Three Million

BBC Radio 4 FM

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Three Million_Podcast

Documentaries

Podcasts

Factual

Factual: History

three-million-b_0224_chris-walsh-heron.jpg

The Bengal Famine of 1943 in British India: the forgotten story of World War II.

The forgotten story of World War II: the Bengal famine in British India, where at least three million people died, told for the first time by the eyewitnesses to it.

"The best history podcast I've heard in years." - The Sunday Times
 
"Three million is great radio... and needs to be heard." - The Observer.
 
During the Second World War, at least three million Indian people, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal Famine. It was one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side. But there is no memorial to them anywhere in the world - not even a plaque. Can three million people disappear from public memory?
 
From the award-winning creator and presenter of Partition Voices and Three Pounds in My Pocket, this is the story of the 1943 Bengal Famine in British India - the forgotten story of World War Two. For the first time it is told by those who were there - farmers and fishermen, artists and writers, colonial British and everyday citizens. Nearly all of the testimony in the series has never been broadcast before.
 
Eighty years on, those who lived through it are a vanishing generation. Time is running out to record their memories.

Three Million: 2. The Cigarette Tin

2. The Cigarette Tin

BBC Radio 4 - Three Million, 2. The Cigarette Tin

The escalating food crisis forces people to make life and death decisions.

The escalating food crisis forces people to make dramatic life and death decisions.

A boy decides how much rice he can give from a cigarette tin to hungry people. A Christian missionary sets up a makeshift relief hospital. A small child watches through the gates of his house in Calcutta as emaciated women clutching children ask for food. 

As the food crisis deepens, shocking testimonies from the countryside show the extent of starvation. Many thousands of hungry people begin moving from the rural areas towards the cities.

Indians - including children - are forced into life-or-death decisions

Presenter Kavita Puri
Series Producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta.

Interviews with Damodar Ramchandra Gole and Alan McLeod courtesy of the University of Cambridge

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Three Million

2. The Cigarette Tin

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4