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Reviews
Annam
Bahu Kurvita
Greed Eats Away Food Surplus
The Tribune,
Chandigarh,
April 13, 1997
by Rajiv Lochan
Annam Bahu Kurvita: Recollecting the Indian
Discipline of Growing and Sharing Food in Plenty by
Jitendra Bajaj and Mandayam Doddamane Srinivas. Centre for
Policy Studies, Madras. Pp. lvi+217, Rs.400/-.
Annam Bahu Kurvita, thus enjoined the sages of yore. Grow
more food, have more food, give more food. How this was
done, is what way was foodgrain to be shared, what happened
to those who did not share, all this and much more has been
discussed in this book.
Essentially this is an exhortatory text. In these days of
food shortage, famine and scarcity of essential items, it
reminds the reader that our civilization has been an anna
bahulya civilization. One in which there has been plenty of
food to go around. Correspondingly, it was enjoined upon
all, be it the richest king or the poorest householder, to
share what he had with all others.
With the Europeanisation of our civilisation, however, the plentifulness of grain ceased and also vanished the desire
to share whatever was available. We generated new
civilisational presumptions for ourselves. We now began to
assume that, for no better reason than that this presumption
was common among our European rulers, that if food was
unavailable to someone it was the result of shirking work.
Correspondingly, those short of food did not deserve
compassion or assistance but needed to be forced to work.
The authors remind the reader of this change in
civilisational presumptions and ask that we pick up the
threads of our civilisation and try to re-weave them into
our present.
In itself the point made by Bajaj and Srinivas is
unexceptionable. As recently as the 18th century, they point
out, even in the agriculturally not very productive lands,
foodgrain production was about 2.5 tons per hectare. This
was slightly above the figure for agricultural production
today. In earlier times, and in richer soils, the yield was
even higher. They calculate the yield at 13 tons of paddy
per hectare in 1807 in Coimbatore region, 14.5 tons in the
South Arcot region in the 14th century, and 20 tons for
Ramanathapuram region during the same period.
However, once the British colonial rulers took over the
country, foodgrain production slumped. The country emerged
as one of the highest exporters of food in the 19th century,
but at the same time famines took a heavy toll in various
parts of the hinterland. Moreover, the British, and
following them many westernised Indians, began to feel
uncomfortable with the idea that those who did not have
enough to eat should be given a share. It came to be
believed that many people begged for food because they were
good-for-nothing idlers. A mad kind of social logic began to
gain dominance: those who did not have enough to eat should
be made to work the most.
As the 19th century moved into the 20th this came to be the
most dominant logic. Now you had the unedifying and inhuman
spectacle of people dying of hunger at a time when ample
food stocks were available simply because no would give them
food unless they were able to pay for it.
Bajaj and Srinivas calculate that by the end of the 19th
century productivity had declined to 800 kg per hectare and
availability of food per capita to 280 kg down from around a
ton per capita in the 18th century. In the 1950’s the figure
fell to about 150 kg per capita and then stabilised at about
200 kg in the 1980’s. Little wonder that, they point out,
that Indians are some of the most malnourished people in the
world. They mostly subsist on foodgrains, and that too is
not available in adequate amounts.
The figures that the authors offer, drawn from the UNDP
report for 1994, are truly horrifying. Almost 88 percent of
our pregnant women are anaemic, 63 percent of children under
the age of five are malnourished, 40 percent of the total
population has to make do with a bare minimum amount of
food.
Whatever has happened, wonder Bajaj and Srinivas. It seems
as if we became more selfish and ceased to share with
others, so did our land cease to share its bounty with us.
Much of their argument in this book is about the importance
of sharing and the benefits that accrue to the people
therefrom.
The evidence is mostly anecdotal. Lifting eclectically from
various puranas, sutras, smritis, and some travelogues, they
build an argument to show that sharing was a central feature
of our civilisation from times immemorial. That those who
refused to share, or shares adequately, were punished while
those who shared willingly what they had with their fellow
beings earned much goodwill and material prosperity.
It is almost as if they insist that while efforts should
proceed apace for enhancing production capacity of the soil,
we also need to rejuvenate our cultural traits of helping
each other, of sharing without hesitation, and of desisting
from our acquired, non-Indian, inhumanness.
The book has the imprimatur of some Shankaracharyas and
other religious leaders of the Hindu community.
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