TIL: despite being voted (by the general public) as "greatest ever Briton", it turns out that Winston Churchill had quite a few controversial actions: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767

Someone on HN quoted Winston Churchill:

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

And someone else brought them up on it:

"I hope people stop quoting such an awful man responsible for genocide in South Asia. It's a very painful memory for some everytime his name comes up."

Which I was obviously curious in understanding! I did some research, and posted the following reply:

I acknowledge that my reply was not well-written and can be misinterpreted, so I deleted it.

Storing it here as a reference so that I can learn from it:

As an "ignorant westerner" I would like to read more about this. (Note: I'm not questioning the veracity of whether Winston Churchill was "responsible" for genocide in South Asia) Can you provide links to where these claims are substantiated so that we can all read up and understand why we should not quote Churchill? My basic Googling skills results in: "The Bengal famine of 1943" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 Is this what you are referring to?

Is the fact that it occurred toward the end of World War II (when the whole world was suffering from malnutrition) and that Churchill's attention was elsewhere (not an "excuse" just a fact) a consideration in apportioning blame? And that without Churchill's leadership in the War, many more lives would have been lost and the world would be a very different place today?

Again, not trying to "defend" Churchill, by many accounts he was a deeply flawed man, just want to understand what else he did wrong to educate myself on the history.

A philosophical question: is the "government" responsible for feeding "the people"? or are the people responsible for feeding themselves?

Note: in the case of the link above, the British Empire had enslaved most of the Indian subcontinent and were extracting both natural and human resources unrelentingly. It would have been difficult for people to grow (or buy) their own food because they did not have access to land (or cash), it appears that the "ruling class" in Bengal region denied the famine existed thus exacerbating the problem. So the rulers were indeed responsible for the deaths (by famine) of millions of people. :-(

But in general, if people have access to land+water should the government be responsible for giving them food?

Further reading "The 10 greatest controversies of Winston Churchill's career": https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767

I will probably avoid quoting Winston Churchill in future ... :\

I find it interesting that my reply was down-voted. I firmly believe that people who expect the "government" to provide anything for them, are in for a painful surprise in the age of AI.

But I will probably think twice about quoting Churchill in future. Best to quote Ghandi instead:

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

nelsonic / nelsonic.github.io

Winston Churchill #671

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

"I hope people stop quoting such an awful man responsible for genocide in South Asia. It's a very painful memory for some everytime his name comes up."

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."