How India's present drought-like situation is similar to 1943 Bengal famine

As in 1943, India's poor and landless (whether in urban or rural areas) are the ones who suffer, while the wealthy and landed prosper

As a child in 1943, the Indian economist Amartya Sen watched one of the worst famines of the 20th century sweep through his native Bengal. Contrary to the popular image, the disaster didn’t manifest as a widespread shortage of food, he later wrote. The middle classes hadn’t “experienced the slightest problem during the entire famine,” which primarily affected “landless rural laborers” instead. 

That observation carries an important lesson for India as it runs short of a commodity even more fundamental than grain: water. As Sen showed, famine doesn’t simply result from supplies running out, but from prices being pushed beyond