SUNDAY, JULY 07, 2024
Shanti Maria Fonseca
Centuries ago, the inventive nature of humankind spurred farmers to discover ways to irrigate crops, giving birth to scientific agriculture and sedentary communities. This revolutionized how people produced food and different civilizations sprang to life around the world. It was not by chance that the first civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt flourished on the banks of rivers and on the rich alluvial soils of flood plains. The cradles of civilizations maybe different, but their early beginnings all begin with water. From antiquity to the present, communities have been directly influenced by the quality and quantity of water. Making water safe and accessible to everyone, leaving no one behind is still an issue that concerns us today. The availability, absence, or scarcity of water has left its indelible mark on the entire history of humankind, and it continues to be one of the most pressing concerns that people must boldly confront today. In the face of death due to starvation, Cannibalism has often become the last resort of the desperately hungry.
Rapid population growth, urbanization, economic development and climate change are putting the planet’s water resources under increasing stress and strain. At the same time, fresh water resources per person have declined by over 20% in the past decades and water availability and its quality are fast deteriorating due to decades of poor use and management. It has now come to light that the Bengal famine of 1943 estimated to have killed up to 3 million people and was not caused by drought as is popularly believed, but instead, was a result of a “complete policy failure” of the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. There should be a special day observed in India especially in West Bengal to remember the millions who died in the years 1770 and in 1943 due to the Bengal Famine. You can’t just hide the facts and consign them to the history books. More Bengalis were killed during both the periods than Jews by Hitler during WWII. The Bengal Famine was not the result of agricultural failure, but due to deliberate human inaction.
The great majority of modern famines are invariably caused by political and military decisions taken without heed to the well-being of people. In South Sudan, the government as well as the opposition doesn’t care about human lives: and it’s easy for them to conduct their war of attrition and supply their forces at the expense of civilians. Starvation happens when some (powerful) people inflict it on other (Less powerful) people. Starvation and wars are manmade, complex and evil. Why is the world hungrier than ever? This seismic hunger crisis has been caused by a deadly combination of factors. Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 70% of the world’s hungry people living in areas afflicted by war and violence. Events in Ukraine and Gaza are a further proof of how conflict feeds hunger: forcing people out of their homes, wiping out their sources of food resources, income and wrecking countries’ economies.
“World Food Day” which we celebrate today will focus on the theme, “Water is life, water is food; Leave No One Behind”. The Theme aims to highlight the critical role of water for life on earth and water as the foundation of our food. Water is finite but it is an infinitely valuable natural resource. Without water there would be no food and no life. This global event which is celebrated on 16th October every year is related to the existing reality of ‘hunger’ and ‘food security.’ The main focus of this day is to affirm that food is a fundamental and basic human right. Whilst it is true, that man cannot live by air and water, what nourishes and sustains the body is food. Hence the saying ‘Food is Life’. In 1974 at the World Food Conference, Henry Kissinger confidently declared “Within a decade, no man, woman or child will go to bed hungry”. What has happened to this grandstanding promise to mankind?
World food day was first celebrated to mark the launch of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The goal of FAO is to free humanity from hunger and malnutrition and to efficiently manage the global food system. The Food that we eat is the result of the immense hard work by multiple hands and people, at various stages. We should therefore consume it with utmost reverence. Three years ago, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417. The Resolution made clear that conflict-induced hunger is a peace and security issue. But three years later, too little has changed. Around the world millions of people are still trapped in the man-made cycle of conflict, displacement and hunger. Starvation has been defined as ‘the cheapest weapon of mass destruction available to armies’. It’s important to reflect on the significance of the UN Resolution 2417 and discuss the impact that the novel Corona virus pandemic might have had on peace and security globally. Let us not forget that behind every person starving there are a series of political decisions or failures. Presently India is ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the global Hunger Index 2023.
Last year, 30% of the global population – equivalent to 2.4 billion people – did not have assured access to food. In September this year, The UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced that a historic funding shortfall was forcing it to “drastically” cut rations in most of its operations, potentially pushing an additional 24 million people to the brink of starvation over the next 12 months. Every one per cent cut in food assistance pushes 4,00,000 people into hunger. With the number of people around the world facing starvation at record levels, we ought to be scaling up life-saving assistance and not cutting it down.
At a time when humankind has adequate resources to decisively conquer hunger; more than 821 million people are currently suffering from hunger due to non-availability of food. That’s one in nine people on earth who don’t have enough food to eat. Hunger is a massive and complex problem with many root causes. We need to work together to fight this global issue of injustice. Hunger is not an issue of charity. It is an issue of justice. It is for this reason that the late President John F Kennedy said, “The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation”. Governments have it in their power to prevent the colossal human misery, if only they place human lives ahead of politics.
(The writer is a social scientist and a senior practicing criminal lawyer)
