Abstract
A detailed examination of Amartya Sen's theory of famines shows that it is logically impossible: it cannot work in the real world. His attempt to apply it to the Bengal Famine of 1943 relies on repeated and consistent misstatements of the evidence in his sources. He relies almost entirely on the report of the Famine Inquiry Commission report which he not only misquotes, but disparages. Other key sources were ignored. He provides no economic analysis whatsoever of the market for food, nor of how the market could have produced the phenomena observed in the famine. Contemporary commentators do provide this analysis, showing how reduced supply in India especially a low crop in Bengal, made worse by a disastrous cyclone, would cause the effects noted.The effects of maladministration by the governments of India, Bengal and Punjab in particular and corruption in Bengal are ignored.His explanation for the famine was popular at the time, and strongly influenced the failure of the governments to act.
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