Answer: Bengal famine of 1943, famine that affected Bengal in British India in 1943. It resulted in the deaths of some three million people due to malnutrition or disease.
While many famines are the result of inadequate food supply, the Bengal famine did not coincide with any significant shortfall in food production. According to the Indian economist Amartya Sen, who himself witnessed the famine as a nine-year-old boy, the famine was the result of an entitlement failure. In other words, the distribution of the food supply throughout Bengali society was hindered primarily by economic factors that affected the ability of certain groups of people to purchase food.
Events in 1942 had a relatively minor impact on the supply of food. After Burma (Myanmar) and Singapore fell to Japan in 1942 in the midst of World War II, rice exports from those countries were halted. A cyclone in October 1942 also damaged the autumn rice crop and put pressure on the following year’s crop because, to survive, many subsistence farmers had to consume grain meant for planting. Still, the 1942 halt in rice imports to India did not cause the famine, and the 1943 crop yield was actually sufficient to feed the people of Bengal.