Three Million

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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.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Three Million: 6. Silk Scarves

6. Silk Scarves

BBC Radio 4 - Three Million, 6. Silk Scarves

How the legacy of the Bengal famine of 1943 lives on in Britain today.

80 years ago at least 3 million Indians, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal famine. But today different generations in Britain are coming to terms with this difficult past.

Kavita meets the granddaughter of a senior colonial figure, who is only just learning about her grandfather's role in the famine. Initially she feels shame, but discoveries in her family archive change her perspective. What will she do with this new understanding of her family's history? A 97 year-old British man makes a surprising revelation about his role in the Bengal famine. And three generations on, British Bengalis mark the famine in Britain, in an unexpected way.

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Three Million

6. Silk Scarves

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