Kavita Puri at the BBC:
“I feel enormous shame about what happened,” Susannah Herbert tells me.
Her grandfather was the governor of Bengal, in British India, during the run-up and height of the 1943 famine which killed at least three million people.
She is only just learning about his significant role in the catastrophe, and confronting a complex family legacy.
When I first meet her, she is clutching a photograph from 1940. It’s Christmas Day at the governor’s residence in Bengal. It’s formal, with people sitting in rows, in their finery, staring straight into camera.
In the front are the dignitaries – Viceroy Linlithgow, one of the most important colonial figures in India, and her grandfather Sir John Herbert, Bengal’s governor.
At their feet is a little boy, in a white shirt and shorts, knee-high socks and shiny shoes. It’s Susannah’s father.
More here.