Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/Archive 12

Archive 5

←

Archive 10

Archive 11

Archive 12

Bad page move

Onetwothreeip - This was a bad page move. The far more commonname (and it isn't even close) is 'Bengal Famine of 1943'. You should have opened a discussion before unilaterally moving the page to a name that is less than 1/10 as common. See [1]. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:48, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Mr rnddude, thanks for your interest. I would note that "1943 Bengal famine" has more Google search results than "Bengal famine of 1943", but the main reason for this move was for consistency with other articles of events (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)), and for concision. I would not have implemented the title change if I had anticipated any opposition. More importantly, we should consider renaming the article to expand the date, as the article describes that the famine may be considered to have begun in 1942 and to have ended in 1944. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:15, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I would note that "1943 Bengal famine" has more Google search results than "Bengal famine of 1943". Does it? Google search lists the former with 17,100 hits and the latter with 79,400 hits. That's with using quote marks to limit the search to a precise string.

Consistency across article titles may be nice, but it is policy to use the WP:COMMONNAME. Indeed, the naming conventions guideline states that [i]f there is an established, common name for an event ... use that name. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:28, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Examining how scholars have titled their works about the event:

• Bengal Famine of 1943 - P. C. Mahalanobis, R. Mukherjea, & A. Ghosh (1946)
• Famine in Bengal: 1943 - Richard Schneer (1947)
• Bengal Famine (1943) - Tarakchandra Das (1949)
• Bengal Famine of 1943 - Omkar Goswami (1990)
• Bengal Famine of 1943-44 - Arup Maharatna (1993)
• Bengal Famine (1942-1944) - Auriol Weigold (1999)
• Bengal Famine of 1943 - Arima Mishra (2000)
• 1943 Bengal Famine - Mark B. Tauger (2003)
• Bengal Famine, 1943 - Auriol Law-Smith (2007)
• Bengal Famine of 1943–44 - Cormac Ó Gráda (2010)
• Bengal Famine of 1943 - Madhuseree Mukerjee (2014)

There have been cases where the fact that the event was not restricted to 1943 has been reflected in the title, but it is two to three times more likely to be known simply by the key year 1943. One author chose to start with the year, but everyone else put the year(s) last, with the most common formulation being Bengal Famine of 1943. --Worldbruce (talk) 04:09, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

"Bengal famine of 1943" and "1943 Bengal famine" can both be considered close enough to being the most common name. I don't see any significant difference between them in terms of how common they are to describe the event, as the titles of scholarly works are used more to determine the common words describing the event, rather than the order of those words and any grammar used. Concision and consistency are also policies when titling (WP:CONCISE and WP:CONSISTENT), and the convention for events is to use the year(s) first (WP:NCEVENTS). Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Next time please propose an RM here (with discussion) and advertise on the talk pages of WikiProjects India and Pakistan and on the user talk page of user:Lingzhi, the chief author of this article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:06, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

PS Please also do not make similar undiscussed page moves on Great Bengal famine of 1770, Agra famine of 1837–38, Upper Doab famine of 1860–61, Orissa famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of 1869, Bihar famine of 1873–74, Great Famine of 1876–78, Indian famine of 1896–97, Indian famine of 1899–1900. Each follows the well-settled order employed in noun phrases in the English language: the location is a pre-modifier and the year is in the complement. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:23, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

There's no justification in language for the current title, at least over the proposed title. The vast majority of event articles are Year, Event or Year, Place, Event - with the year as a modifier, which is more natural for titles, but not exclusive. Place, Event, Year is more natural in prose. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:53, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

That's neither here nor there. Avoid making undiscussed moves and, if a move is reverted, use WP:RM to propose a move. RegentsPark (comment) 15:20, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

PS And not just the list of South Asian famines above, but in the list of famines, the overwhelming, nay invariant, inviolate, pattern is: Great Famine of 1315–1317, Chinese famine of 1333–1337, Guntur famine of 1832, Russian famine of 1891–1892, Persian famine of 1917–1919, Chinese famine of 1928–1930, Soviet famine of 1930–1933, Chinese famine of 1942–1943, Iranian famine of 1942–1943, Dutch famine of 1944–1945, Vietnamese famine of 1945 , Soviet famine of 1946–1947, Nyasaland famine of 1949, Bangladesh famine of 1974 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:52, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

• Onetwothreeip, if you really hadn't "anticipated any opposition" to this move, I suggest you avoid page moves until you have developed your anticipatory skills a good deal more, or just always float or propose the idea on the talk page, like you are supposed to do anyway - see WP:RM. Johnbod (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Mentioning the Epigenetic Impact of the Famine

Surely we must mention that long-lasting epigenetic impacts of this Churchill-caused famine that has lead to South Asians having a greater disposition to: Type 2 diabetes; higher retentions of fat levels; and reduced ability for muscle-building (due to its relatively high metabolic cost). Balakushi (talk) 14:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Bowbrick

To the best of my knowledge, Peter Bowbrick has neither held an academic appointment of any significance nor been particularly preeminent in the field of famine studies. Almost all of his contributions are singularly focussed at discrediting Sen though self-admittedly winning negligibly-few converts in four decades. His website — at some point of time — had a rant about why the Nobel Prize, conferred upon Sen, ought to have been withdrawn which is not a great marker of sanity I dare say. Interestingly not just Sen but also other scholars have accused him of wilful dishonesty.

So, in light of that, I am particularly interested in our mention of his curious defense of Churchill's refusal to ship food predicated upon the "half-hearted nature" of Viceroy Linlithgow's demands! As Mukherjee (2014; p. 185-188) shows — I am intentionally choosing to not rely upon the rather-shrill Mukerjee (2010); see below —, Churchill remained similarly unbothered by Viceroy Wavell's frantic requests. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Bizarre

There's some bizarre stuff on this page. Like Roy's — he might be a preeminent economic historian but doesn't specialize on famines — comments on Churchill's views about Indians not affecting the War Cabinet policy, sourced from one of his shabbier books.

And I say that as no fan of Mukerjee who — as Sen and a NLR review notes —, in her intense desire to peg the nail on Churchill not only excused a multitude of callous behavior from the administration but also chose to paint the mostly complicit upper-class-Indian-nationalists in a saintly light.

That is, what's the point of using such poor critiques when far better ones exist? TrangaBellam (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

White Wash of colonial inflation policy

Frankly the article is beyond disgraceful. It doesn't even mention anywhere of what Churchill really did. It's bad enough he called Bengal people as beastly people when they were starving enmasse. But the well documented worst policies he commited, are not even shown anywhere in the entire page despite it's one of the worst colonial crimes in 20th century. The British inflation policy that aimed to "reduce the consumption of the poor" to make resources available for British and American troop. That didn't simply benefit the troops. It has major costs to the poor people during an already terrible famine and significantly exasperated it. That should be mentioned yet I can't find it anywhere in the article. The article is not written in a honest way and is frankly an alarming whitewash. It focuses too much in explaining what a good man Churchill was to give more food to people who deserves it. It doesn't mention that such actions had consequences where it took away from the poor and caused more poor people dying. That part is missing. One of the worst atrocities in history is being written off as something that the British colonial gov had no responsibility for and did everything right, despite that's wrong and apologism for Churchill's deeply racist governance. [2] [3] 49.180.179.36 (talk) 19:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)