Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bengal famine of 1943/archive3

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 00:12, 29 April 2018 [1].

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Bengal famine of 1943

Nominator(s):  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

It is no overstatement to say that the topic of article is hugely important in the academic literature regarding famine. The Bengal famine of 1943 is considered by academic consensus to be the paradigmatic case of a "man-made famine" (generally considered an inadvertent outcome of WWII; though some Indian nationalists consider it rather less inadvertent). Other scholars disagree, holding that it was a natural disaster, but its natural origins were obscured by the fact that accurate records were not kept of a decisive crop fungal infestation... In any case, it is a seminal event in world history, because of its horrendous death toll, its impact on world opinion regarding [British] colonialism, and its continued controversial nature even to this day... (special thanks to Brianboulton, Ceoil, Outriggr, Mr rnddude & others whose help is greatly appreciated). Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:49, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I cried reading the article and feel that I won't be able to review it properly. I can say that you did a remarkable job on a difficult subject.Iry-Hor (talk) 12:34, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. You also said you cried reading the article... I hope this isn't too strong or impolite to say about the text that was on the page before, but quite honestly, the reason I have never given up through 2 years, many arguments, gathering over 300 sources, 2 FACs (1 failed and 1 withdrawn), 1 failed MILHIST A-review, and making well over 5,000 edits is that I felt that the original version of this article (before I ever touched it) failed disgracefully in its responsibility to honor the memory of those who died during the crisis. It did very little to preserve and present the memory of all that happened. Honestly, if not for that feeling, I certainly would have given up after 2 or perhaps 3 weeks. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:48, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Godammit I gonna go through it, review and give you a pass. I can state that this article deserves it for it preserves the memory in a neutral yet absolutely implacable way.Iry-Hor (talk) 16:05, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

@Iry-Hor: I really didn't want to say this, out of sensitivity for your emotional response, but I have to: May I ask you to strike through the last two sentences of your reply? They are alas POV. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:03, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Fine, I might actually better stay away from this article, it might be too close to my family history.Iry-Hor (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• You can review, and in fact that would be helpful because there may be a shortage of reviewers (?). But try to do so from a detached, academic perspective, if at all possible. If not, then.. thank you for you comments so far! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Comment

Lingzhi kindly acknowleges my contribution to the article, which was mainly the removal of about 6,000 words of text from some gross overdetailing in the Background and Pre-famine sections. These length issues were raised at the last FAC and at the PR that preceded it, and I took a somewhat bold approach to the problem. I believe that the article now has much more impact, and I think the current length is justified, given the importance of the topic. At this point I'll just mention a few minor issues:

• The i/box image caption says: "These photographs altered world opinion on colonialism." Is there a source for this statement? If there is, I would have thought this would be worthy of mention in the main text, but I don't see it there.
  • I thought that was in the article. Did someone take it out? I will look. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • @Brianboulton: UPDATE: I have revised the i/box photo caption and added a longish sentence with two sources in the "Media" section. [The first part of the sentence was lifted from SV's article on Ian Stephens but I verified the sources and the content personally, and agree that the sources fully and clearly support the assertion]. Moreover, a little farther below on this FAC page you can see me diligently working on another issue you raised. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• • • I'm happy with the revised caption, since the statement is now fully cited in the text. Brianboulton (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

• Although most of the difficulties in identifying the various levels of "government" have been resolved, there are still pockets of confusion. For example, the "1942–44: Refusal of imports" section begins: "From late 1942 high-ranking government officials and military officers made repeated requests for food imports..." What government were these officials of?
  • I can double-check. I think it was Governor Herbert and and even a little bit Linlithgow, but mostly Herbert. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I no longer have full access to "Churchill's Secret War" which devotes an entire chapter to discussing this question in detail (obviously, from an Indian nationalist perspective). I can try to get access to that again, and to other similar quotes. WAVELL's initial requests were turned down, even though (if i recall correctly) other high-ranking officers such as Auchinlek signed off on the requests... I'll try to find that info and add a relevant cite that backs up "military officers made"..... meanwhile, the info currently cited only says "Government of India":

  • But the shortage seemed absorbable, and the Indian government used this 'rice shortage' estimate only to supplement its request to London for shipping allocation to meet the existing 'wheat shortage', viz. shipping facilities to import 'an additional 600,000 tons of wheat'" ... Relevant footnote says: "See the Secretary of State's telegram to the Viceroy on 16 January 1943, Document no. 350 in Mansergh (1971), pp. 514—515. London continued to turn down requests by the government of India for shipping allocations throughout 1943; see Documents nos. 59, 71, 72, 74, 98, 139, 157, 207, 219 in Mansergh (1973), and also Wavell (1973), chs. 2 and 3."

  • ANOTHER, with more names:

    While Herbert was insisting that Bengal needed imports, Linlithgow was still arguing that there was enough in the province. Further reports of the rapidly deteriorating crisis forced Linlithgow to change his tune. By mid-July he was demanding food imports as a matter of extreme urgency, no matter 'how unpalatable this demand must be to H.M.G.' and realizing its 'serious potential effect on military operations'...Amery, now also convinced that disaster was looming, took Linlithgow's plea seriously and argued the case at a meeting of the war cabinet on 31st July. Relying on military rather than humanitarian rhetoric, he advised that unless help was forthcoming, India's role as a theatre of war would be seriously compromised.32 However, the war cabinet held, against all the evidence, that 'the shortage of grain in India was not the result of physical deficiency but of hoarding', and insisted that the importation of grain would not solve the problem. Amery pleaded in vain with them to reject the position of the Minister for War Transport, who offered merely 100,000 tons of Iraqi barley and 'no more than 50,000 tons as a token shipment...to be ordered to Colombo [ceylon] to await instructions there'. Ministers hoped that on the strength of this measly offer but 'without disclosing figures' the Viceroy would announce that supplies were on their way as required. Amery conceded that he 'might be compelled by events to reopen the matter within a very few weeks'.33 Just a week later, General Auchinleck, commander-in-chief of British forces in India, echoing Amery's request, pleaded with the chief of imperial general staff in London (apparently Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke: 'so far as shipping is concerned, the import of food is to my mind just as if not more important than the import of munitions'.34 To no avail: on September 24th the war cabinet decided that it would not be possible to divert ships to lifting grain for delivery in India before the next Indian harvest.

    • There is still confusion in the opening sentence. The natural chain of communication would have been provincial governors and military commanders to Viceroy, then Viceroy to Amery and then Amery to the War Cabinet, and you say that this chain was operating "by the end of 1942" and experiencing repeated rejections or waterings-down by the War Cabinet. But you then contradict yourself in saying "Early in January [1943], the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, communicated the first of many requests for food aid to Churchill's War Cabinet, initiating a cycle of requests and refusals". So some rewriting around the dates is obviously necessary. Brianboulton (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

• In the same section you say: "Leo Amery sent the first of many requests to the UK for food aid". As Secretary of State for India, Amery was a minister of the British government, so he was based in London and would not have had to "sent to the UK" for anything.
  • I will check wording. Avery stood between the people on the ground in India and the bigwigs in London (esp. Churchill). I will try to clarify. Alas I think this whole "government of India" and "Government of bengal" bit would be lost on Americans and perhaps others as well. It confused me for a very very long time. Even the provincial government was largely run by British men appointed by other British men. Suhrawardy (after Pinnel retired) was an exception; he was a Muslim Indian appointed by British men. He screwed up too. His name isn't mentioned because he only played a role in one scew up (the Food Drives). I think it might take an entire article (wikilinked within this one at some point) to explain all this.
    • Avery would have been based in London. He was the minister in the UK government with responsibility for India. The Government of India was separate, and largely based in New Delhi. Nick-D (talk) 04:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on this FAC and will be interested to read comments as they appear. I am well aware of the physical and emotional energy that has gone into producing this article, an effort deserving the full respect of the WP community. Brianboulton (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• • Thanks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• @Brianboulton: For the "who requested" I added " (including John Herbert, the governor of Bengal; Viceroy Linlithgow; Leo Amery the Secretary of State for India, and General Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in India) Ó Gráda, 2009, pp 174–79). I'll clarify your other "Amery" request in a moment. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @Brianboulton: I kinda punted, but I think it is roughly accurate. My brain is getting a bit overloaded these days, and the several sources are sometimes kinda vague-ish about the dates, and it's a little hard to lace them together. But the story is this: Amery begged London many times, often because Herbert begged Linlithgow and Linlithgow begged Amery. The general and admiral (I added one) did so muc less frequently, but they did so. And all of this...it may have started a little in December 1942 but requests started popping around like popcorn in January and thereafter. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:45, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments by Nick-D

It will take a while to work through this article, so my comments are likely to be iterative.

• As an initial question, is there now consensus among the editors involved in this article that it is of FA standard? A factor which led to the failure of the earlier nominations was concerns over the lack of consultation during its development. I can't see a discussion on the article's talk page regarding this.
  • I note that this hasn't been answered. Talk:Bengal famine of 1943#Death total indicates that the answer is 'no' (@SlimVirgin: if you have time, could you please comment on this, and how you see the article at present?). Nick-D (talk) 22:58, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Nick-D, the article does not have consensus from my point of view. Three editors have complained about the rewrite independently of each other. The first was AidWorker, a subject-matter expert on food policy and famine; he was not an experienced editor, so he had difficulty explaining the issues in ways that were actionable. The second was Fowler&fowler, an experienced editor and expert on India; his main criticism was the same as Aidworker's, namely that there was original research in the form of synthesis. I have no background in either India or famine, but I started reading the sources a few months ago, and I found the same thing in several places: the text was sort of in the sources, but not quite. Also, the sources used are not always about the famine. I think what has happened is that Lingzhi has written a secondary source, almost an essay, analysing his choice of primary, secondary and tertiary sources, rather than a tertiary source that summarizes the scholarly literature on the famine, which is what this article should be.

I began identifying some of the problems on talk, and I tried to make suggestions for how to move forward, but the reception was not good. In one example, even something that was unarguably unsourced (and that, so far as I know, is false) was restored to the article after I'd removed it. One difficulty is that several of the footnotes contain bundled references without saying which source supports which point, which makes verification harder, especially when sources may need to be borrowed via inter-library loan. I would like to see the bundles broken up so that we can clearly see which source supports which part of the text, or a pointer added to the note about how the sources are used.

I'm in the process of looking for an external academic reviewer, but I'm troubled about this too, because the article is not well organized in places, and there's a lot that doesn't need to be there, and also quite a bit missing or not described clearly, so it would make more sense to wait until we have a better version before asking for an external review. I only raced ahead with that because Lingzhi kept nominating it for FAC. I see the current version as a good first draft. But now I think we need to talk about the article's structure; which scholarly sources should provide the scaffolding; how to comply with DUE; how to cite the sources so that, if there is bundling, it is not a bar to source verification; and who the article is aimed at, and how to make the text as clear as possible for that group. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

• As a broad comment, there are far too many notes. I appreciate that this is a complex topic, but we're up to note G by the start of the second para of the main body of the article, and by the end of the article we're up to note BI. These notes contain references which should be presented as such, material contradicting the text of the article, estimates of fatalities which should be covered in the body of the article and excessive and sometimes irrelevant detail. This is likely to be confusing to readers. If the material isn't important enough to be in the body of the article, it should, in general, not be included at all.
  • Yes I added many notes, then stopped, then argued that other editors should not be adding more and more and more and longer ones. They were unconcerned, so i thought "Screw it" and continued adding more myself. I can look into which could be deleted. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Pretty much all of them in my view. Nick-D (talk) 04:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this. I feel footnotes are extremely helpful. Really extremely helpful. i can still try to delete one or two or maybe even three. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:16, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
        • I cannot support the article's promotion to FA class with anywhere near as many notes as this, for the reasons noted above. Nick-D (talk) 01:46, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
          • I also cannot remove all or even most of them. I said I will try to remove a few, if possible. But I have been sick and as weak as a kitten for the past 8 or 9 days, even while traveling, and yet have completely rewritten the "Relief" section... One holdup with the notes is that I didn't add all of them, and so if there was anything I would want to keep or remove, I would have to go back and verify everything other people added. It would take a while. A second thing is that you and I disagree on the basic idea of footnotes. I think they are extremely helpful. I deal with footnotes all the time at work (read, college professor, albeit an extremely humble professor in an extremely humble college). To me, they are par for the course. So I will try to remove a few, if I can, but if you hate them so much, you can Oppose and then match your disapproval of footnotes to some part of WP:WIAFA. I of course hope you won't, but there is a gap between our positions. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "while access to international sources was largely denied by Churchill's War Cabinet" - not that simple: worldwide shortages of shipping were also a problem, as the article later discusses.
  • But you can't put shipping up early in the article, because that would be a straightforward case of POV. You could say they claimed shipping was the problem, but then that begs the questions, "Why do you say 'claimed'? You mean it wasn't?' And then you'd have to launch into an explanation.. which is done farther down. In short, I don't even think you can mention shipping early on. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • It is POV to omit this. The Allies were in fact suffering significant shortfalls of shipping at this stage of the war, especially in this region (which led to the cancellation of multiple plans to conduct amphibious attacks to outflank the Japanese in Burma). The article notes that this meant that a famine was probably inevitable somewhere. Nick-D (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • And now you see the dilemma. It's POV to mention it without saying it's highly debatable. It may be POV (I don't think so, but I see how others would) to omit mentioning it. The only answer is to move the entire "Sipping" section into the WP:LEDE. Or to omit it Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
        • The lead is presenting a simplistic and one sided view which does not represent the actual content of the article, and which could be easily corrected with a few words. Nick-D (talk) 05:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
          • UPDATE: I added "arguably due to a wartime shortage of shipping" plus a footnote. I know you hate footnotes. I am sorry. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:43, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) "Some scholars suggest this was because of a lack of shipping, but others disagree"? Butthen you'd have to add, "Churchill also repeatedly turned down offers of aid from the US, Canada and Australia. Some scholars again suggest this was because of a lack of shipping, but others again disagree." And then you'd have to explain both disagreements. And.... Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• The lead does not need notes explaining what's covered later in the article. This sentence still uses the incorrect "Churchill's War Ministry" formulation. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "Crucially, the (debated) shortfall in rice production in 1942 occurred during the all-important aman harvest" - this sentence is unclear. If there wasn't a shortfall, it's meaningless.
  • No one actually knows if there really was a shortfall, and if there was, then by how much. The crop production statistics were meaningless gibberish at the time. Most sources agree there was a modest shortfall, but a minority (Tauger, Bowbrick, and others) think the shortfall was very large indeed.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Say this in the article then. The current sentence is very unclear. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "Although imports were a small part of the total production" - how could imports be part of local production? Do you mean that imports were small compared to local production?
  • I'll look into this; at first glance it seems to be simply a poorly chosen word. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • UPDATE: changed to "Although imports were a small portion of the total available food crops," Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• I'm troubled by the Malthusian tone of the narrative in the 'background' section. While Bengal wasn't self-sufficient in food by the start of the war, it didn't need to be given that it could and did import it (the UK also wasn't self-sufficient in food at this time, ditto Japan). While this led to a vulnerability, it was manageable as long as transport networks worked.
  • And you have hit on perhaps half the problem: the transport networks didn't work. They were quite destroyed, first by the Denial schemes, and then by the fallout from the Denial schemes, while the trains were used for military transport. Boats are the main (almost only) means of transport, and the Denial schemes screwed them. Some key sources go into a Malthusian discussion, but then sometimes say, "Well, they it's quite possible that they might have still have been OK-ish, with considerably less loss of life, perhaps even only minor loss of life, if x hadn't happened (often saying, "if the transport hadn't been screwed," but other thing as well). This certainly was not a straightforward Malthusian famine, but it was preceded by a very obvious and oft-repeated dire vulnerability to famine. That vulnerability was to some significant degree (sources disagree on the percentage of influence) caused by Malthusian population factors and then also to some significant degree (sources disagree on the percentage... ) caused by fragmentation of holdings for debt/inheritance reasons.. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• "The refugees fell victim to dysentery, smallpox and malaria, and later to cholera.[61] According to one estimate, between 10,000 and 50,000 refugees died from various causes even before they reached India.[62]" - is this relevant to the topic of the article?
  • Perhaps the numeric detail could be deleted. But the refugees are important, as is their condition upon arrival. A key point is that Bengal was subjected to shock after shock after shock after shock. Some meaningful proportion (sources disagree, as always) was psychological. The bombing of Calcutta, forex, played a huge role. The populace nearly abandoned the city (for a very short time) because a couple poot-butt little bombs dropped. The populace panicked, then the government panicked. The bombing and ultra-brief evacuation largely inspired the Priority distribution scheme. And the bombing caused (brief) panic largely because Burma had fallen and people were expecting invasion. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • If you want to say that the situation before the food crisis was bad, just say this directly. Don't force readers to try to piece things together. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "After the loss of Burmese imports there was increased demand on the rice producing regions" - but note W says that Burmese imports were "small"
  • Yes. I though that point was clearly covered: the effect was not only supply to Bengal, but on 1) supply to other provinces, which began a bidding war that gravely affected Bengal, and 2) on the 'cushion that Burma provided in case of trouble, and 3) on morale/psychology. It's not a straightforward hit on Bengal's supply, but it is a huge factor nonetheless. Would you like me to add quotes from sources to this discussion? Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • OK, I see this now. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "Despite this, Bengal continued to export rice to Ceylon[Y] for months afterward, even as the beginning of a food crisis began to become apparent" - who was doing the exporting? Businesses which the government wasn't stopping, or the government from stocks it was acquiring?
  • • Update: I trimmed this a little. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I think (not sure) Bengal was exporting to everyone, and it was businesses and government. That is my recollection. The point of Ceylon is that 1) it was a significant proportion of the exports, and 2) government did not see it necessary to prioritize Bengal (or more specifically, the rural poor of Bengal). I would need to double-check to make sure this recollection is accurate. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Using "Bengal" in this context implies that it was some kind of official action. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Oh. yes. exports to Ceylon were govt, all the way, no private. Meanwhile, however, there were also exports to other provinces, which were largely (maybe solely) private. Sorry for the confusion. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:52, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• "All this, together with transport problems that were to be created by the government's "boat denial" policy, were the direct causes of inter-provincial trade barriers on the movement of foodgrains,[73] and contributed to a series of failed government policies that further exacerbated the food crisis" - internal links within articles are generally discouraged, and there are three in this sentence alone.
  • You can delete the internal links if you like. I think in a large article they are useful. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • It is not my job to make the article compliant with the MOS and similar. Moving this section down as I suggested elsewhere would also remove any need for such links. Nick-D (talk) 04:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Most of the para starting with "The fall of Burma had brought Bengal close to the war front; the war's impact fell more strongly on Bengal than elsewhere in India" has already been stated.
  • I have been considering moving a few sentences. That may be aa part of this; I'll look into it. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• What is the purpose of the para starting with "Nearly the full productive output of India's cloth, wool, leather, and silk industries were sold directly to the military"?
  • Cloth famine, which aggravated unsanitary conditions. And more importantly, inflation, which many people think caused the whole famine (tho.. inflation was both structural and speculative...). Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not seeing the link to the topic of this article. I'd suggest deleting this and the 'Cloth famine' section, or reworking this material in a more concise way which makes the link explicit. I'd note that there were worldwide clothing shortages at this time as well. Nick-D (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • I'll look at tweaking it. Deleting it is a non-starter. The military buildup and the means by which it was financed are the reason for the initial inflation. Most scholars, including the Nobel-prize winning Amartya Sen, are very clear on this point. And delete the cloth famine? No way, that was a key element of the suffering and lack of sanitation. This wasn't a cloth shortage, it was near-complete cloth non-availability, at least for the rural poor. They could not afford it. Its price was skyrocketing, as discussed. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• "the United States Air Force flew" - it was the United States Army Air Forces at the time
  • OK thanks will fix.
• The '1942–45: Military build-up, inflation, and displacement' section should be moved to later in the article: it's mainly about the period after the crisis of early 1942
  • Mmm, I'll think about this. The section is about inflation, and dislocation of populace. If you move it later, it can't be moved much later. It's still about the build-up to the famine. It clearly belongs after the fall of Burma, and before the famine. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• " Rice was directed away from the starving rural districts" - this appears to be the first time the emergence of starvation is noted, yet where any why this occurred isn't described.
  • I'll check on this, thanks. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• "it was difficult not to conclude that the Churchill war ministry and Winston Churchill himself had a visceral hostility toward India:" - the source does not go this far: it states that "it is difficult to escape the impression that the War Cabinet [note the proper title] was simply hostile to India" and then notes that Churchill greatly disliked Indians. This sentence is lightly paraphrased from the book, but exaggerates its argument - not least as the Labour Party which was somewhat more sympathetic towards India contributed several members of the War Cabinet.
  • Many sources make this point again and again specifically with respect to Churchill. Key advisors were either hostile (Cherwell) or apparently unconcerned (Leathers, perhaps seeing himself as a hard-nosed pragmatist). Yes the Labour party was considerably more benevolent, as is very briefly mentioned in the "Social discord (Quit India)" section. But Churchill was hostile.. in fact, I really toned down the arguments against him, for fear of devolving into a running vitriolic paraphrase of "Churchill's Secret War." Even his own contemporaries/countrymen essentially called him racist (I recall that General Wavell had a very sharp quote to that effect, as did... someone else... was it Avery?) . Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I am not referring to the material on Churchill. Nick-D (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• "as the cessation of Burmese imports continued to drive up rice prices" - if these were small, how would this have much of an impact?
  • I though that was explained in the article... Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• "Girls were also sold to the military," - highly dubious. A strong source is needed to support claims that the British and British Indian Armies had sex slaves or similar. I presume what's intended is that these women were forced into prostitution where they serviced soldiers.
  • @Nick-D: The sources on prostitution of girls/women to the military are omnipresent; saying that that didn't happen wouldn't pass WP:SNIFF. [If you need more sources for rampant prostitution, dealing mainly with the military, I might be able to scrape together ten or fifteen.] As for the possibility of "chattel", however: the source currently quoted says "girls were sold to the military" but crucially, doesn't define "sold"; it could easily mean "brought into prostitution" or it could mean "sold as chattel". There was in fact at least one case where a UK officer purchased a girl outright as chattel and it caused a stir in the UK House of Commons. I don't recall whether it was Linlithgow or Herbert or Amery who had to testify in front of the House of Commons and deny everything. But I am just saying all that for the sake of completeness. To the point, I am not at this time prepared to argue that girls were sold as outright chattel. I changed "sold" to "prostituted". Is that sufficient?  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:42, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
    • That still states that the Allied militaries were the purchaser of the prostitutes' services. These forces did not run official brothels or the like, and individual personnel (using their own money) were presumably the clients. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
• "Despite a long-established and detailed Famine Code that would have triggered a sizable increase in aid, and a statement privately circulated by the government in June 1943 that a state of famine might need to be formally declared,[265] this never happened" this is already stated
• The coverage of the relief effort seems rather thin. Why did the military take over the relief effort, how did it manage to solve the problems, and how long did this take?
  • I think the coverage is thin because the coverage in sources is thin. IIRC they said, "And the heroic WAVELL stood up to London, and relief was offered, and it went well, but the real solution was the harvest. The End". But I will try to see if i overlooked something. It is very possible... Why did the military take over the relief effort? In a word, WAVELL, the "Good Viceroy". Apparently Churchill thought Wavell was a bit of a loser, and allegedly put him in charge hoping he'd continue to be ineffective. But Wavell shocked Churchill by transforming into a bold and determined lion. Wavell was not the only "good guy" here; Herbert almost kissed Wavell's boots and wept with joy (figuratively speaking) when Wavell stood up to London. And yes there were reports of soldiers helping, and.. were they ordered not to? yes that rings a bell.. I can try to find it, sounds like "Hungry Bengal" to me... and the rank-and-file soldiers were universally praised as the relief efforts took place. MMmm, I remeber a quote, "Six months into Wavell's efforts, little had been accomplished.." but that seems to contradict the praise that everyone heaps on that effort. The two key points are 1) WAVELL. 2) But even tho he was heroic and impeccably correct, even wavell wasn't the real turn-around. It was the harvest. [Just like FDR didn't really turn the US economy around, it was WWII that did that.. but I chase rabbits..] Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • This kind of response is not helpful. Nick-D (talk) 07:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm sorry, I don't understand. Let me try to give very straightforward answers: 1) Why was the military involved? Linlithgow had been Viceroy through most of the famine, but did nothing. Then General Wavell became Viceroy, stood up to London, and soon after that the military was handing out relief. 2) Why is coverage so thin? Because, you have to understand, most books/articles do not devote words to Wavell's efforts. They praise him unreservedly, but don't describe the details of his operations very much. Except that he got rid of the interprovincial trade barriers, using precisely the same authority that Linlithgow pointedly declined to use.. [Ah, I do recall, many relevant high-ranking military officers were very keen to obey Wavell's orders. They were all for it. I'l try to find that quote.] I certainly need to add a sentence or two about his standing up to London and removing the trade barriers. But.. I don't know how many further details i can find. I will look. 3) How long did it take? It took until the harvest was brought in. That brought prices down dramatically (but still not to pre-war levels). It brought grain into the markets. Now, bear in mind, the famine in a larger sense was still raging, because of the disease phase. But the food crisis phase ended when the harvest was brought in. Is this a helpful response? Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
        • Lizzie Collingham's book has a useful summary of the relief effort. Nick-D (talk) 08:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Go to ""Good%20Viceroy"&f=false Hungry Bengal" and search for "Good Viceroy" Pages 140-145... I will try to find more. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:45, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Various sources also refer to military personnel providing aid to the starving on an ad-hoc basis (and policies being in place prohibiting this)
  • See above. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• How was the record rice harvest in December 1943 achieved? - the article describes the problems which were suppressing the harvest, and how this was turned around dramatically seems important.
  • Do you mean, " Who harvested all those mountains of rice?" I know this sounds stupid, but: As far as I know, nobody knows. There was a huge excess of population before the famine, and a huge number of redundant workers, but they were surely too weakened to do heavy lifting etc. Perhaps they came from other provinces? Greenough mentions this. I can try to find a quote.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • The article does a good job of describing the complex and often entrenched societal, economic, logistical, political and climatic problems which led to the disaster. How these were overcome so quickly (thus saving vast numbers of lives) seems pretty significant. Nick-D (talk) 07:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• The various estimates of the number of fatalities should be moved into the body of the article (the 'Famine, disease, and the death toll' section does not in fact discuss what the death toll is estimated at - I can understand the mortality table, but it needs figures to provide context)
• "Overall, the table shows the dominance of malaria as the cause of death throughout the famine" - I'm not sure that it does. Malaria made up 43% of deaths in the famine year of 1943 (up by 10 percentage points), and increased after the point when the article says the famine ended (eg, over 1944). The growth of cholera seems to have been more significant in 1943.
• Also, I'm not sure why some of the percentages in the table are negative?
  • I've only had half a cup of coffee so far, so I hope I can be coherent. Percentages (%) for 1943 and 1944 are of excess deaths (that means, the percentage of the deaths that were more than usual and therefore due to the famine, not the percentage of total deaths or even of average deaths) as compared to rates from 1937–41, while those for 1937–41 are with respect to the average annual deaths of that period. For one thing, that means you cannot take the (%) column from 1937–41 and make any straightforward comparison of it to the two (%) columns for 1943 and 1944 in the same row (same cause of death), because they are percents of totally different things... But you can compare the % from the single year 1943 and the % from the single year 1944, because they do measure the same thing.... Meanwhile, you can compare the Rate columns straight across any row to each other, because all cause-specific death rates are based on a constant denominator - the enumerated population in the 1941 census. So the explanation of the weird negative percentages in the "Respiratory" and "Injury" rows goes looks like this: the death rates for both remained more or less the same and in fact slightly falling throughout the famine. That kinda makes sense. Take injuries, for example, many fatal injuries are probably caused during manual labor or whatever, and millions were too sick to work. But the negative numbers aren't really really because those rates were falling (or not mainly because they were falling). The negative numbers are mainly because the explanatory power of other causes of death for the famine was growing dramatically, while the explanatory power of injuries for famine deaths was... negative... [In super-simple terms, I suppose you could say, "Dying from Injury spared him from dying from famine"; so the rates are negative]... As for Malaria versus Cholera (which was bigger/biggest overall?), if you look at Rates, in overall numbers, Malaria was the bigger (and also the biggest overall) killer both before the famine (6.29 versus 0.73) and during the famine (11.46 versus 3.60 in 1943; 12.71 versus 0.82 in 1944). Malaria was always and everywhere the biggest killer. That makes it even more remarkable, from a numeric standpoint, that the rates in Malaria took a huge leap up. The biggest killer became a super-killer... The story of the Cholera numbers is that they took a HUGE relative jump in 1943, Rate jumped from 0.73 to 3.60, and this jump explained very nearly one-fourth of the famine-caused deaths (not the total deaths, not the average deaths) in that year. But then Rates dropped down in 1944 to almost (or slightly higher than) their previous average (0.82 as compared to previous average of 0.73). hey then explained only a tiny fraction of excess (famine-caused) deaths.
  • I have a masters degree in demography, and after reading that I can't understand this table. Your explanation of it suggests that it is fatally flawed: essentially it's presenting relatively advanced demographic concepts in an unusual way. If the 1943 and 1944 figures are for excess deaths, this isn't actually noted in the table's title or column headers, and I don't understand why the table would present different kinds of data alongside one another. The figures hidden away in note A seem much better suited to Wikipedia's audience. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Are you talking about the very first footnote in the whole article, the one that runs through various estimates? First, those are not broken down by cause of death, which was kinda the point that was being explored at that point in our article. Second, forgive me, but I find it slightly frustrating to keep repeating (see article's Talk Page) that that info is Just. Plain. Outdated. And. Superseded. I will try to set up a bit of a table with a narrative that is easier to digest. I need to emphasize twp points: 1) Dyson/Maharatna is academic consensus, and 2) whatever we eventually wind up with must deal with excess mortality figures (as opposed to raw mortality)... I will have time tomorrow... thank you for your patience. [By the way, that fatally flawed table is reproduced from the academic source; I didn't conjure it up myself... Also, if you have a master's in demography, then you could in fact read Dyson/Maharatna yourself. I will happily send them to you]. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:39, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
    • @Nick-D: I still promise I will replace that complicated table with certainly a simpler narrative explanation and hopefully a new, simpler table. Meanwhile, in response to you & SV and esp. because I found a very nice quote (by Devereux) that permits me to do so, I have stricken my "Just Plain Outdated remarks above, and replaced excess mortality figures with a range (2.1 to 3 million) and an explanation. More later but I have many chores at the moment. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:51, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
      • @Nick-D: Sorry to keep pinging you. The table has been greatly simplified and its explanation amplified. Your input solicited.
• Finally here, the article and its notes say that the figures relating to the population of Bengal and the impact of the famine are all at least somewhat reliable, yet this isn't noted in relation to the table. How reliable is it?
  • UPDATE: I answered this question earlier at length (below this), but in brief, the answer to this question is the same as is explained in footnote "A" Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 21:41, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
  • No statistics are anywhere reliable in any absolute sense, period. The numbers in the table have a little fudge room because they weren't always 100% sure of the cause of death, but they are MOSTLY kinda reliable because healthcare workers were actually counting dead bodies and death rates in various hospitals, clinics etc. and comparing them to previous death rates in hospitals, clinics etc. No one knows the TOTAL death counts because countless thousands died in ditches along the roadsides. But they do have hospital records, and the death rates from those records can be assumed to also reflect rates from the larger population. Meanwhile, the crop statistics only very, very roughly reflected reality. In very many cases, unqualified, unequipped and unmotivated people just made stuff up... making extremely rough guesses.. just to satisfy the govt requests for statistics... OH PS if you're asking what Maharatna's staistical source was, looks like it was annual Bengal Public Health Reports, mentioned by Maharatna on p. 239. He says that "great confidence seems to be attached" to them (here talking specifically about malaria numbers). Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
    • The article states that "Contemporary mortality statistics are unreliable, particularly for the rural areas where methods were rudimentary even in normal times", but then presents readers with a table (referenced to the same source as this proviso) giving changes in mortality rates at a two decimal point level of detail. This is obviously contradictory. Your assertion about statistics never being reliable is wrong: official statistics produced by modern advanced economies tend to be highly reliable, especially on topics such as this (the point being that, say, modern Australia mortality data is of a vastly superior level of reliability to the figures collected in colonial-era India during a major crisis but readers wouldn't understand this from the article)Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
      • UPDATE: Thanks, I have changed text to "Contemporary mortality statistics were to some degree under-recorded". Thank you for the observation. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• "This greatly affected domestic and international perceptions of the famine and sparked an international media frenzy" - how did the publication of photos in an Indian newspaper have an international impact? Where they also published internationally?
  • UPDATE: Yes added. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:43, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• Also, was there really a "media frenzy"? This seems rather imprecise.
  • UPDATE: Reworded. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:43, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• "The images had a profound effect and marked "for many, the beginning of the end of colonial rule"." - was this in India, or elsewhere?
  • Alas, the source doesn't say. We now have a strong link between "famine photos" and "spurred govt action; saved lives", but the link between photos and "world opinion about colonialism" is weak. I will try for a couple more days to find more, but if I don't, I will delete that bit. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:43, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• Such comments are also a bit simplistic, given the general consensus among historians is that Indian independence was inevitable by this time. Focusing on the impact of the images also seems to under-sell the impact the famine had on the credibility of British rule of India locally and around the world.
  • yes perhaps the logic skips a step, but the conclusion remains the same. To wit: yes, the famine had a huge impact on world opinion. But the key point here is that no one in the world even knew the famine existed until the Statesman published those pix. And hold your breath, but even many in India did not even know there was such a massive crisis. I am not joking, even tho that sounds alien to modern ears. There was essentially a news blackout. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • "...Until The Statesman publicized it, [note from Lingzhi: several editorials (unnoticed by the world) over a number of weeks, but the really big bang was the photo spreads in Aug. 1943] the calamity in Bengal had been unknown to most of India and utterly unheard about in the rest of the world. In New Delhi, [the capital, far from Bengal, which had hitherto been oblivious] storefronts displayed the pictures of famine victims, and in Washington the state Department circulated them among policy makers." Churchill's Secret war p. 175.
    • "Thereafter, the Statesman— and Amrita Bazar Patrika—adopted a policy of reporting on the extent of starvation frequently and graphically. Its photographic images of the famine made world headlines." - Sufficiency and Sufficiency and Sufficiency p. 57 [Can still look for more quotes, if you want them] Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• " transforming what should have been a local shortage into a horrific famine." - not currently covered by a citation
  • yes thank you, it's added now: Ó Gráda 2015 pp. 39–40. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:15, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• "British Field Marshal Viscount William Slim observed that "the horrible thing about Calcutta was the contrast of the blatant wealth of some of its citizens with the squalid misery, beyond mere poverty, at their very doors" - the location of this material implies that it refers to his views relating to the famine. From checking the book, it is actually his views on conditions in pre-famine Calcutta.
  • I'll put that on my list of things to double-check, but for now I'll take your word for it that I made a mistake about the time frame. Deleting. The quote is not necessary anyhow. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• The article doesn't describe who ordered the Famine Inquiry Commission and the impact of its report - which seems remarkably bluntly worded if it was an official inquiry, especially in the context in which it was written. Nick-D (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It was ordered by the top. UK. And it actually is not bluntly worded, at least not in a key sense: It shifts 90% of the blame onto Provincial government. And that is highly controversial to put it very mildly. It omits the fact that the Indian Government stood by and did nothing, when in fact it certainly had the power to do things that might well have cut the famine short or greatly reduced its impact (see Weigold). I'm not trying to start a political discussion but to show the nature of the inaction and then harsh (yes very blunt, but blunt toward others — businesses, the provincial govt, but never themselves) finger-pointing. The report also cheerfully elided the forcible repatriation of Calcutta destitute, forex. [they said something like, "Oh and by that December the destitute population had been greatly reduced" but did not say how or by whom]. But I can't add that bit about their elision to the article, because no sources mention. I just noticed it myself. Some sources mention repatriation, but none mention that FIC didn't mention it... So adding that would be WP:OR Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • UPDATE: The Famine Inquiry Commission which was appointed by the Government of India in 1944. there was a clamor for its creation. they dragged their feet for months before starting it. its meetings were held in private and all notes destroyed except those secretly kept/hidden by Nanavati. DETAILS ABOUT FORMATION OF COMMISSION added to article. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:10, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• As an extra comment, I was poking through my copy of Srinath Raghavan's book India's War, which notes that the communists provided an effective famine relief program which contributed to them being very popular in the region as of 1946 (pages 453-534). Aside from this not being mentioned in the article, it does raise the issue of the article also not noting any other non-government relief efforts. The population of Bengal is presented as either starving powerless peasants or their oppressors, which seems rather simplistic. Even families are presented as mainly betraying their members. Surely there were civil society organisations, etc, which tried to save lives - however ineffectively - and families tried to help one another. Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Contai and Tamluk are what you're talking about, I assume. In Midnapur. The "Civil Unrest" section mentioned this aeons ago, but perhaps it was deleted. Anyhow, the Communist and or/nationalist rebel relief, IIRC, was only for the cyclone, and only in Midnapore. They rebel forces (can't say that without thinking of Luke Sjywalker) actually set up an entire parallel govt in that area, which claimed to be.... a national govt, I think? But overall, the peasants were to a large extent every bit as helpless as you describe. They begged. They migrated. They died. Unless they were middle class or upper class. then the govt saved them. OH... and... Raghavan... I seem to recall... isn't that the one with many inaccuracies? I think I deleted it from my sources? Will check... I will check further on [presumably, urban, middle-class?] nationalist groups launching relief aid. But yes, the great mass of peasants died passively. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:09, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I will write a small paragraph about private relief. May take a while. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• @Nick-D: Many changes made as per your comments, but some still remain... "Relief efforts" section beefed up considerably to highlight vital role of Wavell and the military. That section also explains (in a footnote) why the harvest was so huge, as you mentioned. I also changed "Amery contacted UK" to "Amery contacted War Cabinet"... I have not forgotten your comments about the WP:LEDE. More later... Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:01, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the new material added today

• It now uses the confusing "Churchill's War Council". Presumably the war cabinet is meant, but even here it's confusing given that Avery was also a minister (albeit not a member of the war cabinet)
• The material on the rice harvest is still unsatisfactory. This seems to have been a remarkable success in responding to the crisis, so why it's hidden away in a note and not explained is unclear to me. It goes to the point I raised earlier about the relief efforts: Presumably there was some kind of coordinated effort to get this going, with the workers then making it happen.
  • I can move it out of the footnote next week. Lingzhi ♦ (talk)
    • Update: I am sorry, but I really, really, really have never seen anyone mention there was any kind of centralized coordination or management of the post-famine harvest. I was mildly surprised when I stumbled on the footnote in Greenough that said the increase was due to shifting crops toward rice (presumably, away from jute). I also think I remember that a lot of the labor came from other provinces (which was not unusual, in other contexts) , but I am not certain I could find that smallphrase or clause in my sources. I will give it a try. As for moving the Greenough "they used more land" quote out of the footnotes, well, I have to say that looks like footnote material to me. It is kinda peripheral to the famine. But if you want it in body text, I can oblige. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:19, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• The para is also a bit confusing: it starts by saying that the central government didn't do much to help until September, but then notes that assistance actually commenced earlier but was delayed due to various logistical problems. Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
  • THat wasn't aid that was delayed; it was various purchases. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:58, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Added clarifying text a few days ago. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
• @Nick-D: I have completely re-written the Relief section, greatly expanding to meet your requests for information about the military, private aid, etc., and even throwing in a bit of communalism. I have made many other smaller changes. Please let me know if these changes are agreeable to you, then I can move on to your other concerns. Tks. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:19, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Oppose After reviewing the above, I've decided to shift to formally opposing this nomination. As well as the various unaddressed issues above, my main concerns are:

• The extent of the footnotes is greatly excessive. As noted above, many are actually references or irrelevant details, and could be swiftly removed. Others contain excessive level of detail, and are clearly unnecessary. Some, and especially the first, include material which belongs in the body of the article.
• From reviewing the discussions on the article's talk page I'm not convinced that the article is in fact stable, or this nomination has the support of other involved editors. There have been repeated concerns over how the article has been developed, and I don't think that they've been addressed.
• The article's narrative is over-complicated, as are some details (I still don't understand the table of mortality figures, which at minimum is wrongly labelled)
• I'm not convinced that this article covers the topic in a way which appropriately reflects the balance of sources. As noted in my review above, it seems to be structured around a particular narrative (eg, that the British authorities caused the disaster, did little about it, and it lead to a near complete breakdown of society), with other views being minimised or excluded. It seems fair to say that this disaster did result primarily from the utter incompetence of the colonial authorities (which I understand is the clear consensus among historians) but the role of vindictiveness vs incompetence, the significance of the war situation, and the self-help initiatives are not covered adequately. Nick-D (talk) 00:26, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
• thank you or your comments and your Oppose. I have not seen anyone at all making anything resembling a case that references WP:WIAFA, WP:NPOV or even WP:NOR, though SV accused me of that on article talk. Since no one references any of those, nothing that has been said is actionable. There is no way I can respond to non-actionable comments, except, well, 1) argue, or 2) Thank you. I choose the latter. Thank you for your time and trouble. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:37, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Note to FAC coordinator]: i actually ended up being kinda forced to refute most of Nick's objections in a later section, below. Thank you for your patience Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:29, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Commentary withdrawn [was (mechanical) "source review"]

I volunteered to check everything about the references given. [April 21 edit: "everything" is ambiguous; I am referring to what is called on FAC talk a "mechanical" source review. I think this is clear with the rest of the statement.] I checked every journal citation, via URLs, for accuracy, made numerous small corrections, and removed inconsistent formatting practices. (diff1d2) In previous interaction with the article, I found (to the limited degree I looked) that claims made in the text matched the sources. There is maybe one non-academic source (NYT). This review is going to hinge on much more substantive issues, but I want to make a note of this so that we can check off the most literal aspects of "source review". The lengthy "Works cited" section should be close to impeccable at this point. Outriggr (talk) 04:49, 7 April 2018 (UTC), updated 04:34, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm withdrawing all commentary from this page based on the rhetorical sleight-of-hands occurring here, and will also strike the text posted by Lingzhi below which mentions me (not knowing at the time that it would be submitted to FAC, which added a new and not necessarily accurate context to it). I volunteered to help with some "grunt work" associated with this article. I had no partisan motivation, despite the subtle but regular implications otherwise ([2] (mentioned in the diff's diff) et al + this page). That grunt work has ended up being miscontrued in a few places, and a defense of it would be disproportionate to the very nature of my contribution. Moreover, I am not involved here, despite attempts to make me appear so. People on Wikipedia will sometimes volunteer to help; other people find this surprising, and look for motive. All I can do here is protest the situation via my "cancel" button. Outriggr (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Outriggr: I added two sources, to rectify issues pointed out by Brian (above). Sorry. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 16:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I posted a question here for Outriggr, but it was moved. Rather than move it back, I'll leave it below again because it refers to Outriggr's post above. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:57, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

This page suggests that Outriggr checked four sentences against the sources. If I've understood his posts correctly, he confirmed part of the first, the second, and the third (I think, I'm not sure); and the fourth failed verification. I'd like to know what "close to impeccable" means as a description of the "works cited" section. Does that refer to the formatting? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:51, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Ceoil

I have been following this page almost since Lingzhi began his userspace draft. I have added no content, but have watched it develop over the last two odd years. Like Outriggr, I think this review is going to hinge on much more substantive issues, but want to note that the article is especially well written, and I was most impressed by Brian Boulton's re-sizing and adjustments to the article's balance of focus and overall scope. As such I Support on prose. Any remaining issues I have in this regard can sort myself or on talk, but they are minor. Ceoil (talk) 20:10, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you for your kind support! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:02, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Spot checks

• I dunno how this got left out: Mr rnddude and Outriggr have done some spot checks, comparing our Wikipedia article text to the text of the cited source in various spots. The results are in User:Mr rnddude/Research and a few are also in User:Lingzhi/verifyBengal. Did I leave something out? Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

• This page suggests that Outriggr checked four sentences against the sources. If I've understood his posts correctly, he confirmed part of the first, the second, and the third (I think, I'm not sure); and the fourth failed verification. I'd like to know what "close to impeccable" means as a description of the "works cited" section. Does that refer to the formatting? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:51, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I think he means the integrity of the sources rather than their use. Source reviews are usually spot checks, and Outriggr has clarified the dept of his investigation. He did say "This review is going to hinge on much more substantive issues, but I want to make a note of this so that we can check off the most literal aspects of "source review"", which I think was an honest assessment of his conclusions here. I don't read that he was trying to have a final say at all (disclosure: Outriggr is a friend of mine, as is Lingzhi, as implied in my narrowly defined support below). Speaking for myself only, I am mindful that votes in FAC's like this are carefully weighted by the delegates and not all of equal consideration. Similarly Outriggr says above his intention was "so that we can check off the most literal aspects of "source review"". I see and appreciate your concern, but given the review was very upfront in scope, don't see that anything else is to be see here. Ceoil (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

If it's helpful, here's a summary of my views on sourcing, largely as noted above:

• I was concerned about the claim(s?) that the Famine Inquiry Commission's report referred to government 'propaganda' (an unusual term in government-style reports). But it did when I checked.
• The material cited to "Bayly & Harper 2005, p. 286" at the current reference 138 somewhat misrepresents the source, and the text in the article was uncomfortably close to what's in the book. The issue around misrepresentation has not been corrected: the book simply does not claim that the entire British cabinet "had a visceral hostility toward India".
• When checking some of the few other books I own which provide useful coverage of this topic (Lizzie Collingham's work on the role of food in World War II, and Srinath Raghavan's India's War) I found significant issues which the article did not cover at the time - eg, the role and extent of aid efforts. Nick-D (talk) 00:12, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Nick. I've changed the sect header to reflect the stated and intended scope; can you move these points to your own review area, or open a new area. Ceoil (talk) 00:17, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

This was started by Outriggr as the 'source review' section, which is a common feature of FACs. I'd suggest that you change the heading back. Nick-D (talk) 00:28, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

I have moved SV's post above from my 'source review' section to here. (Spot checks are either an aspect of source review, or something else, depending on who you ask [3]; but since we have this section, it is easier to have the discussion here.) To answer SV's question, it is true that I could not verify the one statement to the page ("When prices rose sharply, their wages failed to follow suit; this drop in real wages left them less able to purchase food"). This may be a reading comprehension issue on my part, but Lingzhi can look at it. I've deleted the files. I did more than four spot checks, at least ten I believe. Outriggr (talk) 01:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Outriggr, do you regard the first sentence as verified? The text is: "To ensure that workers in the prioritised industries in Calcutta would be fed, the authorities seized rice stocks from wholesale dealers, shattering any trust the rice traders had in the government."{{sfn|Brennan|Heathcote|Lucas|1984|p=12}}

The first thing I wonder is why Brennan 1984 is used. The source is discussing Greenough 1982, so why not use Greenough directly? The source says (I copied the following from Lingzhi's subpage, rather than from the source itself):

In his analysis of the provincial government's response to the problems of the rice trade following the British defeat in Burma, Paul Greenough (1982: 98-126) points out that the initial move of imposing a maximum price of Rs 5/12 when the market price was Rs 8, drove rice from the market, encouraged a black market, and introduced into the grain trade a range of speculators who would carry the price to much greater heights in the future. More importantly this action and the appropriation of rice stocks in late December 1942 to meet the crisis in Calcutta caused by Japanese bombing, broke the confidence of the rice traders in the government and in the predictability of its actions.

It does not say: "To ensure that workers in the prioritised industries in Calcutta would be fed". The shops in Calcutta were closing and no one could be fed. I'm only skimming Greenough because it's a large page range and I don't want to spend the rest of the evening on this, so I may be missing something. How did you verify the "prioritised industries" aspect? This matters, because the implication is that the government cared only about certain workers. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:06, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, I am not the nominator. I volunteered to transcribe passages from up to 3–4 provided sources that related to the article text that cited them, whether that was a sentence, a sentence clause, etc. I will leave claims about the degree to which any given citation supports every discernible statement of fact since the last footnote to others. That being said, a similar passage earlier in the article reads, By December 1942 the total number of prioritised individuals, with their families, was approximately 1,000,000;[126] this high number forced the government to seize rice by force from mills and warehouses in Greater Calcutta. Three citations are given: again to Brennan et al, but also to Ó Gráda 2010, who writes the authorities prioritised Calcutta and its war-related production over the rest of the province. Concern for the city's 'priority classes' accounted for the forcible requisition of rice from mills and warehouses in and around the city in late December 1942 (36). I will leave any further discussion of sources to the nominator. Outriggr (talk) 04:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Outriggr, I'm talking about the spot check you did on that one sentence. It didn't check out because it wasn't in the source offered. It may be in other sources, but that's not the point. This is what I've found throughout this article. Things are sort of in the sources, but not entirely; sometimes whole sentences are unsourced, sometimes sentence fragments, sometimes I was able to find the unsourced parts in other sources and sometimes not, or sometimes they were on other pages of the same source. It was prohibitively time-consuming because it was never straightforward. This is an important, complex and long history article, so we need text (source), text (source), with reasonable page ranges. We also need Greenough 1982 to be used when it's his research that's being discussed, not some other source that mentions him. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:24, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

O'Grada writes similar comments in Famine A Short History 2009: In Bengal, fears of a Japanese invasion in 1942-43 determined the priorities of those in authority, and the so-called ‘Denial Policy’, which removed stored holdings of rice, cargo boats, and even bicycles from coastal regions lest they fall into the hands of the invaders, undoubtedly compounded the crisis. Most fundamentally, military considerations left the poor of Bengal unprovided for (p. 10) and In April 1942 the Japanese sank a destroyer and several merchantmen in the Bay of Bengal, and they bombed Calcutta in December 1942. Other sporadic air-raids followed. As a result, the usual supplies of rice from Burma, albeit a small proportion of aggregate consumption, were cut off. ... Military considerations also meant giving urban workers, particularly those in war-related industries, priority over others, so that public agencies and Calcutta factory owners competed with other consumers (p.154). This is simply a case of re-iterating points from another source and forgetting to add the requisite citation. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:43, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Mr rnddude, that's right. The source was missing, and the spot check didn't spot that. And this is what it is like throughout the article. I don't know what percentage would fail verification, but I believe it would be significant. And finding it all would be so time-consuming, no one could do it. So a conversation needs to take place on the talk page about how best to move forward with this article. It will be much faster to rewrite portions than to go sentence fragment by sentence fragment trying to verify the current version. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:31, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

We are finding minor spots that need minor buffing, which is a positive outcome of the collaborative FAC process. I thank you for finding that one... Very frankly, it would be very shocking is we did not find such. The talk of "a way to move forward" is completely illegitimate. The article's coverage is already massively complete, and minor corrections to cites are quite reasonable and expected... as for complete coverage, see response below about being chopped down from Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution. If the chopped-down version seems to be missing something, go look there. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 23:49, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

• Hello Everyone. This is a huge thread for a very few cites. Let me see if I can wash away all the chaff above and identify concrete points that we want to verify. I see three or four points. Each point will take time to research This will take time. Please don't argue with me It takes time to address points!
  • for the first point, @Nick-D:

1. "the whole cabinet had a visceral dislike". It's instructive to look at Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution and note that neither that sentence nor the corresponding quote were in the original version which I essentially wrote... In fact, my version was infinitely milder: The violence of the "Quit India" movement was condemned around the world and did much to harden British opinion in many sectors against India and Indians in general;[178] some sources speculate that this reduced the British War Cabinet's willingness to provide famine aid at a time when supplies were also needed for the war effort.[179]"... So ... Did I add that, or did someone else? Hmmmmmmmm. The history says it was Fowler&fowler, on 23 May 2017‎, diff here, with edit summary "August 1942: Civil unrest: Bayly and Harper are talking about a visceral hostility toward India, quite apart from the demands of war; rephrasing and partially quoting". At this point I would like to apologize humbly and to Nick-D for not spotting/catching that error, which Nick correctly says "somewhat misrepresents the source". And I would like to apologize to this entire forum as well. I will fix it ASAP.
2. Nick wrote: "I found significant issues which the article did not cover at the time - eg, the role and extent of aid efforts". I did considerably expand the relief section based on your comments, and I appreciate your input. I would suggest that the original version covered key points in summary: govt delayed aid (both provincial and govt of India, in this case), army stepped in to deliver aid, but bumper crop was the actual fix for the food problem. I innocently but alas incorrectly thought that was sufficient information. That is the virtue and benefit of our collaborative process: you pointed out that details needed expanding and exploring, and after a brief while I grasped your point. In short, the process was a success. Thank you for your help. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 16:05, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

   My concern is that I, with limited knowledge of this topic and only a handful of books which cover it in any significant way, was able to spot some significant omissions from some quick checking. This included checking one of the books which was already being used as a reference. This goes to my broader concern about the lack of collaborative editing in this article's development. Nick-D (talk) 23:11, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

   Extensive collaboration has taken place with Fowler&fowler (who added a huge amount of text, actually), Brian, Ceoil, Mr rnddude, and to a lesser degree with several others like Palindromedairy. This article has been sitting here, basically stable, for an entire year... I put it in WP:PR as well, but the only comment was "too long", hence Brian's edits.. Never a week goes by in which reviewers don't suggest adding a bit of text to one or two or three noms. This article has very, very full coverage of 99% of the topics. In fact, its coverage was massively chopped down by Brian... For example, in Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution the "prioritized distribution" topic had 5 paragraphs in its own dedicated section; now it has 1 only paragraph lumped together with other topics... if yu are able to spot anything else that could be further fleshed our, I'll give you dollars to donuts that you can find whatever you need in Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution.. But the point is, collaboration has been extensive. That "no collaboration" meme is a relic from a year ago (first FAC, April 2017) when I moved the article from user space. It has had one entire year with multiple collaborators. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 23:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

   There has been no real collaboration. Fowler&fowler seemed upset by what was happening. He was attacked a lot and referred to it as "low-level harassment" (or words to that effect). More people need to become involved now in discussing how to move forward with the article. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:46, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

3. Another of Nick's points: the article is biased and vengeful. Nick himself said that academic consensus holds that he famine is man-made (a point well-verified and more sources can be found), yet he also wants to say the article is biased. How can that be? if Nick was referring to the text that Fowler&fowler added, which I just deleted, well even that was in Nick's own words only a slight misrepresentation. Was it the entire paragraph that Nick wanted to delete, "Nearly the full productive output of India's cloth..."? It says that teh military used all of India's supplies, so does that make it biased ant-British? I fail to see the bias here. Very clearly, the tone of the article is 100% in line with academic sources. I'm really trying to be urbane and dispassionate and nice and calm, none of which are my natural attributes, but I must say firmly: Prove there is POV/Bias. or strike your comments. If these charges cannot be established, they need not be heeded.
4. SV wants to hang the success/failure of this FAC onn a single paragraph, quoted in full below, [and I will be adding highlighting and discussion]:

   The Famine Inquiry Commission's Report of 1945, discussing contributing factors to the famine, singled out the first Japanese air raids on Calcutta, which began on 20 December 1942. The daylight attacks, largely unchallenged by Allied defenses, continued throughout the week, triggering an exodus of thousands from the city.(Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a,p =34-37; Ó Gráda 2015 p=40) As evacuees traveled to the countryside, food-grain dealers in the city closed their shops. To ensure that workers in the prioritised industries in Calcutta would be fed, the authorities seized rice stocks from wholesale dealers, shattering any trust the rice traders had in the government.(Brennan Heathcote Lucas 1984 p=12) "From that moment," the 1945 report stated, "the ordinary trade machinery could not be relied upon to feed Calcutta. The [food security] crisis had begun."(Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a p=34, 37)

   SV's main concerns seem to be the highlighted bit. Every word of that can be verified from multiple, multiple sources, including the very last cite at the end of our article's paragraph, cited to the Famine Inquiry Commission. It says, "On the 27th December, the Government of Bengal, in order to maintain the distribution of supplies in Calcutta, were reluctantly compelled to requisition stocks from wholesale dealers and from that moment the ordinary trade machinery could not be relied upon to feed Calcutta." The first bit is clear: "in order to maintain the distribution of supplies in Calcutta" (FIC text) is precisely analogous to "To ensure that workers in the prioritised industries in Calcutta would be fed" (our text). And if that isn't clear enough, our article also cites O'Grada 2015, and I quote: "Concern for the city’s “priority classes” accounted for the forcible requisition of rice from mills and warehouses in and around the city in late December 1942". The link between the govt's rice seizure and its goal of feeding the priority classes is stated very explicitly there... The second bit might not be quite so clear: "from that moment the ordinary trade machinery could not be relied upon to feed Calcutta" (FIC text) is a polite/political euphemism for "the traders ceased to trust the government" (our text, roughly). It does appear that I somehow stuck in a cite to brennan heathecote etc when i should have been sticking in others that said precisely the same thing. So what we have here is that I made an error. In an article this size, are we shocked? As mrndude rightly says above, all is easily verified, and "This is simply a case of re-iterating points from another source and forgetting to add the requisite citation." I made a boo-boo. I do admit it. Let's kill the FAC, shall we? Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:42, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

   Sarah's concerns are obviously much broader than that. It appears that you're trying to misconstrue my and Sarah's concerns as being narrowly-based, when the opposite is actually the case. Nick-D (talk) 05:33, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• I picked out another sentence at random: "Advanced anti-malarial drugs such as mepacrine (Atabrine) were distributed almost solely to the military and to 'priority classes'; DDT (then relatively new and considered 'miraculous') and pyrethrum were sprayed only around military installations. Paris Green was used as an insecticide in some other areas.{{sfn|Bhattacharya|2002a|p=102}}

The source is: Bhattacharya, Sanjoy (2002a). "Tackling hunger, disease and 'internal security': Official medical administration in colonial eastern India during the Second World War (Part I)" (PDF). The National Medical Journal of India. 15 (1): 37–40. PMID 11855591. Retrieved 8 February 2016.

I can't find that text in the source. The citation says p. 102, but the paper consists of pp. 37–40. I've searched for the names of the drugs, and several other words, and I've quickly read the article, but I can't find them. I can see two general sentences about malaria control. Apologies if I'm missing the rest, but I've read it only quickly. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

• That source has a part I and a part II. The Part II is the relevant one:

While food distribution and public health measures in the towns and villages near military encampments or battlefronts in Assam, Bihar, Orissa and United Provinces were ratified by the civilian and military officials, vast areas of rural eastern India were denied any lasting state-sponsored distributive schemes. Agood example of this is provided bythe distribution of antimalarial measures, especially the latest technologies and techniques, among civilians. The spraying of DDT (widely considered to be amiracle chemical atthe time) and pyrethrum tended to be organized in centres in and near troop encampments, while the older technique ofusing 'Paris Green' was generally continued elsewhere. Similarly, mepacrine, the new synthetic antimalarial drug was almost completely monopolized for military use and only shared with very specific civilian groups such as the labour employed in strategic projects and mines. 26 ,27Even though attempts were sometimes made by the British and Indian officials attached to local civilian administrations to redress some of these difficulties by the general distribution of released hoards of food and medicine, such efforts tended to remain spasmodic due tovarious reasons.

—  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:49, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Part II is Bhattacharya 2002b. You cited Bhattacharya 2002a. SarahSV ^(talk) 07:21, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Spot checks by Mr rnddude

(Copy pasted from his user space)

Verified material and source

Social disruption

Introductory Paragraph:

• Despite the organised and sometimes violent civil unrest immediately before the famine, there was no organised rioting when the famine took hold. cited to FIC 1945a, p. 68. – The second clause of the sentence is easily verifiable. The first clause, not so much (05/03/2018). Lingzhi: The first part was a repetition of earlier text (earlier in the article). Copy/pasted a footnote from that earlier text for verification.
• A long-standing system of rural patronage, in which peasants relied on large landowners to supply subsistence in times of crisis, collapsed as patrons exhausted their own resources and abandoned the peasants. cited to Greenough 1980, pp. 207–208, and expounded upon in "III. Collapse of rural patronage" pp. 218–225. This material can be reasonably deduced from the source – I have verified and confirmed the material (05/03/2018}.
• Families also disintegrated, with cases of abandonment, child-selling, and both voluntary and forced prostitution - cited to Greenough 1980, pp. 225–33, and O'Grada pp. 59–63.

• Family disintegration, and child selling (and abuse) are attested to on p. 226, with child selling being expounded on pp. 230–232. Confirmed (05/03/2018).
• Abandonment is most heavily expounded upon from pp. 227–229. Confirmed (05/03/2018).
• Prostitution is mentioned on p. 229, though the distinction between voluntary and involuntary prostitution is not directly made. The best I could come up with is ... with no more inducement than regular meals, women were procured. and Reports of boatloads of women and girls for sale in the ports of East Bengal .... Greater explication is made on p. 232 about the "sexual exploitation of children". That said, I'm not sure what O'Grada 2009 pp. 59–63 has to do with any of it. Perhaps p. 54 was meant. This is a generally reasonable summation of the source material, though I would replace "and both voluntary and forced prostitution" with "prostitution, and sexual exploitation". Lingzhi: replacement done Mostly confirmed (05/03/2018).

• Lines of small children begging stretched for miles outside cities; at night, children could be heard "crying bitterly and coughing terribly ... in the pouring monsoon rain ... stark naked, homeless, motherless, fatherless and friendless. Their sole possession was an empty tin" cited to Mukerjee, 2010 pp. 170, 186–187.

• I have verified and confirmed the preceding material, I'm using a different edition and so the material is in Mukerjee, 2011 p. 254 (05/03/2018).
• I have verified and confirmed the quote, Mukerjee, 2011 p. 278. (05/03/2018).

• A schoolteacher in Mahisadal witnessed "children picking and eating undigested grains out of a beggar's diarrheal discharge". cited to Mukerjee 2010, p. 248 – I have verified and confirmed the quote and preceding material in Mukerjee, 2011 p. 248 (05/03/2018).
• Author Freda Bedi wrote that it was "not just the problem of rice and the availability of rice. It was the problem of society in fragments." cited to Bedi 1944, p. 13. – I have verified and confirmed the quote (05/03/2018).

Mass migration and family dissolution

• Husbands deserted wives and wives husbands; elderly dependents were left behind in the villages; babies and young children were sometimes abandoned. According to a survey carried out in Calcutta during the latter half of 1943, some breaking up of the family had occurred in about half the destitute population which reached the city. cited to FIC 1945a, p. 68 – I have verified and confirmed the quote (05/03/2018).
• Estimates of the number of the sick who flocked to Calcutta ranged between 100,000 and 150,000. cited to FIC 1945a, p. 2; Mukerjee, 2015 p. 134 (correct to 135); and Schofield, 2010 p. 304 – FIC estimates at least 100,000, Mukerjee "estimated 150,000", Schofield not checked. It's reasonable to assume that Schofield's estimate will be within that range. – I have confirmed the material via two of the three cited sources (05/03/2018).
• Once they left their rural villages in search of food, their outlook for survival was grim: "Many died by the roadside – witness the skulls and bones which were to be seen there in the months following the famine." cited to FIC 1945a, p. 109 – I have verified and confirmed the material (05/03/2018).

Failed verification material and source

• However, the crisis overwhelmed the provision of health care, funerals, street sweeping and other social services. - Missing attribution. Greenough makes no mention of it (05/03/2018). Lingzhi: Deleted

Potentially useful material

• It kept alive a handful of babies found on the streets and in the destitute homes but it was working with regularity and there was a homely atmosphere about the place. "Look at this little fellow" said Barbara, "he's as black as a teapot, but such a darling. His mother tried to bury him alive to save him from the agonies of starvation, and we just managed to save him. She ran away, fearing punishment, but we are trying to find her". cited to Bedi 1944, p. 57.
• Destitute. It is a meagre word. It means they have no money beyond the few coins they can pick up in casual tasks during the harvest time - the paddy husking, household work. It means they are dying of slow starvation. It means that for the bowl of rice to fill their child's stomach, or their own, they will sell themselves for a few annas. It means veneral disease and painful death. cited to Bedi 1944, p. 14. In conjunction with "Here they have all run away: the men to the town, the women to beggary and destitution and the gruel kitchens." I shuddered. There was a lot behind that inadequate word, destitution. Humiliation, demoralisation, casual prostitution, disease. And behind it the face of abandoned children. cited to Bedi 1944, p. 70. Bedi talks about prostitution on multiple occasions, including prostitution of minors "between 2 and 13" years of age (p. 86) and rape on the streets (p. 87).

Comments by SarahSV

Oppose, per 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 2c, 4.

1. Re: 1e (stable). I'll mention this first, because I feel that the article ought not to have been nominated. The current version has never really gained consensus. To recap: the article was rewritten in user space between February 2016 and April 2017 (Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution); the regular editors were invited to look at the rewrite but told they could not edit it. Once installed, it was nominated immediately for a MILHIST A-class review (not promoted), then went straight to FAC1. It has been contentious ever since. The difficulty is that 14,000 words (now 11,000) were added in one lump, with sources not always easy to access, and checking it is a huge job. I told Lingzhi recently that I was reading the sources and had begun the search for an external reviewer, which in my view the article needs before another FAC nomination. Despite that, he went ahead with this nomination without notifying me.
2. Re: 1a (well-written). I see this as a first draft rather than a finished product. It isn't well-organized and it's hard to read in places. The famine is lost in a maze of unnecessary detail. If we're aiming it at an intelligent older teenager with no prior knowledge, I think they'll get very little out of it. There should be a background section explaining something about British India; who ran it, for example, which would help the reader (and author) navigate what follows. Any background sections should be pared down to what is really needed to understand the rest of the article.
   Two examples of the organization problem (note: these are only examples): (1) paragraph three (216 words) of the section 2.2 "1942–45: Military build-up, inflation, and displacement" discusses the "cloth famine": "Nearly the full output of India's cloth, wool, leather and silk industries were sold to the military." But then 4.3 "Cloth famine" deals with it again. An argument could be made that the earlier section deals with it chronologically, but no, it goes right up to the end of it. Or that the second section deals more with the social aspect, but it doesn't really, or not much; much more could be said about the social aspect. So we have two split-up, half-hearted efforts to explain an important and interesting part of this. (2) Another example: media coverage comes right at the end in its own section. But the media played an important role in prompting the government to set up the relief effort, so that needs to be handled chronologically.
   There are a few minor prose issues, but nothing that can't be fixed easily, e.g. (these are just examples) "Aid increased significantly when the Indian Army took control of aid"; "These processes left social and economic groups mired in poverty" (which groups? word missing?); "troops arrived into the province", "at the feet of unavoidable fate".
3. Re: 1b (it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context). There's quite a bit missing, and no space for it because of the unnecessary background detail at the top. (I think we should aim for 10,000 words.) What happened after the relief efforts? What happened to the affected communities? The section on women and children is very poor. The names of key parties are missing, barely mentioned, or misunderstood; we don't get to know them. For example, no mention of Pinnell's nervous breakdown. (By the way, first we call him Leonard G. Pinnell, then L. G. Pinnell; he should be Pinnell on second reference). Who died and who didn't die? How was food for the priority classes organized exactly? There is no mention of the lack of looting, which is one of the saddest parts of this: the victims made very little effort to save themselves. No mention of the difficulties Wavell faced. Also no mention of the long hours spent queuing for food, and the disease that took hold in those queues because of the lack of facilities and hygiene.
   It also isn't clear throughout who was doing what. For example, the article gave the impression that the British Secretary of State for India (a member of the British government) was based in India; it said: "Early in January the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery sent the first of many requests to the UK for food aid." He did not need to send a request to the UK; he was in the UK. I tagged this in February with "clarification needed" (I briefly wondered whether he had been visiting India when he made the request). Lingzhi removed the tag without fixing the mistake, and it remained there until Brian raised it during this FAC. Lingzhi's reply included that "this whole 'government of India' and 'Government of bengal' bit would be lost on Americans and perhaps others as well". It will be lost on everyone if it isn't explained clearly, so that's what needs to be done.
4. Re: 1c (well-researched, verifiable). There are several problems with the sourcing. It isn't clear that the article is a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". There are some odd choices of sources, and a few high-quality scholarly sources barely used. For example, Yasmin Khan (2015). India at War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War, Oxford University Press, is the kind of source that the article should be built around, but it's used only once, and then only because it cites another source. I opened a talk-page section to list the key sources so that we could develop a sense of the article's scaffolding (which we need for DUE), but so far I'm the only one who has posted anything.
   Several editors who have done spot checks have found issues. Two previous editors said they had found source misrepresentation and OR/synthesis. One example that bothered me was the claim that during the famine parents had buried their children alive. That was a red flag for reasons I explain at User:SlimVirgin/Bengal. It wasn't in the source as written, so I removed it. Lingzhi restored it, and proceeded to argue about it, although it was clearly unsourced. He eventually removed it again, but continued to claim that it was in Greenough 1982, although he wouldn't give a page number. I can't find it in Greenough 1982. Another thing that bothered me, for similar reasons, was the use of File:Smallpox child.jpg, an image from the Centers for Disease Control of a young girl with smallpox, "captured in an unknown location", according to the CDC. [4] Its use and caption gave the impression that it was from that period in Bengal. When I removed it, the removal was challenged. These two examples (that children were buried alive, and the use of a misleading image and caption), and particularly their defence, seem to go beyond simple error, in my view.
   I tagged one section as OR on 3 March, but Lingzhi removed the tag on 4 March. See Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/Archive 9#Original research. Another example of OR was the use of Ghedin et al. 1997, a medical primary source about Leishmania donovani, to support "Statistics for malaria deaths are almost certainly underestimated, since the symptoms often resemble those of other fatal fevers,{{sfn|Ghedin |Zhang|Charest|Sundar|1997|p=530}} ...". The source mentions malaria once and doesn't mention the famine. It also appeared that Lingzhi had cited a source without having seen it; this was noticed only because several sources had cited it with the wrong page number and Lingzhi had copied the error (but without saying "x, cited in y"). I hope he will check that every source cited has been seen directly.
5. Re: 1d (neutral). At this point we don't know that the article complies with DUE, because it offers no indication that majority and significant-minority positions are represented as they should be.
6. Re: 2c (consistent citations). The bundled citations don't make clear which source supports which point, which makes verification even harder, so that needs to change; they should be unbundled or information should be added to the note (for this, see x; for that, see y). A more minor objection is that the article uses both short footnotes {{sfn|Smith|2018|p=1}} and Harvard referencing "according to {{harvtxt|Smith|2018|p=1}}".
7. Re: 4 (stays focused): Goes into too much detail on certain points, e.g. the death toll and the table. The earlier sections are too long, particularly "Rural credit and land-grabbing".

To keep this readable, I'd appreciate it if responses were posted below and not inside my post. Many thanks, SarahSV ^(talk) 08:59, 23 April 2018 (UTC) [edited 21:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)]

• Thank you for your opinions. The article says what all the very WP:RS sources say. It says only what the sources say, and saysit very comprehensively. It is well-researched, comprehensive, and NPOV. It very extensively uses the very, very best sources possible... All you are doing is waving your arms and saying that it is not and it does not. You have, however, not established that it is not or does not. In essence, you are saying that if someone comes onto a FAC page for whatever reason, adds am intimidating wall of text, and makes a very long ream of accusations, then you expect their unverified accusations to be taken as truth. Once again, thank you for your opinions. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oh PS A top-notch expert -- cited repeatedly in the article -- enthusiastically promised a review nine days ago. I sent a polite Thank You... It would, however, be unacceptably rude for me to even begin to send yet another email wondering if it would be possible to send it soon, or some other very presumptuous thing. So I will just have to wait and hope. Thanks again for your opinions. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration and stability

• • OK I'll try to write a point-by-point reply to SV's very interesting take on the article. But I have to say, it's Midterms week, and I will be hip deep in papers to grade. So my reply might be slow. Maybe I can post some numbers late tonight Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 12:15, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) So we have a huge wall of text above. It will take a very, very long time to address all these points, and I will be busy this week. Let me just discuss two before I retire for the night: first, "I am looking for sources". Well, just ask me (Lingzhi) then. I have 99% of them, and the ones I don't have are almost always visible through Google books or Amazon.... Second, there has been some arm-waving and breast-beating about "... he dropped his version in from user space... and there has been insufficient collaboration". There are several reasons why this is an invalid argument. I'm tired so I may not express them well first try, but:

1. I'm too tired to look at WIAFA, but does it give any directions about the proper way to collaborate? Does collaboration come in there anywhere? I don't recall... Oh, we're saying that means it's not "stable". Well...
2. The first FAC ended April 30 2017 almost exactly one year ago. One. Year. Ago. The article has been sitting here all that time. I'm not sure what the expiration date on the argument that "he dropped it in from user space, therefore it's not stable" is, but I'm pretty sure it's a long time before one year
3. What, the talk page conversations got testy at times? Wait, that means the FAC is invalid? Insufficient collaboration? Let's go through the FAs forcseveral long-time editors, then... including SV.. and delete them then if the talk page got testy. Even further, people seem to be suggesting that I bulldozed other editors and claimed the page as my own. I dispute that. But let's.. even though it's not true, let's do a thought experiment. As we all know, there are indeed editors who are infamous for bulldozing other Wikipedians, then WP:OWNing the relevant page. Yes, it happens. Some people, in fact, use it almost as their standard operating procedure. Should we go back and delete all the FAs or GAs those people have earned? Let's draw up a list and notify them, then... and bear in mind, I dispute the whole "bulldozing" thing anyhow.
4. What yardstick can we choose for collaboration? How about "participation"? Here are two tables. If you look at them, the editors who are accusing me of shutting others out have been very, very active (while being shut out). The numeric columns are total edits, total edits that added text, total text added, total edits that deleted text, total text deleted. Of course there were many other editors who added text to both mainspace and talk, but I am showing what seem to be the main ones:

Talk page participation

since 30 April 2017

User	Edits	+count	+bytes	-count	-bytes
Lingzhi	331	300	192245	31	15527
SlimVirgin	140	137	85409	3	4467
Fowler&fowler	127	115	104197	12	694
Mrrnddude	41	37	27025	4	689
Ceoil	28	27	2585	1	10
Brianboulton	9	9	7468	0	0
Herostratus	8	8	6273	0	0
TylerDurden	7	7	3727	0	0
SerialNumber	5	3	95805	2	281412
AidWorker	5	5	41745	0	0

Article edits

since 30 April 2017

User	Edits	+count	+bytes	-count	-bytes
Lingzhi	641	404	46502	237	39107
Fowler&fowler	225	170	32541	55	10770
Ceoil	135	10	110	125	11487
SlimVirgin	94	64	12686	30	10246
Outriggr	50	15	872	35	4144
Brianboulton	28	5	52	23	45886
Mrrnddude	9	7	567	2	3
Worldbruce	8	4	176	4	99
Palindromedairy	6	1	2	5	7230
AidWorker	3	2	9664	1	127313

(←) Alas, I am barely, barely started. I will need to spend many more hours answering the rest of the text above. I will certainly not have much free time in the next few days... but I will try to answer everything as soon as possible. I hope everyone will be a little patient. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't know where these figures come from, or whether they reflect a particular timeframe, but they're not what the WMF shows: article edits; talk-page edits. Of the four top editors by text—Lingzhi · 186,827 (53.4%), AidWorker · 39,848 (11.4%), Fowler&fowler · 36,150 (10.3%), SlimVirgin · 12,686 (3.6%)—only one supports the current version. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:26, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Reliability of sources

Please note that I have on hand a very, very large percentage of all sources listed below. Most of the few sources that I do not possess are books that are viewable through online preview (Google books, Amazon.com) I would be very pleased to email sources to anyone upon request.

I'm making this a dedicated section because I have a lot of information to post. This is in reply to SV's comment: "1c (well-researched, verifiable). There are several problems with the sourcing. It isn't clear that the article is a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". There are some odd choices of sources, and a few high-quality scholarly sources barely used." This section is presented, of course, as a convenient vehicle for SV to explain which choices she considers to be odd. If the explanation is comprises a basis for an Oppose, then it should present major, fundamental problems rather than minor blemishes that could perhaps be buffed. [PS:

Books

If we include Maharatna's PhD thesis in the "Books" analysis, since it's book-length and was later published as a book by OUP, then as far as books are concerned, the article is built largely around Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom), and the FIC report. Those four account for 250 cites, or 69% of the total book cites. If you add Madhusree Mukerjee's Churchill's Secret War (111 Google Scholar cites) you account for 75%; adding Bayly & Harper's Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan (65 Google Scholar cites) brings the proportion up to 77%.

SV suggests that the article should have been built around sources like Yasmin Khan (2015). India at War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War. Yes, it's an OUP source (just as 93 of this article's book cites are currently OUP). It does not have seem to attracted much academic attention yet, however, with only 3 Google Scholar cites so far. Moreover, from what I can see through online book previews, its treatment of the Bengal Famine of 1943 seems to cover mainly standard points, offering little new (as far as I can see; I could request more pages from WP:RX)... I suppose I could use it to replace some cites from other sources. I'll put that on my list of things to do.

Book publishers

Publisher name (book)	books per publisher	total cites per publisher
Oxford University Press	8	97
Routledge	5	7
Cambridge University Press	3	4
Harvard University Press	2	3
H.M.S.O.	2	3
London School of Economics and Political Science (Maharatna's PhD thesis)	1	25
Orient Longman	2	2
Princeton University Press (Ó Gráda 2009 and Ó Gráda 2015)	2	40
SAGE Publications	2	3
University of Calcutta	2	5
Agricultural Economics Society Conference	1	1
Basic Books (Churchill's Secret War)	1	22
Bengal Government Press	1	1
Cooper Square Press	1	1
Facts on File, Inc	1	1
Indian Associated Publishing Co. Ltd.	1	1
Indian History Congress	1	1
Institute of Development Studies	1	4
John Churchill	1	1
Lion Press	1	1
Manager of Publications, Government of India Press (FIC Report)	1	92
Mariner Books; Reissue edition	1	1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1	2
New Press	1	3
Padmaja Publications	1	6
Palgrave Macmillan UK	1	7
Pen and Sword	1	3
Penguin Books Limited (Forgotten Armies)	1	9
Penguin Publishing Group	1	3
People's Publishing House	1	1
Pip International Publications	1	1
Reader's Digest Press, distributed by E.P. Dutton	1	4
Stanford University Press	1	6
The New York Times Company	1	1
The United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research	1	1
University of Pennsylvania Press	1	1
Wiley-Blackwell	1	4

Journals

I must confess that I am not very knowledgeable about journal impact factors. The top two most-cited journals in the Wikipedia article, Modern Asian Studies and The Journal of Asian Studies are both peer-reviewed academic journals published by Cambridge University Press. The third most-cited, Cambridge Journal of Economics, is published by OUP, oddly enough. The fourth, Economic and Political Weekly seems prestigious regionally and at least notable globally, see Journal Rank of EPW. Those four together account for 48% of the total cites of journals in our Wikipedia article. The next few seem to be regional journals 9which is not necessarily a bad thing), until we get down to #9 Tauger's article in British Scholar and #11 Ó Gráda's article in Economic History Review.

Journals

Journal name	articles per journal	total cites per journal
Modern Asian Studies	9	56
Economic and Political Weekly	6	16
Indian Historical Review	2	2
Journal of Peasant Studies	2	5
Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics (1933–1960)	1	8
Social Scientist	2	3
South Asia Research	2	4
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies	3	13
Studies in History	2	12
The Journal of Asian Studies	2	21
The National Medical Journal of India	2	7
Annual Review of Phytopathology	1	4
British Scholar	1	8
Cambridge Journal of Economics	1	19
Economic History Review	1	6
European Review of Economic History	1	2
Food Policy	1	3
History Ireland	1	1
India International Centre Quarterly	1	1
Indian Historical Review	2	2
Journal of Economic Literature	1	3
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies	1	6
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.)	1	9
Middle East Journal	1	1
Oxford Development Studies	1	2
Oxford Review of Economic Policy	1	1
Past & Present	1	4
Population Studies	1	2
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress	1	1
Proceedings of the National Institute of Sciences of India	1	5
The Indian Economic & Social History Review	1	5
The Quarterly Journal of Economics	1	2
Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers)	1	1

Specific sources cited (all formats)

Sources cited at least 5 times

Specific article/book cited	Cited wikipedia	Cited Google scholar
Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a	92	50 (but note that the vast majority of scholarly sources on Bengal famine '43 cite this repeatedly)
J Mukherjee 2015	43	14
Greenough 1982	42	329
Ó Gráda 2015	29	4 (but note that much here is repeated in other papers that are more widely cited)
Maharatna 1992	25	Book version cited 89 times. This is a (PhD thesis). London School of Economics and Political Science. It was later printed as a book by Oxford University press.
Mukerjee 2010	22	112
Brennan 1988	20	18
A Sen 1977	19	299
Greenough 1980	16	35
S Bose 1990	15	47
De 2006	12	8
Ó Gráda 2009	11	191
Bayly & Harper 2005	9	65
Iqbal 2011	9	0 (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh)
Islam 2007a	8	16
Brennan, Heathcote & Lucas 1984	8	14
Mahalanobis, Mukherjea & Ghosh 1946	8	58
Tauger 2009	8	11
Iqbal 2010	7	58
A Sen 1981a	6	11,383
Knight 1954	6	95
Natarajan 1946	6	1
Ó Gráda 2008	6	40
Tinker 1975	6	31
Mahalanobis 1944	5	4 (Proceedings of the National Institute of Sciences of India)
Mukherji 1986	5	10
S Bose 1982	5	22

Neutrality

Nick-D and SlimVirgin both Oppose based on neutrality concerns, confronting me with the task of proving the article is not biased. Interestingly enough, neither offers an evidence-based rationale for this Oppose. This is a bit like accosting someone on the street and saying, "Prove you aren't having an extramarital affair!" However, I'll do the best I can. Just offhand, I can think of two general approaches to this question:

1. Nick-D explicitly accused it of being "vindictive" and "anti-British". Well, for about two years now, I have attempted to remain hyper-vigilant about preserving a neutral tone. In fact, in the MILHIST A-Review, Fowler&fowler made the strange accusation that the article is too neutral in tone: "...it is packed with details, but yet strangely sanitized in both in prose and pictures... I perfectly understand Wikipedia NPOV, DUE guidelines, but, still, we are looking at a famine in which there were at the very least an estimated 1.5 million Indian deaths, a significant proportion from starvation. Yet not a single Briton died from starvation." [That may have some bearing on the somewhat-misworded quote which Fowler&fowler added and Nick-D graciously pointed out]. I have again and again argued against England-bashing and Churchill-bashing. I have against and again argued against the prejudicial use of Churchill quotes like "The Indians are a beastly people with a beastly religion" and "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?". I have unwaveringly tried to strictly maintain a "Just the facts please, without the commentary" stance. In fact, if someone were gonna make splashy POV accusations, you should accuse me of being pro-British, as in fact my favorite talk-page visitor already has a couple times. I skipped the incendiary quotes, and stuck to the facts...
2. And speaking of facts, SlimVirgin says we haven't had time to check the facts. Maybe I was sneaky, and Nick and SV have uncovered my crafty ways. Maybe I'm adding only facts, but "cherry picking" them. Well then, I have the sources. Ask for them. Check them. To be honest, all you have to do is read a couple O Grada articles. They have easy, accessible prose. Then read Tauger for the FAD perspective. They are not difficult going either. If you had a free weekend, I bet you could easily read three or four in place of the usual novel or whatever. heck, you could even read Yasmin Khan, which SV advocates, although (as I mentioned earlier) from what very limited bits I can see online, Khan's analysis isn't particularly deep (which is not a point against her, since the Bengal famine of '43 is only one point within her considerably larger topic). After reading for a few hours, what you'll find is this: yes, there's disagreement, but FEE is consensus and FAD is a minority view (even Tauger says so, if i recall correctly). The newer voices that want to say everything is political are actually firmly in the FEE camp; they have simply widened that camp's borders (quite reasonably). What else can I say? My contention is that you can spend maybe three or four hours reading at most, and discover this for yourself. So the fact that you didn't spend a few hours reading is legitimate cause for Oppose? I beg to differ. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

1) I did not make the criticisms attributed to me in the first sentence here. Grateful if you could strike this. 2) I did just that, and found that the article was misrepresenting a source and not reflecting the content of others. Please see my comments. Nick-D (talk) 06:23, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Stricken. Not sure how I misread that. But I am still puzzled. You found one passage that Fowler&fowler misquoted, and you are Opposing? After I said I didn't catch it, apologized, and corrected? That seems a weak reason to Oppose. As for "not reflecting the content of others" do you mean you feel the article doesn't clearly state whether it was vindictiveness or incompetence, and you want the article to do so? The article can't do that, because no one really knows why (hence the debate). Let me summarize what conclusions I drew, very informally. I can say this on this forum because it's my reading of the texts, but I do not think I can put it in the aticle because no one says it clearly... or in some cases, because one group of people give one version very clearly, and the other group gives the opposing story, and neither side can actually prove their version is correct. So here are my personal impressions: a) Bengal Provincial govt = certainly half because of incompetence, and possibly half because they misguidedly believed that the Govt of India was going to send grain (but did not do so until it was much much too late). It might be slightly unfair to call it "incompetence" cut and dried, because they were way way way out of their league. They had no guidance from history, and as for guidance from Britain, it's.. debated. But everything they did was either in the UK's military interest at the expense of the rural poor (prioritized distribution) or just stupidly wrong (pretty much everything else, I think). The Provincial govt also did not have the authority to make the other provinces drop their trade restrictions, nor sset price controls for selected provinces, nor install a rationing scheme for other provinces, nor pressure other provinces to supply grain. The Govt of India had the power to do all of those things, though it is true that using that power might have been tricky and contested... b) Govt of India. They didn't do anything actively wrong, mainly because they didn't do anything at all. Didn't do jack squat for a very long time. Then they wrote the FIC report which pointed a dozen fingers at the Provincial govt of Bengal. Now the million dollar question is, why didn't they do anything? Debated. To me it seems impossible that they could have done "nothing" unless the UK either told them to do nothing or at least did not tell them what to do,. But again that is my opinion; we can't put that in the article. No one knows. c) The UK. No possibility of incompetence here. they refused aid until way way way too late. The question is, self-interest or vindictiveness? I never saw anyone mention evidence of vindictiveness for anyone at all except Churchill, but it's impossible to put that in the article because I don't recall anyone saying that only Churchill could possibly have been vindictive. I can't say "Lingzhi read the articles and no one was described as vindictive except Churchill" because that would be OR.... so why? National self-interest is what the Indian nationalists would say, but of course they represent only one polar side of the debate. The other side of the debate would say "it's the shipping". But neither side has the absolute proof they are right. d) Churchill. Churchill said many things that are outrageously and explicitly and hatefully racist. But was the decision to withhold shipping done thru vindictiveness? Absolutely No Proof. It's utterly possible that he would have made precisely the same decisions (perhaps with far more sorrow in his heart) if he loved the Indian people like his own family. He was Prime Minister, his nation was at war and its safety was not yet guaranteed. National leaders sometimes have to make terrible and difficult decisions under those kinds of conditions. Who knows? In fact, no one knows. So what exactly would you like me to put in the article, Nick? I can't put much or even most of this in the article (some of it's already there) because 1) No one knows. and 2) There are still debates, and the various sides are poles apart. What would you like me to put? Don't say "Put what the sources say". I already told you that much of what I'm writing above is me reading between the lines where the sources don't speak clearly (often because they cannot), and much else of what I have written is still very much under debate. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:49, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Coverage

Neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context

Well this accusation is an easy target, because of course many many many facts must necessarily be omitted. All you have to do is point at one and say "It's important!". I will try to make a list of all facts SV says I have omitted:

1. "There should be a background section explaining something about British India; who ran it, for example, which would help the reader (and author) navigate what follows. "

   That is a huge topic in itself, considerably too large to be shoehorned into this article. Who was Amery? Linlithgow? Wavell? Herbert? Suhrawardy? Pinnell? Rutherford? O.M. Martin? A. K. Fazlul Huq? Or even Leathers? What was Churchill's War Cabinet? What was the hierarchical relationship between/among all these people? Who had more power, who had less, and what powers did they have, and when? "Who ran British India" deserves its own article. Oh wait, that article does exist on Wikipedia, it's British Raj and maybe Bengal Presidency. If you think the Raj article does a sucky job of explaining things, then please do edit that article. There are already way, away, way too many topics that need to be covered in the Bengal famine of 1943 article to spend any more than one sentence (or at the extreme most, two sentences) on this topic. If SV wants to add one sentence, then I will be glad to do so.

2. Who died and who didn't die?

   There are already two very full paragraphs on this topic: "The mortality statistics present a confused picture" covers age and gender. Another covers d "Regional differences in mortality rates". It does seem that somewhere along the line the sentence about Hindus and Muslims was deleted; can restore. Another sentence has disappeared, about occupational groups. Can restore.

3. How was food for the priority classes organized exactly?

   That bit is covered in 5 paragraphs in the version at Talk:Bengal famine of 1943/attribution. See something you like? Put it back. But I must protest: It is unfair to find things that were deleted by various copy editors (a very easy searching task) and the point them out, and then claim they are important enough for an Oppose.

4. There is no mention of the lack of looting, which is one of the saddest parts of this: the victims made very little effort to save themselves.

   "Despite the organised and sometimes violent civil unrest immediately before the famine,[AI] there was no organised rioting when the famine took hold." Add the word "looting" to that sentence, cited with an sfn. BTW, I don't think it's "one of the saddest things". I'd put many other things ahead of that: Abandonment of children. Forced prostitution. Eating garbage. Being eaten by jackals, sometimes while still alive. Giving starving people rotten grain adulterated with gravel. Those rate higher in my book. Again, if you wanna add ten words about the lack of looting, I think it's not at all necessary, but I am here to serve, and so certainly can do.

5. No mention of the difficulties Wavell faced.

   That won't even take a full sentence, just a phase. Will add.

6. Also no mention of the long hours spent queuing for food, and the disease that took hold in those queues because of the lack of facilities and hygiene

   I thought "lack of facilities and hygiene" has been covered at different points in the article, but I can certainly add an additional sentence. In fact, I know exactly where one can go... I will add it soon. And if you want me to mention queues, it will take 6 or 7 words to do so, no problem.

7. What happened after the relief efforts?

   Outside the scope of this article. What happened is things got a little better for a couple years, then Direct Action Day fell like a combination of the bad parts of the Book of Revelation and Armageddon. But beyond this article's scope.

8. What happened to the affected communities?

   See above.

9. The section on women and children is very poor.

   This is crucial: On the contrary, the plight of women and children is placed in the foreground again and again and again. Children begging.["Lines of small children begging stretched for miles outside cities; at night, children could be heard "crying bitterly and coughing terribly ... in the pouring monsoon rain ... stark naked, homeless, motherless, fatherless and friendless. Their sole possession was an empty tin".[226] A schoolteacher in Mahisadal witnessed "children picking and eating undigested grains out of a beggar's diarrheal discharge"."] Women forced into prostitution. ["Very often, these girls lived in constant fear of injury or death, but the brothels were their sole means of survival.[250] Women who had been sexually exploited could not later expect any social acceptance or a return to their home or family"] Women refusing to go outside because they do not have clothes to wear. Women and children abandoned by the male head of household. The topic has an entire section, "Exploitation of women and children". SV, you are extremely famous throughout Wikipedia for trying to change every issue into a womens' issue. This is not a personal attack; do not characterize it as such. I am only mentioning your very-very-well-known and very-very-easily-verified editing area of interest. It seems rather unfair for you to claim Oppose because your personal editing habits would suggest that the coverage of women should be doubled or tripled or quadrupled... There are also very important philosophical issues regarding the nature of Wikipedia at play. I think the number of these heart-rending anecdotes should be minimized, not out of concern for tone (not at all!), but because Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia that presents (and sometimes very briefly illustrates) a summary of key facts. The heart-rending anecdotes have value only to the degree and the extent (yes, only that far) that they illustrate (in summary!) key issues of the crisis. I think the coverage of women and children is sufficient to illustrate key issues of the crisis. If you disagree, we have an article Sex and gender in the Bengal famine of 1943 you can expand. If you're more ambitious, create an article Sex and gender in famines and cover the whole topic. You can then merge "Sex and gender in the Bengal famine of 1943" into the larger article... To be perfectly honest, Wikipedia really, really needs that particular redlink to be filled with an excellent article. Please do not try to expand coverage in an article about the Bengal famine of 1943 to make up for that lack. This article already illustrates key women/children issues of this crisis. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 22:26, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Image review

Not a problem

• File:Statesman j.jpg, lead image, fair use. This is one of the images published by The Statesman in August 1943, which have been the subject of extensive commentary and were pivotal in attracting aid and the recognition that this was a famine, so they satisfy WP:NFCI. I asked on Commons whether this might be free, because another image in the article, File:Destitute mother and child Bengal famine 1943.jpg, is being used as free. The reply was that the PD status depends on whether they were published within the United States within 30 days; if they were, they are not free. Otherwise, I was told, a 1943 photograph would expire in India 60 years after publication. I don't know how far we have to go to determine whether they were published in the United States within 30 days. The easiest thing would be to ask The Statesman to release them.
  • Nikkimatria said this one was kosher because of its historical value etc. I think... the same... is true for Peoples' War... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingzhi (talk • contribs)
• File:Farmers and Water Buffalo Plowing a Rice Field by Frank Bond.jpg, PD-USGov.
• File:Sundarbans.jpg, PD-USGov, but not a good image.
• File:Burmese refugees flee along the Prome Road into India, January 1942.jpg, PD-UKGov.
• File:67 Sqn Hurricanes.jpg, PD-UKGov. Unclear what these aircraft in Chittagong in May 1943 have to do with the famine. Would make sense to restore File:AmericanSoldiersCalcutta1943.jpg if the point is to illustrate the new arrivals in Calcutta.
  • If you'll read the article, one of the key connections between "military buildup" and the famine was all the large-scale construction, especially airstrips. A cheerful photo of bunch of soldiers laughing during R&r has far far less connection (more or less no connection) to the famine. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
• File:Civil unrest India August 1942 Telegram.jpg, PD-UKGov, not relevant to the famine
• File:Cochliobolus miyabeanus.jpg, cc-by.
• File:Indian exodus from Burma to Manipur, Bengal, and Assam, January to July 1942.jpg, PD-USGov.
• File:Chittaprosad-Hungry-Bengal-sketch1.jpg, fair use; the image is from Chittaprosad Bhattacharya's Hungry Bengal: A Tour Through Midnapur District (1943), the book the British banned; its sketches have been the subject of commentary.
• File:Churchill V sign HU 55521.jpg, PD-UKGov.

Possibly a problem

• File:Map of British India anachronous.png, released into the public domain by its author, User:Deepak, who has old warnings on his page about unfree images.
  • Deleted, we can find better. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
• File:Map of Bengal districts 1943.png, map from the Famine Inquiry Commission. PD-India, needs a US tag. Status depends on whether it was published in the US within 30 days.
• File:Destitute mother and child Bengal famine 1943.jpg, from Bengal Speaks (1944). PD-India and PD-India-URAA. Not clear who the photographer was; this might be one of The Statesman images. Again, status depends on whether it was published in the US within 30 days.
• File:MotherWithShredsOfClothingAndChildCalcutta1943.jpg, ditto.
• File:OrphansWhoSurvivedBengalFamine1943.jpg, ditto.
• File:Gandhi 1944.jpg , PD-India, needs a US tag; no author or source (the link leads to only part of the image).
  • replaced with File:Gandhi writing 1942.jpg Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
• File:PeoplesWar Sept1943.jpeg, Communist Party of India newspaper front page from September 1943, fair use claimed to illustrate the "changing response of media to government suppression of info". The media response changed in August with The Statesman. It would be better to use one of their front pages; there is one here: "Calcutta sewers choked with bodies". I can't make out the date.
• Sewers choked with bodies? 99% probability that's from Direct Action Day. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

SarahSV ^(talk) 07:19, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you for this img review. I really didn't want to bother Nikkimaria until/unless the FAC was making real progress, because imgs are always easy to remove and sometimes easy to replace. As I said, it's Midterms week etc., but I will certainly start plodding along on all these imgs. Thank you again. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:25, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments by Maunus

I will gradually do a spot check of 33 random citations over the next week. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I have located one book which seems like it would be a very good addition to the literature section: Janam Mukherjee. 2015. Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire. Oxford Scholarship Online.[DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190209889.001.0001] ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Also the article, which goes specifically to one of Sarah's concerns: Rajender Kaur (2014) The vexed question of peasant passivity: nationalist discourse and the debate on peasant resistance in literary representations of the Bengal famine of 1943, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 50:3, 269-281, DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2012.752153·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:49, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks! BTW, Mukherjee is cited 43 times already. Please be sure your edition/version is the same as that used by the article...thanks!!! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:06, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

It is 2015, which appears to be the only edition. I will be using the online version, not the paper version - but the content should not differ, presumably neither will the pagination.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:59, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Coord notes

Sorry, we need to call a halt to this... It's taking me longer to page through this review than the article itself -- and with the article comprising over 11,000 words of readable prose, that's really something -- and we are nowhere near consensus to promote. The actions to address reviewer concerns, including outstanding source and image checks, need to take place outside the FAC process. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:09, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 00:12, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.