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The Militant, 6 July 1946


Kamalesh Ray

Why India Starves

British Imperialists Drained Food Supply


From The Militant, Vol. X No. 27, 6 July 1946, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

Since the famine of 1943, India is persistently suffering from starvation. We hear of the forecast of a worse famine to some this year – with ten million doomed to die. India’s famine has now become an accepted fact.

It is taking its toll uncontrolled by the government which, nevertheless, is multiplying its committees and commissions to investigate and report on the food situation, without apparently any real prospect of alleviation of the grim situation.

For the last three years the government of the country has acted as nothing better than a passive onlooker; and when it intervenes, it only aggravates the situation through maladministration.

The people of the world have been given all kinds of misleading explanations about India’s food situation. First, that India is not self-sufficient in her food production; secondly, that India has too great a population; hence the famines. The remedy suggested – is to grow more food and to control birth rates.

The truth about India’s food situation, however, is something else.
 

Production of Food

India has the richest agricultural soil, the full benefit of which is not derived by the people because of their low standard of income which deprives them of modern farming practices. In spite of this fact, India produces sufficient food crops to make possible a moderately low standard of subsistence well above starvation. Normally and naturally it does not lead to famine.

Some parts of the country have surplus production in one or another crop, while some other parts have shortages. The over all shortage of food crops in India may be roughly taken to be 10 per cent. According to the Gregory Committee’s report, “it is imperative for the India Government to have an import of one million tons of food stuff every year.”

If this is her annual deficiency, simple arithmetic shows that one million tons of food stuff per year for 400 million people would amount to an increase of a quarter of an ounce per head per day. Even distributing this quota over British India only (excluding the Indian states) the amount would not come up to half an ounce.

This report thus indirectly corroborates our contention that the actual food shortage in India is not so acute as to account for chronic starvation or sweeping famines.
 

Consumption of Foodstuffs

An important question therefore arises: How famine can occur in a country where shortage In food production is not at all conspicuous?

As was noted by Eugene Varlin in The Militant May 4:

“The real reasons (of the famine) however lie in the effects of British rule upon India and the aggravation of these conditions by the policies of Allied imperialism during the war. Despite the desperate needs of the Indian masses, the British exported grain from India to the Middle East during the war. Huge stocks of food supplies were purchased in India for the British Army, thus forcing grain prices up. Furthermore, the British-controlled provincial governments took part in flagrant profiteering.”

Here are additional details from extracts drawn from the Editorial Notes – the Modern Review, Calcutta, March 1946:

“The last famine (of Bengal, 1943) was precipitated by government bungling and made worse by the congenital inefficiency and unscrupulous corruptibility of the higher officials and their trader henchmen.

“The government knew that India was never fully self sufficient in respect of food. When they brought armies of British and American soldiers into India, they did not arrange for import of all the necesary amount of food.

“It has now been revealed that the daily ration of British troops in India was nearly five times that of civilian ration. In addition, most of the protective food like milk, egg, fish, meat and green vegetables were drained away for the benefit of the military personnel.

“The impact of need on the population was thus much more than five times their actual number. It was Britain’s policies which brought them here and the government machinery in India was utilized to serve her purpose in the deal.
 

Rice Exported

“Large quantities of rice had been exported in 1942 and 1943 at the instance of the Food Ministry of Britain and a flagrant disregard of the need of the country. It is well known that in spite of the opposition of the Bengal Ministers, and mostly without their knowledge, food was exported from Bengal at the direction of the British government.

“It is also common knowledge now that large quantities of food stuffs were exported to Russia and Persia at the time of the battle of Stalingrad in order to meet Great Britain’s political commitments and her own needs in Persia. This export was done through the U.K.C.C. behind the back of the people of the land.

“Thus, knowing full well that India was hardly self-sufficient in respect of food, the government of Great Britain and India never hesitated to fritter away the slender surplus that was in hand in 1942.”

The Modern Review of April 1946 further notes:

“The export lists of Calcutta Customs and the records’ of exports in Government of India’s abstract of overseas trade, cannot be taken as true account of rice exports from India. It is now alleged that export of rice and paddy from India has been made to foreign countries in vessels chartered by His Majesty’s Government’s Ministry of Food. Their final destinations being not disclosed, they were ‘kept as close secret and that these exports were not entered in Customs Registers.”

Next week we shall discuss the “argument” of over-population.


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