destroyed. One copy was hidden by Chittaprosad's family and is now in the possession of the Delhi Art Gallery. The Delhi Art Gallery showcased Chittaprosad’s Famine Series in an exhibition in September 2011. The Wall Street Journal covered the event here Wall Street Journal, India

Asani Sanket by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay -- The book follows a young doctor and his wife in rural Bengal during the 1943 famine. The book was adapted into a film of the same name by celebrated director Satyajit Ray. The film features in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".

Editorials in The Statesman: Two editorials were published on the famine, on October 14th and 16th 1943, by Ian Stephens, the editor of The Statesman. Ian Stephens broke ranks with the voluntary silence of other journalists, gave graphic accounts of the famine, and delivered a stinging critique of the inaction of the administration.

Monsoon Morning by Ian Stephens : Ian Stephens, the editor of The Statesman, also published a memoir about the Bengal Famine, Monsoon Morning, in 1963.

Revisionists[link]

Amartya Sen (1976) revived the claim that there was no shortage of food in Bengal and that the famine was caused by inflation, with those benefiting from inflation eating more and leaving less for the rest of the population, a claim which had been widely used at the time as a justification for not sending food to Bengal. Sen claimed that there was in fact a greater supply in 1943 than in 1941, when there was no famine. He rejected, without reasons, the calculations of The Famine Inquiry Commission, Afzal Husain,^[67] Mahalanobis,^[67] Pinnell (1945) and Braund (1945), each of whom had addressed all the evidence available, and concluded that there was significantly less food available in Bengal in 1943 than in previous years. Sen based his calculations purely on the crop forecast, assuming away the variations in carryover which were considered an important aspect of the rice market by contemporaries,^[68] and assuming that the only inter-provincial trade was by rail or by steamer, ignoring country boats which were the main transport other than to Calcutta. He also ignored all other sources of evidence.^[69] The crop forecasts which Sen uses as his sole source of evidence were generally considered to be meaningless,^[70] and the difference between one year’s forecasts and another was not just meaningless, but grossly misleading.^[71] Sen’s use of the data has been criticized in some detail by Goswami (1990 who says that even with the data Sen uses, calculations show that supply was substantially lower in 1943 than 1941. Bowbrick ^[72] points out that if the famine was indeed caused by inflation, those who benefited from it would have had to eat many times more food per head than any population ever has. He also identifies more than 30 discrepancies between the evidence Sen presents and the facts in the sources he cites for it.^[73] Tauger (2006) (2009) makes similar criticisms.

See also[link]

• Bengal famine of 1770
• Famine in India
• List of famines
• 2008 global rice shortage
• "BBC/OU: The things we forgot to remember - The Bengal famine". http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html. 

Citations[link]

References[link]

Primary sources[link]

• Aykroyd, W.R. The conquest of famine, London, Chatto and Windus, 1974.
• Bedi, Freda, Bengal Lamenting, Lion, Lahore, 1944?.
• Bengal Administration, Bengal Famine Code, (Revised edition of December 1895) Calcutta. 1897.
• Bengal Land Revenue Commission (1940) Report cited in Mahalanobis (1944)
• Bhatia, B.M. Famines in India, Asia Publishing House, Bombay 1967.
• Bowley, A.L. and D. H. Robertson (1934) A Scheme for an Economic Census of India, Delhi. Cited in Dewey, C., (1978) ‘Patwari and Chaukidar: subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics.’ Pp 280-314, Cited in Mahalanobis (1944): Dewey, C. and Hopkins, A.G. (1978), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India, Athlone Press. [8]

• Braund, H.B.L., Famine in Bengal, Typescript 1944. British Library Doc D792
• Chandra, Mahesh, (1943) Report to Calcutta Statesman, cited in Stephens (1966)
• Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University, quoted by Rajan, N.S.R. “‘Famine in Retrospect’”, Pamda Publications Bombay, India, 1944
• Desai, R.C., Standard of living in India and Pakistan, 1931-2 to 1940-41, Popular Book Depot, Bombay, 1953.
• Dutt, T.K., Hungry Bengal, Indian Printing Works, Lahore, 1944.
• Famine Inquiry Commission Final Report, Madras, Government of India. 1945b
• Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal, New Delhi, Government of India, 1945a, accessed at [9] April 20, 2011
• Famine Inquiry Commission. Famine inquiry commission report on Bengal (1945) online edition
• Famine Inquiry Commission. Evidence to the Commission
• Frere, Sir Bartle On the Impending Bengal Famine: How it will be met and how to prevent future famines in India, London, John Murray, 1874
• Ghosh, K.C. Famines in Bengal, 1170-1943 Calcutta: Indian Associated Publishing, 1944.
• Ghosh, T.K.O., The Bengal Tragedy, Hero Publications, Lahore. 1944.
• Government of India, Report on the marketing of rice in India and Burma, Government of India Press, Calcutta. 1942.
• Hunter, W.W. Famine Aspects of Bengal, Simla 1873.
• India, Famine Inquiry Commission. Famine Inquiry Commission final report (1945) online edition
• Knight, Henry, Food Administration in India, 1939-47 (Palo Alto, 1954).
• Imperial Council of Agricultural Research (1950) Sample Surveys for the Estimation of Yield of Foodcrops, 1944-49. Cited in Dewey, C., (1978) ‘Patwari and Chaukidar: subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics.’ Pp 280-314, In Dewey, C. and Hopkins, A.G. (1978), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India, Athlone Press. [10]
• Mahalanobis, P.C., ‘Sample Surveys of Crop Yields in India', Sankhya, 7 (1945-6), p269
• Mahalanobis, P.C. (1944), 'Organisation of Statistics in the Post-War Period', Proceedings of the National Institute of Sciences of India, x P.71 [11]
• Mahalanobis, P.C. “Recent experiments in statistical sampling in the Indian Statistical Institute.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Part iv, pp326-378. 1946
• Mahalanobis, P.C., Mukkerjee, R.K., and Ghosh, A. “A sample survey of after effects of Bengal famine of 1943.” Sankhya 7(4),337-400. 1946
• Mansergh, N. (ed) The transfer of power 1942-7 vol III, London, HMSO. 1971
• Mansergh, N. (ed) The transfer of power 1942-7 vol III, London, HMSO. 1971.
• Mansergh, N. (ed) The transfer of power 1942-7 vol IV, London, HMSO. 1973
• Mansergh, N. (ed) The transfer of power 1942-7 vol IV, London, HMSO. 1973.
• Masefield, G.B., Famine: its prevention and relief, Oxford, OUP. 1963.
• Moon, P. (ed.), Wavell: the Viceroy’s journal, OUP, Oxford 1973.
• Padmanabhan, S. Y. “The Great Bengal Famine”, Annual Review of Phytopathology 11(1973), pp. 11-26.
• Panse, V. G., (Delhi, 1954), Report on the Scheme for the Improvement of the Agricultural Statistics 1954 Delhi. http://203.200.22.249:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/753/1/Report_on_the_scheme_for_the_improvement_agricultural_statistics.pdf
• Palekar, S.A., Real wages in India 1939-1950 International Book House, Bombay. 1962.
• Pinnell, L.G., The Pinnell Archive on the Bengal Famine: Evidence to the Famine Inquiry Commission 1944. British Library doc EUR Doc 911.
• Rajan, N.S.R., Famine in retrospect, Pamda Publications, Bombay. 1944.
• Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, Parliamentary Papers (1928) VIII, P.605. Cited in Dewey, C., (1978) ‘Patwari and Chaukidar: subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics.’ Pp 280-314, In Dewey, C. and Hopkins, A.G. (1978), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India, Athlone Press. [12]

• Trevaskis, H. K. (1931) The Punjab of Today, 2 vols, Lahore, Dewey, C., (1978) ‘Patwari and Chaukidar: subordinate officials and the reliability of India’s agricultural statistics.’ Pp 280-314, cited in Dewey, C. and Hopkins, A.G. (1978), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India, Athlone Press. [13]
• Stevens, I. Monsoon morning, London, Ernest Benn. 1966.

There have been a number of significant famines in the history of Bengal (now independent Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal) including:

• Bengal famine of 1770
• Bengal famine of 1943
• Bangladesh famine of 1974
• Bengal Famine (film), a movie by Bimal Roy

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL (born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. He is the son of Macdonald Hastings, the noted British journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.

Life and career[link]

Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year. In 1967-68 he spent a year in the United States as a Fellow of the World Press Institute, following which he published his first book, an account of the US in its tumultuous election year America 1968: The Fire This Time. He became a foreign correspondent and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV's 24 hours current affairs programme and for the Evening Standard in London. Hastings was the first journalist to enter the liberated Port Stanley during the 1982 Falklands War. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he returned to the Evening Standard as editor in 1996 until his retirement in 2002.^[1] He received a knighthood in 2002. He was inducted into the elite political dining society known as The Other Club in 1993.^[2]

He has presented historical documentaries for the BBC and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize. He was named Journalist of the Year and Reporter of the Year in the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor Of The Year in 1988. In 2010 he received the Royal United Service Institute's Westminster medal for his 'lifelong contribution to military literature', and the same year the Edgar Wallace award of the London Press Club.^[1]

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England from 2002-2007.

He currently writes a column for the Daily Mail but often contributes articles to other publications such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The New York Review of Books.

In his 2007 book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (also known as Retribution in the United States), the chapter on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War was criticised by the Returned and Services League of Australia and one of the historians at the Australian War Memorial for, among other things, allegedly exaggerating discontent in the Australian Army during this period.^[3]

Hastings lives in West Berkshire with his second wife Penny (nee Levinson). He has two children by his first wife, Patricia Edmondson. In 2000 his 27 year-old elder son Charles took his own life in Shanghai, China. Hastings dedicated his book Nemesis: The Battle For Japan 1944-45 to his son's memory.

Politics[link]

Hastings has supported both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. He announced his support for the Conservative Party at the 2010 general election, having previously voted for the Labour Party at the 1997 and 2001 general elections. He claimed that "four terms are too many for any government" and described Gordon Brown as "wholly psychologically unfit to be prime minister".^[4]

Select bibliography[link]

Filmography[link]

• Wellington Bomber, 2010 BBC documentary

References[link]

External links[link]

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• www.maxhastings.com
• Column archive at The Daily Mail
• Column archive at Journalisted
• Max Hastings at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Max Hastings in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Article archive at The Guardian
  • Interview/bio piece about "Editor: A Memoir"
• Interview on Armageddon
• Interview on Nemesis / Retribution
• Interview on Inferno

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2007)

Prabodh Chandra Dey (born 1 May 1919),^[1] better known by his nickname Manna Dey (Bengali: মান্না দে), is a playback singer in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kanada, Assamese films. Along with Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh he was a part of Indian film playback music industry. He is rated best classical singer among all singers of Hindi film music though he sang all types of songs from Pop to folk. He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of his career. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1971, the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2007.^[2]

Biography[link]

Dey was born to Purna Chandra (father) and Mahamaya Dey (mother) on 1 May 1919. Besides his parents, his youngest paternal uncle Sangeetacharya (meaning "Venerable Teacher of Music" in Sanskrit), K. C. Dey highly inspired and influenced him. Dey received his early education in a small pre-primary school named Indu Babur Pathshala. Thereafter he attended Scottish Church Collegiate School and Scottish Church College,^[3] followed by Vidyasagar College where he received his graduate education.

During Dey’s years at Scottish Church College, he sang to entertain his classmates. He began taking singing lessons from his uncle, Krishna Chandra Dey and Ustad Dabir Khan. During this period, Manna Dey stood first for three consecutive years in three different categories of inter-collegiate singing competitions.

In 1942, Dey accompanied Krishna Chandra Dey on a visit to Bombay. There he started working as an assistant, first under Krishna Chandra Dey, and then under Sachin Dev Burman. Later he assisted other music composers and then started to work independently. While working independently as a music director for various Hindi movies, Manna Dey continued to take musical lessons in Hindustani classical music from Ustad Aman Ali Khan and Ustad Abdul Rahman Khan.

Dey started his career in playback singing with the movie, Tamanna, in 1943. The musical score was by Krishna Chandra Dey and Manna sang a duet with Suraiya. The song was an instant hit. He sang a solo composed by Sachin Dev Burman, Upar Gagan Vishal, in the 1950 movie, Mashal. Its lyrics were written by Kavi Pradeep. In 1952, Dey sang for a Bengali and a Marathi movie with the same name and storyline, Amar Bhupali. This established him as a leading playback singer.

Dey recorded popular duets With great Mohd. Rafi, Dey sang 58 duets like "Isq Isq" (Barsat ki raat) "Tu hai mera prem Devta (Kalpana), "Mama o mama" (Parvarish). With Lata Mangeshkar, Manna recorded 113 duets including Yeh raat bhigi bhigi,"Pyar hua iqrar hua", "Aja madhur sanam", "Ritu aye". With Asha Bhosle, Manna recorded more than 100 duets including "Re man sur me ga", "Tu chupi hai kahan", "Zindegi hai khel". Dey sang with singer/composer, Hemant Kumar (Hemanta Mukherjee), in Bengali movies, and also for some other Bengali composers like Nachiketa Ghosh and Sudhin Dasgupta. He sang a duet, "Ke Prothom Kachhe Esechi", with Lata Mangeshkar in the movie Sankhyabela. He also performed Rabindra Sangeet and has recorded over 3500 songs. In addition to film songs, Dey has released several albums of devotional songs of Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj.^[4]

He was presented the Filmfare Life Time Achievement Award in 2011.

Personal life[link]

On 18 December 1953, Manna Dey married Sulochana Kumaran from Kerala They have two daughters: Shuroma, born on 19 October 1956; and Sumita, born on 20 June 1958. Manna's source of inspiration Sulochana died in Bangalore on 18 January 2012 on her birthday. She was suffering from cancer for long time. Manna Dey currently lives in Bangalore in the township of Kalyannagar after spending more than fifty years in Mumbai. He also maintains a Calcutta address. He still travels widely in the world to present musical programs.

His Bengali-language autobiography, Jiboner Jalsaghorey, has been published by the renowned Ananda Publisher in the year 2005 which has been translated in English as Memories Come Alive, in Hindi as Yaden Jee Uthi and in Marathi as Jiboner Jalsaghorey.

Jibaner Jalsaghore, a documentary on Dey's life, was released in 2008. Manna Dey Sangeet Academy is developing a complete archive on Manna Dey. In association with Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, the Manna Dey Music Archive has been developed in the Sangeet Bhawan.

He has also lent his voice for Madhushala, composed by Late Harivansh Rai Bachchan

Accolades and awards[link]

Dey has been honored with the titles Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.

The following is the list of Manna Dey's other awards:

• 1969 National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the Hindi Film Mere Huzur
• 1971 National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the Bengali film Nishi Padma and Hindi film Mera Naam Joker
• 1971 Padma Shri Award by Government of India
• 1972 Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for Mera Naam Joker
• 1985 Lata Mangeshkar Award awarded by Government of Madhya Pradesh
• 1988 Michale Sahittyo Puraskar awarded by Renaissance Sanskritik Parishad, Dhaka
• 1990 Shyamal Mitra Award by Mithun Fans Association
• 1991 Sangeet Swarnachurr Award awarded by Shree Khetra Kala Prakashika, Puri
• 1993 P.C.Chandra Award by P.C.Chandra Group & others
• 1999 Kamala Devi Roy Award by Kamala Devi Group
• 2001 Anandalok Lifetime Award by the Anandabazar Group
• 2002 Special Jury Swaralaya Yesudas Award for outstanding performance in music
• 2003 Alauddin Khan Award by the Government of West Bengal
• 2004 National Award as Playback singer by Government of Kerala
• 2004 Hony D. Lit Award by the Rabindra Bharati University
• 2005 Lifetime Achievement award by the Government of Maharashtra
• 2005 Padma Bhushan Award by the Government of India
• 2007 First AKSHAYA Award by Government of Orissa
• 2007 Awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award by the Government of India
• 2008 Hony D. Lit Award by Jadavpur University
• 2011 Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2011 Banga-Vibhushan by Government of West Bengal

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Tamanna (1942) Ramrajya (1943) Jwar Bhata (1944) Kavita (1944) Mahakavi Kalidas (1944) Vikramaditya (1945) Prabhu Ka Ghar (1946) Valmiki (1946) Geetgobind (1947) Awaara (1951) Do Bigha Zamin (1953)ff Hamdard (1953) Parineeta' '(1953) Chitrangada (1953) Boot Polish (1954) Shree 420 (1955) seema (1955) chori chori (1956) Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957) Kabuliwala (1961) Dil Hi To Hai (1963 film)(1963) Chitralekha (1964) Waqt (1965) Love in Tokyo (1966) Teesri Kasam (1966) Pyar Kiye Ja (1966) Upkaar (1967) Raat Aur Din (1967) Aamne Samne (1967) Palki Nawab Sirajdoula) Boond Jo Ban Gaya Moti (1967) Padosan (1968) Mere Huzoor (1968) Neel Kamal (1968) Ram aur Rahim (1968) Ek Phool Do Mali (1969) Chanda Aur Bijli (1969) Jyoti (1969) Mera Naam Joker (1970) Anand (1970) Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong (1971) Jane Anjane (1971) Lal Patthar (1971) Buddha Mil Gaya (1971) Paraya Dhan (1971) Reshma Aur Shera (1971) Anubhav (1971) Chemmeen (Malayalam) Bawarchi (1972) Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) Shor (1972) Zindagi Zindagi (1972) Avishkaar (1973) Dil Ki Rahe (1973) Hindustan Ki Kasam (1973) Sampurna Ramayan (1973) Saudagar (1973) Zanjeer (1973) Bobby (1973) Resham ki Dori (1974) Us Paar (1974) Sholay (1975) Himalaya Se Ooncha (1975) Sanyasi (1975) Ponga Pandit (1975) Jai Santoshi Ma (1975) Das Mnambati (1976) Mehbooba (1976) Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) Anurodh (1977) Minoo (1977) Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki (1978) Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) Jurmana (1978) Abdullah (1980) Choro Ki Baraat Kranti Karz (1980) Laawaris (1981) Prahaar (1990) Guria (1997) Umar (2008)

External links[link]

• Manna Dey official website
• Manna Dey interview at 90 in Anandabazar Patrika
• Manna Dey's interview by Chandan Mitra
• Manna Dey's interview by Shekhar Gupta
• "Ai Mere Pyare Watan" Little India article
• "Being Manna Dey: The modest musical maestro" - IBNLive interview

Amrita Pritam
Born	Amrita Kaur (1919-08-31)August 31, 1919 Gujranwala, Punjab
Died	October 31, 2005(2005-10-31) (aged 86) Delhi, India
Occupation	Novelist, poet, essayist
Nationality	Indian
Period	1936-2004
Genres	poetry, prose, autobiography
Subjects	partition of India, women, dream
Literary movement	Romantic-Progressivism
Notable work(s)	Pinjar (novel) Aj Akhan Waris Shah Nu (poem) Suneray (poem)

Amrita Pritam (Punjabi: ਅਮ੍ਰਿਤਾ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਮ, امریتا پریتم) (August 31, 1919 – October 31, 2005) was a Punjabi writer and poet, considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, and the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both the sides of the India-Pakistan border, with a career spanning over six decades, she produced over 100 books, of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were translated into several Indian and foreign languages.^[1][2]

She is most remembered for her poignant poem, Aj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu (Today I invoke Waris Shah - "Ode to Waris Shah"), an elegy to the 18th-century Punjabi poet, an expression of her anguish over massacres during the partition of India. As a novelist her most noted work was Pinjar (The Skeleton) (1950), in which she created her memorable character, Puro, an epitome of violence against women, loss of humanity and ultimate surrender to existential fate; the novel was made into an award-winning film, Pinjar in 2003.^[3][4]

When the former British India was partitioned into the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, she migrated from Lahore, to India, though she remained equally popular in Pakistan throughout her life, as compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

Known as the most important voice for the women in Punjabi literature, in 1956, she became the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for her magnum opus, a long poem, Sunehe (Messages),^[5] later she received the Bhartiya Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards, in 1982 for Kagaz Te Canvas (The Paper and the Canvas). The Padma Shri came her way in 1969 and finally, Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2004, and in the same year she was honoured with India's highest literary award, given by the Sahitya Akademi (India's Academy of Letters), the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship given to the "immortals of literature" for lifetime achievement.^[6]

Biography[link]

Formative Years[link]

Amrita Pritam was born in 1919 in Gujranwala, Punjab, in present-day Pakistan,^[1] the only child of a school teacher, a poet and a scholar of Braj Bhasha, Kartar Singh Hitkari, who also edited a literary journal.^[7][8] Besides this, he was a pracharak – a preacher of the Sikh faith.^[9] Amrita's mother died when she was eleven. Soon after, she and her father moved to Lahore, where she lived till her migration to India in 1947. Confronting adult responsibilities, and besieged by loneliness following her mother's death, she began to write at an early age. Her first anthology of poems, Amrit Lehran (Immortal Waves) was published in 1936, at age sixteen, the year she married Pritam Singh, an editor to whom she was engaged in early childhood, and changed her name to Amrita Pritam.^[10] Half a dozen collections of poems were to follow in as many years between 1936 and 1943.

Though she began her journey as romantic poet, soon she shifted gears,^[5] and became part of the Progressive Writers' Movement and its effect was seen in her collection, Lok Peed (People's Anguish) (1944), which openly criticized the war-torn economy, after the Bengal famine of 1943. She was also involved in social work to certain extent and participated in such activities wholeheartedly, after Independence when social activist Guru Radha Kishan took the initiative to bring the first Janta Library in Delhi, which was inaugurated by Balraj Sahni and Aruna Asaf Ali, she contributed to the occasion accordingly. This study centre cum library is still running at Clock Tower, Delhi. She also worked at Lahore Radio Station for while, before the partition of India^[11]

Renowned theatre person and the director of the immortal partition movie 'Garam Hava', MS Sathyu paid a theatrical tribute to her through the rare theatrical performance'Ek Thee Amrita'. Culled from her many writings this rare biographical docu-drama is produced by K K Kohli of Impresario Asia. Written by Danish Iqbal, who had earlier penned 'Sahir', this Play has memorable performances by well known actors like Lovleen Thadani, Mangat Ram, Vijay Nagyal, Kedar Sharma, and others.

Partition[link]

Some one million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs died from communal violence that followed the partition of India in 1947, and left Amrita Pritam a Punjabi refugee at age 28, when she left Lahore and moved to New Delhi. Subsequently in 1948, while she was pregnant with her son, and travelling from Dehradun to Delhi, she expressed anguish on a piece of paper^[12] as the poem, "Ajj akhaan Waris Shah nu" (I ask Waris Shah Today); this poem was to later immortalize her and become the most poignant reminder of the horrors of Partition.^[13] The poem addressed to the Sufi poet Waris Shah, author of the tragic saga of Heer and Ranjah and with whom she shares her birth place,^[14] the Punjabi national epic:

<poem> ਅੱਜ ਆਖਾਂ ਵਾਰਸ ਸ਼ਾਹ ਨੂੰ ਕਿਤੋਂ ਕਬਰਾਂ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਬੋਲ। ਤੇ ਅੱਜ ਕਿਤਾਬੇ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ ਕੋਈ ਅਗਲਾ ਵਰਕਾ ਫੋਲ। ਇਕ ਰੋਈ ਸੀ ਧੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੀ ਤੂ ਲਿਖ ਲਿਖ ਮਾਰੇ ਵੈਣ ਅਜ ਲੱਖਾਂ ਧੀਆਂ ਰੌਂਦੀਆਂ ਤੈਨੂ ਵਾਰਸਸ਼ਾਹ ਨੂੰ ਕਹਿਣ: ਵੇ ਦਰਦਮੰਦਾਂ ਦਿਆ ਦਰਦੀਆ ਉੱਠ ਤੱਕ ਆਪਣਾ ਪੰਜਾਬ। ਅਜ ਬੇਲੇ ਲਾਸ਼ਾਂ ਵਿਛੀਆਂ ਤੇ ਲਹੂ ਦੀ ਭਰੀ ਚਨਾਬ ^[15] </poem>

Aj aakhan Waris Shah nun kiton kabraan vichchon bol, Te aj kitab-e-ishq daa koi agla varka phol..

Ik roi si dhi Punjab di tun likh likh maare vaen, Aj lakhaan dhian rondian tainun Waris Shah nun kehn..

Uth dardmandaan dia dardia uth takk apna Punjab, Aj bele lashaan bichhiaan te lahu di bhari Chenab..

Kise ne panjaan paaniyan wich ditti zehar ralla, Te unna paaniya dhar ton ditta pani laa..

Iss zarkhe zamin de loon loon phuteya zehar, Gith gith chadiyan laliyan foot foot chadeya zehar..

Aj aakhan Waris Shah nun, kiton kabraan vichchon bol, Te aj kitab-e-ishq daa koi agla varka phol..

Weho walissi waah fer wan wan waggi jaa, Unne har ik wans di wanjhali ditti naag bana..

Naagaan keelle log muuh,bas fer dang hi dang, Pallo palli punjab de neele pai gye aang..

Galeyon tutte geet fer, trakleyon tutti tand, Tarinjneyon tutiyan saheliyan, chrekhre kookar band..

Sane sej de bediyan,luddan ditiyan rod, Sane daliyan peengh ajj, peeplan ditti tod..

Jitthe vajdi si kook pyar di, oh vanjali gayi guwach, Ranjhe de sab veer ajj bhul gye usdi jaach..

Dharti te lau vaseya, kabran paiyyan chon, Preet diyan sehzadiyan ajj vich mazaaraan ron..

Ajj sabbe kaidon ban gaye, husan ishq de chor, Ajj kithon le aaiye labh ke waris shah ik hor..

Aj aakhan Waris Shah nun, kiton kabraan vichchon bol, Te aj kitab-e-ishq daa koi agla varka phol..

Today, I call Waris Shah, “Speak from your grave” And turn, today, the book of love’s next affectionate page Once, a daughter of Punjab cried and you wrote a wailing saga Today, a million daughters, cry to you, Waris Shah Rise! O’ narrator of the grieving; rise! look at your Punjab Today, fields are lined with corpses, and blood fills the Chenab^[16][17]

Amrita Pritam worked until 1961 in the Punjabi service of All India Radio, Delhi. After her divorce in 1960, her work became more clearly feminist. Many of her stories and poems drew on the unhappy experience of her marriage. A number of her works have been translated into English, French, Danish, Japanese and other languages from Punjabi and Urdu, including her autobiographical works Black Rose and Revenue Stamp (Raseedi Tikkat in Punjabi).

The first of Amrita Pritam's books to be filmed was Dharti Sagar te Sippiyan, as ‘Kadambar’ (1965), followed by ‘Unah Di Kahani’, as Daaku (Dacoit, 1976), directed by Basu Bhattacharya.^[18] Her novel Pinjar (The Skeleton, 1970) was made into an award winning Hindi movie by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, because of its humanism: "Amritaji has portrayed the suffering of people of both the countries." Pinjar was shot in a border region of Rajasthan and in Punjab.

She edited “Nagmani”, a monthly literary magazine in Punjabi for several years, which she ran together with Imroz, for 33 years; though after Partition she wrote prolifically in Hindi as well.^[19][20] Later in life, she turned to Osho and wrote introductions for several books of Osho, including Ek Onkar Satnam,^[21] and also started writing on spiritual themes and dreams, producing works like Kaal Chetna (Time Consciousness) and Agyat Ka Nimantran (Call of the Unknown).^[22] She had also published autobiographies, titled, Kala Gulab (Black Rose) (1968), Rasidi Ticket (The Revenue Stamp) (1976), and Aksharon kay Saayee (Shadows of Words).^[7][23]

English Translation of (Ajj Akhan Waris Shah nu)[link]

I say to Waris Shah today, speak from your grave And add a new page to your book of love

Once one daughter of Punjab wept, and you wrote your long saga; Today thousands weep, calling to you Waris Shah:

Arise, o friend of the afflicted; arise and see the state of Punjab, Corpses strewn on fields, and the Chenaab flowing with much blood.

Someone filled the five rivers with poison, And this same water now irrigates our soil.

Where was lost the flute, where the songs of love sounded? And all Ranjha's brothers forgotten to play the flute.

Blood has rained on the soil, graves are oozing with blood, The princesses of love cry their hearts out in the graveyards.

Today all the Quaido'ns have become the thieves of love and beauty, Where can we find another one like Waris Shah?

Waris Shah! I say to you, speak from your grave And add a new page to your book of love.

Acclaim[link]

Amrita is the first recipient of Punjab Rattan Award conferred upon her by Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh. She is first woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956 for Sunehey (Messages), Amrita Pritam received the Bhartiya Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary award, in 1982 for Kagaj te Canvas (Paper and Canvas). ^[24] She received the Padma Shri (1969) and Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, India's highest literary award, also in 2004. She received D.Litt. honorary degrees, from many universities including, Delhi University (1973), Jabalpur University (1973) and Vishwa Bharati (1987)^[25]

She also received International Vaptsarov Award from the Republic of Bulgaria (1979) and Degree of Officer dens, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officier) by the French Government (1987).^[19] She was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha 1986-92. Towards the end of her life, she was awarded by Pakistan's Punjabi Academy, to which she had remarked, Bade dino baad mere maike ko meri yaad aayi.. (My motherland has remembered me after a long time); and also Punjabi poets of Pakistan, sent her a chaddar, from the tombs of Waris Shah, and fellow Sufi mystic poets Bulle Shah and Sultan Bahu.^[1]

Personal life[link]

In 1935, Amrita married Pritam Singh, son of a leading hosiery merchant of Lahore's Anarkali bazaar. In 1960, Amrita Pritam left her husband. She is also said to have an unrequited affection for poet Sahir Ludhianvi.^[26] The story of this love is depicted in her autobiography, Rasidi Ticket. When another woman, singer Sudha Malhotra came into the life of Sahir, Amrita found solace in the companionship of the renowned artist and writer Imroz. She spent the last forty years of her life with Imroz, who also designed most of her book covers and made her the subject of his several paintings. Their life together is also the subject of a book, Amrita Imroz: A Love Story.^[27][28]

She died in her sleep on 31 October 2005 at the age of 86 in New Delhi, after a long illness. She is survived by her partner Imroz, daughter Kandlla, son Navraj, daughter-in-law Alka, and her grandchildren, Taurus, Noor, Aman, Shilpi, Hardeep and Gagandeep.

Works[link]

In her career spanning over six decades, she penned 28 novels, 18 anthologies of prose, five short stories and 16 miscellaneous prose volumes.

• Doctor Dev
• Kore Kagaz, Unchas Din
• Sagar aur Seepian
• Rang ka Patta
• Dilli ki Galiyan
• Terahwan Suraj
• Yaatri
• Jilavatan (1968)

Autobiography[link]

• Rasidi Ticket (1976)
• Shadows of Words (2004)

Short stories[link]

• Kahaniyan jo Kahaniyan Nahi
• Kahaniyon ke Angan mein
• Stench of Kerosene

Poetry anthologies[link]

• Amrit Lehran (Immortal Waves)(1936)
• Jiunda Jiwan (The Exuberant Life) (1939)
• Trel Dhote Phul (1942)
• O Gitan Valia (1942)
• Badlam De Laali (1943)
• Sanjh de laali (1943)
• Lok Peera (The People's Anguish) (1944)
• Pathar Geetey (The Pebbles) (1946)
• Punjabi Di Aawaaz (1952)
• Sunehray (Messages) (1955) - Sahitya Akademi Award
• Ashoka Cheti (1957)
• Kasturi (1957)
• Nagmani (1964)
• Ik Si Anita (1964)
• Chak Nambar Chatti (1964)
• Uninja Din (49 Days) (1979)
• Kagaz Te Kanvas (1981)- Bhartiya Jnanpith
• Chuni Huyee Kavitayen

Literary Journal[link]

• Nagmani, poetry monthly.

Legacy[link]

In 2007, an audio album titled, 'Amrita recited by Gulzar' was released by noted lyricist Gulzar, with poems of Amrita Pritam recited by him,^[29][30] a film on her life is also on the anvil.^[31]

Further reading[link]

• Amrita Work in Shahmukhi http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/amirta/
• Uma Trilok, Amrita Imroz: A Love Story, Penguin India (2006) ISBN 0-14-310044-0
• Indra Gupta, India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women ISBN 81-88086-19-3
• Indian Fiction in English Translation - Chapt 4: Comments on Amrita Pritam's Magnum Opus: The Skeleton (Jagdev Singh), by Shubha Tiwari. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2005. ISBN 81-269-0450-X. Page 28-35
• Studies in Punjabi Poetry. Chapt. 9- Amrita Pritam: The Poetry of Protest, by Darshan Singh Maini. Vikas Pub., 1979. ISBN 0-7069-0709-4. Page 109.
• 1st chapter of Revenue Stamp by Amrita Pritam
• "The Cellar" by Amrita Pritam
• “Sahiban in Exile” by Amrita Pritam
• "The Weed" by Amrita Pritam
• "Wild Flower" by Amrita Pritam
• Main Tenu Phir Milangi, (I will meet you yet again) Translation

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Amrita Pritam

• Amrita Pritam and her Works at South Asian Women's Network (Sawnet)
• Amrita Pritam 1919-2005-a tribute by Raza Rumi
• Poems by Amrita Pritam at Kavitayan (Archived 2009-10-25)

Video links

• Aj Waris Shah Nu, Amrita Pritam's most important poem, recited by Gulzar
• Amrita Pritam's poem Main Tainu Pir Milangi recited by Gulzar