Winston Churchill’s relationship with India is certainly the most controversial aspect of his life. Political activists frequently spew conspiratorial accusations of genocide and imperial hatred, with some figures—like the Indian Politician Shashi Tharoor—going as far as comparing the British statesman to the likes of “Hitler, Mao and Stalin.” The commonality between these activists and politicians is an evident refusal to read primary sources. Once one delves into such, as I have done so for the past few years, Churchill is clearly exonerated from such grave accusations.

Churchill first visited India in 1896 with his regiment, the 4th Hussars. The following year, he joined the Malakand Field Force as a war correspondent, operating at the front lines of the Northwest Frontier (now northwestern Pakistan). Stationed in Peshawar in early 1898, he was made an orderly officer. His travels to the Indian subcontinent came to an end in 1899. Writing of his experiences, Churchill said he was proud of “the great work which England was doing in India and of her high mission to rule these primitive but agreeable races for their welfare and our own.”

Born in 1874, he was alive at the same time as Charles Darwin. Though we know it to be ludicrous and false today, the concept of a “hierarchy of races” was the anthropological consensus in the West at the time.

However, Churchill differed from many of his contemporaries in that he was a paternalist. If such a hierarchy were true, he viewed it as Britain’s moral obligation to uplift the peoples of the Empire. As the eminent historian Lord Roberts explains, Churchill “fundamentally differed from other neo-Darwinians, especially the Fascist ones, is that he believed that the stronger and more ‘advanced’ races—in which he included the Anglo-Saxons and the Jews—had a profound moral responsibility towards what he saw as the weaker and less advanced ones.”

Such racial ideas were not exclusive to the West; they were held and practiced across all continents.

Churchill’s paternalism wholly opposed barbarism. Where the Nazis favored the systematic enslavement and liquidation of races they deemed inferior, Churchill instead believed that good governance should be instilled—with investments into healthcare, education, and more.

He favored India eventually becoming a self-governing dominion in the British Empire like Canada, though he thought this could not occur in his lifetime. Instead, he proposed a process of devolving power over time. The provincial governments needed to prove “that they can govern themselves well” before the implementation of Home Rule on the federal level.

For Churchill, the early abandonment of British rule in India spelled disaster. If this occurred, “the whole efficiency of the services, defensive, administrative, medical, hygienic, judicial; railway, irrigation, public works and famine prevention, upon which the Indian masses depend for their culture and progress, will perish with it.”

Furthermore, he was concerned with religious violence and Brahmin subjugation of the lower castes. In Churchill’s view, the systematic oppression endemic to the caste system meant that so long as the upper castes were “resolved to keep sixty millions of fellow countrymen perpetually and eternally in a state of sub-human bondage, we cannot recognize their claim to the title-deeds of democracy.” Dominion status could not be granted when the region was “prey to fierce racial and religious dissensions,” with British withdrawal likely triggering civil war on a vast scale.

This paternalistic imperialism was deeply condescending. However, he held no hatred for the Indian people. Nowhere is this seen better than in his own personal relationships with Indians of various social classes.

From Maharajahs to Servants

In 1920, the Maharajah of Alwar met Churchill during his trip to England. Recounting his trip in a letter to Churchill, the Maharajah spoke of how he enjoyed few things more than his conversations with Winston and wished he’d be appointed Viceroy of India. The following year, in another letter to his “dear friend” Churchill, the Maharajah wrote of Winston’s sympathy “for assisting the destinies of my country through her present critical stages.”

In August 1935, Churchill met the Indian industrialist and Gandhi associate, GD Birla. Parliament had just passed the India Act of 1935, which Churchill had opposed on the grounds that it was rushing self-governance.

Churchill nonetheless invited Birla to lunch. Despite finding Churchill ill-informed on Indian affairs, Birla wrote to Gandhi that this luncheon was “one of my most pleasant experiences” with a “remarkable man.” Winston instructed Birla to send Gandhi a message: Winston would be “delighted if the Reforms are a success. [...] make it a success and I will advocate you getting much more.” Birla found Churchill so pleasant that he subsequently gifted him Indian tea for Christmas.

In September 1949, Churchill met Hamidullah Khan, the Maharaja of Bhopal. Khan sought Churchill’s “advice and counsel” while in London, as Churchill’s words would “sustain me in my adversity and during the years of struggle that are still to come.” Khan also wanted to pay homage to “one whose life and effort in the cause of mankind have been, if you will permit me to say so, an inspiration to many like myself during periods of great stress and anxiety.” The two kept in contact via telegram into the early 1950s.

Fast forward to 1960. Churchill’s former butler, Mr. Munuswamy Kamalammal, passed away. Though he had worked for Churchill over six decades prior, Churchill saw it fit to look after his widow. Despite her living in Bangalore, Churchill sent her one to two cheques a year of £5 with “his good wishes.” The final cheque Churchill sent her was for £10 in December 1964, less than a month before he died. Given that India’s GDP Per Capita (in current U.S. dollars) sat at under $116 in 1964, Churchill ensured she was taken care of—with £10 in 1964, being roughly £170 today.

So, where do these accusations of hatred and genocide come from? They come from a fundamental misunderstanding of Churchill’s attitudes and actions at the time of the 1943–44 Bengal Famine.

The Bengal Famine

In October 1942, a cyclone hit the regions of Bengal and Orissa, wiping out much of the rice harvest. It also washed away southern railways, preventing transportation of foodstuffs, and disrupted India’s overall weather system—ruining the winter harvest in the North. A further byproduct was hoarding by merchants. Surrounding areas previously used to purchase shortfalls in food were all under Japanese occupation: Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and the Philippines.

From April 1942, the Imperial Japanese maintained a fleet in the Bay of Bengal. By March 1944, their fleet’s threats encompassed huge areas, including off the Maldives to Southern Burma, Australia, and more. This fleet—particularly its submarines—sunk many thousands of tons of merchant shipping carrying grain.

Given this situation, how could Churchill possibly be at fault?

Many claim that Churchill refused to ship grain to India, preferring to “stockpile it for Europe.” This is false. Westminster became aware of the severity of the famine in August 1943. The war cabinet’s immediate response was to approve 150,000 tons of grain to be shipped to India. Many famine relief meetings were held. Some of them Churchill summoned himself. Between August 1943 and December 1944, Churchill’s cabinet issued over 900,000 tons of foodstuff to be shipped to India.

Paired with a perpetual shipping crisis and the ever-present Japanese threat, Churchill spared as much shipping as he could to send aid. Nonetheless, alleged comments by Comments are regularly used to suggest he orchestrated the famine. Churchill is often accused of asking, “Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” in response to news about the famine. However, in the telegram that Churchill said, it is nowhere to be seen. Churchill instead wrote of Gandhi’s’ fast:

Surely Mr. Gandhi has made a most remarkable recovery, as he is already able to take an active part in politics. How does this square with the medical reports upon which his release on grounds of ill-health was agreed to by us? In one of these we were told that he would not be able to take any part in politics again.

During the war, the British Government promised a post-war independent Indian Dominion, equal to the United Kingdom “in every respect, in no way subordinate in any aspect of its domestic or external affairs and free to remain in or to separate itself from the equal partnership of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”

Churchill initially wanted to go to India himself to negotiate this. However, Sir Stafford Cripps was chosen, given his friendships with the Indian National Congress leaders. Nevertheless, his mission failed as nationalists like Gandhi demanded immediate independence—regardless of the ensuing Japanese invasion. While discussing the failure of this mission, Churchill blurted, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

As Dr. Zareer Masani put it, these comments were Churchill’s reaction to “Gandhi’s decision to launch the Quit India movement in the middle of the war as a stab in the back when Britain most needed and deserved loyal support.” This racist comment was not representative of Churchill’s general views: firstly, that same day, two Indian delegates met Churchill “who received them very pleasantly.” Secondly, Churchill had a tendency to lash out during emotional breakdowns. This was likely compounded by his being deeply unwell for much of the war.