Churchill's Secret War

by Madhusree Mukerjee

  Much against Chitto’s wishes, his mother had subsequently arranged his marriage. The angry young man had left home with the idea of becoming a wandering sadhu, or holy man. It was Dhara who had found him, sheltered him, and persuaded him to return to his bride. “I wronged her,” Samonto said in 2005, looking at the woman who had since been his uncomplaining partner. Throughout their long marriage, she worked from dawn to dusk, mopping the walls of the two-story mud house so that they would not crumble into dust, tending the cows and the vegetable gardens, and, later, helping her daughter-in-law in the kitchen.

  In middle age Chittobabu, as he came to be known to all, served as the prodhan (chief) of Kalikakundu. At the time he acquired government funding for an irrigation canal that now gave the village three crops of rice a year. More recently, he had organized villagers to rebuild a shrine for the stone image of Kali that had given the village its name. Even better, his elder sister had saved up all the money she had earned as a nurse and bought her brother a field by the family home. A local landlord gave him another as a gift. Since then, Chitto Samonto, his wife, and their children had been able to grow all the food that they needed and were even able to donate the occasional bowl of rice or an eggplant to their poorer neighbors.

  Samonto’s grandchildren did not work in the fields but had the lightest chores, such as sweeping, because they were expected to study. Samonto’s eldest son, Ashok, had planted the field in front of the house with protein-rich kolai peas, just for the children to eat. “They can pick and eat all they want,” he said proudly. When the peas are gone, it is the cows who chew the stringy plants that had once helped save his father.

  Acknowledgments

  Not everyone I wanted to thank for helping me with this book lived to see it finished. I discussed the project often with Laura van Dam, who published my first book, until one day I suddenly realized I was no longer hearing from her. I miss her. The incredibly courageous and sharp-witted Ashoka Gupta, who was already in her nineties when I first met her, became a source of information and inspiration; I miss her too. I mourn the passing of the feisty Kumudini Dakua, whose eyes would light up like those of a mischievous schoolgirl when she related her past exploits; and of Phulrenu Guha, another of the remarkable women I encountered in the course of my research. And I would have dearly loved to gift the book to Bimal K. Ghose, the grandfatherly neighbor I called Dadu, who sparked my curiosity about the famine several decades ago when he became the first person to tell me about it.

  Among the sources of inspiration and information who, thankfully, are still with us are Mahasweta Devi, who described the famine to me in awful detail, and who continues her lifelong battle against injustice. Radhakrishna Bari’s comprehensive history of Midnapore proved to be an invaluable resource. Dukkhaharan Chakrabarty helped me find research materials, while Ela Mitra, Ranjit Bhattacharjee, and others described their experiences of the 1940s. Nayan and Bishu Chatterjee made me welcome in London. Amal Das introduced me to the elderly people of his village in Burdwan, and Dilip Mondal drove me around on my field trips. Amit Bhattacharya introduced me to Moni Nag, who introduced me to the Durbar Mahila Samanyaya Samiti, the sex workers’ collective in Sonagachi, which in turn introduced me to Kohinoor Begum, who in her turn introduced me to famine victims who lived in the slum. I thank them all. I am deeply grateful to the women of Sonagachi, as well as to the villagers of Kalikakundu, Makarda, and elsewhere, for sharing their stories with me.

  On the academic front, I am indebted to Dietmar Rothermund, Kevin Smith, Dilip Menon, Alex Danchev, Tirthankar Roy, and Vinay Lal for taking the time to provide detailed comments on a voluminous early draft of the book. Amartya Sen was kind enough to critique the book proposal. I have also enjoyed very helpful interactions with Sugata Bose, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Indivar Kamtekar, Mike Davis, Paul Greenough, Dipankar Chakrabarti, Arup Maharatna, Barun De, Bikramjit De, William Rubinstein, Gautam Bhadra, Manu Bhagavan, Milan Hauner, Tim Dyson, Ramakrishna Mukherjea, Rila Mukherjea, Nazes Afroz, Erin Weir, Sumit Guha, Debraj Ray, Narayani Gupta, Douglas Kerr, Adam Jones, and Nikhil Sur; I thank them for giving me generously of their time and expertise. I am grateful to Sita Venkateswar for suggesting books that helped me learn the basics of world history; to Eric Werthman, for helping me search for a publisher; and to Daniel Gordon for trying to tell me—many years ago, when I was too young and too full of science to understand—that history matters.

  I offer heartfelt thanks to my friend, Angelika Fahimi, librarian at the Johann Christian Senckenberg-Frankfurt University Library, for not only finding books that I needed but borrowing them on my behalf. She made my research infinitely easier. Another friend and librarian, Rani Sinha, helped me locate documents. I thank the Warden and Fellows of Nuffield College for access to the Cherwell Papers, and librarians Elizabeth Martin and Clare Kavanaugh for their unstinting assistance. The efficient staff at the British National Archives at Kew made the task of finding and perusing documents thoroughly enjoyable. Katharine Thomson of the Churchill Archives Centre and Judy Nokes of the Office of Public Sector Information patiently answered my endless questions about British copyright law. Professor Paul Greenough of the University of Iowa kindly supplied me with a digitized copy of a microfilm made of Mahalanobis’ original typed notes. Greenough obtained the microfilm in 1971 through the kindness of Dr. M. Mukherjee, at that time the Director of the Research and Training Branch of the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. Pramod Mehra at the National Archives of India also helped me immensely. But I found the Nanavati Papers, invaluable records of wartime India, to be in sorry shape; I would love to see copies made and distributed to at least the major libraries in India, if nowhere else.

  I would like to thank my publisher, Lara Heimert, and my agent, Anna Ghosh, for their commitment to the project; and my gifted editor, David Groff, for slicing up a large and unwieldy manuscript and helping me put it back together into a book. Patricia Wynne rendered the maps with painstaking accuracy.

  Last but not least, I want to acknowledge the contributions of my family. My husband, Stefan, put food on the table while I indulged my private passion of researching and writing; and from time to time he was called upon to provide technical and emotional assistance. My mother-in-law, Wera, faithfully relayed to me the volumes that Angelika brought home, returned the same, and helped care for my son when my investigations required travel. My son, Robi, spotted an error in one of the maps; and it is because of him that I possess an inkling of how a mother might feel when she cannot feed her child. I am grateful for the moral support and feedback of my sister, Nandini, my brother, Dhrubo, and my niece Anandi. My mother, Sabita, shared with me details of the famine, which she had witnessed, painful though they were for her to recall. And my father, Biren, remained as ever an invaluable source of wisdom and succor.

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