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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
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• Works by or about Max Hastings in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
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Akhtar Hameed Khan (Urdu: اختر حمید خان, pronounced [ˈəxt̪ər ɦəˈmiːd̪ ˈxaːn]; 15 July 1914 – 9 October 1999) was a Pakistani development activist and social scientist credited for pioneering microcredit and microfinance initiatives, farmers' cooperatives, and rural training programmes in the developing world. He promoted participatory rural development in Pakistan and other developing countries, and widely advocated community participation in development. His particular contribution was the establishment of a comprehensive project for rural development, the Comilla Model (1959). It earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines and an honorary Doctorate of Law from Michigan State University. Ralph Smuckler wrote in his book, "His Scandinavian colleagues and other advisors had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize"^[1]

In the 1980s he started a bottom up community development initiative of Orangi Pilot Project, based in the outskirts of Karachi, which became a model of participatory development initiatives. He also directed many programmes, from microcredit to self-finance and from housing provision to family planning, for rural communities and urban slums. It earned him international recognition and high honours in Pakistan. Khan was fluent in at least seven languages and dialects. Apart from many scholarly books and articles, he also published a collection of poems and travelogues in Urdu.

Early life[link]

Khan was born on 15 July 1914 in Agra. He was among the four sons and three daughters of Khansaahib Ameer Ahmed Khan and Mehmoodah Begum.^[2] His father, a police inspector, was inspired by the reformist thinking of Syed Ahmed Khan. In his early age, Khan's mother introduced him to the poetry of Maulana Hali and Muhammad Iqbal, the sermons of Abul Kalam Azad, and the Sufist philosophy of Rumi. This upbringing influenced his interest in historical as well as contemporary social, economic, and political affairs.^[3]

Khan attended Government High School at Jalam (Uttar Pradesh), and completed his education in 1930 at Agra College where he studied English literature and history. He read English literature, history, and philosophy for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Meerut College in 1932. At that point, his mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She died in the same year at the age of 36.^[4] Khan continued his studies and was awarded a Master of Arts in English Literature from Agra University in 1934. He worked as a lecturer at Meerut College before joining the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1936.^[5] As part of the ICS training, he was sent to read literature and history at Magdalene College, Cambridge, England. During the stay, he developed a close friendship with Choudhary Rahmat Ali.^[6]

Khan married Hameedah Begum (the eldest daughter of Allama Mashriqi) in 1940. Together, they had three daughters (Mariam, Amina, and Rasheeda) and a son (Akbar). After Hameedah Begum's death in 1966, he married Shafiq Khan and had one daughter, Ayesha.^[7] During his ICS career, Khan worked as collector of revenue, a position that brought him into regular contact with living conditions in rural areas of East Bengal.^[8] The Bengal famine of 1943 and subsequent inadequate handling of the situation by the colonial rulers led him to resign from the Indian Civil Service in 1945. He wrote, "I realised that if I did not escape while I was young and vigorous, I will forever remain in the trap, and terminate as a bureaucratic big wig."^[9] During this period, he was influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Mashriqi, and joined the Khaksar Movement. This attachment was brief. He quit the movement and turned to Sufism.^[10] According to Khan, "I had a profound personal concern; I wanted to live a life free from fear and anxiety, a calm and serene life, without turmoil and conflict. [...] when I followed the advice of old Sufis and sages, and tried to curb my greed, my pride and aggression, fears, anxieties and conflict diminished."^[11]

For the next two years, Khan worked in Mamoola village near Aligarh as a labourer and locksmith, an experience that provided him with firsthand knowledge of the problems and issues of rural communities. In 1947, he took up a teaching position at the Jamia Millia, Delhi, where he worked for three years. In 1950, Khan migrated to Pakistan to teach at Islamia College, Karachi. In the same year, he was invited by the Government of Pakistan to take charge as Principal of Comilla Victoria College in East Pakistan, a position he held until 1958. During this time (1950–58) he also served as President of the East Pakistan Non-Government Teachers' Association.^[12]

Rural development initiatives[link]

During his tenure as principal of Comilla Victoria College, Khan developed a special interest in grassroots actions. Between 1954 and 1955, he took a break to work as director of the Village Agricultural and Industrial Development (V-AID) Programme.^[13] However, he was not satisfied with the development approach adopted in the programme that was limited to the training of villagers.^[14] In 1958, he went to Michigan State University to acquire education and training in rural development.^[15] Returning in 1959, he established the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (PARD) at Comilla on 27 May 1959 and was appointed as its founding director. He also laid foundations for the Comilla Cooperative Pilot Project in 1959.^[16] In 1963, he received a Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Government of the Philippines for his services in rural development. Khan became Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of PARD in 1964, and in the same year, was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Law by Michigan State University.^[17] In 1969, he delivered a series of lectures at Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, based on his experience with rural cooperatives. During the visit, he established collaborative links with Arthur Lewis.^[18]

On his return to East Pakistan, Khan remained attached to the Comilla Project until 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Eventually, Khan moved to Pakistan. PARD was renamed as Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD).^[19]

Advisory roles[link]

Following his move to Pakistan, Khan was asked to implement the Comilla Model in rural settlements of North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Punjab, and Sindh. He declined the offer on the grounds that the proposals were predominantly motivated by political interests rather than the common well-being. However, he continued to advise the authorities on various aspects of rural development, such as participatory irrigation management.^[20] He worked as a research fellow at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad from 1971 to 1972, and as Director of Rural Economics Research Project at Karachi University from 1972 to 1973. Khan went to Michigan State University as a visiting professor in 1973 and remained there until 1979. During this time, he carried on advising the Rural Development Academy at Bogra in northern Bangladesh, and the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, Peshawar, on the Daudzai Integrated Rural Development Programme. He also travelled extensively during this period in the capacities of speaker, advisor, or consultant on rural development programmes across the world.^[21] In 1974, he was appointed as a World Bank consultant to survey rural development situations in Java, Indonesia. He also briefly worked as a visiting professor at Lund University, Harvard University, and Oxford University.^[22]

In 1980, Khan moved to Karachi and started working on the improvement of sanitary conditions in Karachi suburbs. He laid the foundations of the Orangi Pilot Project for the largest squatter community of Orangi in the city. He remained associated with this project until his death in 1999. Meanwhile, he maintained his support for rural communities around Karachi, and also helped to develop the Aga Khan Rural Support programme.^[20] OPP became a model for participatory bottom-up development initiatives.^[23]

Major development programmes[link]

Comilla Cooperative Pilot Project[link]

The Comilla Model (1959) was Khan's initiative in response to the failure of a Village Agricultural and Industrial Development (V-AID) programme that was launched in 1953 in East and West Pakistan with technical assistance from the US government. V-AID remained a government-level attempt to promote citizen participation in the sphere of rural development.^[24] Khan launched the project in 1959 on his return from Michigan, and developed a methodology of implementation in the areas of agricultural and rural development on the principle of grassroots-level participation.^[25] Initially, the aim was to provide a development model of programmes and institutions that could be replicated across the country. Advisory support in this respect was provided by experts from Harvard and Michigan State Universities, the Ford Foundation, and USAID.^[26] Practical help was also sought from Japan to improve the local farming techniques.^[27]

Comilla Model simultaneously addressed the problems that were caused by the inadequacy of both local infrastructure and institutions through a range of integrated programmes.^[28] The initiatives included the establishment of: a training and development centre; a road-drainage embankment works programme; a decentralised, small scale irrigation programme; and, a two-tiered cooperative system with primary cooperatives operating in the villages, and federations operating at sub-district level.^[29]

After Khan's departure from Comilla, the cooperative's model failed in independent Bangladesh^[30] because only a few occupational groups managed to achieve the desired success.^[31] By 1979, only 61 of the 400 cooperatives were functioning. The model actually fell prey to the ineffective internal and external controls, stagnation, and diversion of funds.^[32] This prompted the subsequent scholars and practitioners in microfinance, such as Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank and Fazle Hasan Abed of BRAC, to abandon the cooperative approach in favour of more centralised control and service delivery structures. The new strategy targeted the poorest villagers, while excluding the 'less poor'.^[33] However, Khan's leadership skills during the course of his association with the project remained a source of inspiration for these leaders, as well as other participatory development initiatives in the country.^[34][35]

Orangi Pilot Project[link]

The Orangi poverty alleviation project (known as the Orangi Pilot Project, or OPP) was initiated by Khan as an NGO in 1980.^[36] Orangi is located on the northwest periphery of Karachi. At that time, it was the largest of the city's approximately 650 low-income squatter settlements (known as katchi abadi). The locality was first developed in 1963 as a government township of 5 square kilometres (1,236 acres). The influx of migrants after the creation of Bangladesh swelled the settlement to about one million people crowded over an area of more than 32 square kilometres (7,907 acres).^[37] The working class multi-ethnic population was predominantly composed of day labourers, skilled workers, artisans, small shopkeepers, peddlers and low-income white collar workers.^[38] The project proved an impetus to the socio-economic development of the population of the area.^[39] As the project director, Khan proved to be a dynamic and innovative leader.^[40] The project initially focused on creating a system of underground sewers, using local materials and labour, and succeeded in laying hundreds of kilometres of drainage pipes along with auxiliary facilities.^[41] Within a decade of the initiative, local residents had established schools, health clinics, women’s work centres, cooperative stores and a credit organisation to finance enterprise projects.^[42] By 1993, OPP had managed to provide low-cost sewers to more than 72,000 houses.^[43] The project subsequently diversified into a number of programmes, including a people's financed and managed low-cost sanitation programme;^[41] a housing programme; a basic health and family planning programme; a programme of supervised credit for small family enterprise units; an education programme; and a rural development programme in the nearby villages.^[44]

Comparing the OPP with Comilla project, Akhtar Hameed Khan once commented:

The Orangi Pilot Project was very different from the Comilla Academy. OPP was a private body, dependent for its small fixed budget on another NGO. The vast resources and support of the government, Harvard advisors, MSU, and Ford Foundation was missing. OPP possessed no authority, no sanctions. It may observe and investigate but it could only advise, not enforce.^[45]

The successful OPP model became an inspiration for other municipalities around the country. In 1999, Khan helped to create Lodhran Pilot Project (LPP) to collaborate with Lodhran municipal committee. Learning from past experiences, the project extended its scope to the whole town instead of concentrating on low-income settlements only. The municipal partnership was itself a new initiative that ensured wider civic cooperation.^[46]

The success of OPP did come at a cost for Dr Khan as his liberal views and self help initiatives were questioned and criticised by certain interest groups. At two occasions, he was accused of blasphemy.^[47] However, all allegations against him were acquitted by the courts of law and cleared by independent religious scholars.^[48]

Death and legacy[link]

In 1999, Khan was visiting his family in the United States when he suffered from kidney failure. He died of myocardial infarction on 9 October in Indianapolis at the age of 85. His body was flown to Karachi on 15 October, where he was buried on the grounds of the OPP office compound.^[49]

Khan's ideology and leadership skills were a source of inspiration for his students and colleagues, and continue to serve as guiding principles even after his death.^[50] Edgar Owens, who became an admirer of Khan's ideology while working at USAID's Asia Bureau, co-authored a book with Robert Shaw as a result of observations and discussions with Khan at Comilla Academy.^[51] A later study of various rural development experiences from South Asia, edited by Uphoff and Cambell (1983)^[52] was jointly dedicated to Khan and Owens.^[53]

Soon after Khan's death, on 10 April 2000, the Government of Pakistan renamed the National Centre for Rural Development the Akhtar Hameed Khan National Centre for Rural Development and Municipal Administration.^[45] In the same year, the Akhtar Hameed Khan Resource Centre was established in Islamabad, under the auspices of the Institute of Rural Management, as a repository of published and digital resources on rural development.^[54] Later in 2005, the Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan, in collaboration with the National Rural Support Programme and other institutions, announced the Akhtar Hameed Khan Memorial Award.^[55] The annual cash award is given on Khan's birthday to a Pakistani author for a book on issues related to rural and urban development, peace, poverty alleviation, or gender discrimination. At the occasion of the award ceremony in 2006, a documentary film about the life and times of Akhtar Hameed Khan was premiered.^[56] The film includes archival footage and interviews with family members, colleagues, and contributors and beneficiaries of the Comilla and OPP projects.^[40]

Awards and honours[link]

Khan received the following civil awards:

• Jinnah Award (Posthumous, 2004) for services to people as founder of the Orangi Pilot Project.^[57]
• Nishan-e-Imtiaz (Posthumous, 2001) for services to the community.^[58]
• Ramon Magsaysay Award (31 August 1963, Manila, Philippines) for services to rural development.^[59]
• Sitara-e-Pakistan (1961) for pioneering work in rural development.^[60]

Publications[link]

Khan was fluent in Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi, Pali, Persian, and Urdu.^[60][61] He wrote several reports and monographs, mostly relating to rural development in general or his various successful and model initiatives in particular. He also published collections of poems and travelogues in Urdu.

In English[link]

• 1965, Rural Development in East Pakistan, Speeches By Akhtar Hameed Khan. Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University.
• 1974, Institutions for rural development in Indonesia, Pakistan Academy for Rural Development. Karachi.
• 1985, Rural development in Pakistan. Vanguard Books. Lahore.
• 1994, What I learnt in Comilla and Orangi. Paper presented at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) seminar. Islamabad.
• 1996, Orangi Pilot Project: Reminiscences and Reflections. The Oxford University Press: Karachi. (editions: 1996, 1999, 2005). ISBN 978-0-19-597986-2
• 1997 The sanitation gap: Development's deadly menace. The Progress of Nations. UNICEF.
• 1998, Community-Based Schools and the Orangi Project. In Hoodbhoy, P (ed.), Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan, Chapter 7, Karachi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-577825-0
• 2000, Twenty Weeks in America: A Diary, 3 September 1969–21 January 1970. Translated from Urdu by Aqila Ismail. City Press. ISBN 969-8380-32-9

In Urdu[link]

• 1972, Safar-e-Amrika ki Diary (A Diary of Travels in America). The City Press: Karachi.
• 1988, Chiragh aur Kanwal (Collection of poems in Urdu). Saad Publishers. Karachi.

See also[link]

Sustainable development portal

• Civil society
• Social entrepreneurship
• Social innovation

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Akhtar Hameed Khan Memorial Award, at Council of Social Sciences (COSS) website
• AHK Resource Centre and Digital Library
• AHK Photo Gallery at Institute of Rural Management (IRM) website
• AHK Video Gallery at IRM website
• Talk given by Akhtar Hameed Khan on YouTube

Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan at WWF World Earth Hour event
Born	(1978-01-01) 1 January 1978 (age 34) Palakkad, Kerala, India
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2003–present

Vidya Balan (pronounced [ʋɪd̪jaː baːlən]; born 1 January 1978)^[1] is an Indian actress, who appears mainly in Hindi films, in addition to Bengali and Malayalam films. After graduating with a degree in sociology, she started her career starring in music videos, television shows and commercials, before making her feature film debut with the independent Bengali drama Bhalo Theko (2003). Balan received positive notice for her first Hindi film, Parineeta (2005), and followed it with a leading role in the blockbuster Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), and other such hit films as Guru, Heyy Babyy and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (all 2007).^[2]

2009 marked the beginning of the most successful period in Balan's career as she portrayed five back-to-back roles to wide critical acclaim in Paa (2009), Ishqiya (2010), No One Killed Jessica (2011), The Dirty Picture (2011) and Kahaani (2012). These roles have further established her as one of the leading contemporary actresses of Hindi cinema and earned her several major awards.^[3][4] Balan has received one National Film Award for Best Actress, five Filmfare Awards, including two for Best Actress and one for Best Actress - Critics, as well as three consecutive Screen Awards for Best Actress.

Early life[link]

Vidya Balan was born in India in Ottapalam, Palakkad District, Kerala, to P. R. Balan (Vice President of ETC Channel) and Saraswathy Balan, a housewife mother in a Tamil speaking^[5] family.^[6] According to Balan, they speak at home "a mix of Tamil and Malayalam", but she is also well versed in Hindi, English and Bengali.^[7]

She did her schooling at St. Anthony Girls' High School,^[8][9] Chembur, Mumbai, and later attended St. Xavier's College where she majored in Sociology.^[10] She went on to study MA at the University of Mumbai, when she received her first film offer.

Career[link]

Career beginnings (2003–2004)[link]

Her acting career started when she signed up Chakram, a Malayalam film alongside Mohanlal, which was shelved. After that, she signed for the Tamil film, Run, but for reasons undisclosed, she was dropped after a first schedule and replaced by Meera Jasmine.^[11] She was also the first choice for the female lead in another Tamil film Manasellam, but was replaced by Trisha Krishnan during the production.^[12] When Chakram was restarted with Prithviraj in the lead, Meera Jasmine was again chosen ahead of Balan.

She then turned to television advertising. From 1998 onwards, she appeared in numerous television ads, many of which were directed by Pradeep Sarkar. She also took supporting roles in music videos, appearing with singers and bands such as Euphoria, Shubha Mudgal, and Pankaj Udhas. Balan also portrayed the role of Radhika Mathur in a few episodes of the later seasons of the comedy television serial Hum Paanch.

In 2003, she appeared in the Bengali film, Bhalo Theko directed by Goutam Halder,^[13] for which she won the Anandalok Puraskar Best Actress award in Kolkata.

Breakthrough (2005–2008)[link]

Balan made her Hindi film debut with Pradeep Sarkar's musical drama Parineeta. Before being cast for the film, Balan had to undergo extensive auditions for a period of 6 months.^[14] The film, an adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name, narrated the love story of an idealist Lalita (Balan) and an egoist Shekhar (Saif Ali Khan), the son of a capitalist businessman.^[15] Upon release, her performance in the film was acclaimed by critics,^[16] with Derek Elley from Variety writing, " An acting revelation is Tamil newcomer Balan, whose devoted but dignified Lalita is the picture's heart and soul."^[17] She eventually won a Best Debut (Female) award and received a nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards ceremony.

After the success of her first two films, the producer who dropped her from Manasellam was keen to sign her opposite Kamal Hassan for Dasavathaaram but she rejected the offer and Asin Thottumkal was signed instead. In 2006, she appeared opposite Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani's musical comedy film Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Balan portrayed the role of Jhanvi, a radio-jockey and the love interest of the protagonist Munna Bhai. In order to prepare for her role, she met with a couple of radio jockeys and watched them at work.^[18] Once again her performance was well received by critics^[19] and the film became the second highest grossing film of the year with a net total of 118.57 crore (US$23.65 million).^[2]

In 2007, she featured in a supporting role in Mani Ratnam's semi-biographic drama Guru as a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis. The film, which starred Mithun Chakraborty, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and R. Madhavan in leading roles, performed well at the box office.^[20] Despite generally positive reviews for her performance, critics such as Khalid Mohammad and Raja Sen noted that "her talent was wasted" in a "minuscule role".^[21][22] Her next release was Nikhil Advani's multi-starrer romance Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute To Love opposite John Abraham. The film, which narrated six individual love stories, saw Balan play the role of a television reporter, Tehzeeb Hussain, suffering from a memory loss condition. The film, which was a critical and commercial failure,^[20] however generated positive reviews for Balan with Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com writing, "Vidya's transformation from a self-assured working woman to a helpless, vulnerable person is superb."^[23] She subsequently featured in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's suspense thriller Eklavya: The Royal Guard alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Boman Irani, Sharmila Tagore, Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt. The film, which flopped commercially, met with positive critical reviews and was selected as India's official entry to the Oscars for the 80th Academy Awards.^[24]

Balan followed through with a leading role in Sajid Khan's comedy Heyy Babyy as Isha Sahni, a deceived, single mother. The film which also featured Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan emerged as a box-office success with a worldwide gross of 83.68 crore (US$16.69 million),^[20] but her performance met with mixed reviews. Criticism was directed towards her wardrobe and make-up, rather than her performance itself with Rajeev Masand writing, "Vidya Balan sticks out like a sore thumb".^[25] Her final release of the year was Priyadarshan's psychological thriller Bhool Bhulaiyaa alongside Shiney Ahuja, Akshay Kumar and Ameesha Patel. Her performance in the film as a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder was praised with Taran Adarsh commenting, "Vidya is splendid, especially in the second hour".^[26] The film eventually earned 84 crore (US$16.76 million) worldwide^[20] and among several nominations, fetched Balan her second Filmfare nomination in the Best Actress category.

In 2008, she featured in a small role in Rajkumar Santoshi's male-dominated social film Halla Bol alongside Ajay Devgan and Pankaj Kapur. The film was a reference to "Jan Natya Manch", whose leader, the theater activist, Safdar Hashmi was killed by political rivals while performing a street play by the same name in 1989.^[27] Upon release, the film as well as her performance received a mixed response.^[28] Her next release was Aziz Mirza's romantic comedy Kismat Konnection opposite Shahid Kapoor. Balan received mixed comments from critics for her performance of Priya, however a review carried by The Economic Times mentioned, "As against the notion, Vidya Balan carries a graceful charm and is natural as ever."^[29] The film eventually underperformed at the box-office.^[30]

Success and critical acclaim (2009–present)[link]

In 2009, Balan played the role of Vidya, a young independent gynecologist who is also a single-mother struggling with her 12-year-old son's progeria syndrome, in Paa. Amitabh Bachchan played the role of Auro, Balan's son while Abhishek Bachchan played the titular character. The film was received well by critics and so was Balan's performance. Sukanya Verma from Rediff wrote, "Vidya Balan slips into the skin of a doting mom with such ease without the mollycoddling tone Bollywood's young mothers often resort to. Balan is poignant yet restrained and projects an impressive figure of grace and integrity, reminiscent of Dimple Kapadia in the 1980s.";^[31] Nikhat Kazmi from The Times of India noted, "Balan lends a rare dignity to the image of the Bollywood mom. With her quiet grace and controlled emotions, she is Mother Courage incarnate."^[32] Her portrayal ultimately won her a Filmfare Award for Best Actress and a Star Screen Award for Best Actress, among other awards. The film became a major turning point in her career and brought a new level of seriousness to her work.^[33]

In 2010, Balan acted in Vishal Bhardwaj's drama Ishqiya, directed by debutante Abhishek Chaubey and co-starring Naseeruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi and Salman Shahid. Balan's role was that of Krishna Verma, a sexually manipulative abandoned wife. Her character was described as a femme fatale, and her performance was applauded by critics, with NDTV's Anupama Chopra writing, "Balan’s smoldering looks scorch the screen even as her eyes hint at tragedy. She proves that she is miles ahead of the cookie cutter Barbie dolls that clutter Bollywood and that sensuality has very little to do with showing skin."^[34] A review carried by The Telegraph mentioned, " Vidya makes Krishna such a fascinating character by never letting you know what’s going on in her head. She sucks one man’s thumb, she dresses the other man’s wound. She puts her head on one man’s shoulder, she draws the other man to her bed. In your bid to find out who she really wants, you will fall in love with Krishna." ^[35] Her work in the film brought her several more awards the following year including a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress and a second consecutive Star Screen Award for Best Actress.

Balan's first release of 2011 was Raj Kumar Gupta's semi-biographic thriller No One Killed Jessica alongside Rani Mukerji, The film, based on the Jessica Lal murder case saw Balan play the first real-life character of her career, that of Sabrina Lal, Jessica's reticent sister who struggled for years to get justice. While preparing for her role, Balan avoided meeting Lal on the insistent of Gupta. She said, "Sabrina is an icon today. He (Gupta) said that the Sabrina we see today is different from the Sabrina a decade ago, when she had just lost her sister. This story begins at the time when Jessica is murdered."^[36] No One Killed Jessica as well as Balan's work earned positive reviews, with Anupama Chopra commenting, "Unlike her glamorous, party-girl sister [Jessica], Sabrina is painfully plain and sober. Wearing drab clothes and spectacles, Vidya is a portrait of anguish and strength."^[37] The film had a worldwide gross of 49 crore (US$9.78 million) and was noted for being a commercial success, despite the absence of a male lead.^[38] Balan eventually earned another Filmfare nomination in the Best Actress category.^[39] In March 2011 Balan was honoured with a retrospective of her work by Australia's Indian film festival, Bollywood & Beyond,^[40] during which she also introduced the opening night Australian premiere of No One Killed Jessica with director Raj Kumar Gupta.

Balan with co-stars Tusshar Kapoor (left) and Emraan Hashmi at the audio release of The Dirty Picture. Her performance in the film met with unanimous acclaim and among other wins, fetched her a National Award and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

December 2011 saw the release of Ekta Kapoor's The Dirty Picture, a biopic based on the life and death of the controversial Indian actress Silk Smitha.^[41] Balan was cast as Silk, who was—in Balan's words—"known for her brazenness and in-your-face sexuality."^[42] She described the role as the "boldest" she had ever played, one that "required a lot of mental preparation," and in order to look the part, she gained 12 kg.^[43] The film opened to major critical acclaim,^[44] and Balan received unanimous praise for her portrayal, which several reviewers regarded as her best performance to date. Khalid Mohamed observed, "She’s extraordinary: gutsy, consistently in character and unafraid of exposing her darker side. Here’s the kind of complex performance which you haven’t evidenced in years and years. This award-winning act bookended by her contrasting portrayal in No One Killed Jessica, reaffirms her as the finest artiste on the scene today."^[45] Her director Milan Luthria described her as the contemporary claimant of the sex-symbol title because of her unique sex appeal, and compared her "voluptuousness" to the likes of yesteryear actresses such as Sridevi and Vyjayanthimala.^[46] The film was eventually declared a blockbuster^[47][48] with a total gross of 117 crore (US$23.34 million), emerging as the biggest opening ever for a women-oriented film in the history of Indian Cinema.^[49] Balan won her first National Film Award for Best Actress,^[50] a second Filmfare Award for Best Actress and a third consecutive Screen Award for Best Actress that year along with several other awards in the same category for her performance in the film.

In March 2012, Balan featured as Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman in search of her missing husband in Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani. The thriller, set in the city of Kolkata during the Durga Puja festivities earned Balan further accolades from film critics. Taran Adarsh mentioned, "Vidya, very nonchalantly, re-evaluates screen acting in Kahaani. She arrives with yet another enlivening, commanding character in this film and her portrayal of an expecting, frantic lady on a mission to trace her husband's inexplicable vanishing in an unfamiliar land is sure to win laurels by assessors and cinegoers uniformly. This is indeed Vidya's most eye-catching act. Her body language, her confidence, her vulnerability, her fury, her grief, all fall upon wonderfully."^[51] Rediff.com commented, "Vidya Balan has the gravitas to excel in a role that requires her to be sensible, adamant, sharp, vulnerable and pregnant. Like she's done with every subsequent release, Balan replaces the memory of her last performance (The Dirty Picture) with a sparkling new one. It's not a showy, act-out-loud delivery and that's what makes it so seamless."^[52] Kahaani emerged as a major commercial success both at the domestic and international box office, with a lifetime gross of 104 crore (US$20.75 million).^[53]

As of March 2012, Balan is set to star in UTV Motion Pictures' Ghanchakkar, to be directed by Raj Kumar Gupta opposite Emraan Hashmi.^[54]

Personal life[link]

During an interview in May 2012, Balan announced that she was dating Siddharth Roy Kapur, the CEO of UTV Motion Pictures.^[55]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

Hum Paanch....Radhika

See also[link]

• List of Indian film actresses
• List of Tamil actors

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Vidya Balan

• Vidya Balan at the Internet Movie Database