Winston Churchill is often celebrated in the West as the indomitable wartime Prime Minister who stood against Hitler and steered Britain to victory in World War II. However, beyond the wartime rhetoric and stirring speeches lies a much darker legacy that, for millions of people across the world, is no less oppressive or brutal than that of Hitler. His policies, particularly in India and the colonies, left behind a trail of suffering, famine, racial arrogance, and deliberate neglect that reveals him as a man driven by imperial supremacy rather than humanitarian values.
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One of the most notorious instances of Churchill’s cruelty was the Bengal Famine of 1943. While India was still under British rule, a famine ravaged Bengal, killing an estimated three million people. Grain was available in the region, but Churchill’s policies diverted food supplies and also imported food (ships laden with food grains from Australia at anchored Calcutta harbor) grains to British troops and to stockpiles in Europe, far from the starving masses and to meet future demands. When Indian sympathetic British officials pleaded with him to send relief, Churchill reportedly scoffed and asked why Gandhi had not died yet. He even blamed the famine on Indians themselves, remarking that they “breed like rabbits.” These chilling words reflect not only callous indifference but also a deeply ingrained racism, making him directly complicit in one of the worst man-made disasters of the twentieth century. People in India still have a sort of abomination for his inhuman overtures when millions were facing death in Bengal. He was keen to hold the grip on India because of her vast natural resources. People have dubbed him as India-baiter.
Churchill’s racist worldview was not confined to India. He considered entire races inferior, describing Africans as “barbaric” and Palestinians as “barbaric hordes who eat little but camel dung.” His support for violent suppression of independence movements across the empire was relentless. In Kenya, during the Mau Mau uprising, colonial forces operated under Churchill’s watch, brutally repressing dissent and establishing detention camps where thousands were tortured and killed. In the Middle East, he backed the use of chemical weapons against “uncivilized tribes” in Iraq, arguing that it was an acceptable tool to keep native populations in line.
The hypocrisy in Churchill’s stance becomes evident when juxtaposed with his fight against Hitler. While he condemned Nazi ideology and its genocidal ambitions, Churchill’s own vision of empire was rooted in white superiority and the domination of non-European peoples. For colonized populations, the British yoke enforced under his leadership was hardly less suffocating than fascist aggression. Millions across Asia and Africa who suffered under his rule could hardly distinguish between the cruelty of Hitler’s dictatorship and the oppression of Churchill’s imperialism.
Even within Britain, his authoritarian streak was evident. He ordered violent crackdowns on striking miners in Wales, and his disregard for working-class rights made him a divisive figure long before the war elevated him to near-mythical status in Europe.
In truth, Churchill’s glorification is a product of Western narratives that downplay or outright ignore colonial suffering. For Indians, Africans, Palestinians, and countless others, Churchill was no savior but an oppressor who prolonged their misery for Britain’s benefit. If Hitler epitomized fascist tyranny, Churchill embodied imperial tyranny. Both inflicted immeasurable harm, and both deserve to be remembered not as heroes, but as cautionary tales of unchecked power and arrogance.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/winston-churchill-his-times-his-crimes
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/nov/23/we-shall-satirise-him-on-the-beaches-churchill-through-the-eyes-of-cartoonists-in-pictures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill:_His_Times,_His_Crimes
