The Bengal famine as a wartime logistics and governance failure

One interpretation of the Bengal famine emphasizes neglect and wartime transport failures rather than an intentional plan to cause starvation. Railway underinvestment in the 1920s left food distribution dependent on coastal steamers. British planners had expected Singapore and Suez to keep hostile forces out of the Indian Ocean, an assumption that failed during the war. Shipping losses and the wider war effort then compounded administrative failures and corruption. The argument against deliberate starvation rests partly on Britain's dependence on the Indian Army: famine threatened recruitment, soldiers' morale and political stability. Those interests do not remove the responsibility for neglected infrastructure and poor administration.