Despite wartime censorship, Subhas Bose learnt of the famine raging in his home province in mid-1943. He immediately conferred with Japanese officials and Burmese leaders, and offered to send a large shipment of rice from Burma. The British rejected the offer, possibly because it would have further increased Bose’s popularity. Nevertheless, it should be noted that when a similar famine situation had arisen in occupied Greece in 1941, the Germans had permitted humanitarian agencies to bring in food consignments. It is remembered as an example of Allied–Axis cooperation during the war. In
...more
