HISTORY
The Bengal Famine
Monday 7 January 2008 20:00-20:30 (Radio 4 FM)
Michael Portillo presents a series revisiting the great moments of history to discover that they often conceal other events of equal but forgotten importance.
One of the worst catastrophes ever to occur under British rule, the Bengal famine of 1943 cost, at the most conservative of British estimates, one and a half million lives. Michael challenges our collective amnesia and asks historians from both India and Britain whether it could have been avoided.
