FOOD for Thought for Indian Politics

I am proud to be in Indian especially when the country has such a wonderful Government and compassionate political leadership. Did you just have a frown on your face upon reading this? I’m sure you think I am sadly mistaken. Well, you can’t be more wrong, the government is genuinely compassionate, had it not been so it would not have initiated the food security bill – an incentive to stay poor. I will now set the tone – your initial response to my assault on your sanity was absolutely right. It was merely my attempt at being sarcastic, as an Indian with an opinion I am appalled to notice the state of affairs in India.

The country needs to eradicate poverty but the government wants it to stay as poverty gives politicians enough fire to bake their collective bread of politics. Food security to 800million people in a country of over 1.2 billion, is nothing but an incentive to stay poor and a brutal assault on the economy. The long-term implications of food security are worrying, it is bound to affect people like you and me and it is bound to have an adverse affect even those who would “benefit” from this political sham. The government justifies its decision by saying, “We do not want the poor to stay hungry. We do not want a hungry India”. Will anybody tell them that it is poverty that leads to hunger and not hunger that makes one poor. The need is to throw poverty out of India, hunger will automatically follow suit. But the government is sadly busy fire-fighting instead of eliminating the cause of fire that’s slowly gutting India.

Poverty In India. Image credit: Sean Ellis

It is estimated that food security would cost us approximately Rs 1.3 lakh crore. But that’s just the cost of procuring the grain and does not include the cost of setting up the system and infrastructure to deliver the promise. Industry estimates say if you factor in costs like those involved in hiring manpower, ensuring storage and transportation, and other relevant costs, it will cost you more than Rs 2 lakh crore per year. With such a state of affairs of the Indian economy, is the country ready to bear this recurring cost? It is no secret that the country suffers a leakage of 20-30% when it comes to disbursement of any sort of subsidies, benefits or entitlements. This means almost Rs 80,000 crore of the estimated Rs 2 lakh crore would go to fake beneficiaries, obviously leading to more corruption.

To the lay, this government initiative of distributing benefits of economic development among the poor seems laudable. However, the government fails to explain how it plans to ensure proper and legal distribution of these fruits of economic development. It is a fact that India’s supply chains famously suffer inadequate infrastructure and the distribution channels are peppered with corruption. Food grain production happens in surplus but food grains are left to rot for want of proper storage. The food security poll plank of the Congress-led government will only worsen the problem of food wastage as millions continue to starve. Absurdly, the Government says food security would benefit the rural poor but it would instead hurt this particular section of India the most by reducing the market prices of food crops as a result of subsidised grain. Food security may very soon prove to be a bane for the very target population it aimed to “benefit”.

Farmer in India: cutting sugarcane and corn to prepare food for animals. Image credit: Azhar feder

The poor need to get themselves our of poverty, for the poor know that hunger is an effect of poverty. But a hungry man would first grab a piece of bread then think about getting rid of poverty. It is this very knee-jerk reaction of the poor towards hunger that the government is trying to play with. Instead of spending money on creating opportunities for the poor to get rid of his poverty, the government is incentivising the state of being poor. We need a legislation which allows the farmers to profit economically and grow autonomous, we need a legislation that gives job opportunities to the poor, we need a legislation that aims at capacity building and skill development of the jobless population and lastly, we need more jobs. The government would have done a better job by providing market incentives, not charitable hand-outs like this.