Everyone, not just the few

How India treated its migrant labourers: humiliation on top of hunger
Image from National Herald

The problem with the human world is not lack of resources but the wickedness that is intrinsic to the human soul. In 1943 when Hitler’s racial pride was eliminating millions of people from the face of the earth for their ‘crime’ of belonging to a particular religion, 3 million people died in India’s Calcutta due to starvation. In one instance pride killed millions and in the other greed did.

In his essay Poverty and Famines, Amartya Sen calls the Bengal Famine “boom famine”. There was sufficient rice to feed all those people who died of starvation. In 1943 Bengal had the largest rice crop in recent history, says Sen. The powerful and the rich together amassed all that rice out of sheer greed. Even the government looted the people, says Sen. The rich and powerful landlords too looted the poor. These landlords condescended to give rice to the poor but in return for their lands or whatever little belongings of value they had. Those who had nothing to offer – and there were thousands and thousands of them – vanished without a trace. When some people had more than what they could eat, many died of starvation. Joseph Conrad could have written another Heart of Darkness set in Calcutta.

Kerala is a state whose people depend on rice for their food. While Bengal produced most of the rice they required, Kerala had to import half of the rice they needed. Prior to the Bengal Famine, Kerala’s rice came from Burma. But Burma was taken over by Japan in March 1942 and the supply of rice to Kerala was cut off.

There was no famine in Kerala, however. Why? The political systems in the region [there was no state called Kerala then] ensured that the available food was distributed properly among the people. The princely kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore as well as the British province of Malabar carried out the commendable job of making available food reach the people.

The political system makes the difference ultimately. The leader does matter a lot more than what we usually imagine. If a sizable population of a country remains poor while a small fraction keeps rising higher in the Forbes list of the affluent, the system is wrong and the leader cannot wash his hands off by transferring the filth on his hands to history. Nehru cannot return from his grave to set things right now even if he committed some blunders then.

India keeps paying higher prices for fuel every day. Rising fuel prices shoot the prices of other things up too. In the midst of a pandemic, if a government can think of nothing but suck out whatever little is left with its citizens, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Especially when we don’t even know where all that money is going.

We have a government at the Centre now that has been there for more than six years. We have seen how the government spends thousands of crores on futile publicity, absurd statues, temples to false pride, and a lot of causes that have little to do with the vikas it has promised for over six years. [Just imagine the audacity of a government that put aside a few thousand crores of rupees for a temple when hundreds of thousands of migrants were walking hundreds or thousands of kilometres to reach home in the wake of a pandemic-caused lockdown!] Six years is a long time for any government to prove its efficiency. Too long, in fact. History has not forgiven such Himalayan blunders and it won’t in the future too. The silence on the mountain is not always a sign of serenity. The avalanche is gathering. It will roll down in due time. As Solzhenitsyn said, a cry in the wilderness is enough to set it in motion, a gargantuan motion.

The May 2020 issue of The Caravan magazine featured the Bengal Famine on its cover. Contrasting what Bengal and Kerala did at that time, the writer Kushanava Choudhury says, “Even today, with each new disaster, whether it is a flood or a pandemic, in Kerala one sees a different pattern from the rest of India for how a society deal with crises. It starts with the principle that you treat all people as part of the same society, in every village, in every town, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Malayalis, migrants, rich and poor, and use the power of the state to protect everyone, not just the few.”

There lies the essential difference: everyone, not just the few.

I have been living in Kerala for five years now. I am a first-hand witness of what is happening here. I have seen how the government dealt with the floods in the last two years – even when the Central government dithered on support because of silly political differences. I am seeing how the state government is dealing with the present pandemic. The government of Kerala has given me reasons to be optimistic about politics.