Opinion - Leader Page Articles

On the right to food

By R.V. Bhavani

India might be self-sufficient in food production at the macro level... but at the micro level there is a lack of livelihood security.

FOOD, CLOTHING and shelter are the minimum necessities for a dignified life. The first in fact is necessary for survival and takes precedence over everything else. Access to food, being at the core of existence, is therefore necessarily an inalienable human right. It is the first essential to a life of dignity and fulfilment. Lack of food and hunger sows the seeds of conflict and unrest leading to a vicious self-perpetuating cycle; for, war in turn exacerbates instability and food insecurity.

All religions speak of the importance of food. The Upanishads in Indian philosophy talk of the energy cycle of life, in terms of all creatures emanating from food, living on food and returning to food. Buddhism refers to hunger as the greatest disease. Similar references are found in the Koran and in the Bible. Give us this day our daily bread is an oft-quoted Christian prayer. Community kitchens or langars are a hallmark of the Sikh faith. In modern times, we have Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa's succinct saying: "there cannot be religion with empty stomachs". Mahatma Gandhi said, to the hungry, "God must come in the form of bread".

At the international level, there have been world summits reiterating the commitment to eliminate hunger and achieve universal food security. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the World Food Summit held in Rome earlier this year re-emphasise the commitment to halve the number of undernourished in the world by 2015. The Report of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights says 20 countries have adopted Constitutions that more or less explicitly refer to the right to food or a related norm.

In the Indian context, there have been rulers and leaders in various periods of history down to the Mughals who are recorded to have addressed the issue of famine and hunger through various measures such as free distribution of raw grain, opening free kitchens and constructing public works. Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century B.C.) prescribes that when famine threatens a good king should institute the building of forts or water works with the grant of food, or share provisions with the people.

In more recent times, the period under the East India Company from the mid-eighteenth century till mid-nineteenth century saw a frequent recurrence of famines. The randomness of approach in tackling these was highlighted in the Famine Commission Report of 1880, reportedly the first major report of its kind. The Report recognised agricultural labourers and rural artisans as the main victims of traditional Indian famines. Indeed the early stress on livelihood security as a necessary condition for food security is found in the Report: "distress arises, not so much from an actual want of food, as from a loss of wages — in other words, money to buy food". The Report recommended the promulgation of Famine Codes to provide guidelines for the local administration to anticipate and recognise famines and provide relief. The relief strategy laid thrust on organisation of massive public works — a means resorted to even today in the face of drought and starvation. It also spoke of gratuitous relief in the form of doles in cash or grain to the needy and emphasised the need to develop irrigation and communication.

Amid recurrent food crises, small and big in scale, the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 was a major tragedy in 20th century India. Independent India has faced food crises, but thankfully we have been able to ward off famines. The Green Revolution enabled us attain self-sufficiency in food production. Yet there is no room for complacency, for we house the largest population of undernourished people in the world. Droughts, floods are annual occurrences as are reports of starvation deaths in different parts of the country. It is an ironical situation that we today have millions of tonnes of foodgrain stocks and yet thousands are going hungry or suffering from under and malnourishment. The situation today finds echoes in the 1880 Famine Commission Report's observation of inadequate purchasing power.

We have since the onset of planned development in the 1950s, made the public distribution system (PDS) a measure to reach foodgrain to the people at large. The network has grown over the years. The period 1978-91 saw a growth of food stocks accompanied by large-scale expansion of the PDS and food-for-work programmes. Numerous programmes for food and nutrition security have also been initiated both at the Central and State level. But change in the PDS from universal to targeted and lacunae in implementation have resulted to low off-take from the system. Implementation of other schemes such as the ICDS, Annapoorna and Antyodaya Anna Yojana have also been tardy, with success stories in pockets. Kerala, for instance, has emerged as a model state for implementation of universal PDS. Tamil Nadu is cited as a success for the mid-day meal programme. The Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) introduced in Maharashtra in the 1870s in the face of massive drought is talked of as a big success, but again it has not been replicated.

The bottom line is that at the end of the day, inspite of all these efforts, there are still people in our country who go to bed hungry. The irony is embedded in the stoic statement made by a landless tribal in Koraput, Orissa, when he replied in answer to whether he got to eat throughout the year, "if we get work we get to eat, otherwise we drink water and go to sleep". India might be self-sufficient in food production at the macro level (one has to guard against complacency on that front also, because per capita production over the years has been falling), but at the micro level, there is a lack of livelihood security; the agricultural labourer and rural artisan, identified as victims of famine in 19th century India, are still very much in the same situation today.

Recent Supreme Court injunctions in response to Public Interest Litigation direct Governments to give grain free to people who are too poor to buy it, provide cooked mid-day meal in all Government and Government aided schools, and have empowered gram panchayats to frame food-for-work schemes with focus on poor, Dalits and women. While the directives are welcome, their outreach and effective implementation call for greater decentralised functioning.

It is here that decentralised Community Food Banks can emerge as a viable means for addressing the problems of hunger at the local level. There are successful examples of such efforts at the micro-level aided by NGO and civil society initiatives. There is also a Government grain bank scheme for tribal areas. The huge stock of foodgrain with the Government today offers a unique opportunity for it to build on this advantage and support Community Food Bank initiatives based on decentralised storage and management of foodgrain and covering the four Es of Entitlements (Antyodaya Anna Yojana), Eco-development food-for-work), Ethics (Food for the old and infirm) and Emergencies (food during natural calamities) to meet the needs of the hungry and the vulnerable.

(The writer is Principal Scientist, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai.)

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