The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine during World War II in the Bengal Province and Orissa Province of British India. An estimated 800,000–3.8 million people died, in the Bengal region (present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal), from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions, poor British wartime policies, and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. Eventually, families disintegrated; men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to join the British Indian Army, and women and children became homeless migrants, often travelling to Calcutta or other large cities in search of organised relief.
Bengal's economy had been predominantly agrarian at that time, with between half and three-quarters of the rural poor subsisting in a "semi-starved condition". Stagnant agricultural productivity and a stable land base were unable to cope with a rapidly increasing population, resulting in both long-term decline in per capita availability of rice and growing numbers of the land-poor and landless labourers. A high proportion laboured beneath a chronic and spiralling cycle of debt that ended in debt bondage and the loss of their landholdings due to land grabbing.
The financing of military escalation led to wartime inflation. Many workers received monetary wages rather than payment in kind with a
Why this event still matters
Historical incidents shape the rules that protect people today — building codes, evacuation policy, warning systems and inspection regimes almost always trace back to a specific disaster. Studying Bengal famine of 1943 alongside current events is how preparedness improves.
See what is happening right now on the live world incident map, browse every famines and food crises we track on the Famine / Food Crisis tracker, or follow live incidents in Bangladesh.