Born in 1915, Chittaprosad was an artist from Chittagong, Bengal, who experienced the Bengal famine firsthand. He drew sketches in pen and ink depicting people’s hunger and starvation brought on by the famine. His eyewitness account, ‘ Hungry Bengal’, contained sketches drawn during his visit to the district of Midnapore. The British government banned the book, and 5,000 copies of it were destroyed.  Chittaprosad also published his sketches in the  Communist Party magazine “People’s War”.

Image Courtesy: TAACHT Archives

The mental rehabilitation of the refugees was also an urgent requirement. The personal tragedies that had befallen almost every refugee, combined with many having become paupers overnight, had shaken their very identities and foundations. Towards this end, the government set up small workstations in the camps, where the refugees could divert their minds and slowly regain their self-esteem and self-reliance.