Ending Hunger, Enforcing the Right to Food
Ending Hunger, Enforcing the Right to Food
India is a larger producer of food, yet millions are
starving in the country. In 2023, India ranked at the 111th position
in the Global Hunger Index out of 125 countries with a score of 28.7 and
categorised at the position with the serious level of hunger[1]. The
website of the World Food Program reported that despite enjoying a steady
economic growth, India houses a quarter of all undernourished people in the
world[2]. As
per the fact sheet by the WHO[3]
released on January 28, 2022, children under 5 years of age are facing acute
malnutrition. The SOFI Report[4]
states that almost two-third of Indians are unable to afford a healthy diet.
One of the interesting examples of the successful but tedious people’s struggle relates to the right to food in the neoliberal
globalized India. In PUCL v Union of India[5] a
petition was filed in April 2001 to prevent starvation deaths when surplus of
the food was rotting in the government silos[6]. The
Supreme Court issued a series of interim orders over the years and mandated the
government to take a range of actions to prevent starvation and hunger, and
converted the state welfare measures into a legal entitlement as the right to
food through which the state can be held accountable to its obligations to
maintain nutrition. Provisions have been laid down for the midday meals in
schools, supplementary nutrition for pregnant and lactating mothers, the food
subsidy scheme, pensions, and maternity benefits.
These orders became a rallying point around which a network of
activists and groups in different states came together, and the Right to Food
campaign was constituted[7]. The
campaign took collective action to achieve its goals. Slogans such as starving
bellies, overflowing godowns (bhooke pet bhare godam)[8]. When
the interim orders were not enforced by local state institutions, civil society
groups and local citizens organized and demanded enforcement of the interim
orders[9]. The
Right to Food Campaign allies with the state in the fight against hunger, also,
at the same time, it critiqued the state institutions for neglecting their
duties, exposes leakage, highlights the weak links, and emphasizes the element
of corruption. The campaign also countered the WTO policies relating to the
rollback of welfare provisions. The campaign also pressured the state to enact
a nationwide comprehensive legislation.
The fight against hunger resulted in the enactment of the National
Food Security Act, 2013[10]. This law is a milestone in history. It
empowered more than 800 million Indians (75 percent of the rural and 50 percent
of the urban population living below the poverty line) to legally claim their
right to subsidised staple food. The struggles significantly raised the idea of moral and distributive justice. It reminded the state of its social
obligations while comprehensively elaborating on socio-legal dimensions of the concept of the
right to food in terms of freedom from hunger and starvation, the right to
clean, nutritious healthy food, right to clean drinking water, health care[11] and over all
basic dignity to life for all including the farmers and peasants[12].
The struggle also debated the issues pertaining to food security, food
sovereignty, and the agrarian economy.
This struggle significantly raised the idea of moral and distributive
justice[13].
It reminded the state of its obligations and elaborated on the socio-legal
dimensions of the right to food, encompassing freedom from hunger, the
elimination of starvation, the right to clean, nutritious, healthy food, access
to clean drinking water, health care, and, the overall dignity to life for all,
including the rights of the farmers and peasants. The recognition of food as a
legal entitlement for the poor became possible because civil society applied
the prism of rights and justice, connecting it to basic human needs.
However, in the New India, food as a right is diminished and reduced
to a dole by merging the two schemes under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojna and the NFSA[14].
The ranking of India in the Global Hunger Index is consistently declining. Over
the past few years, consistently, the anti-people decisions have reduced the
idea of citizens as rights-holders to passive recipients or beneficiaries (Labharthi)
or a receiver of doles, services, and tangible benefits. The political
discourse around revdi culture (freebies) has diminished the idea of
rights as concrete entitlements of a citizen. Consequently, the citizen-state
relationship is now construed as a transactional interaction, shifting the
accountability of the state onto the duties of citizens[15].
The need, therefore, is to revitalize the people’s struggles for their
rights. To enforce rights, what is required is an impartial, equitable,
transparent, fair, sensitive, and inclusive mechanism that not only respects,
protects, and promotes rights but also acts to build the capacity of its
citizens to raise their concerns.
The rights-based discourse must be strengthened to revitalize the
struggles of the marginalized to 1) Demand their rightful share of power,
resources, identity, belongingness, and overall justice, or haq ki ladai (struggle
to reclaim dues or entitlements); 2) Protect their rights to jal, jungle, and
zameen (water, forest, and land); 3) Claim basic entitlements such as roti,
kapda, aur makaan (bread, clothes, and housing) as well as the right to
livelihood, health, safety, environment, information, and education, all
essential for a dignified life 4) Demand positive freedoms such as freedom of
information and affirmative actions to support the marginalized among others;
and 5) Foster solidarity to reclaim swaraj (self-rule) and Azadi (freedom)
from fear, violence, starvation, and oppression to create a just social order[16].
[2]https://www.wfp.org/countries/india
accessed on July 2, 2024
[3] WHO (2022) Child Mortality (under
5 years) January 28 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-trends-in-child-under-5-mortality-in-2020#:~:text=Malnourished%20children%2C%20particularly%20those%20with,under%205%20years%20of%20age.
[4] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO
(2023) The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023.
Urbanization, agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the
rural–urban continuum. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc3017en
[5] PUCL v Union of India (Civil No. 96
of 2001)
[6] Birchfield, L. and Corsi, J. (2010) ‘Between
Starvation and Globalization: Realizing the Right to Food in India’, Michigan
Journal of International Law 31.4: 691–764
[7] Hertel, S. (2015) ‘Hungry for Justice:
Social Mobilization on the Right to Food in India’, Development and Change
46.1: 72–94
[8] Srinivasan, V. and Narayanan, S. (2007)
‘Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in
India’, in Food Policy for Developing Countries. Edited by P
Pinstrup-Andersen and Fuzhi Cheng, Cornell University, New York
[9] Drèze, Jean. (2004) Democracy and Right to
Food, Economic and Political Weekly 39, 1723-31
[10] National Food Security Act 2013 talks about legal
entitlement for food security is passed after a long struggle. Act No. 20 of 2013 http://indiacode.nic.in/actsin-pdf/202013.pdf
[11] Dreze Jean
(2004) Democracy and Right to Food, Economic and Political Weekly April,
1723-31
[12] Nigam Shalu
(2015) Everyday Survival, Everyday Struggle: Fighting Against Hunger in South
Asia, countercurrents.org, January 26 https://countercurrents.org/nigam260115.htm
[13] Nigam, Shalu. (2015). “Everyday
Survival, Everyday Struggle: Fighting Against Hunger in South Asia.” countercurrents.org.
January 26. https://countercurrents.org/nigam260115.htm
[14] Sinha Rajesh,
(2023) Analysing the Masterstroke: Modi Govt cut Food Allocation to the Poor,
The Deccan herald, January 2, https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/analysing-a-masterstroke-modi-govt-cuts-food-allocation-for-the-poor-1177148.html
[15] Nigam Shalu (2024) Human Rights
in Everyday life in India: The Praxis from Below, We the People Network,
Delhi https://amzn.in/d/hDbGlCP
[16] Nigam
Shalu (2024) Human Rights in Everyday life in India: The Praxis from Below,
We the People Network, Delhi https://amzn.in/d/hDbGlCP
Labels: human rights, Hunger, people's struggle, right to food, starvation