Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion that the Supreme Court should stay out of the realm of policymaking is valid. But his contention that his government cannot give to the poor the grains that are rotting in State godowns is not. If anything, it is an anti-people emotion.
The Prime Minister was interacting with senior editors at his residence, when he made these points. He went on to insist, “How can foodgrains be distributed free to an estimated 37 per cent of the population which lives below the poverty line? It is not possible to give free foodgrains to all the poor.” The Prime Minister probably missed the wood for the trees.
The logic behind the Supreme Court order had just been this: why let the foodgrains rot, when you can give them to the poor. The apex court in August had asked the Centre to consider distributing rotting foodgrains at “very low cost” or “no cost” as a “short-term measure”.
It would be interesting to see how many of the big time editors who had a hearty meal at Singh’s residence will eventually have the journalistic integrity to write against him over this issue. In this regime, there are free lunches only for editors, none for the poor.
Yet, more ought to be read into that statement of his. If 37 per cent of the people indeed live below the poverty line, according to his own candid admission, one can imagine the mess that the country is in. That would be close to 400 million people. Now these are people who are only “desperately poor”. If you add the “moderately poor”, the number could well swell to 800 million. And that would be more or less equal to the population of entire Europe. Why is it, Mr Singh, that we have 400 million people living below the poverty line when we collectively are supposed to be growing? Sorry, the bogey about the economic meltdown doesn’t work here.
Singh declared on Monday, “I do recognise that food should be available to the people below poverty line (BPL) at concessional prices. We have not allowed any increase in the issue price of foodgrains to people below poverty line since 2004.” What he did not elaborate on was that why there was a need not to increase prices when the economy was said to be growing. What he did not admit was the fact that the economy was growing for some, and not for most. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has not only failed to curb price rise or eradicate poverty, it now has the gall to concede in as many words that it does not give a damn either.
On the Supreme Court order, Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar had put his foot down initially, then beaten a retreat. The government, it has been announced, now plans to release an additional 25 lakh tonnes of PDS foodgrain to BPL families for six months as an ad hoc measure. A decision on the issue will have to wait till the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has worked out the details of the proposed National Food Security Act.
Here is where the issue hangs fire. This is not exactly Page 3 material, and nor is the story material as explosive as those about blasts. That’s why the work of a network like the Right to Food Campaign remains out of the spotlight. The Right to Food Campaign is an informal network of organisations and individuals committed to the realisation of the right to food in India. The Campaign believes that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger.
The Campaign’s “essential demands” sets the National Food Security Act in the context of the nutritional emergency in India and the need to address the structural roots of hunger. It demands a comprehensive Food Entitlements Act, going well beyond the limited promise in the UPA manifesto of 25 kg of grain at Rs 3/kg for BPL households. Aside from an overarching obligation to protect everyone from hunger, as well as to promote sustainable and equitable food production, essential provisions of the proposed Act include: a universal public distribution system (providing at least 50 kg of grain per family with 5.25 kg of pulses and 2.8 kg of edible oils); special food entitlements for destitute households (including an expanded Antyodaya programme); consolidation of all entitlements created by recent Supreme Court orders (e.g. cooked mid-day meals in primary schools and universalisation of ICDS); support for effective breastfeeding (including maternity entitlements and crèches); safeguards against the invasion of corporate interests in food policy; and elimination of all social discrimination in food–related matters. Further, says the campaign, the Act must include strong accountability and grievance redressal provisions, including mandatory penalties for any violation of the Act and compensation for those whose entitlements have been denied.
All this might well sound bad economics. There may be Left, Right or Centre in economics. But from a democratic perspective, it is only about right or wrong. Manmohan Singh is wrong.
