A Little History : The Mahatma Meets the Volunteer - Part 1 - Famine in Bengal : Tom McDermott

It was late September 1942 when the young volunteer arrived in Bombay from London.  His first stop was Sevagram in Maharashtra.   Gandhi had worked since 1937 to develop Sevagram as a center for peace studies and the concept of Nai Talim (new education) which he hoped to promote as the model for a non-western form of education that was less elitist, more village-based, and  greater value to manual labor. 

Gandhi at Sevagram

The volunteer was part of a group of five experienced civil defense workers requested by the Government of India to help prepare for Japanese air attacks on Calcutta. Sevagram might at first seem an odd choice as the first destination to which air raid workers would come for orientation. The reason is simply that the leaders of the group saw a future for members of the group that would continue well after the war and independence, and saw Gandhi as a key figure in their preparation for service in India.

The five volunteers formed a detachment of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), a Quaker organization made up mostly of conscientious objectors who refused to take up combat roles in war. Members of the FAU had distinguished themselves during World War I for bravery on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East where they cared for both soldiers and civilians caught up in the war. When World War II began, the FAU reformed and soon new groups of FAU volunteers were soon back on the battlefields. Meanwhile, other FAU volunteers were at work dealing with new casualties of bombing during the Blitz in London and other cities.

In 1940 the FAU sent its first detachment to China where the war was underway between Japanese and nationalist Chinese forces. That group established aid stations and supported hospitals, bringing supplies in from India and then distributing them throughout western China. After the war several of the FAU China group went on to work for UNRRA and later for UNICEF.  They included Newton Bowles, Tony Meager and Jack Reynolds. The same group provided logistical support for Dr. Leo Eleosser and Perry Hanson’s work in Communist-held areas of northern China.

The leader of the FAU detachment in India was Horace Alexander. In 1929 he had spent a year in India where he met and became a close friend to Gandhi. In 1931 Gandhi was invited to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London where the first talks on the future status of India took place. Horace Alexander acted as Gandhi’s host and arranged many of his meetings with British authorities. Although Gandhi spoke perfect English, Alexander became known as ‘Gandhi’s Interpreter’ for the British. Later in India Alexander often served as the ‘ go-between’ connecting Gandhi and the Viceroy.

Shared commitment to non-violence and human development ensured a natural affinity between the Quakers and Gandhi.  On the other hand, in the war years and amid demands for India’s independence, Gandhi was 'persona non grata' for British authorities. In their view Sevagram was definitely not a proper stop-over on the way to Calcutta. The Viceroy, Victor Linlithgow, had asked for air-raid workers experienced during the London blitz to arrive as soon as possible. ‘Nai Talim’ was not on the Viceroy’s agenda, and Gandhi was viewed at best as a dangerous nationalist working for the overthrow of British rule. When he learned of the meetings in Sevagram, the Viceroy was greatly displeased and Alexander was subsequently cut off from all government contacts.

The group of volunteers, nonetheless, made their way to Calcutta and took up their duties. Having watched Japanese strategy in Burma and Malaya, the authorities expected air raids around Calcutta to be followed by landings in the deltas of southeastern Bengal (now Bangladesh) by the end of 1942.  In the end, however, the air raids did not pose any real threat.  There was only one attack - on December 20th, 1942. Damage was much less than expected, and much of the population never realized that the city had been hit.

A policy-made disaster - Soon the aid workers found themselves busy with a new emergency - starvation. Famine was nothing new in colonial India. Nothing in India’s history, however, equaled the impact of British war policies in Bengal in the 1940’s. The famine of 1942 / 43 was almost totally man-made..

British India was heavily dependent on Burma for supplies of rice - by some estimates over one-third of its rice supply came from Burma.

Japan began an invasion of Burma in December 1941 and in the same month launched its attack on the US at Pearl Harbor. In early March 1942 the British army was forced to evacuate from Rangoon and elsewhere in the country. Along with the remnants of the army, some 600,000 Indians living in Burma flooded back into eastern India, with most settling in and around Calcutta.

In addition to the influx of refugees from Burma, large numbers of British, Australian and US troops were arriving in Calcutta. The troops came to eastern India on one hand to hold the line against a likely Japanese invasion and on the other hand to provide logistical support to nationalist Chinese forces fighting the Japanese in west and central China.

In early 1942 the British authorities in Bengal implemented a set of policies known as ‘Denial and Evacuation’. In March the governor of Bengal, Sir John Herbert, instituted a ‘scorched earth’ policy of destroying all ‘surplus’ paddy and grains stored in areas of what is now southern Bangladesh where authorities expected a Japanese invasion to occur. Under the same orders some 45,000 country boats were destroyed, totally disrupting local fishing and movement of foodstuffs.

Followed by natural disaster - On October 16-17, 1942 a massive cyclone hit Bengal, followed by three tsunami-like storm surges. In the waves and floods which followed an estimated 14,500 people and some 190,000 cattle died, 527,000 homes were destroyed, and 3,000 square miles of crops were wiped out. A month or so later a blight of brown spot disease hit the winter rice crop, making much of what little was left after the cyclone unusable.

Later estimates suggest that  2 to 3 million of Bengal's 60 million population died through the famine and the impact of the cyclone in 1943.   

Despite the devastation the government in Calcutta and in Delhi took little official notice. Despite the fact that the Indian government had established solid rules and procedures for officials to take during famines as long back as the 1870s, no famine emergency was declared. No provisions were made for food allocations to the affected areas. The government wanted no popular unrest, no reporting of the disaster, and no foreign aid.

Midnapore District lies south of Calcutta and Mushiganj District lies just south of Dhaka. Both districts were traditionally one of the best areas of Bengal for rice production, but during the famine they became one of the worst-affected areas. Both had already long established a reputation as a centers of civil unrest. Many government officials refused to enter the districts, much less accept posting there. The previous three district officers in Mushiganj had all been assassinated not long after taking up their posts in the district.

The 1943 famine in Bengal

In 1943 the district officer in Mushiganj was Asok Mitra. Mitra later wrote of those days and the horrors faced by the inhabitants of the district as the great famine set in. According to Mitra, the FAU was the sole agency, government or non-government, to provide help.

The young volunteer sent by the FAU to establish an aid station and distribute supplies in Mushiganj was one of the five who had met Gandhi in Sevagram the previous year and one who kept close touch with Gandhi after the war, independence, and partition periods.   

The young volunteer's name was T. Glan Davies, known to all of us in UNICEF simply as “Glan". 

 Mitra recalls Glan Davies as ‘efficient and dedicated’. Glan worked there until September 1943 and later wrote a detailed report of the devastation. His report was later read out in the British Parliament during its official inquiry into the British role in the Bengal famine.

 
"We are a land of shortages" my Bengali host commented, "short of food, safe water, clothing, shelter, you name it - we haven't got it!"  Glan Davies.

After the FAU wrapped up its operations in 1944, Glan Davies joined the Government of Bengal, first as Assistant Relief Commissioner and then as Commissioner.  Sam Keeny met Glan and convinced him to join UNICEF.  In January 1948 Glan Davies became UNICEF’s first Representative to India. 

Many other UNICEF assignments followed for Glan.  In August 1972 - 24 years later, Glan returned to Dhaka as our first representative to Bangladesh. After serving in Bangladesh until 1975, he returned to New Delhi, this time as Regional Director for South Asia.

1946 Glan Davies during his time as the last British Relief Commissioner of Bengal
 

Next week - how Glan and his wife brought the Mahatma news of 'a miracle' on the Independence Days of Pakistan and India in 1947 ; also, the Mahatma jokes that Davies had stolen his lovely Bengali bride from India and must prove himself worthy.

* Author's note: Just in case of confusion, this article refers to the pre-Independence and pre-partition years in India. Therefore terms like, "the Government of India" and "the Government of Bengal" refer here to British colonial government units. British India had not yet been divided into today's India and Pakistan and Bengal had not yet been divided between India's West Bengal and East Pakistan (which in 1971 became Bangladesh). 

Read more articles on UNICEF's history

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Village near Bikrampur (Mushiganj) today