While the older generation still vividly remembers the miseries suffered by the people of undivided Bengal during the Bengal famine of 1943-1944, the relatively young are familiar with the distress caused by the drought of 1987.
Despite the green revolution in most developing nations, food shortage has not been completely banished from the globe. Despite better international awareness about food security and improved means of managing food, the sub-Saharan African countries recently saw widespread deprivation and starvation during the prolonged drought which extended over one-and-a-half decades. Closer home, Bangladesh experienced a famine in 1974-1975. Within India, Bihar experienced near famine conditions in 1966-1967 as did parts of Maharashtra, in 1970.
A study conducted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), entitled Agriculture: Toward 2000, stated categorically that despite a tremendous improvement in the food security scenario, the system is still fragile in several countries and population groups. Humanity is still faced with the stark reality of chronic undernutrition affecting some 800 million people. This includes nearly 20 per cent of the population in developing countries, and as much as 37 per cent of the people in sub-Saharan Africa. The statistics would be even more depressing if one were to take some individual countries into account.
One of the significant conclusions arrived at by the author, Arup Maharatna, in his demographical analysis of famines in India is that all these disasters occurred when the state had a low-key role in both food security and price management. And, things were left almost entirely to private traders. This conclusion becomes all the more significant at this juncture when the country is again moving towards a market-oriented economy with the role of the government being minimised.
The lesson from the past is clear: at least in the field of food management, the government should continue to play a role. Food is too important, too essential and too sensitive an issue to be left solely to market forces, especially in a country the size and diversity of India.
Considerable literature has been generated by various scholars on the past famines in the country. Of these, the writings of noted economist Amartya Sen have been particularly outstanding. Maharatna's work is indeed a welcome addition to this body of literature. In fact, this book takes the analysis a step further to include some of the aspects which had hitherto been ignored or not adequately covered. The analysis seeks to draw up a pattern of demographic responses to famine, using a mass of historic data available in London's India Office Library and Records and other places.
The author disputes Sen's computation of the data regarding deaths during the famous Bengal famine of 1943-44. While Sen's recent estimate of three million deaths has been widely quoted, applying Sen's own procedure to our new data for undivided Bengal gives figures of 1.8 and 1.9 million excess deaths, points out the author. He adds that even allowing for the pre-famine declining trend in the death rate, an estimate of 2.1 million deaths appears to be more appropriate.
Maharatna's work reconfirms the widely held notion that the Bengal famine, unlike most others, was not caused by drought or paucity of food. It was primarily due to the mismanagement of the food economy by the colonial rulers. The author believes this condition is a unique example of what can be termed class famine.
For instance, astronomical price levels of food, notably rice, in the wake of war-induced inflationary pressures pushed food beyond the reach of the poor. While the rich were not not affected by the famine and the traders even capitalised on it, the poor bore the brunt. The most appropriate form of relief in the crisis