The Narratives – Mohamed Miah

The Narratives – Mohamed Miah

Winston Churchill stands tall in British mythology, the man who refused to bow to Hitler, who inspired a battered nation, and who supposedly embodied the best of Western civilisation. But this image has been carefully curated — cleansed of his darkest decisions, stripped of his unapologetic racism, and whitewashed of the catastrophic consequences he helped unleash on millions across the colonised world. The Churchill that history books teach is a mirage. The truth lies buried beneath the monuments — in scorched fields, in mass graves, in empty bellies, and in the echoes of tribal songs silenced by artillery fire.

From Ireland to India, Palestine to South Africa, Churchill’s name does not evoke heroism. It evokes fear, fire, and famine. He was not simply a man of his time — he was an active architect of oppression, a man who loved empire more than humanity and whose policies left lasting scars across the world. And in his own words, spoken with chilling confidence, we find not regret — but resolve.

A Soldier of Empire

Churchill’s early military career served as his indoctrination into the imperial order. As a young officer, he fought in Sudan and India, absorbing the mindset that the British had not just the right, but the duty, to civilise the world — by the sword if necessary. During the Boer War, he supported the use of concentration camps that held Boer women and children, where more than 26,000 died in appalling conditions. He did not speak out against these atrocities — instead, he wrote of his admiration for the resolve of British forces and the necessity of maintaining imperial discipline.

He viewed imperial conquest not as theft, but as civilisation. When faced with colonised resistance, Churchill’s response was not compassion, but suppression. There was no room in his worldview for equality between races — only hierarchy.

Churchill Quote:

“Our Aryan stock is bound to triumph.”

Ireland Where Terror Wore a Uniform

As Secretary of State for War during the Irish War of Independence, Churchill unleashed one of the most violent forces ever deployed in the British Isles: the Black and Tans. Formed largely of disgruntled ex-soldiers after World War I, they were sent into Ireland to crush rebellion with no real oversight, law, or restraint. Under Churchill’s watch, they burned villages, raped women, and executed civilians in broad daylight. These weren’t the actions of a few bad men — they were the policy of the empire.

Churchill defended their use, believing that fear was more effective than negotiation. Irish aspirations for self-rule were, to him, dangerous and misguided — and if the Irish could not be reasoned with, they would be broken.

Churchill Quote:

“We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world.”

Strongly in Favour of Using Poisoned Gas

By 1919, Churchill had moved from suppressing rebellion in Ireland to dealing with unrest in the Middle East. Tasked with overseeing British interests in Iraq, he proposed using chemical weapons against rebellious Kurdish and Arab tribes. To Churchill, such warfare was not immoral — it was efficient. He argued that non-lethal gas would serve as a powerful deterrent and would “inflict punishment” without permanent damage. That those being gassed were native peoples seeking self-determination made the idea even more palatable to him.

This was not a theoretical suggestion. Tear gas shells were shipped to the region, and their use was seriously planned. Though large-scale gas attacks didn’t materialise due to logistical issues, Churchill’s intentions were clear: maintain empire at any cost, and use whatever tools necessary to do it.

Churchill Quote:

“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas… I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.”

India Hatred Turned Into Policy

Perhaps nowhere was Churchill’s racism more visceral and destructive than in India. He hated the very idea of Indian independence and mocked Indian leaders as if they were children playing at politics. He refused to recognise their suffering, and his decisions would contribute to the death of millions.

He was deeply antagonistic towards Gandhi and saw Indians as ungrateful subjects. When the Quit India movement began in 1942 — a peaceful civil disobedience campaign — Churchill’s response was immediate: arrest the leaders, crush the movement, and ensure no hint of independence surfaced during the war effort. To him, even the thought of Indian sovereignty was dangerous.

His views were so dehumanising that even members of his own government were disturbed. But Churchill didn’t flinch. He believed Britain was born to rule India — and India was born to obey.

Churchill Quote:

“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

The Bengal Famine Millions Died in Silence

In 1943, famine swept across Bengal. Rice harvests had failed, inflation was soaring, and rural populations were dying in the streets. But the real crime wasn’t the failing crops — it was Churchill’s refusal to act. Grain was available in other parts of India. Ships from Australia, loaded with wheat, were ready to sail. But Churchill blocked them.

Why? Because he believed the British war effort came first. Because he wanted to stockpile grain for future use in Europe. Because, deep down, he did not care if brown people starved.

At the height of the famine, when reports reached him that millions were dying, Churchill’s response was grotesque. He mocked the victims. He asked, “Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” He blamed the famine not on policy but on the people themselves — claiming Indians bred like rabbits and caused their own starvation.

By the time the famine ended, nearly three million were dead. Mothers buried children, villages vanished, and no justice ever came.

Churchill Quote:

“Famine or no famine, Indians will breed like rabbits.”

Palestine Partition and Dispossession

Churchill’s impact on the Middle East extended to Palestine. During the British Mandate, he consistently supported Zionist colonisation while denying Palestinian claims to land or statehood. He saw Jewish settlement as a civilising force and described Arabs in paternalistic terms — as backward people unable to govern themselves.

When Palestinians resisted, Churchill interpreted it not as a cry for justice, but as rebellion. He offered no space for indigenous rights — only the preservation of British strategic interests. His policies helped lay the foundation for one of the longest and most painful conflicts in modern history.

Churchill Quote:

“I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia… by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race… has come in and taken their place.”

Rebuilt on Immigrant Backs, Then Turned Away

After World War II, Britain called on its former colonies to help rebuild. From the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia came the very people Churchill had once despised — to work in hospitals, drive buses, and sweep the streets of a crumbling empire. They came believing they were part of the British story. That they belonged.

But the welcome didn’t last. As soon as they had helped restore the country, the language began to change. They were no longer contributors — they were outsiders. The narrative shifted from gratitude to suspicion. From celebration to exclusion.

And just like that, the cycle repeated: empire uses, then discards. The logic was always the same — uphold white dominance and reduce everyone else to utility.

Churchill Quote:

“Keep England white — that is the whole point.”

The Man, the Myth, the Mechanism of Empire

Churchill’s reputation has been shaped by war speeches and cinematic retellings, but this carefully crafted image obscures a brutal truth. He wasn’t just a product of empire — he was its most loyal servant. From scorched villages in Ireland to the mass graves of Bengal, from gas warfare plans in Iraq to displacement in Palestine, Churchill’s legacy is one of preservation of white power, not universal freedom.

His own words — not just actions — condemn him. He said what he meant, and he meant what he did. And yet we built statues, not tombstones. We wrote textbooks that praised his wit, not the funerals of those he buried.

To continue celebrating Churchill without qualification is to celebrate the tools of domination — starvation, suppression, racism, and occupation. It is to say that millions of lives lost to empire were a necessary price for British pride.

But history does not belong to victors alone. It belongs to the remembered and the erased. And as the erased begin to speak, the myth begins to crack.

Churchill Quote:

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

And he did.

But now, others are writing it too.