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dam-l LS: ET on Oct. 2, 1999: Food Security and Narmada.
The real lesson of Narmada
Source: Economic Times, 021099.
Mohandas Moses
To the young people who gathered recently at the Narmada to protest against
the Sardar Sarowar project the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, in which 3
million people died, is a piece of history. This is understandable. The 90s
have witnessed unprecedented food security, the result of a succession of
good monsoons and comfortable buffer stocks. It is easy to forget that
famine is a constant threat and hunger a reality in our country. In
retrospect we see clearly the events which led to the tragedy of the Bengal
Famine of 1943.
The administration had been lulled into complacency because for over 50
years there had been no largescale famines. No national program of
agricultural development or irrigation program had been launched. Annual
rice imports from Burma to Bengal had been disrupted by WW II, and no
attempt was made to tap other sources. Those who sounded early warnings of
impending famine were labelled alarmists. The railways were geared to move
troops, not foodgrains, into Bengal. When famine struck the administration
was unprepared. Even when the grain was finally moved in stocks rotted in
station yards while nearby thousands did and bodies lay in the streets
being eaten by dogs. Meanwhile grain traders made a profit of Rs 150 crore,
at the cost of misery and death.
By Independence, our leaders had learnt the lessons of 1943. The Green
Revolution took off and vast areas were brought under irrigation. Total
production and productivity increased and it became possible to speak about
food selfsufficiency as an achievable goal. Buffer stocking became part of
the policy of the government. The Food Corporation of India was set up and
the Railways were geared for foodgrain movements from surplus to deficit
states. Since Independence, devastation of the 1943 type have been avoided.
The Green Revolution, food self sufficiency and the avoidance of famine are
among the finest achievements of independent India. In 1958-61, China
suffered a terrible famine in which 30 million people died. In contrast
when India was affected by massive drought in 1985-87, the FCI moved food
grains from its buffer stocks by rail, road and barge to fair price shops
through the length an breadth of the country. Famine was averted.
Since then India has had a virtually unbroken string of good monsoons and
good harvests. This cannot continue indefinitely and when prolonged drought
strikes again, the buffer stocks will be depleted very fast because we now
have a billion mouths to feed. If imports on a sufficient scale cannot be
rushed in on time, as is often the case in crises, famine deaths could be
many times those of 1943. Rapid augmentation of domestic foodgrain
production is, therefore, imperative for food security.
The effects of endemic hunger are not as dramatic as famine deaths, but it
kills as surely. A decade ago, Amartya Sen pointed out that India had a
higher death rate of 12 per 1,000, against China’s 7 per 1,000. This works
out to an excess normal mortality of 3.9 million per year and, ``implies
that every eight years or so, more people die in India because of its
higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine of
195861’’. The anemia caused by malnutrition results in poor health,
sluggishness and fatigue. Endemic hunger and malnutrition are the biggest
blocks to any meaningful acceleration in the rate of overall development in
our country.
Current trends are disquieting. The annual growth rate of food grains in
the period 1990-98, at 1.7 per cent, are half of what it was in 1980-90. A
crucial task in the next decade will be to reverse this trend and to step
up the rate of growth over the 80s rate. But additional cultivable areas
can be ruled out. More production has to come from more extensive
irrigation.
Current performance in irrigation is alarming: against the Eighth Plan
target of 15.8 million hectares of new irrigation potential, the
achievement was only 8.3 million hectares. Irrigation projects, especially
those with large command areas, is necessary.
The brunt of anti-Narmada activism relates to the resettlement and
rehabilitation (R&R) of displaced persons. No other project in the country
has had its R&R schemes subjected to such severe scrutiny. The Narmada
Water Disputes Tribunal (1969 to 1979) prescribed a package of reliefs,
including the path-breaking provision of land for land. In the 1980s and
90s highly critical appraisals were given in the hard-hitting reports of
the Tata Institute and the World Bank.
Voluntary agencies like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Arch Vahini and Anand
Niketan Ashram have all brought the problems of the project affected
persons to national attention. The standing R&R Sub-Group set up by the
Central government periodically visited the affected villages and
resettlement colonies and submitted its reports to the Supreme Court. The
Gujarat government has now set up an Independent Review Authority with a
retired Chief Justice as Chairman to look into the grievances of the
project affected families. I have headed the R&R SubGroup and can say that
the Sardar Sarovar Project had one of the most comprehensive and rigorously
implemented R&R packages in the whole country.
Activists are concerned about the tribal families affected and by the
disruption of the tribal way of life. However, tribals are particularly
affected by drought and in the wake of food scarcity and famine there is an
exodus from tribal villages. As sub-divisional officer in Karnataka I saw
tribal villages deserted during famines. Many had died, others moved to the
cities and become homeless. Their dead villages bore in revenue records the
infinitely sad epitaph `bechir agh — villages without light. Many activists
came to Narmada because it is politically correct to oppose large dams and
the disruption of the tribal way of life. However, food security should be
our main concern for a long time to come. The gains from a string of bumper
harvests and sizeable buffer stocks can vanish in just one season of bad
rainfall. If famine comes and starvation deaths occur, food
self-sufficiency will assume priority.
We now have three times the number we had in 1943 to feed, and will regret
the water we did not supply, the harvests we did not reap and the dams we
did not build. The real lesson of Narmada is that it is a sin to throw away
the blessings of water.