Possibility of Mass Starvation in IndiaA recent article published by the Indian news agency The Wire calls attention to the existing problem of food insecurity for millions of Indian workers, that has been exacerbated under the conditions of the COVID-19 lockdown in India that have been extended to May 11. India's public distribution system (PDS), established under the 2013 National Food Security Act, is meant to provide subsidized food and other goods to impoverished sectors of the population. Access to the PDS system is dependent on having a ration card. Not all workers or their families who should qualify for ration cards have them. As well, migrant workers, who are amongst the impoverished workers who would benefit from the PDS, cannot receive their rations if they are away from their home state. "Scholars Meghana Mungikar, Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera [...] have recently estimated that 108.4 million people in India are excluded from the PDS. That is about eight per cent of India's population," The Wire points out. Overall, the National Food Security Act covers 67 per cent of the population. Based on 2011 census data, when India's population was 1.22 billion, that comes out to 814 million people were eligible for the PDS. In 2020, the population is estimated by these scholars to be 1.37 billion, meaning that 922 million people should qualify for the PDS. However, the system continues to operate based on 2011 figures, meaning that 108.4 million people who should qualify for rations under the PDS are not covered. The article goes on to point out that state governments have already exhausted their quotas, which have remained frozen since the National Food Security Act was put in force. For instance, Jharkhand stopped issuing new ration cards several years ago and the applications of 8.4 lakh (840,000) households are pending. The Wire informs that an estimated 90 per cent of India's workforce is employed in the informal sector where there is minimal job security and low wages. It says, "About 85 per cent of India's workforce -- assuming 68 per cent of the workforce is male, based on Census 2011 -- earns less than Rs 10,000 a month [CAD$184.86]. And about 50 per cent of the workforce earns less than Rs 5,000 a month [CAD$92.43], or less than Rs 166 a day [CAD$3.07]. Even this income would now have, in the case of most of these workers, been wiped out owing to the lockdown." A report released on April 15 by the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) -- started by a group of 73 volunteers on March 27 when it was obvious that migrant workers are extremely vulnerable -- notes that 50 per cent of the 11,000 workers they have been in touch with had rations left for less than a day. Ninety-six per cent of the workers had not received rations from the government and 70 per cent had not received any cooked food. To compound problems, 89 per cent of them had not been paid by their employers during the lockdown period, the Network points out. The Wire also gives the statistics on inter-state migrants. "According to estimates, India may have between 120 million and 150 million internal migrants who work in cities as domestic help, construction workers, in brick kilns and in the transport sector, among others. They are now made extremely vulnerable as their sources of incomes have dried up and most would be in cities where they do not have ration cards or a safety net. These migrants are now forced to rely on charity. "This reliance on benevolence of those who are better-off as state policy is also evident from a submission made by the Centre to the Supreme Court last week," The Wire writes. "It showed that in 13 states, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had set up more food camps and fed more people than the respective state governments had done, while the Centre has done nothing of the sort. In India, 9,473 camps had been set up by NGOs, while 7,848 had been set up by state governments." "The 5 kilogram of additional grain and 1 kilogram of pulses that she announced will not reach the more than 100 million who are not eligible for PDS due to the use of Census 2011 data. It will not reach the millions of migrant workers who are stranded away from their home states with no source of income." As well, homeless people, beggars, the elderly and denotified tribes are not on anyone's radar, says Nikhil Dey, co-founder of the rights group Mazdoor Kisan Sangathan. Meanwhile, The Wire reports that as of March, "the Food Corporation of India held 77 million tonnes of rice and wheat stocks, which is more than three times the required buffer stock. This stock will go up further as the government plans to procure 40 million tonnes of wheat during the rabi harvest, which will occur soon. An average of the last three year's shows that the PDS needs about 54 million tonnes of food grain to ensure provisions for one full year. An additional 20 million tonnes would be needed to universalize the system for one year." Starvation deaths have already begun according to reports by researchers Thejesh G.N., Kanika Sharma and Aman. The Wire concludes that "With
the FCI [Food Corporation of India] godowns [warehouses] filled to the
brim with food stocks, it is important to recall Amartya Sen's study of
the 1943 Bengal famine in which he found that it was not shortage of
food but lack of access to it that led to starvation deaths. "The people who died in front of well-stocked food shops protected by the state were denied food because of lack of legal entitlement, and not because their entitlements were violated,' Sen wrote in his 1981 book Poverty and Famines."
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