In the midst of global uncertainties, with thankfully no third world war underway, the year 2022 witnessed “active armed conflicts in 56 countries,” marking an increase from the previous year. The outlook for 2023 suggests more “favourable conditions” for further escalation in violence, expanding to encompass a larger territory. The recent brutal massacres between Israel and Hamas in the Levant highlight the heightened intensity and profligacy of bloodshed, potentially leading to unforeseen and dire consequences for humanity. Despite temporary truces for hostage release and aid flow, the specter of grim times looms large.
The fatal hostilities by the belligerents since 2022 have understandably already had adverse effects on the food sector, even outside the conflict zones. The families left behind by those who have died fighting, including women and children, have seen their lives ravaged as surely as those in the war zones.
The widespread violence has had an immediate outcome, escalating global hunger since 2017 and affecting over three billion people worldwide who cannot afford a minimum healthy diet. The situation has further deteriorated since the commencement of the Ukraine war in February 2022, given that both belligerents in Europe are major food producers. Moscow and Kyiv collectively contribute to “more than half the global production of sunflower oil, 19 per cent of barley, and 14 per cent of wheat.” With the European war rendering “a quarter of Ukraine farmland unproductive,” the scenario can only worsen, potentially leading mass hunger to evolve into an epidemic, exacerbated by the West Asian war that began in October 2023.
The war-ravaged desolation notwithstanding, India’s food sector stands out as a beacon amid the all-round barbarism, as indicated by statistics. As Ukraine faces the prospect of becoming a pitiable food-producing nation in the near future, it raises alarm bells for food self-sufficient India. Pressure is mounting on New Delhi to export its “surplus” produce, a prospect that might be music to India’s ears, making every citizen proud. However, it is crucial to remember that the first duty of the Indian state is to feed its own 1.4 billion people before becoming a 40 per cent exporter of rice in the world market.
For India, everything may not be going as well as the cold statistics suggest. A stark mismatch between statistics and the consumer market is evident in a mid-October 2023 report, placing India at the 111th position among 125 countries in the World Hunger Index — a significant decline from 107 out of 121 in 2022. This unsettling revelation creates an eerie feeling of despondency, reminiscent of India’s history marked by penury, starvation, poverty, under-nourishment, and man-made famines created by British colonial rule. Whether true or not, the damaging impact of the October report on Delhi’s budding “economic powerhouse” remains, despite the flurry of official denials.
The credit goes to the pioneering ruling class of newly-independent India, who knew very well that no large and populous country like India can ever attain prominence in global affairs without food self-sufficiency. They had witnessed firsthand the genocide-like famine perpetrated in the last days of the British Raj under a racist Winston Churchill and his ruthless military commanders. These commanders were ably assisted and aided by an influential and affluent section of wholesale and retail grain traders-distributors in Eastern India. This collaboration ensured the slaughter of more than three million people in Bengal in 1943-1944.
The 1943 famine, rightly referred to as “man-made” by Nobel Economics laureate Amartya Sen, highlights that there was nothing wrong with the quantum of rice production. Everything was wrong with the British Raj’s malicious method of the grain distribution scheme. This scheme saw the active collaboration of an influential section of India’s money-making merchants, whose penchant for food hoarding and adulteration constitutes the countryside’s folklore, particularly in eastern India.
In India, how much truth is there in the low ranking on the World Hunger Index? A partial answer could be found in the government’s announcement that 800 million people would continue receiving free rations for the next five years. This raises an embarrassing question: if 800 million Indians out of the 1.4 billion population require free rations for the next five years, the next uncomfortable question arises: is it due to the fault lines or failures of three fundamental factors of basic economics – production, distribution, and consumption?
India, does its food (rice and wheat) production fall below the minimum national demand of consumers? Or is it a result of the faulty distribution system and the snapping of supply chains? Alternatively, is it the establishment’s acknowledgment of the lack of purchasing power among 800 million out of 1.4 billion Indians, constituting 57.14 per cent of the population? These individuals find themselves unable to sustain themselves on their own financial strength, or the lack thereof.
The Reserve Bank of India governor, Shaktikanta Das, recently warned of a complex and potentially scary scenario — that “India is vulnerable to recurring, overlapping food price shocks.” Thus, despite an incredible record of food production by India’s magnificent farmers, the distribution and consumption need urgent direct State intervention to save ordinary citizens across the country from profiteers.
Indian traders have recently signed a five-lakh tonne rice export deal to capitalise on the demand from both Europe and the Middle East. Surprisingly, this comes after the Central government had placed restrictions on the export of rice three months ago and had set the “floor price or minimum export price at $1,200 per tonne.” However, the traders complained that such high export “floor prices” had hindered their profitability and prospects, as foreign importers found the price too high. The Government of India was then “compelled” to reduce the “floor price” from $1,200 per tonne to $950 per tonne. However, it transpires from the traders themselves that they had “signed rice export deals for between $1,000 and $1,500 per tonne.” The gain of a few private players is, therefore, the people’s loss.
The moral of the story is simple. The world is currently grappling with two wars in different regions, and food scarcity is significantly impacting the third world, now termed the Global South. Despite India maintaining self-sufficiency in food, the stark reality is that 800 million people need to be fed free of cost and the governor of the RBI has issued a warning about future food costs. The government rightly made a call for the country’s welfare, yet a section of Indian traders opposes it, prioritising their profits even at the expense of more than 57 per cent of the Indian population who struggle to feed themselves. Mera Bharat Mahaan!
