1Manufacturing Hunger and Starvation

VIKAS ADHYAYAN KENDRA #5, 2017-18 INFORMATION BULLETIN

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Manufacturing Hunger and Starvation? The Myths behind Underproduction and Food Scarcity

· “If the history of British rule in India were to be condensed to a single fact, it is this: there wasno increase in India’s per-capita income from 1757 to 1947" – Mike Davis Late VictorianHolocausts; El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World, Verso Books, London, 2001

· “…There is no shortage of reminders of the terrible condition of the “common man”…the coun-tries at the top of every economic and social index in the world are closely identified withhigh-quality education, public health and nutrition. The nation should stop fooling itself! Thedelusion that India is an aspirant to be a “global power” is like a donkey dressing itself up,imagining that it is a race horse…” – T.S.R. Subramanian, The Hungry Nation, Indian Ex-press, 2.2017

· “Hunger and malnutrition are man-made. They are hardwired in the design of the industrial,chemical model of agriculture. But just as hunger is created by design, healthy and nutritiousfood for all can also be designed, through food democracy…” – Vandana Shiva, “The RealHunger Games”, Asian Age, August 29,2012

For decades, India has prided itself on being anation sufficient in food production and a foodsurplus nation. Yet, paradoxically, it continuesto fail in effectively addressing the widedisparities between the rich-the super-rich andthe mass of impoverished people, in terms ofavailability of food meant for the sustenanceof life. India has the maximum disparitiesbetween the rich and poor. Starvation in thiscontext is all the more relevant issue.

The International Food Policy ResearchInstitute (IFPRI), Washington, released the2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI), rankingIndia 100 among the 119 countries studied. (Itdoes not include most of Industrialized Northwhere the extent of hunger is irrelevant.)Among these countries however India has thelowest improvement rate. Such surveys do givea fair notion of the state of global hunger.

However, they do not give an objective assessmentof peoples’ hunger in a country like India and thuscan be misleading. What is relevant though isthat hunger is not related as much to theproduction of food as to access and distribution.“Do the urban poor, who depend predominatelyon PDS, have the same access as the urban rich?There is also a gender, caste, religious, regionalvariation in access…” (1). Further, more than thelevel of hunger and malnutrition, it is the slowprogress in solving them despite the rapid growthof the economy. While the index for India hasimproved from 38.2 in 2000 to 31.4 in 2017declining by 6.8 points, it has fallen even behindwar-ravaged Iraq. Most countries at a level ofhunger and malnutrition similar or higher thanIndia have seen a faster decline. During the sameperiod, the corresponding decline for North Korea(12.1), Bangladesh (11.1), (Nepal 14.8),Afghanistan (19.4), Ethiopia (23.7), Rwanda

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(24.9) was almost double or more. There areother countries too that have achieved a muchfaster and better out-come despite growingslower than India. (2) Surveys also indicatedthat the trends in India with respect toundernourishment, the nutritive valueconsumed per person are reducing. In 2011another survey by the Centre for Equity Studies,New Delhi, headed by Harsh Mander reportedstarvation deaths in Bihar, Jharkhand andM.P.(3) In Jharkhand, on September 28, a 11-year girl Santoshi Kumari died of starvation. Inthe same month, 3 brothers in Karnataka diedin similar circumstances. Santhosi’s death wasfollowed by another starvation death on October20 of a rickshaw puller B. Ravidas in the sameState. These deaths highlight the issues of chronichunger and malnutrition in the country’s socialwelfare system and the government’sindifference to the plight of the poor. Despite veryhigh levels of poverty the State of Jharkhandfailed to take any safeguard to prevent starvationof the poorest of the poor(4)

Instead of addressing this problem by devisingmeasures to eradicate hunger and starvation, thegovernment is prioritizing a lopsided form of

development that focuses on genetic modifiedfood production as a solution to mass hunger onthe one hand and promoting and launchingspace research programmes in the name of“nation’s progress” on the other. However, thisachievement will be meaningless in the long rununtil and unless its people are not guaranteedbasic nutrition essential for the maintenance oftheir life.

Historically, starvation has been a fact of lifeworldwide; not just in India. Famines occurfor a number of reasons like war, family, etc.India as a whole had experienced several faminesthat killed millions. In the pre-colonial erafamines did occur but they much less infrequency. During British colonial rule, forinstance, millions died but how many millionsactually died due to famines cannot be fullyascertained. The official futures according tocolonial rulers indicated it could be 60 m. deaths.In reality, it could be even much higher. Thecolonial power gives the lie that droughts, thecause for reduced farm production, led to thesefamines. The British who at the time wereengaged in wars in Europe and Africa wereexporting Indian food grains to their troops to

Famines in History

Famines in India were quite common. The major famines were during British colonial rule,from 1765 to 1947. These included both in the princely states (administered by Indian rulers),British India (regions ruled by the British MNC, British East Indian Company from 1765 to1857) and Indian territories independent of British colonial rule such as the Maratha Empire.The year 1765 is chosen as the start because that year the British MNC, after its victory in theBattle of Buxar, was granted the Diwani (rights to land revenue) in the region of Bengal(although it would not directly rule Bengal until 1784 wahen it was granted the Niazamat orcontrol of law and order).

· The Great Irish Famine (1845 to 1853)

· The Great Indian Famine (1876-1878)

· Vietnam’s Famine (1945)

· North Korean Famine (1994-1998)

· Russian Famine (1921)

· Bengal Famine (1943)

· Bengal Famine (1770)

· Soviet Famine (1932-1933)

· Chalisa (North India) Famine (1783-

· Chinese Famine (1907)

· Great Chinese Famine (1932-1933)

3Manufacturing Hunger and Starvation

maintain their conquests while famines wereraging. (5) In 1943, around 4 million peoplestarved to death in Bengal despite the fact thatthere was no shortage of food supplies in India.At the time, India had even exported 70,000 tonsof rice to Britain. Moreover, wheat shipmentsfrom Australia had passed along the India’s coastbut prevented from it being off-loaded to feedthe starving people!

Above all, the basis for a famine did not existeven during colonial rule. Famines occurredlargely owing to alien political intervention,engineered by the British; and was linked to theundeclared policy to depopulate India with thegoal to reduce the Empire’s cost of sustainingcountry.

Incidentally Bengal, under British occupation in1765 (along with Bihar, Orissa and Bangladesh)at the time, represented close to 25% of theworld’s GDP while Britain had a merely 2%.They appointed a tax collector and a localadministrator through their policy of indirectrule to govern Bengal. This arrangement lastedfor a century as more and more Indians gotbankrupt that became the basis for futurefamines. Whist the tax money went into Britishtreasuries, millions of Indians starved to deathin Bengal and Bihar.

On Independence, India had from time to timeexperienced drought in some parts of thecountry. For that matter few famines hadoccurred in pre-colonial times. But there was nofamine although thousands continue to dieannually due to lack of adequate food, faulty fooddistribution system and lack of sufficientnutrition.

Death due to starvation especially of children wasnot so much as due to the lack of food as to thecallous administration more obsessed inidentifying ghost beneficiaries through the forcedimplementation of biometric identification thanproviding essential food rations to the needy. “

The objective of public policy, making Aadhaarmandatory even through it is not…”.Suchattitude has also been noted in other nutritionprogrammmes like the mid-day meal schemeswhere young children in school have been deniednutritious food in the absence of such anidentification. So has been the case with theIntegrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)where expectant mothers have been deniedbenefits legislated by Parliament in the absence

of valid biometric identification. The instancesof hunger and starvation deaths, then, is a clearcase of an insensitive administration usingAadhaar to deny benefits to the citizens. “Aboveall, it is a clear reflection of the political prioritiesof the governments. For the government, life ofa human being is certainly less important thana 12-digit number”. (2) The administrativemachine is clearly violating the National FoodSecurity Act (NFSA).

Starvation deaths go beyond food. Illiteracy alsoplaces these people at a higher risk when the foodsupply dries up due to the lack of knowledge.Besides, health and medical care are sub-standard in their approach which again impedesthe deaths caused by starvation. Furthermore,according to news report in the Indian Expressof December 6, 2017, although mortality rate hasreduced to half in the past 2 decades, themalnutrition decline remains very slow and thisis a health risk in that it can affect intellectualand cognitive ability of children.

The reality above shows a huge disconnectbetween India’s relatively high levels of growthand its low ranks on human development.

The whole question of feeding the poor is a seriousconcern and also a convenient ploy for theagricultural input corporations like Monsanto tolaunch and promote their agribusinessparadigm. They maintain that if any otherfarming system cannot feed the world, it isirrelevant. What is instead relevant is thatagribusiness and the food it produces is thesolution to global hunger and starvation. This iswhy they launch the myth of food scarcity, andthe raison d’être of their existence. Theyabsolutely depend on it, since it alone cancamouflage the simplicity of the underlyingissues. “As early as the 1940s, the chemical andoil industries sent the Rockefeller Foundation toMexico to “fix” agriculture there. Despiteevidence to the contrary, the Rockefellerscientists derived a now –familiar narrative:Mexican agriculture was obviously gripped by aproduction deficit that could only be fixed by“modern” agriculture…This story later becamethe un-contested “truth” that had legitimized the“green revolution”…and still propels theproliferation of pesticides, fertilizers, GMOs andother agribusiness methods…”:

Despite fact and figures showing surplus food,government officials habitually present hunger

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contd. >

and low food production the raison d’être of fortheir techno-fix solution. This mindset is part ofa perspective that believes in the Northern styleAgro-Business Corporations. The balance sheetof a technological solution is clearly reflected inthe so-called Green Revolution – Punjab andHaryana —where the cost of the land and watertable, dependent relationlshion on the financiersand agro-corporations failed to factored in. Thismodel “spelt rapid depletion of the natural capitalfor farming –soil, water and biodiversity. It alsoresulted in indebted farmers. It is inexplicablethat a set of market economy policy makers,with a commitment to cost benefit analysis,should ignore depletion of basic capital – landthat produces, and the (in)security of farmers inthe market…”(7)

Close on the heels of this model, is the treadmillof technologies imposed on Indian famers, viz.,Genetic Modified (GM) Crops that will impactconsumers (food safety) and farmers (livelihood)security. GM crops are controversial worldwideand questions are raised as to why it is beingintroduced in food and farming. When Bt brinjalwas introduced, it was later assessed and declaredto be unsatisfactory and the then Union Ministerfor Environment and Forests contested thedecision and declared to enforce an indefinitemoratorium on the proposal. While the areaunder Bt cotton cultivation had risen, dataanalysis showed productivity did not significantlyincrease, nor has pesticide-use markedly decline.(7)

In the light of the above, there is need to restorereality to this debate by first unpacking some ofthe common misconceptions on food relative tothe question of hunger and starvation embeddedin the deluge of official mis-information andindustry propaganda. The task is to first becomefamiliar with the basic facts of the India’s foodsystem. Good starting points are “Good Food forEveryone Forever” by Colin Tudge, WorldHunger: 12 myths by J. Collins, P. Rosset, F. M.Lapped and How Monsanto Wrote and Brokethe Laws to Enter India by Vandana Shiva.Until this is done agricultures’ and chemicalindustry solutions will always be the defaultwinner.

MYTH: To overcome mass hunger andstarvation due to food scarcity in India there isthe urgent need to raise food production.

FACT: First and foremost, there have never been

food shortages in the world, even in India. India,instead, is endowed with super-abundance food!!For that matter even the US, Australia, NewZealand and Europe are swamped in food. TheUK’s food production is invested in biofuels andattempts to dispose of surplus food. China is notover abundant with food but continues to exportfood and grows 30% of the world’s cotton. (OnlyBangladesh is closest to not being swamped infood)

The false narrative of food scarcity is beingpeddled by

· MNCs like Monsanto, Cargil, Syngenta,Bayer, among others;

· The US Farm Bureau; the UK NationalFarmers Union; the American Soybean As-sociation, and Croplife International,

· The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, TheRockefeller Foundation, USAID;

· The International Research System (CGIAR)and even

· NASA (The National Aeronautic and SpaceAgency)

As arch representatives of the industrial systemsof agriculture their propaganda is that globalfood shortages can only be resolved byagribusiness that can alone feed the explodingpopulation of 10 b. people by 2050!

Given this reality, a number of establishmentinstitutions are now forced to admit that the veryconcept of food shortage is thus a bankrupt term.According to food experts there is alreadysufficient food production for 14 b. people – morefood than will ever be needed!

Lest it be overlooked,

· Granaries s are bulging, crops are beingburned as biofuels or dumped, prices are low,farmers are abandoning farming for slumsand cities, “all because of massive over-sup-ply”(8);

· the industrial/commercial food productionis responsible for most deforestation, mostmarine pollution, most coral reef destruction,much of greenhouse gas emission, mosthabitat loss, most of the degradion of streamsand rivers; most food insecurity, most im-migration, most water depletion, massivehuman health proclaims, etc. Planet earth isbecoming literally un-inhabitable solely as

5Manufacturing Hunger and Starvation

< contd.

result of the socio-economic and ecologicalconsequences of industrial agriculture.

The implication of all this is that the chemicalrisks and the ecological devastation thataccompany these technologies are totallyunfounded and unnecessary! Pesticides and theagribusiness food crops like GMOs exist solelyto extract profit from the food chain. They haveno other purpose!

Above all, the domination of the industrial foodsystem leads invariably to dependence,uniformity, poisoning and ecological degradationinequality, land grabbing, and, not so far off, toclimate chaos(8). Wherever industrialagriculture is implemented it leaves landscapesprogressively empty of life. Eventually, soil turnseither into mud that washes into the rivers orinto dust.

MYTH: Industrial/Commercial agriculture isthe solution to hunger and starvation in Indiaand the Global South

FACT: This is part of a mindset that views thesolution in agri-business corporations. However,the balance sheet of this technical fix is bettermeasured in the cradles of the so-called GreenRevolution — Punjab and Haryana – where thecost of the land and water table, and dependentrelationship on the financiers and agricorporations were never factored in. This modelhas since spelt rapid depletion of the naturalcapital for farming — soil, water and biodiversity.

In the long, food production based on this modelhas led farmers getting themselves into severe

only commercially approved GM crop in India.While the area under Bt cotton cultivation hasrisen considerably over the last decades, dataanalysis showed that productivity has notsignificantly risen, nor has pesticide use markedlydecreasted. In fact, cotton production has beenon the decline since the last couple of years – aperiod when Bt cotton covered the majority ofthe cotton cultivated area in the country. Farfrom being a technological fix to rural poverty,Bt cotton has merely increased the distress ofthose dependent on farming, and acutely so inthe semi-arid cotton belt. Costs have increaseddue to the appearance of new pests and othersdeveloping Bt resistance, higher water andfertilizer requirements, and no major benefit inthe output. The main beneficiaries of this transferto Bt Cotton are the seed MNCs like Monsantowhich have profited through patents and royalty.

Attempts to flood agriculture with GM crops –around 71 at different stages of development inthe pipeline – poses a serious threat to long-termfood security. While such hasty techno-fixes todeal with the crisis in the farming communityare afoot, malnutrition and genuine problemsin the farming sector failed to be seriouslyaddressed.

Farmers committing suicide are linked to thecommercial pressures of the tech dependentagriculture, along with the control of megacorporations, the market and credit agencies.Increasing production is not the only solution tohunger and starvation in an inegalitarian society(8)

debt. They are all trapped in debtfor buying costly chemicals andnon-renewal seeds; sell the foodthey grow to pay back their debt.Many of these farmers beingunable to repay these debts haveended up taking their lives.Besides, wherever chemical andcommercial seeds have spread,farmers are in debt. They loseentitlement to their own produceand hence get trapped in povertyand hunger.

This treadmill of technologiesaffects consumers (food safety)and farmers (livelihood) security.

Consider the case of Bt cotton, the

Victims of the "modern" Indian famine,induced by Winston Churchill, the Bengal Famine

6 FACTS against MYTHS #5, 2017-18

List of famines in India (1765 – 1947)

Year Name of famine British Territory Indian Kingdoms Mortality(if any) Princely States

1769–70 Great Bengal Bihar, Northern - 10 millionfamine & Central Bengal (about 1/3rd of

the thenpopulation ofBengal

1783–84 Chalisa famine - Delhi, Western 11 million peopleOudh, Eastern may have diedPunjab region, during the yearsRajputana and 1782-84. SevereKashmir famine. Large

areas weredepopulated.

1791–92 Dojibaro famine Madras Presidency Hyderabad, southern 11 million peopleor skull famine Maratha Country, may have died

Deccan, Gujarat during the yearsand Marwar 1788-94. One of

the most severefamines known.People died insuch numbersthat they couldnot be crematedor buried

1837–38 Agra famine of Central doab and - 0.8 million or1837-38 trans-Jamuna (800,000)

districts of North-Western provinces(later Agra province)including Delhi andHissar

1860–61 Upper Doab Upper Doab of Eastern Rajputana 2 millionfamine of Agra, Delhi and1860-61 Hissar divisions

of Punjab

7Manufacturing Hunger and Starvation

1865–67 Orissa famine of Orissa (also 1867) - 1 million1866 and Bihar; Bellary (814,469 in

and Ganjam dist- Orissa, 135,676ricts of Madras in Bihar, and

10,898 inGanjam

1868–70 Rajputana famine Ajmer, Western Rajputana 1.5 millionof 1869 Agra, Eastern (mostly in the

Punjab princely states ofRajputana)

1873–74 Bihar famine of Bihar - 0.0 million1873-74 An extensive

relief effort wasorganized bythe Bengalgovernment.There were littleto nonesignificantmortalitiesduring thefamine

1876–78 Great famine of Madras and Mysore and 5.5 million in1876-78 (also Bombay Hyderabad British territorySouthern India Mortalityfamine of unknown for1876-78) princely states.

Total famineMortality esti-mates vary from6.1 to 10.3 mil.

1896–97 Indian famine of Madras, Bombay, Northern and 5 million in1896-97 Deccan, Bengal, Eastern Rajputana British territory

United provinces, parts of CentralCentral provinces India and

Hyderabad

1899–1900 Indian famine of Bombay, Central Hyderabad, 1 million in1899-1900 Provinces, Berar, Rajputana, Central British territory

Ajmer India, Baroda, Mortality un-Kathiawar, Cutch known for

princely states.

1943–44 Bengal famine Bengal - 1.5 million fromof 1943 starvation, 3.5

million deathsincludingepidemics

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References:

1. Shatrugna, V. & Karpagam, S. FlawedEconomics, The Hindu, December 12,2017

2. Himanshu. Hunger, Starvation andAadhaar, Live Mint, October 23,2017

3. Parulkar, A. Starving in India: TheForgotten Problem, The Wall Street Journal,November 15,2017

4. Prasad, M. Starvation Deaths: Whose Faultis It Anyway?, Tehelka, #21, November15,2017

5. Maitra, R. Genocide, theBritish…systematically starved to death over60 millions of Eastern Indians! Serbian F.B.Reporter, July 1, 2015

6. Roy, A. & Saigal, N. The Politics of food forthe Hungry, The Hindu, November 22,2017

7. Latham, J. How the Great Food War Willbe Won, Independent Science News,January 12,2015

8. Mukerjee, M. The Imperial Roots ofHunger,Himal Southasian, June 16,2014