The withdrawal of an artwork from Britain’s National Portrait Gallery over its portrayal of Winston Churchill’s role in the Bengal Famine of 1943 is not merely another episode in the culture wars. It underlines an enduring truth: history is never just about the past. It is also about how societies choose to remember, reinterpret and debate their most painful experiences. For Bengal, the famine is no distant historical episode.

It remains one of the defining tragedies of the twentieth century. Millions perished, families were shattered, and memories of hunger became embedded in the region’s literature, politics and collective consciousness. The scale of the catastrophe is beyond dispute. The arguments begin when responsibility is assigned. Over the decades, historians have arrived at no single verdict. There is broad agreement that the famine emerged from a deadly convergence of wartime disruption, administrative failures, inflation, market distortions, colonial policies and environmental factors.

There is much less agreement on Winston Churchill’s precise role. Some scholars contend that his........

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