Published Paper Details:

This paper examines the 1943 Bengal famine through the lens of Zainul Abedin's work, famine sketches, explaining them as a vital archival document to the integrated ecological and literal forces that caused one of the twentieth century's most ruinous man-made disasters. Drawing on over three million deaths amid social Bengal's rice-dependent agricultural economy, Abedin's sketch definitions, executed in situ during the extremity, transcend bare attestation to embody a visceral notice of dictatorial neglect and environmental rupture. A 1942 cyclone destroyed paddy fields, aggravating fungal scars and yield failures, while World War II's extremities compounded the catastrophe. Japanese occupation disassociated Burmese rice significances, British 'Denial Programs' disassembled original aqueducts to baffle irruption, and wartime affectation fueled hoarding and annuity collapse, as theorized by Amartya Sen (Sen, Amartya, 1981). Employing an interdisciplinary lens from environmental humanities and visual studies, this analysis positions Abedin's art as a counter-archive to harsh dominant historiographies that honor textual records and marginalize indigenous sensitive epistemologies. His compositions rendering deathly numbers clawing at cracked earth or huddled against cyclone-destroyed midair illuminate the famine of 'Slow Violence' (Nixon, 2011), where ecological impact points rained mortal catastrophe long before the severe starvation. The article illustrates how Abedin's testimonio anticipated current discussions about climate-induced famines, highlighting how art is able to capture the invisible cycles of ecological injustice. This study contends that Abedin's work establishes an eco-artistic methodology in which visual witness challenges authoritative silences and predicts contemporary debates concerning the environmental humanities and postcolonial ecocriticism. By reclaiming these sketches as alternative narratives, the piece emphasizes art's ongoing role in recording socio-ecological memory, encouraging a rethinking of hunger as a predictor of global climate injustices.