Sunday 29 July 2012

DROUGHT IN INDIA

The Economic Times

DROUGHT NOT A BIG CALAMITY IN INDIA ANYMORE

Swaminathan SA Aiyar

The Economic Times, July 29, 2012

The monsoon has failed badly this year as it did in 1965. But it's little more than an inconvenience this year, whereas in 1965 it was a monstrous calamity. The drought-proofing of India is a success story, but one widely misunderstood.

India in the 1960s was pathetically dependent on US food aid. Even in the bumper monsoon year of 1964-65, food aid totalled 7 million tonnes, over one-tenth of domestic production. Then India was hit by twin droughts in 1965 and 1966. Grain production crashed by one-fifth. Only unprecedented food aid saved India from mass starvation. Jawaharlal Nehru talked big about self-sufficiency. Yet he led India into deep dependence on foreign charity. The 1966 drought drove India into a ship-to-mouth existence. Hungry mouths could be filled only by food aid, which reached a record 10 million tonnes.

Foreign experts opined that India could never feed itself. William and Paul Paddock wrote a best-seller titled Famine 1975, arguing that the world was running out of food and would suffer global famine by 1975. They said aid-givers couldn't possibly meet the food needs of high-population countries like India. So, the limited food surpluses of the West should be conserved for countries capable of being saved. Countries incapable of being saved, like India, should be left to starve, for the greater good of humanity. Indians were angered and horrified by the book, yet it was widely applauded in the West. Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, praised the Paddock brothers sky-high for having the guts to highlight a Malthusian challenge.

The US was never happy with India's non-alignment. President Johnson made Indian politicians and officials beg repeatedly for more food. This prevented mass starvation, but left Indians writhing with humiliation.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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