Three Million
By BBC Radio 4
"The best history podcast I've heard in years." - The Sunday Times "Three million is great radio... and needs to be heard." - The Observer. During the Second World War, at least three million Indian people, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal Famine. It was one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side. But there is no memorial to them anywhere in the world - not even a plaque. Can three million people disappear from public memory? From the award-winning creator and presenter of Partition Voices and Three Pounds in My Pocket, this is the story of the 1943 Bengal Famine in British India - the forgotten story of World War Two. For the first time it is told by those who were there - farmers and fishermen, artists and writers, colonial British and everyday citizens. Nearly all of the testimony in the series has never been broadcast before. Eighty years on, those who lived through it are a vanishing generation. Time is running out to record their memories.
Latest episode
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Introducing Three Million
The Bengal Famine of 1943 in British India: the forgotten story of World War II. -
1. War
The Bengal famine of 1943 in British India: the forgotten story of World War 2 -
2. The Cigarette Tin
The escalating food crisis forces people to make life and death decisions. -
3. The F-Word
Famine grips Bengal but publicly, no-one is calling it a famine. -
4. The Tapes
The discovery of cassette tapes throw new light on colonial responsibility. -
5. Ghosts
Three million people died - but why are they not better remembered? -
6. Silk Scarves
How the legacy of the Bengal famine of 1943 lives on in Britain today. -
7. Road to the Past
Kavita meets some of the last survivors of the 1943 Bengal famine.