Why were the manifold contributions of the colonies not recognised in the many VE Day celebrations of 2020, asks Marika Sherwood. Writing for HistoryExtra, she explores the contributions of Black Britons, and people from Africa, India and the West Indies, during the Second World War…
Importance Of Free Ration Supplies During Covid-19: Lessons From The 1918 Spanish Flu
by Dhaval Patel - Jul 2, 2021 09:08 AM
Vendor processes the ration card of an Indian
woman at his Fair Price Shop. (representative image) (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
Snapshot
An important lesson that India learnt from the high-mortality 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was that while the virus itself was deadly, famine, hunger and malnutrition made the situation much worse.
Prime Minister Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) announced immediately after Indiaâs first lockdown ensured that poor sections of the society did not face hunger pangs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A short piece titled âThe Pandemic of Influenza in India in 1918â published in The Lancet in December 1923, carried an account by Dr E S Phipson, health officer of Simla. He mentioned the relatively low stock of food, subnormal rainfall and high prices as key reasons contributing to the genesis of the 1918 pand
All in all, well over 4 million black and Asian men were mobilised into the European and American armies, according to British Library research.
Many were conscripted or coerced, particularly in Egypt and the colonies of east and west Africa, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This could involve threats and even kidnappings. In Egypt alone, it has been suggested by the historian David Killingray that three-quarters of the 327,000 men who served were recruited forcibly.
Large numbers of conscripts in Africa were used as part of a human supply chain in “carrier corps”, which took a huge toll that the lack of adequate memorials can make hard to calculate.