Political Roots of Hunger in India Explained

To eradicate hunger, food is necessary, yet poverty remains a major obstacle on the path to accessing food, an obstacle that can be felt in every part of India. Economic and social barriers push certain people to the margins. It is not that people wish to remain on the margins; rather, political and self-interested forces promote some while a large section of society is deprived of nearly all the essential things required to stay alive, forcing them to struggle lifelong merely to survive. Poverty is a curse in society, and a large part of society continues to fall victim to it. For the individual and the family, most of their earnings are spent simply on arranging food. The food required for a person to remain alive must be viewed as a fundamental right.

The availability of food means that every person’s standard of living should be such that the worry of obtaining food does not consume their entire existence; a few hours of work should be enough to secure a meal. This is possible only when poverty, starvation and famine do not prevail in society. Charan Singh (1982) wrote in his book Bharat ki Bhayavah Arthik Sthiti: Karan aur Nidan that in America and Australia a clean and unadulterated meal can be obtained for two dollars in any restaurant, the equivalent of one hour’s wage of a worker there, whereas an unskilled woman labourer engaged in construction work in India would, after a full day’s labour, barely manage a full meal in some roadside eatery. The condition in which a person does not receive adequate food to remain alive is called starvation. Its direct cause is simply the absence of sufficient food to eat. One reason for the spread of famine may be a failure of food supply, or, put differently, the common person’s lack of access to food. Poverty means the absence of those goods and services that fulfil a person’s needs, whether basic or ordinary (Charan Singh, 1982).

Jean Drèze, who has worked extensively on the eradication of poverty in India, observes that the country has never paid adequate attention to the development of human resources. As a result, people remain uneducated, their health remains poor, and children remain hungry (BBC Hindi, 2006). A speech by a Prime Minister of India in the 1980s reveals how malnutrition and poverty were denied: “I have spent much of my time travelling across the country. Especially in the last three years, when I had no official vehicle, I did not come across a single instance of malnutrition. In fact, the children appeared healthier. Their eyes were brighter and they were better dressed” (Statesman, 1980). At that very time, 26 per cent of the population of Delhi itself lived in slums or far below the poverty line. The reason is that those who live with hunger and malnutrition lack economic power; they remain largely invisible, politically insignificant and unorganised.

Utsa Patnaik (2003) demonstrated that the current availability of food, which stands at 151 kg per person per year, is lower than in the late 1930s and is comparable to the average food availability during the period of the Second World War, which included the Bengal famine of 1943. She has also exposed many academic confusions and dishonesties in official claims of a decline in poverty and consequent hunger (Patnaik, 2005).

Jean Drèze and Shonali Sen have rightly described the situation as “a permanent human emergency” in which one out of every two children in India is malnourished and two out of every three women suffer from anaemia. India’s record of malnutrition is the most heart-rending in the world. According to UNICEF’s 2005 report, of all deaths of children under five years of age across 193 countries, 20 per cent occur in India. India’s record in preventing child malnutrition is worse than that of many of the poorest countries; indeed, if the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are excluded, it is the worst on earth. According to UNICEF’s report The State of the World’s Children 2005, the percentage of low-birth-weight infants (1998–2003) was 30 in India, compared with 21 in Nepal and 19 in Bhutan, countries that are poorer than India.

We wish to speak of hunger in India because hunger is still widespread here. Twenty per cent of the world’s population lives within India’s borders. Nearly 20 crore people in India go to sleep hungry every night, and nearly 5 crore stand on the brink of starvation (Goyal, 2004). It can therefore be said with ease that approximately 25 crore people in India’s population remain on the edge of hunger.

Policy-makers in India have to some extent accepted the continuous presence of malnutrition and have sought solutions, although these remain incomplete. Extreme situations of hunger or long-term regional hunger, however, are only rarely acknowledged, studied or addressed. As noted earlier, in the years immediately after independence the greatest threat of food insecurity that hung over the country’s crores of people was that of famine and severe starvation, resulting from low agricultural productivity, dependence on an uncertain monsoon, and the highly unequal distribution of land and food. Certain land reforms, the massive increase in food production over the three decades from 1974 to 2004, and improvements in food distribution through the vast network of ration shops under the Public Distribution System have largely averted that threat. India’s welfare can be advanced more effectively and rapidly through agriculture. Goods and services are obtained from agriculture and agrarian resources. Agriculture can provide food and clothing, and household or small-scale industries can also become available; these need to be expanded progressively, and the need for reducing hard labour does not arise.

The official view of the food situation in India tends to focus on growth in food production and supply, presenting starvation as an exception caused mostly by monsoon failure or natural disasters. An economic survey of 2001–02 estimated that “foodgrain production has increased fourfold (from 50.802 million tonnes in 1950–51 to 209 million tonnes in 2001–02). The Planning Commission is of the view that the Green Revolution has ensured that the growth in foodgrain production in India has kept ahead of population growth. Having emerged from a situation of long-term shortage, the country has now entered an era of adequate stocks of most food items and of exports. The country is self-sufficient in foodgrain production and at present we have an excess stock of 60 million tonnes. Along with steps to achieve adequate production, an initiative has been taken to ensure that foodgrains of the right quality and quantity reach the right places and people at the right time and at affordable rates through the Public Distribution System” (Planning Commission, 2001). Attention remained focused on adequate buffer reserves and high economic growth rates. With India’s emergence as the world’s second-fastest-growing economy, acknowledging widespread hunger, let alone solving it, became inconvenient for policy-makers.

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (1975) wrote: “At the very moment India was about to gain independence, three million people in Calcutta were living in a state of undernutrition caused by insufficient food; their calorie intake was even lower than that given to inmates of Hitler’s death camps.” We ought to consume a sufficient quantity of balanced diet: meat, fish, milk, ghee, vegetables and fruits in the largest possible measure. But before saying this, do we also consider how many among us are in a position to use these items? (Om Prakash Kela, 1955). Dr Aykroyd had estimated that the per-person expenditure on a balanced diet came to five rupees per month, while that on ordinary unbalanced food came to two and a half rupees (Om Prakash Kela, 1955).

Between 1891 and 1901, lakhs of people became victims of death due to starvation and epidemics. Thereafter, between 1911 and 1921, infectious diseases again spread, and lakhs of human beings passed into the jaws of death (Om Prakash Kela, 1955). Of the world’s total population of approximately four billion, 350 million people are completely destitute, without even a house to live in; they live on the pavements of roads and under bridges, and are forced to fill their stomachs by picking food from garbage dumps and heaps of refuse. The majority of such destitute persons live in the Indian subcontinent (Charan Singh, 1982).

This was the period when, because a vast section of the people lacked access even to the minimum food necessary for survival, painful collective deaths used to occur. Fortunately, that nightmare has now been confined to the dusty pages of history. According to the Food Insecurity Atlas of Urban India, “the average calories consumed by people in cities are lower than those in rural areas, and calorie intake has declined slightly in both urban and rural India over the last three decades.” Nutritional levels among Dalits and Adivasis are lower than among other sections of the population.

People belonging to socially vulnerable communities suffer more from the lack of food. Adivasi people are more malnourished and poorer than other villagers. A survey (2005) revealed that in 40 villages of Rajasthan and Jharkhand, among 1,000 Adivasi households selected for the survey, nearly 99 per cent of the people were facing long-term hunger. Data collected during the survey showed that 25.2 per cent of the surveyed Adivasi households had faced semi-starvation during the week preceding the survey day. The survey further revealed that 24.1 per cent of the surveyed Adivasi households had experienced a state of semi-starvation throughout the entire month preceding the survey. Over the previous full year, 99 per cent of people in Adivasi households had suffered from one or another level of regional disease, hunger and food insecurity. In addition, among the 500 sample Adivasi households surveyed in Rajasthan, not a single one had eaten two full meals a day throughout the previous year. Lower nutritional levels, higher malnutrition and greater complaints of anaemia among children and women result in higher mortality rates among children of Scheduled Castes, one of the important indicators of health status.

In the context of starvation, the importance of a social security system becomes even greater. Famines do not occur in rich developed countries. The reason is not that all people there are rich. It is true that as long as people have employment they receive a reasonably good income. But many people are unable to enjoy this condition for long periods. If there were no social security system, the exchange entitlements based on all their assets would scarcely be sufficient for their survival. The high levels of unemployment visible in Britain and America would, in the absence of a social security system, easily give rise to widespread starvation and famine. Protection from these dangers is not provided by the high income or wealth of the English or the prosperity of the Americans. In reality, their social security systems, by ensuring the availability of the minimum necessary regulated entitlements, keep society protected from these problems (Sen, 2002).

What kind of food do the inhabitants of our country receive? The food consumed by the people here is deprived of essential nutritious elements; it lacks life-protecting substances. Leave aside nutritious food; there are many individuals here who do not even receive a full meal. In such a condition, to hope that the life expectancy of Indians will be high is mere wishful thinking. In 1931 the average life expectancy of Indians was 27 years (Om Prakash Kela, 1955). By 2001 it had risen to 64 years, yet it remains lower than that of several Asian countries. Discussing the problem of foodgrains in India in Bharatiya Arthashastra ki Vivechana, Om Prakash Kela notes that the effect of India’s grain shortage cannot remain without affecting America and Russia.

Government agencies and international agencies do not maintain records of the number of people living or dying with hunger. Even the work of government research agencies shows a similar clear denial. “Both central and state-level agencies in India find it difficult to confront widespread hunger. This is clear from the working agenda of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad. The Institute is entangled in small technical questions concerning micronutrients and conducts experimental studies on questions that can be adequately resolved in developed countries, while in practice it ignores the deep and widespread hunger across the country. Technical research on nutrients avoids confronting the problem, which is not technical but seriously political. If the government and its agencies refuse to look at the problem of hunger, there is no hope of solving it” (Kent, 2002).

The fundamental rights of citizens are both the measure and the protector of human freedom (The Leader, Constitution Supplement, 1950). In the investigation of alleged starvation deaths in Odisha, the National Human Rights Commission, through the intervention of Dr Amrita Rangaswami, established certain important and humane principles. The first of these is that death is not necessarily proof of starvation. According to Dr Rangaswami, post-mortem examination and investigation offer no special benefit in the process of preventing starvation deaths, nor do they help in securing the right to food. In reality, such procedures only inflict emotional injury upon the families and communities that have already lost their members to hunger. Those citizens, especially those who have nothing to eat, have the right to live with dignity. She further observed that the inadequate availability of food is not an isolated incident; it makes evident the continuous denial of adequate nutrition to households, communities or certain social strata. Such people are usually very poor and deprived of resources, or destitute.

Amartya Sen has found that “India has been successful in preventing famines; since independence in 1947 there has been no major famine in India. There have been several instances of large-scale crop failure, often covering large areas, and on occasion even a sharp decline in national food availability, yet dangerous famines have been prevented.” He believes that “this became possible through public action before death could become the cause. Although this has happened throughout the entire period after independence, greater skill is visible in preventing famine-like situations from arising. For example, the near-famine situation in Bihar in 1967 was contained far more rapidly than the terrible famines in Maharashtra in 1973, West Bengal in 1979 and Gujarat in 1987, resulting in relatively less severe impact on mortality rates.”

In the supply of food materials, attention remains concentrated on a particular commodity or group of commodities. In the matter of starvation, the relationship between individuals and commodities becomes important. Leaving aside those who remain hungry by choice, it is clear that the question of starvation is essentially a question of ownership of food items by individuals. Therefore, to understand correctly the nature of starvation, we must understand precisely the structure of ownership in society.

One of the main reasons for the spread of starvation in India is the poverty that exists here. India’s poverty cannot be compared with that of any other country. When starvation strikes us, because of poverty we are unable to confront it effectively; we neither have sufficient quantities of secure grain nor the money with which starvation can be properly faced. In this way our starvation is not merely a starvation of grain but also a starvation of money or wealth. The following causes of famine or famine-like situations continue to exist in India to this day: absence of rainfall or drought; excessive rainfall; the fury of floods; diseases in crops or destruction of crops for some other reason; and, most importantly, the lack of economic resources in the hands of Indian farmers and labourers. In a famine, starvation is natural, yet not every state of starvation constitutes a famine. Starvation also points towards poverty, yet poverty does not always mean starvation. We move beyond the general level of poverty when we speak of famine.

In 1876–78 a terrible famine occurred in South India, and for its prevention a Famine Commission was appointed under the chairmanship of Sir Richard Strachey. This Commission laid down certain principles for famine prevention, which are as follows:

• Work should be given at good wages to those capable of working;

• Those not capable of working should be given some economic assistance in their villages;

• A good arrangement for the distribution of foodgrains should be made;

• In the event of crops being destroyed or not being destroyed, land revenue should not be collected from landowners, or if collected, it should be collected in a proper manner.

For a correct understanding of the effects of ordinary poverty, a situation of regular starvation, or famine, it is necessary to examine the nature of ownership rights in society, exchange entitlements, and the powers inherent in them. For this, a subtle study of the nature of modes of production, economic class structure and their inter-relations becomes essential. In the analysis of actual famine conditions in this essay, these issues will acquire a clearer and more concrete form. Proprietary rights over food supply are a kind of right that makes a claim of entitlement, yet this claim, during periods of starvation, has been used by capitalists as a market propaganda for profit rather than as any fundamental right. Therefore, for the analysis of starvation it is necessary to understand the system of the authority of entitlement. This becomes even more natural in the context of poverty. During famine or starvation it appears to prove itself automatically (Sen, 2002).

Antonio Gramsci said: “I believe that it is not as important to take the side of that culture which has never been able to save any person from hunger as it is to extract from the thing called culture those ideas whose power is similar to the power that renders hunger helpless.”

The focus of discourse on starvation should not be on those dying of hunger but on those who are living with hunger as a part of their daily existence. This is deeply connected with the equally neglected issue of destitution. What is given no importance at all is the fact that death from hunger is the result of a very long-term, invisible disease of destitution. Even so, the war against hunger has still not been won in any manner. Public pressure and state action have been less successful in controlling hunger or in dealing with the deprivation of adequate nutrition, which is necessary not only for remaining alive but for a healthy and active life, than in preventing famines from occurring.

References

• BBC Hindi. (2006, May 2). [Interview/reference to Jean Drèze]. www.bbchindi.com

• Charan Singh. (1982). Bharat ki bhayavah arthik sthiti: Karan aur nidan. National Publishing House.

• Collins, L., & Lapierre, D. (1975). Freedom at midnight. Vikas Publishing House.

• Goyal, P. (2004, March 11). Food insecurity in India. The Hindu.

• Kent, G. (2002, March 12). The human right to food in India.

• Om Prakash Kela. (1955). Bharatiya arthashastra ki vivechana (2nd rev. ed.). Bharatiya Prakashan.

• Patnaik, U. (2003). Food stocks and hunger. Social Scientist, 32(7–8).

• Patnaik, U. (2005). Economic reforms and food security and poverty.

• Planning Commission. (2001). Report of the Steering Committee on Nutrition for the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002–2007). Government of India.

• Sen, A. (2002). Poverty and famines (2nd ed.). Rajpal & Sons.

• Statesman. (1980, November 16). New Delhi.

• UNICEF. (2005). The state of the world’s children 2005.

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