Romesh Pandita
With the promulgation of National Food Security Ordinance 2013 by congress led UPA government, if nothing, has definitely given ignorant parliamentarians in power a reason to be elated and those in opposition, as usual are hell bent to prove the ordinance anti common man. This is for sure that elected representatives occupying cozy arm chairs in parliament are hardly bothered about the food security of a common man, secondly what are the ways and means to ensure two square meals a day to a common man is not their cup of tea for the fact being totally nescient of the ground realities of their individual constituencies and what to talk of other parts of the country. Govt has already started projecting the step as historic and a promise fulfilled in its campaign of right to food, no matter if majority of initiatives proposed have yet to see the light of day. Like every common man, I do pray, let no one go bed empty stomach and if this ordinance could help fill the bellies of over half a billion population of country, I would say the ordinance is no way less than a heavenly blessing.
I am reminded of Karl Marx who in his life time works “The Communist Manifesto” and “Das Kapital”, talked about class struggle in society mostly concerning social, political and economic issues. This unending struggle between the haves and have-nots or between those who own and control the means of production and those who neither own anything nor have got anything to offer except labour for production has polarized the whole world from the very beginning even when the concept of capitalism was not in vogue. Since India being a mixed political economy as such the danger of dictatorship by capitalist class to control society for its own benefit only, was refuted from the very beginning. Marx talked, rather predicted that capitalism sow seeds of its own destruction and is ultimately replaced by a new system, which is mostly a revolutionary outcome.
The harsh truth is that over a period of time each single individual all across the globe has grown into a capitalist in itself and as such each individual is bound to control his her social ambit for own benefit only, very much living the Marxian concept, but definitely with negation. Accordingly in the lure of money and power we all are sowing the seeds of our own destruction. People can very much sense that how actually the common man of country is being alienated from his own produce. Somewhere we all have forgotten that for whom we are framing food security policy, towards whom we show empathy, or simply uphold the view on humanitarian grounds these people should have food and its security are actually the real and only producers of food and the day they won’t venture into to farms and fields, the class talking and ensuring of their food security will definitely be reduced to look for alms. The irony is, the producers of food are themselves dying out of starvation and the people who should have been crying and asking for food and its security are in turn framing policies of food security for those who ensure food on their plates. This is simply just one instance of political hypocrisy of alienation, where people are being openly robbed of their food from their plates and left to watch as mute spectators’ with the assurance that we will ensure your food security. Irony is people who construct masons and sky touching metropolises dwell life in slums, who weave silk and pashmia are unable to cover their bodies even with khadi, and other endless things are their which one fails to understand as where the system has actually been hijacked by political and economic hypocrites for their own benefit.
If there is need to show empathy towards anyone to ensure food security for anybody, it is for policy makers, the urbanities, the capitalists or for that matter people working in govt, public or private sector. We must not forget the recent economic slowdown, which took almost whole world into its savvy, when even the countries with abundance food reserves faced difficulties in ensuring food for all. Even situation in Pakistan at one point of time turned uglier as the country faced its own food blockade, where supply chain of food grains came to a standstill, prices escalated manifold, people having money could not help them buy food as the rumors broke about the cessation of food imports.
Though one can unarguably understand the timings of promulgation of National Food Security Ordinance, when the general elections are round the corner, which otherwise was taken up by parliament in December 2011 as the National Food Security Bill and since then faced various obstructions. As aware bill encompasses various food related schemes which have been introduced from time to time during the last decade including Mid-Day meal scheme for school going children under which almost 100 million children are being provided food all across the country. Indeed the scheme in itself is a great gesture and in turn has helped improve enrolment of children in schools to a considerable level, but the ugly face of the scheme, which was witnessed by whole world couple of weeks back, when nearly two dozen school children died and scores fell ill after eating contaminated mid day meal in Bihar is more worrisome. People were well aware of the material corruption in mid-day meal scheme, but with the surfacing of moral corruption it has dropped the corruption to its lowest ebb, which by all means is far more dangerous and disastrous than the material corruption.
Public Distribution System of the country has already caught the attention of many in past for its failure of not being effective to take care of the countries food reserves and its proper and timely distribution. Almost over 10 million tons of food reserves got spoiled in FCI store for want of proper distribution and care a year before. Almost one third of countries population live below poverty line but still half of them are not able to reap the benefits of govt schemes meant for them only for the fact that govt has failed to provide them BPL ration cards. Though the bill is aimed to cover 75% of rural and 50% of urban population but in absence of the mechanism to identify the deserving families the scheme is not going to prove effective in the initial years of its launch, but with gradual stabilization of system by placing things in place will definitely turn scheme a result oriented one.
Gandhi has said, mother earth has enough resources to satisfy the need of every individual but not enough to fill their greed. Launching of every new scheme in itself becomes a new breeding ground for new kind of mafia, mostly in the shape of own intermediaries from top down to bottom and from the economists point of view if we include the amount of corruption involved from origin to execution of any subsidized scheme, the cost turns out much higher than its prevailing market rate. If any of the schemes launched by govt for the benefit of targeted group is applied and executed in letter and spirit, we may hardly need to revisit them, but the pathetic part of the story is we always end up with what we begin with and thanks to our neck deep corrupt system.
(The author is Assistant Librarian, BGSB University, Rajouri, J & K )
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