Bengal Famine by Amit kumar

The year 2013 marks the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine which resulted in the death of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million children, women and men during 1942-43. A constellation of factors led to this ega-tragedy, such as the Japanese occupation of Burma, the damage to the aman(kharif) rice crop both due to tidal waves and a disease epidemic caused by the fungus Helminthosporium oryzae , panic purchase and hoarding by the rich, failure of governance, particularly in relation to the equitable distribution of the available food grains, disruption of communication due to World War II, and the indifference of the then U.K. government to the plight of the starving people of undivided Bengal. Famines were frequent in colonial India and some estimates indicate that 30 to 40 million died out of starvation in Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Bengal during the later half of the 19th century. This led to the formulation of elaborate Famine Codes by the then colonial government, indicating the relief measures that should be put in place when crops fail. The Bengal Famine attracted much attention both among the media and the public, since it occurred soon after Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India” call to the British in 1942. Agricultural stagnation and famines were regarded among the major adverse consequences of colonial rule. I wish to narrate the impact of the twin developments, namely, Bengal Famine on the one hand, and the “Quit India” movement on the other, on the minds of students like me. I was studying at the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, during 1940-44, when gruesome pictures of starving children, women and men on the streets of Kolkata and in other parts of Bengal appeared in The Hindu , the Statesmanand other newspapers. The goal of my University education was to get into a medical college and equip myself to run a hospital in Kumbakonam left behind by my father, M.K. Sambasivan, who died at a young age in 1936. The transformational factor was procurement of food grains from farmers at a minimum support price fixed on the basis of the advice of the Agricultural Prices Commission. A small government programme titled “High Yielding Varieties Programme” became a mass movement owing to the enthusiasm generated among farm families both by the yield revolution and the opportunities for assured and emunerative marketing. Wheat production has continued to rise since 1968 and has now reached a level of 92 million tonnes. A third important factor was the synergy brought about among scientific know-how, political do-how and farmers’ toil, often referred to as the “green-revolution symphony”. While we can be legitimately proud of our progress in the production of wheat and rice and other cereals and millets leading to the commitment of government of over 60 million tonnes of foodgrains for implementing the provisions of the MAY  2013 Food Security Bill, there is no time to relax since dark clouds are gathering on the horizon.There would be three threats to the future of food production and our sustained capacity to implement the provisions of the Food Security Bill. First, prime farmland is going out of agriculture for non-farm purposes such as real estate and biofuels. Globally, the impact of biofuels on food security has become an increasing concern. A High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the World Commission on Food Security (CFS), which I chair, will be submitting a report shortly on Biofuels and Food Security. In this report, we are pointing out that if 10 per cent of all transport fuels were to be achieved through biofuels in the world, this would absorb 26 per cent of all crop prduction and 85 per cent of the world’s fresh water resources. Therefore, it will be prudent for all countries to accord food security the pride of place in the national land use policy. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine, we should derive strength from the

fact that we have so far proved the prophets of doom wrong. At the same time, we need to redouble our efforts to help our farmers to produce more and more food and other commodities under conditions of diminishing per capita availability of arable land and irrigation water. This will be possible if the production

techniques of the evergreen revolution approach are followed and farmers are assisted with appropriate public policies to keep agriculture an economically viable occupation. This is also essential to attract and retain youth in farming. If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right. From the very beginning it has been taken  for granted that industrialisation is the only panacea for development. Our  economic policies were so designed that agriculture was categorised as ‘unskilled labour’. Urban areas and industrial enterprises received huge government  subsidies, at the cost of agriculture. As a consequence, small farmers and  rural labour suffered the inevitable impoverishment. The Green Revolution, sponsored by big industry, was imposed on India. Under the regime, ‘improved’ seeds were produced that survived only on a strong  dose of chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides. During a study on wheat  production in five states, including Madhya Pradesh, it was revealed that the  average cost of production per hectare, which was Rs 561 in the decade  19811990, has risen to a whopping Rs 7,673.70. As a result, traditional farming suffered  an untimely demise; agriculture became a ‘for markets, (controlled), by  markets’ enterprise. Small farmers got trapped in debt, and easily cultivable  and nutritious coarse pulses and oilseeds became unpopular. Modern, mechanised forms of farming made a huge population of rural labour redundant. Now there is the scourge of a Second  Green Revolution in the form of contract farming and ‘industrial-farming’. In  this age of biofuel, cane, corn and other such produce are being intensively cultivated  for fuel purposes only. Agriculture is being controlled by MNCs and large  corporations. How can food security be guaranteed by grabbing natural resources  like water and land from small, vulnerable farmers for the purpose of handing  them over to big industries? The National Food Security Bill serves only to register the fact that hunger is a real cause for concern, as in its present form, the bill is not adequately endowed with a vision to address the structural causes of India’s food and nutritional insecurities. Three basic issues need to be highlighted. First, the bill dwells on targeting vis-à-vis universalisation, re-invoking the contentious BPL-APL issue (‘priority’ and ‘non-priority’ households). Intended benefits will be provided to people based on these categories. It is a well-known fact that successive governments have failed to identify the poor. As a result, a large part of the country’s population continues to struggle with hunger in various forms. In such a grim scenario, the government should be talking about universalisation, which is an integral part of the fundamental right to life. Second, the bill provides for the supply of 7 kg of subsidised foodgrain per person per month to ‘priority’ households, whereas a person needs 14 kg a month to fulfil her basic food requirements. Third, the proposed entitlements do not deal with the problem of nutritional insecurity. People in India suffer undernourishment mainly due to protein and fat deficiencies. To cope with this problem, the government should have included pulses (to compensate for protein) and edible oil (to replenish fat). The preamble of the bill says: “…the Supreme Court of India has recognised the right to food and nutrition as integral to the right to life…” Today development is understood only in the narrow sense of economic growth and GDP. Successive governments have not stepped out of this familiar paradigm to address improvements in living standards and enhancement of people’s wellbeing. How can weServices programme with a plan to spend Rs 80,000 crore in the next five years; the midday meal scheme is already in place. We have a 17 crore under-6 child population, 45% of which is undernourished. But we barely spend Rs 1.62 per child per day on their growth and nutrition. The fact of the matter is that the private food market will lose out on profits due to this legislation, and there will be a control over inflation. The market finds this unacceptable Take the example of the second and third quarter of 2011-12. While the growth rate came down to 6.8%, food inflation also declined from 16% to 1.7%. There is an argument that it would be better for the government to focus on productivity enhancement rather than on doling out subsidies at the expense of taxpayers. But these two things are not mutually exclusive, they are complementary. India is not a food-deficit country; we produce surplus foodgrain, we throw it in the sea, we export it. But, for various reasons, it does not reach our hungry people. Part of this discussion is linked to public procurement and a minimum support price. If the government stops subsidising agriculture, profit-makers will benefit and consumers will have to pay high prices. Take the example of pulses. We pay Rs 36 per kg as the minimum support price to the farmer for tur dal, but the market price was Rs 110 some time ago. There is an urgent need to ensure maximum public procurement, and this can only be done and applied through the public distribution system. The second aspect deals with policy. For the last 20 years, per capita food production in India has been stagnant at around 460 grams per person per day. Although pulses are a key source of protein, their availability has gone down from 70 grams per day in the 1960s to 42 grams in recent times. We adopted new technologies — hybrid seeds, chemical fertiliser and pesticides — in order to increase agricultural production. Punjab sacrificed its community techniques and blindly used chemicals resulting, finally, in steep declines in soil fertility.The important point is that while  our budget grew 5,000 times its inaugural size, food production grew by a measly  400% over the same period. In rural India today, 23 crore people are  under-nourished,

and 50% of children fall victim to malnutrition. Every third  Indian in the age-group 15-49 years is feeblebodied. The government is presently  grappling with the target of 22.8 crore tonnes of grain production; it needs to  reach a target of 25-26 crore tonnes by the year 2015. The situation is so grim that today every fourth malnourished global citizen is an Indian. While countless Indian citizens are condemned to sleep on empty stomachs, crores of tonnes of foodgrain rot in the country’s godowns. India has the capacity to store 415 lakh tonnes of grain in its godowns, yet 190 lakh tonnes are stored outside under thin plastic

sheets. Speedy distribution of this grain could feed many hungry Indians. Despite instructions from the Supreme Court to distribute 35 kg of foodgrain per person, only 20- 25 kg per capita is being distributed. This shortfall can be addressed by proper utilisation of grain rotting out in the open. Only lack of political and administrative will can be blamed for such debilitating ennui. Will food security bill take the targeted approach or one aimed at universalisation of food security?  If food security is considered an integral part of the fundamental right to life, how can the targeted approach even be considered? When exclusion and caste/class/ gender discrimination have been key to social, political and economic structures, how can any targeted approach address the hunger and food insecurity situation in our country  today? The present crisis of food insecurity  is due to the consistent exploitation and negligence of agriculture and the rural  sector. Even in this age of breakneck urbanisation, two-thirds of our population depend on agriculture whereas its total contribution to India’s GDP is a  dismal 17%. At the other end of the spectrum, private enterprises that are a  minuscule 1%, stake their claim to one-third of our GDP. Real food security can only be achieved through an entirely new form of polity. So, we can only hope that this National Food Security Bill will led us to Hunger to Food Security.