India is now in the grip of a man-made famine. How much have you read about it? [leaflet]

New York: Free India Committee; Fellowship of Reconciliation, [1943]. Handbill. 6x9 inch leaflet, printed both sides; toned around the edges, year of receipt penciled at bottom of verso, otherwise very good.

On the famine conditions in Calcutta and Bengal. Notes that "When Axis-dominated Greece began to starve, our press was filled with the news. Now that British-dominated India has begun to starve, our press has been all but silent." Suggests that the reader devote Thanksgiving to a fast, "that we may in a measure identify ourselves with stricken humanity." Also lists actions such as writing to representatives and to local newspapers, raising awareness of the famine and calling on the US State Department to organize the supply of milk for children and other relief. The Free India Committee's address is listed as 2013 Fifth Avenue; this was the Harlem Ashram, founded by Ralph Temlin and Jay Holmes Smith, two former Methodist missionaries in India who had been expelled by the British authorities for their support of Gandhi's independence movement. Though they were white, they established the Ashram in Harlem in order to organize with local black activists to use Gandhian nonviolence against racial injustice in the US, at the same time as they continued to advocate for Indian independence. Among those whose work with the Ashram in this period inspired their future Civil Rights work were Pauli Murray, Bayard Rustin, and James Farmer. In 1945 Bayard Rustin became its chairman.

Cat.No: 295435

Price: $200.00