Physical Education - 3

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From Physical Education, we landed in Famine...that's ok like.

When famine comes, can Amartya Sen (christened by Tagore) be far behind? 

 

 http://starborg.org/amartya-sen/amartya-sen-08.html

Wiki says:

"Sen is best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food."

I guess Sen, born in 1933 in Santiniketan, must have been haunted by his boyhood images of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.

I remember to have read the Amartya Sen quote that famines don't happen in a democracy. The reason is simple: In democracy power rests with the voters and if the ruling party allows famine to consume its voters, it will be voted out of power pretty soon. And politicians don't like to be knocked out of their business (very profitable in India). So, they don't permit famine to happen in their constituencies.

India has been (surprisingly) a 'working' democracy apart from a minor aberration or two. And it works wonders. When India won its freedom in my childhood, famines suddenly didn't disappear like with a magic wand. Their elimination was done by a semantic ruse...'starvation' was replaced by 'malnutrition', and 'famine' by 'severe drought'. The phrase 'political correctness' was unknown then, but it was practiced widely. It is a nice euphemism for 'hypocrisy'.

Soon after I joined IIT KGP (on the May Day of 1965, which was not a holiday then), there was this Indo-Pak War (Version II) in the last week of September. I was living in Gokhale Hall then and participated in the 'blackout' at night. IIT was strictly instructed to observe this device because the Air Force Base at nearby Kalaikunda was a prize target of Pak Air Force with its Sabre Jets (supplied by its friend, the US). The tall IIT Tower had a 'headlight' then which the airmen felt would act as a beacon or a lighthouse for the invading jets. So, that light too was veiled by nightfall. I worried that our Pak navigators would be led astray while operating alien gyros and bomb Gokhale Hall instead of the nearby Kalaikunda. Since the IIT lighthouse (as well as the A-31, Gokhale Hall's) was shut off, the invading Pak jets had to wait till dawn and a couple of them were downed by our WW II-disposal Hunters (one of which you can see in front of the Nehru Museum which, by the way, published my Laser Booklet as NMST 001...what a hope!). The remaining two Sabres had to beat a retreat...after hastily dumping a couple of bombs somewhere between Gokhale Hall and Kalaikunda. 

The whole war lasted a couple of weeks since both the emerging democracies, one 'working' and the other 'guided', exhausted their ammunition and money and so an honorable 'draw' was declared.

And then there was a famine.

These things happen.

But our hard-working democracy fought it two ways:

1. By begging the US for wheat on an urgent basis. By Murphy's Law, in the US (which too is a working democracy...except when Israel blows its nose) there was a glut in wheat with millions of tons rotting and no one with dollars to buy. So, they readily agreed to ship their wheat to India and sell it for Rupees which they didn't know what to do with...so they used our rupees for propaganda.

2. The democratic Government of India came up with the innovative slogan:

"Miss a meal every Monday!"

That is, "Make a virtue of necessity!"

I don't know about the rest of India but we at IIT KGP strictly obeyed the commandment. It was no great shakes because meals in the IIT Hall messes were eminently missable, but there was this catch: In 1965 there were no Canteens in the Halls, or anywhere in the Campus. There was this 'Chedi's' just outside the IIT North Gate (it still is there I guess) which was game for feeding omelets by the score, but where were eggs? The Poultry Revolution (what is the color of it?) was three decades into the future. There was the Nair Canteen in the South which could dish out thousands of idlis and dosas and upma but all of these needed rice or wheat which were not available for love or money on such a huge scale...famine is famine by any other name. 

So, every Monday, all Hall Messes closed and us boarders had to make do with bananas, jhal muri, rosogollas, bread loaves and other unspeakables.

It is a miracle that there were no food riots in the Campus on Monday nights. Such was our patriotism.

Till the semi-rotten PL 480 wheat arrived in the Tech Market.

That is how working democracies stave off famines.

Don't believe me?

Read on:

"During partition, India lost western Punjab to Pakistan, thus losing a major agricultural resource. A couple of bad monsoon seasons followed. In 1955, India faced a food crisis reminiscent of Bengal famine of 1943.

United States came to rescue. In 1956, India signed a deal, called PL 480, it allowed India to buy 3.1 million tones of wheat per year for three years. Major weakness was exposed, India could become extinct through starvation."

 http://www.indiacurry.com/faqhistory/hfaqgreenrevolution.htm 

But now look at the strength of Amartya Sen's Democracies...

"In 1968, wheat production (in India) far exceeded the demand, strained the existing infra-structure for transportation, distribution and storage. The green revolution had started."

...ibid 

How?

The answer, my friend, is in: "Padma Vibhushan Norman Borlaug":

 

 

  http://50.usaid.gov/usaids-development-entrepreneurs/ 


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