Churchill Was crueler than Hitler

?WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS WORSE THAN ADOLF HITLER CRUELTY

?No great portion of the world population was so effectively protected from the horrors and perils of World War II as were the people of Hindustan. They were carried through the struggle on the shoulders of our small island,” writes British parliamentarian?Winston Churchill?in his accounts of the war on the subject of the Bengal famine studied through the lenses of imperialism. The blame for the Bengal Famine rests with Churchill.

Dr. Sashi Tharoor writing a famous book “Inglorious Empire?chronicles” the atrocities of the British Empire, said the former British PM should be remembered alongside the most prominent dictators of the twentieth century. He wrote the blame for the Bengal Famine rested with Churchill. In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal. This is the man whom the British insist on hailing as some apostle of freedom and democracy. In his view, he wrote that Churchill is really one of the rulers of the 20th century only fit to stand in the company of the likes of Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. Churchill has as much blood on his hands as Hitler does. Particularly the decisions that he personally signed off during the Bengal Famine when 4.3 million people died because of the decisions he took or endorsed. Not only did the British pursue their own policy of not helping the victims of this famine which was created by their policies. Churchill persisted in exporting grain to Europe, not to feed actual to use his phrase, but to add to the buffer stocks that were being piled up in the event of a future invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia. Ships laden with wheat were coming in from Australia docking in Calcutta and were instructed by Churchill not to disembark their cargo but sail on to Europe. And when conscience-stricken British officials wrote to the Prime Minister in London pointing out that his policies were causing needless loss of life all he could do was write peevishly in the margin of the report, ‘Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?'"

?The 5 of the worst atrocities done by the British Empire

Talking about the Bengal famine in 1943, the Prime Minister who led Britain to victory in World War Two, said: “I hate Indians. They are beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.” Britons suffer 'historical amnesia over the empire.

Dr. Tharoor, a former Indian government minister, delivered an emphatic speech filled with passion at the Oxford Union in July of 2015 which went viral. He wrote about the economic toll British rule took on India citing the reason "India's share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23 percent. By the time the British left, it was down to below four percent. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India." In fact, Britain's industrial revolution was really ?

Winston Churchill, in full?Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, January 24, 1965, London), British statesman, orator, and author who as PM (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country?from the brink of defeat to victory. After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World I, Churchill?became notorious for making an erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was an alone figure until his response to?Adolf Hitler's?challenge regained lost glory and allowed him to the leadership of a national coalition in 1940. Franklin D Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin?fostered Allied strategy in World War II, and after the breakdown of the alliance, he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the?Soviet Union. He led the?Conservative Party?back to the office in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, compelled to resign due to illness.

In Churchill’s veins ran the blood of both of the English-speaking peoples whose unity, in peace and war, it was to be a constant purpose of his to promote. Through his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the meteoric Tory politician, he was directly descended from John Churchill, the 1st duke of Marlborough, the?hero of the wars against Louis XIV?of?France?in the early 18th century. His mother,?Jennie Jerome, a noted beauty, was the daughter of a New York financier and?horse racing?enthusiast, Leonard W. Jerome. The young Churchill passed an unhappy and sadly neglected childhood, redeemed only by the affection of Mrs. Everest, his devoted nurse. At Harrow, his conspicuously poor academic record seemingly justified his father’s decision to enter him into an army career. It was only at the third attempt that he managed to pass the entrance examination to the Royal Military College, now Academy, Sandhurst, but, once there, he applied himself seriously and passed out (graduated) 20th in a class of 130. In 1895, the year of his father’s tragic death, he entered the 4th Hussars. Initially, the only prospect of action was in Cuba, where he spent a couple of months of leave reporting the Cuban war of independence from Spain for the?Daily Graphic?(London). In 1896 his regiment went to India, where he saw service as both soldier and journalist on the North-West Frontier (1897). Expanded as?The Story of the Malakand Field Force?(1898), his dispatchers?attracted such wide attention as to launch him on the career of authorship that he intermittently pursued throughout his life. In 1897–98 he wrote?Savrola?(1900), a Ruritanian?romance, and got himself attached to Lord Kitchener’s Nile expeditionary force in the same dual role of soldier and correspondent.?The River War?(1899) brilliantly describes the campaign.

??Political career growth before 1939

The five years after Sandhurst saw Churchill’s interest in sonics expand and mature. He relieved the tedium of army life in India by a program of reading designed to repair the deficiencies of Harrow and Sandhurst, and in 1899 he resigned his commission to enter politics and make a living by his pen. He first stood as a Conservative?at Oldham, where he lost a by-election by a narrow margin, but found quick?solace?in reporting the South African War?for?The Morning Post?(London). Within a month after his arrival in?South Africa,?he had won fame for his part in rescuing an armored train ambushed by Boers, though at the price of himself being taken, prisoner. But this fame was redoubled when less than a month later he escaped from military?prison. Returning to?Britain?a military hero, he laid siege again to Oldham in the election of 1900. Churchill succeeded in winning by a margin as narrow as that of his previous failure. But he was now in Parliament and, fortified by the ￡10,000 his writings and lecture tours had earned for him, was in a position to make his own way in politics.

A self-assurance redeemed from arrogance?only by a kind of boyish charm made Churchill from the first a notable House, that is, House of Commons figure, but a?speech defect, which he never wholly lost, combined with a certain psychological inhibition to prevent him from immediately becoming a master of debate. He excelled in the set speech, on which he always spent enormous pains, rather than in the impromptu; Lord Balfour, the Conservative?leader, said of him that he carried “heavy but not very mobile guns.” In a matter of style, he modeled himself on his father, as his admirable biography,?Lord Randolph Churchill?(1906; revised edition 1952), makes evident, and from the first he wore his Toryism with a difference, advocating a fair, negotiated peace for the Boers and deploring military mismanagement and extravagance.

?Liberal minister

In 1904 the Conservative government found itself pierced into a dilemma by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain’s open advocacy of a tariff. Churchill, a convinced?free trader, helped to found the Free Food League. He was disavowed by his?constituents?and became increasingly alienated from his party. In 1904 he joined the?Liberals?and won renown for the audacity?of his attacks on Chamberlain and Balfour. The radical elements in his political makeup came to the surface under the influence of two colleagues, in particular, John Morley, a political legatee of W.E. Gladstone, and?David Lloyd George, the rising Welsh orator, and firebrand. In the ensuing general election in 1906, he secured a notable victory in Manchester and began his ministerial career in the new Liberal government as undersecretary of state for the colonies. He soon gained credit for his able defense of the policy of conciliation and self-government in South Africa. When the ministry was reconstructed under Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith?in 1908, Churchill was promoted to president of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. Defeated at the ensuing by-election in?Manchester, he won an election at?Dundee. In the same year, he married the beautiful Clementine Hozier; it was a marriage of unbroken affection that provided a secure and happy background for his turbulent career.

At the Board of Trade, Churchill emerged as a leader in the movement of Liberalism away from?laissez-faire?toward social reform. He completed the work begun by his predecessor, Lloyd George, on the bill imposing an eight-hour maximum day for miners. He himself was responsible for attacking the evils of “sweated” labor?by setting up trade boards with the power to fix minimum wages and for combating unemployment by instituting state-run labor exchanges. When this Liberal program necessitated high taxation, which in turn provoked the?House of Lords?to the revolutionary step of rejecting the budget of 1909, Churchill was Lloyd George’s closest ally in developing the provocative strategy designed to clip the wings of the upper chamber. Churchill became president of the Budget League, and his oratorical broadsides at the House of Lords were as lively and devastating as Lloyd George’s own. Indeed Churchill, as an alleged?traitor to his class, earned the lion’s share of Tory animosity. His campaigning in the two general elections of 1910 and in the House of Commons during the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which curbed the House of Lords’ powers, won him wide popular acclaim. In the cabinet, his reward was promotion to the office of home secretary. Here, despite substantial achievements in prison reform, he had to devote himself principally to coping with a sweeping wave of industrial unrest and violent strikes. Upon occasion, his relish for dramatic action led him beyond the limits of his proper role as the guarantor of public order. For this, he paid a heavy price in incurring the long-standing suspicion of organized labor.

In 1911 the provocative?German?action in sending a gunboat to Agadir, the Moroccan port to which?France?had claims, convinced Churchill that in any major Franco-German conflict Britain would have to be at France’s side. When transferred to the Admiralty in October 1911, he went to work with a conviction?of the need to bring the navy?to a pitch of instant readiness. His first task was the creation of a naval war staff. To help Britain lead over steadily mounting German naval power, Churchill successfully campaigned in the cabinet for the largest naval expenditure in British?history. Despite his inherited Tory views on Ireland, he wholeheartedly embraced the Liberal policy of Home Rule, moving the second reading of the Irish?Home Rule Bill of 1912?and campaigning for it in the teeth of Unionist opposition. Although, through his friendship with F.E. Smith (later 1st earl of Birkenhead) and Austen Chamberlain, he did much to arrange the compromise by which Ulster was to be excluded from the immediate effect of the bill, no member of the government was more bitterly abused—by Tories as a renegade?and by extreme Home Rulers as a defector.

?During World War I

War came as no surprise to Churchill. He had already held a test naval mobilization. Of all the cabinet ministers he was the most insistent on the need to resist Germany. On August 2, 1914, on his own responsibility, he ordered the naval mobilization that guaranteed complete readiness when war was declared. The war called out all of Churchill’s energies. In October 1914, when Antwerp was falling, he characteristically rushed in person to organize its defense. When it fell the public saw only a disillusioning defeat, but in fact the prolongation of its resistance for almost a week enabled the Belgian Army to escape and the crucial Channel ports to be saved. At the Admiralty, Churchill’s partnership with Adm. Sir John Fisher, the first sea lord, was productive both of dynamism and of?dissension.

In 1915, when Churchill became an enthusiast for the?Dardanelles?expedition as a way out of the costly stalemate on the Western Front, he had to proceed against Fisher’s disapproval. The campaign aimed at forcing the straits and opening up direct communications with Russia. When the naval attack failed and was called off on the spot by Adm. J.M. de Robeck, the Admiralty war group and Asquith both supported de Robeck rather than Churchill. Churchill came under heavy political attack, which intensified when Fisher resigned. Preoccupied with departmental affairs, Churchill was quite unprepared for the storm that broke about his ears. He had no part at all in the maneuvers that produced the first?coalition Government?and was powerless when the?Conservatives, with the sole exception of Sir?William Maxwell?Aitken (soon Lord Beaverbrook), insisted on his being demoted from the Admiralty to the duchy of Lancaster. There he was given special responsibility for the?Gallipoli Campaign?(a land assault at the straits) without, however, any powers of direction. Reinforcements were too few and too late; the campaign failed and casualties were heavy; evacuation was ordered in the autumn.

In November 1915 Churchill resigned from the government and returned to soldiering, seeing active service in France as lieutenant colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. Although he entered the service with?zest, army life did not give full scope for his talents. In June 1916, when his battalion?was merged, he did not seek another command but instead returned to Parliament as a private member. He was not involved in the intrigues that led to the formation of a coalition government under Lloyd George, and it was not until 1917 that the Conservatives would consider his inclusion in the government. In March 1917 the publication of the Dardanelles commission report demonstrated that he was at least no more to blame for the fiasco than his colleagues.

Even so, Churchill’s appointment as minister of munitions in July 1917 was made in the face of a storm of Tory protest. Excluded from the cabinet, Churchill’s role was almost entirely administrative, but his?dynamic?energies thrown behind the development and production of the tank?(which he had initiated at the Admiralty) greatly speeded up the use of the weapon that broke through the deadlock on the Western Front. Paradoxically, it was not until the war was over that Churchill returned to a service department. In January 1919 he became secretary of war. As such he presided with surprising zeal over the cutting of?military?expenditure. The major preoccupation of his?tenure?in the War Office was, however, the Allied intervention in?Russia.

Churchill, passionately anti-Bolshevik, secured from a divided and loosely organized cabinet an intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation—and in the face of the bitter hostility of labor. And in 1920, after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine.

?In 1921 Churchill moved to the Colonial Office, where his principal concern was with the mandated?territories in the Middle East. For the costly British forces in the area, he substituted a reliance on the air force and the establishment of rulers?congenial?to British interests; for this settlement of Arab affairs, he relied heavily on the advice of?T E Lawrence. For Palestine, where he inherited conflicting pledges to Jews and Arabs, he produced 1922 the White Paper that confirmed Palestine as a Jewish national home while recognizing continuing Arab rights. Churchill never had departmental responsibility for Ireland, but he progressed from an initial belief in the firm, even ruthless, maintenance of British rule to an active role in the negotiations that led to the Irish treaty of 1921. Subsequently, he gave full support to the new Irish government.

In the autumn of 1922, the insurgent Turks appeared to be moving toward a forcible reoccupation of the Dardanelles neutral zone, which was protected by a small British force at?Chanak?(now?Canakkale). Churchill was foremost in urging a firm stand against them, but the handling of the issue by the cabinet gave the public impression that a major war was being risked for an inadequate cause and on insufficient consideration. A political?debacle?ensued that brought the shaky coalition government down in ruins, with Churchill as one of the worst casualties. Gripped by a sudden attack of appendicitis, he was not able to appear in public until two days before the election, and then only in a wheelchair. He was defeated humiliatingly by more than 10,000 votes. He thus found himself, as he said, all at once “without an office, without a seat, without a party, and even without an appendix.”

?In and out of office, 1922–29

In convalescence and political impotence, Churchill turned to his brush and his pen. His painting never rose above the level of gifted amateurs, but his writing once again provided him with the financial base his independent brand of politics required. His autobiographical?history?of the war,?The World Crisis, netted him the ￡20,000 with which he purchased Chartwell, henceforth his?country?home in Kent. When he returned to politics it was as a crusading anti-Socialist, but in 1923, when?Stanley Baldwin?was leading the Conservatives on a protectionist program, Churchill stood, at?Leicester, as a Liberal free trader. He lost by approximately 4,000 votes. Asquith’s decision in 1924 to support a minority Labor government moved Churchill farther to the right. He stood as an “Independent Anti-Socialist” in a by-election in the Abbey division of Westminster. Although opposed by an official?Conservative?candidate—who defeated him by a hairbreadth of 43 votes—Churchill managed to avoid alienating the Conservative leadership and indeed won?conspicuous?support from many prominent figures in the party. In the general election in November 1924, he won an easy victory at Epping under the thinly disguised Conservative label of “Constitutionalist.” Baldwin, free of his flirtation with protectionism, offered Churchill, the “constitutionalist free trader,” the post of chancellor of the Exchequer. Surprised, Churchill accepted; dumbfounded, the country interpreted it as a move to absorb into the party all the right-of-Centre elements of the former coalition.

In the five years that followed, Churchill’s early?liberalism?survived only in the form of advocacy?of rigid laissez-faire economics; for the rest, he appeared, repeatedly, as the leader of the diehards. He had no natural gift for financial administration, and though the noted economist?John Maynard Keynes?criticized him unsparingly, most of the advice he received was orthodox and harmful. His first move was to restore the?gold measure, a disastrous measure, from which flowed deflation, unemployment, and the miners’ strike that led to the general strike?of 1926. Churchill offered no remedy except the cultivation of a strict economy, extending even to the armed services. Churchill viewed the general strike as a quasi-revolutionary measure and was foremost in resisting a negotiated settlement. He leaped at the opportunity of editing the?British Gazette, an emergency official newspaper, which he filled with bombastic?and frequently inflammatory?propaganda. The one relic of his earlier radicalism was his partnership with?Neville Chamberlain?as minister of health in the cautious expansion of social services, mainly in the provision of widows’ pensions.

?In 1929, when the government fell, Churchill, who would have liked a Tory-Liberal reunion, deplored Baldwin’s decision to accept a minority Labor?government. The next year an open rift developed between the two men. On Baldwin’s endorsement of a Round Table?Conference with Indian leaders, Churchill resigned from the shadow cabinet and threw himself into a passionate, at times almost hysterical, the campaign against the?Government of India bill?(1935) designed to give India?dominion?status.

Exclusion from office, 1929–39

Thus, when 1931 the National Government was formed, Churchill, though a supporter, had no hand in its establishment or place in its councils. He had arrived at a point where, for all his abilities, he was distrusted by every party. He was thought to lack judgment and stability and was regarded as a guerrilla fighter impatient for discipline. He was considered a clever man who associated too much with clever men—Birkenhead, Beaverbrook, Lloyd George—and who despised the necessary humdrum associations and compromises of practical politics.

In this situation, he found relief, as well as profit, in his pen, writing, in?Marlborough: His Life and Times, massive rehabilitation of his ancestor against the criticisms?of the 19th-century historian?Thomas Babington Macaulay. But overriding the past and?transcending?his worries about India was mounting anxiety about the growing menace of?Hitler’s Germany. Before a supine government and a doubting opposition, Churchill persistently argued the case for taking the German threat seriously and for the need to prevent the Luftwaffe from securing parity with the?Royal Air Force. In this he was supported by a small but devoted personal following, in particular, the gifted, curmudgeonly?Oxford?physics professor Frederick A. Lindemann (later?Lord Cherwell), who enabled him to build up at Chartwell a private intelligence center the information of which was often superior to that of the government. ?

When Baldwin became PM?in 1935, he persisted in excluding Churchill from office but gave him the exceptional privilege of membership in the secret committee on air-defense research, thus enabling him to work on some vital national problems. But Churchill had little success in his efforts to impart urgency to Baldwin’s administration. The crisis that developed when Italy?invaded Ethiopia in 1935 found Churchill ill-prepared, divided between a desire to build up the?League of Nations?around the concept of?collective security?and the fear that?collective?action would drive?Benito Mussolini?into the arms of Hitler. The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) found him convinced of the virtues of nonintervention, first as a supporter and later as a critic of?Francisco Franco. Such vagaries of judgment in fact reflected the overwhelming priority he accorded to one issue—the?containment?of German aggressiveness. At home, there was one grievous, characteristic,?romantic?misreading of the political and public mood, when, in?Edward VIII’s abdication crisis of 1936, he vainly opposed Baldwin by a public championing of the King’s cause.

?When Neville Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin, the gulf between Cassandra-like Churchill and the Conservative leaders widened. Repeatedly the accuracy of Churchill’s information on Germany’s aggressive plans and progress was confirmed by events; repeatedly his warnings were ignored. Yet his handful of followers remained small; politically, Chamberlain felt secure in ignoring them. As German pressure mounted on Czechoslovakia, Churchill without success urged the government to affect a joint declaration of purpose by Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. ?When the?Munich Agreement?with Hitler was made in September 1938, sacrificing Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, Churchill laid bare its?implications, insisting that it represented “a total and unmitigated defeat.” In March 1939 Churchill and his group pressed for a truly national coalition, and, at last,?sentiment?in the country, recognizing him as the nation’s spokesman, began to agitate for his return to the office. As long as peace lasted, Chamberlain ignored all such persuasions.

?The 10 greatest controversies of Winston Churchill's career

?The UK is marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. He is regarded by many as the greatest Briton ever, but for some, he remains an intensely controversial figure.?During Britain's darkest hours in World War Two, Churchill's leadership was vital in maintaining morale and leading the country to eventual victory over Nazi Germany. In 2002 Churchill?saw off?the likes of Shakespeare, Darwin, and Brunel to be voted the greatest ever Briton. But in a career spanning some 70 years, he had more than a few moments of controversy. "There's a danger in Churchill gaining a purely iconic status because that actually takes away from his humanity," says Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre. "He is this incredibly complex, contradictory, and larger-than-life human being and he wrestled with these contradictions during his lifetime."

?Here are 10 of the most common debates that have raged about Churchill's legacy.

?The paint was thrown over Churchill's statue in Parliament Square, in 2007

?1.???Views on race

?In April last year, Labor candidate Benjamin Whittingham tweeted that Churchill was "a racist and white supremacist". Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson, was outraged. And Whittingham's Conservative opponent Ben Wallace labeled the comments "ignorant" and "incredibly insulting". The tweet was deleted and the Labor Party said: " It does not represent the view of the Labor Party. He apologizes unreservedly if it has caused any offense." But there have previously been suggestions that Churchill held racist beliefs.

?In 1937,?he told the Palestine Royal Commission: "I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." Churchill certainly believed in racial hierarchies and eugenics, says John Charmley, author of Churchill: The End of Glory. In Churchill's view, white protestant Christians were at the top, above white Catholics, while Indians were higher than Africans, he adds. "Churchill saw himself and Britain as being the winners in a social Darwinian hierarchy."

?"The mitigation would be that he wasn't particularly unique in having these views," says Richard Toye, author of Churchill's Empire, "even though there were many others who didn't hold them." Soames thinks it is ludicrous to attack Churchill. "You're talking about one of the greatest men the world has ever seen, who was a child of the Edwardian age and spoke the language of [it]." And Churchill's views on race were incomparable to Hitler's murderous interpretation of racial hierarchy, Toye says. "Although Churchill did think that white people were superior, that didn't mean he necessarily thought it was OK to treat non-white people in an inhumane way." British RAF armored cars and bomber planes on duty in Iraq during the Mesopotamia conflict, 1922

?2. Poison gas

?Churchill has been criticized for advocating the use of chemical weapons - primarily against Kurds and Afghans. "I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas,"?he wrote in a memo?during his role as minister for war and air in 1919. "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes," he continued. These quotes have been used by critics such as Noam Chomsky to attack Churchill.

But the controversy is misplaced, says Warren Dockter, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and the author of Winston Churchill and the Islamic World. "What he was proposing to use in Mesopotamia was lachrymatory gas, which is essentially tear gas, not mustard gas. “Churchill’s 1919 memo continued: "The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the deadliest gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effect on most of those affected." In another memo about using gas against Afghans, Dockter says, Churchill questioned why a British soldier could be killed lying wounded on the ground while it was supposedly unfair "to fire a shell which makes the said native sneeze - it really is too silly". But some still criticize the British air attacks used to quell rebellious tribes in the region. And it's important to note that he was in favor of using mustard gas against Ottoman troops in WW1, says Dockter, although this was at a time when other nations were using it

?3?????Bengal famine

?In 1943, India, then still a British possession, experienced a disastrous famine in the northeastern region of Bengal - sparked by the Japanese occupation of Burma the year before. At least three million people are believed to have died - and Churchill's actions, or lack thereof, have been the subject of criticism. Madhusree Mukerjee, the author of Churchill's Secret War, has said that despite refusing to meet India's need for wheat, he continued to insist that it exported rice?to fuel the war effort."[The War Cabinet] ordered the build-up of a stockpile of wheat for feeding European civilians after they had been liberated. So, 170,000 tons of Australian wheat bypassed starving India - destined not for consumption but for storage," she said upon release of the book in 2010.

?Churchill even?appeared to blame the Indians for the famine, claiming they "breed like rabbits”. “It’s one of the worst blots on his record," says Toye. "It clearly is the case that it was difficult for people to get him to take the issue seriously." "Churchill viewed it as a distraction," he explains. Preoccupied with battling Germany in Europe, Churchill didn't want to be bothered by it when people raised the issue. "We have this image of Churchill being far-sighted and prophetic," says Charmley. "But what he does tragically in the case of the Bengal famine is show absolutely zero advance [since] the Irish famine 100 years earlier." It was a horrendous event but it needs to be seen within the context of global war, says Packwood. "Churchill is running a global war at this point and there are always going to be conflicting priorities and demands," he says. "It's an incredibly complex and evolving situation - and he's not always going to get everything right."?

Arthur Herman, the author of Gandhi & Churchill,?has argued that without Churchill the famine would have been worse. Once he was fully aware of the famine's extent, "Churchill and his cabinet sought every way to alleviate the suffering without undermining the war effort", Herman wrote. It was a failure of prioritization, says Toye. It's true that Britain's resources were stretched, he says, but that's no excuse given the relatively small effort it would have taken to alleviate the problem.

?Churchill on Gandhi: "A seditious lawyer, posing as a fakir"

?4?????Statements about Gandhi

?Churchill had strong views on the man now widely respected for his work in advocating self-determination for India. "It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir… striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace," Churchill said of his anti-colonialist adversary in 1931. "Gandhi should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting," Churchill told the cabinet on another occasion. "We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the Empire if he died." It's unfashionable today to question Gandhi's non-violent political tactics. He is venerated in much the same way as Churchill is in the UK. But for years he was a threat to Churchill's vision for the British Empire. "He put himself at the head of a movement of irreconcilable imperialist romantics," wrote Boris Johnson in his recent biography of Churchill. "Die-hard defenders of the Raj and of the God-given right of every pink-jowled Englishman to sit on his veranda and… glory in the possession of India." "Churchill was very much on the far right of British politics over India," says Charmley. "Even to most Conservatives, let alone Liberals and Labor, Churchill's views on India between 1929 and 1939 were quite abhorrent." He was vociferous in his opposition to Gandhi, says Toye, and didn't want India to make any moves towards self-government to the extent of opposing his own party's leaders and being generally quite hostile to Hinduism. Churchill's stance was very much that of a late Victorian imperialist, Charmley adds. "[Churchill] was terribly alarmed that giving the Indians home rule was going to lead to the downfall of the British Empire and the end of civil Churchill’s inaction." Younger Tories like Anthony Eden regarded Churchill with great mistrust during the 1930s because of his association with hard-liner right-wingers in the party, he says. "People sometimes question why on Earth did people not listen to Churchill's warnings about Hitler in the late 1930s," says Charmley, "to which the short answer is that he'd used exactly the same language about Gandhi in the early 1930s."

?5?????Attitudes towards Jews

?In 2012 there were objections to a proposed Churchill Centre in Jerusalem on the basis that he was "no stranger to the latent anti-Semitism of his generation and class". Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer,?countered that?"he was familiar with the Zionist ideal and supported the idea of a Jewish state". But being anti-Semitic and a Zionist are not incompatible, says Charmley. "Churchill with no doubt at all was a fervent Zionist," he says, "a fervent believer in the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, and that state should be in what we then called Palestine." But he also "shared the low-level casual anti-Semitism of his class and kind", he says. If we judged every one of that era by the standards of 21st Century political correctness, they'd all be guilty, he notes. "It shouldn't blind us to the bigger picture."

?A 1937 unpublished article - supposedly by Churchill - entitled "How the Jews Can Combat Persecution" was discovered in 2007. "It may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution - that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer," it said. "There is the feeling that the Jew is an incorrigible alien, that his first loyalty will always be towards his own race." But there was immediately?a row over the article, with Churchill historians pointing out it was written by journalist Adam Marshall Diston and that it might not have represented Churchill's views at all accurately. "Casual anti-Semitism was rampant," agrees Dockter, "[but] it's inconceivable to pitch him as anti-Semitic." In a 1920 article, he wrote: "Some people like Jews and some do not, but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world."?

Born 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace in Oxford shire. Attended Harrow and Sandhurst before embarking on an army career, seeing action in India, and Sudan. Became Conservative MP in 1900, but in 1904 joined the Liberal Party. Cabinet member from 1908, he was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 until the disastrous Dardanelles expedition in the early part of WW1. Served on the Western Front for a time, before rejoining government from 1917-1929. Opposition to Indian self-rule, warnings about the rise of the Nazis, and support for Edward VIII left Churchill politically isolated during the 1930s. After WW2 broke out, he replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, where his reputation as an inspirational wartime leader was cemented. They lost power in the 1945 election but were returned to power in 1951, and continued as prime ministers until 1955. Died on 24 January 1965 and was given a state funeral.

?6.???Attitudes towards Islam

?Paul Weston, chairman of the Liberty GB party,?was arrested last year.?on suspicion of racial harassment after reading aloud some of Churchill's thoughts on Islam. Weston was quoting from Churchill's 1899 book The River War, in which he wrote: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia [rabies] in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. "Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live." Snippets of these quotes now accompany Churchill's face in numerous internet memes purporting to show his anti-Islam stance. "That was probably the most common view shared by British people of Churchill's era and I've no doubt that he believed exactly that," says Charmley. But Churchill had a much more nuanced stance on Islam, Dockter says. The 1899 book was written in specific reference to the Mahdists of Sudan, immediately following the war there in which Churchill fought.It was recently revealed that Churchill was sufficiently fascinated with Islam for his family to be concerned at one point that he might convert. And in 1940, his cabinet set aside ￡100,000 for the construction of a mosque in London in recognition of the Indian Muslims who fought for the British Empire. He later told the House of Commons: "Many of our friends in Muslim countries all over the East have already expressed great appreciation of this gift." "His relationship with Islam is far more complex than most people realize," Dockter suggests, noting that Churchill went on holiday to Istanbul and played polo in India with Muslims.

7. Treatment of strikers

?Churchill's reputation as being anti-union primarily stems from an incident in 1910. His handling of the Tonypandy Riots that year was the source of much controversy and invited ill-feeling towards him in south Wales for the rest of his life. His grandson?even had to defend Churchill's actions?as late as 1978, when Prime Minister James Callaghan referenced "the vendetta of your family against the miners of Tonypandy". The riots had erupted in November 1910 in the south Wales town because of a dispute between workers and the mine owners, culminating in strikes that ultimately lasted almost a year. When the strikers clashed with local police, Churchill - then home secretary - sent in soldiers. Allegations that shots were fired by the soldiers were unfounded, explains Toye. In fact, he'd sent a memo expressly denying that the use of violence was a possibility. Yet it made him a "pantomime villain" in the area ever since, Louise Miskell, a historian at Swansea University,?told the BBC in March 2014. But a year later soldiers were again called in, this time to strike-related riots in Liverpool. On this occasion, the soldiers did fire their weapons and two people were killed. And in later years his contempt for unions became more pronounced, says Charmley. In 1919, under Churchill, by now Secretary of State for Air and War, tanks and an estimated 10,000 troops were deployed to Glasgow during a period of widespread strikes and civil unrest amid fear of a Bolshevist revolt.

The Tonypandy incident is comparable to Margaret Thatcher's later struggles with miners, Charmley suggests. One could argue that had Churchill not moved in troops the situation could have been much worse and he would have been criticized, even more, he says. In Boris Johnson's biography, he promotes the more liberal side of Churchill as the "begetter of some of the most progressive legislation for 200 years". "Together with [former PM David] Lloyd George, he deserves the title of Founder of the Welfare State." He supported quite radical social reform, adds Packwood, but it was more in the form of Victorian paternalism and he was a die-hard opponent of communism who saw the hand of it behind the Labor movement during the 1920s. "For someone who has this terrible reputation with the unions," says Packwood, "he actually goes on to run two very conciliatory governments."

?8. Sidney Street siege

?Not long after the Tonypandy Riots, Churchill was under fire for rash involvement of a different sort. The siege of Sidney Street was a gunfight in London's East End in January 1911. Some 200 police surrounded the hideout of a gang of Latvian anarchists led by "Peter the Painter", who had killed three policemen the month before. A long gun battle ended with the deaths of two of the gang after Churchill had ordered firefighters not to put out the burning building they'd been hiding in until the shooting had stopped. But the controversy for Churchill arose from the appearance that he'd been issuing orders and directly meddling in police operations. Arthur Balfour told the Commons: "He and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was the right honorable gentleman doing?" For Churchill's opponents it was an example of rashness and instability, says Toye. A newsreel film?had caught him in the midst of the action. A contemporary wrote in a letter that "I do believe that Winston takes no interest in political affairs unless they involve the chance of bloodshed", explains Charmley. "Churchill liked a photo opportunity before the word had been invented," says Charmley.

?9. Role in Ireland

?In January 1919 Churchill assumed the role of Secretary of State for War and Air. Eleven days later the Irish War of Independence began. Churchill's role in Ireland is most associated with deploying the controversial "Black and Tans" to fight the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Named after their uniforms, these temporary constables soon developed a reputation for excessive violence. In Churchill: The Greatest Briton Unmasked, Nigel Knight claims that Churchill repeatedly refused to stand down the Black and Tans and even advocated the use of air power in Ireland. But it would be unfair to label Churchill as anti-Irish, says Toye.

Although Churchill was against home rule for Ireland and initially implemented harsh repression, he was also an early advocate of partition, Toye explains. Churchill played a key role in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which ended the war. "It comes back to his character, which is: 'In war, resolution, in peace, magnanimity'," says Packwood. "When he felt that there was a fight, he would push very hard [and] when he thought there was a chance of peace and dialogue, he was also at the forefront of that." Churchill had expressed support for home rule?as early as 1912. He also recognized the role that Irish personnel serving in the British armed forces played in both WW1 and later in WW2, adds Toye.

?10. Cash for Influence

?"In return for a fee of ￡5,000 two oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell and Burma Anglo-Persian Oil Company [later BP], asked him to represent them in their application to the government for a merger," Gilbert's official biography stated. By modern British political standards, the 1923 payment would be considered highly inappropriate. Churchill, whose "political career was in the doldrums" at the time, according to a history of British Petroleum, agreed to use his parliamentary influence to raise the issue in return for money. "But I'd be careful about calling it a bribe," Toye says. "He accepted all sorts of gifts, which in today's culture of full disclosure would get you expelled from the Commons. But those rules were not in place at the time." The Register of Members' Interests was introduced in 1975. "You can argue that it was a conflict of interest, you can even argue that it was wrong, but you can't call it a bribe in the sense that it was actually illegal," Toye says. "Politicians' links with business and the media weren't under the same level of scrutiny as they were then," says Packwood, "he was operating in a slightly different ethical environment."

In October 2014 British planes were involved in their third air campaign over Iraq in 23 years. The RAF bombed Iraq more than 90 years ago - and that controversial strategy has had a huge impact on modern warfare and the Middle East.

Churchill's legacy leaves Indians questioning his hero status

Someone wrote conversations about India's colonial past, the most people in Britain held a starkly different view of the wartime British prime minister. There were conflicting opinions about colonial rule too. Some argued the British had done great things for India - built railways and set up a postal system. "They did those things to serve their own purpose, and left India a poor, plundered country" would be the inevitable response to this claim. But despite this anger, anything western, anything done or said by people who were white-skinned, was seen as superior in India. ?The self-confidence of people had been eroded by decades of colonial rule. During British rule many dark chapters of our colonial history, like the Bengal famine of 1943. At least three million people died of hunger. That's more than six times the British Empire's casualties in World War Two. But even as the war's victories and losses are commemorated each year, the disaster that unfolded in British-ruled Bengal during the same time has largely been forgotten. Eyewitnesses have recounted how dead bodies lay in fields and near rivers, being eaten by dogs and vultures because no one had the strength to perform the last rites for so many people. Those who didn't die in villages journeyed to towns and cities in search of food. Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee says “Everyone was looking like a skeleton with just skin over their frames," says veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee who was eight when the famine struck. "People would cry pitifully, asking for the liquid that came out of cooking rice, because they knew nobody had any rice to give them. And anyone who has heard that cry will never forget it in their life. ?A cyclone and flooding in Bengal in 1942 triggered the famine. But the policies of Sir Winston Churchill and his cabinet are blamed for making the situation worse. Yasmin Khan, a historian at Oxford University, describes the 'denial policy that was implemented fearing a Japanese invasion from Burma. "The idea was that things would be razed to the ground, including crops, but also boats that could be used for transportation of crops. And so that when the Japanese came, they wouldn't have the resources to be able to expand their invasion. The impact of the denial policy on the famine is well evidenced," she says.

?Diaries written by British officers responsible for India's administration show that for months Churchill's government turned down urgent pleas for the export of food to India, fearing it would reduce stockpiles in the UK and take ships away from the war effort. Churchill felt local politicians could do more to help the starving. The notes also reveal the British prime minister's attitude towards India. During one government discussion about famine relief, Secretary of State for India Leopold Amery recorded that Churchill suggested any aid sent would be insufficient because of "Indians breeding like rabbits". "We can't blame him for creating the famine in any way," says Ms. Khan. "What we can say is that he didn't alleviate it when he had the ability to do so, and we can blame him for prioritizing white lives and European lives over South Asian lives which were really kind of unpleasant given the millions of Indian soldiers at the same time also serving in the Second World War." Some in the UK claim that while Churchill might have made unsavory comments about India, he did try to help and delays were a result of conditions during the war. But millions perished under his watch, for the lack of the most basic of all necessities - food. Archibald Wavell, Viceroy to India at the time, has described the Bengal famine as one of the greatest disasters to have befallen people under British rule. He said the damage it caused to the empire's reputation was incalculable. Survivors say they feel angry. "There is an undercurrent of expectation that it's time the British government comes out and says sorry for what was done to India in those days," says Mr. Chatterjee. Protestors spray-painted the Churchill statue with the words 'was a racist

Many in the UK are questioning the legacy of colonial rule, and its leaders. Last month, during a protest that was part of the Black Lives Matter movement, Churchill's statue in central London was defaced. “I am not in favor of pulling down or defacing statues," says Indian historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee. “But I think in the plaque below the statues, the full history should be recorded, that Churchill was a hero in the Second World War, but that he was also responsible for the deaths of millions of people in Bengal in 1943. ?Britain owes that to Indians and to itself."Judging the past through the lens of the present might leave the world with no heroes at all. India’s most loved independence leader Mohandas Gandhi has also been accused of having anti-black views. But it's hard to make progress without the acceptance of the full truth of their lives.

?According to historian Roland Quinault:

His reservations about black majority rule [in Africa after 1950] were based on considerations of class, education, and culture, rather than race and color. In that respect, Churchill's attitude resembled that of the mid-Victorians to the working classes – they should be cautiously and gradually admitted into the body politic. Though he held particular contempt for?Arabs.?Churchill was supportive of?Ibn Saud, insofar as Ibn Saud would support the policy for a Jewish state in Palestine that Churchill had driven personally in the 1920s.?Churchill met Ibn Saud personally in February 1945 to discuss issues surrounding Palestine,?though the meeting was reported by Saudis at the time as being widely unproductive, in great contrast to the meeting Ibn Saud had held with American President?Franklin D Roosevelt?just days earlier. After 1945, many and perhaps most black intellectuals and activists in the United States became convinced that Churchill's racism was a major factor in what they saw as his cynical attempt to buttress an exploitative overseas empire that Britain could no longer afford. They charged him with suppressing the democratic aspirations of people of color. South African President Thabo Mbeki?claimed his attitude toward Black people was racist and patronizing. That complaint was shared by critics such as?Clive Ponting. Historian Roland Quinault states that "Even some historians otherwise sympathetic to Churchill have concluded that he was blind to the problems of black people." Though wary of communist?Jews, Churchill strongly supported?Zionism?and described Jews as "the most formidable and the most remarkable race", whose "first loyalty will always be towards [Jews]".

Churchill had some sympathy for the Jewish Bolshevism " conspiracy theory and stated in his 1920 article "Zionism versus Bolshevism" that?communism, which he considered a "worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality”, had been?established in Russia?by Jews: There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistically Jews; it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power come from the Jewish leaders.

?CONCLUSION

?Ultimately, the words of the great and glorious Churchill who resisted dictatorship overwhelmed the works of the cruel and cramped Churchill who tried to impose it on the darker-skinned peoples of the world. The fact that we now live in a world where a free and independent India is a superpower eclipsing Britain, and a grandson of the” savages” is the most powerful man in the world, is a repudiation of Churchill at his ugliest – and a sweet, ironic victory for Churchill at his best.