Does Democracy Avert Famine?

[kelley]

Does Democracy Avert Famine?
By MICHAEL MASSING


Few scholars have left more of a mark on the field of development economics 
than Amartya Sen.

The winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Mr. Sen 
has changed the way economists think about such issues as collective 
decision-making, welfare economics and measuring poverty. He has pioneered 
the use of economic tools to highlight gender inequality, and he helped the 
United Nations devise its Human Development Index - today the most widely 
used measure of how well nations meet basic social needs.

More than anything, though, Mr. Sen is known for his work on famine. Just 
as Adam Smith is associated with the phrase "invisible hand" and Joseph 
Schumpeter with "creative destruction," Mr. Sen is famous for his assertion 
that famines do not occur in democracies. "No famine has ever taken place 
in the history of the world in a functioning democracy," he wrote in 
"Democracy as Freedom" (Anchor, 1999). This, he explained, is because 
democratic governments "have to win elections and face public criticism, 
and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other 
catastrophes." This proposition, advanced in a host of books and articles, 
has shaped the thinking of a generation of policy makers, scholars and 
relief workers who deal with famine.

Now, however, in India, the main focus of Mr. Sen's research, there are 
growing reports of starvation. In drought-ravaged states like Rajasthan in 
the west and Orissa in the east, many families have been reduced to eating 
bark and grass to stay alive. Already thousands may have died. This is 
occurring against a backdrop of endemic hunger and malnutrition. About 350 
million of India's one billion people go to bed hungry every night, and 
half of all Indian children are malnourished. Meanwhile, the country is 
awash in grain, with the government sitting on a surplus of more than 50 
million tons. Such want amid such plenty has generated public protests, 
critical editorials and an appeal to India's Supreme Court to force the 
government to use its surpluses to feed the hungry.

All of which has raised new questions about Mr. Sen's famous thesis. In an 
article critical of him in The Observer of London last summer, Vandana 
Shiva, an ecological activist in India, wrote that while it is true that 
famine disappeared in India in 1947, with independence and elections, it is 
"making a comeback." The problem, she added in an interview, "has not yet 
reached the scale seen in the Horn of Africa," but if nothing is done, "in 
three or four years India could be in the same straits."

To Mr. Sen, though, it is not the thesis that needs revision but the 
popular understanding of it. Yes, famines do not occur in democracies, he 
said in a phone interview, but "it would be a misapprehension to believe 
that democracy solves the problem of hunger." Mr. Sen, who is the master of 
Trinity College at Cambridge University, said his writings on famine 
frequently noted the problems India has had in feeding its people, and he 
was baffled by the amount of attention his comments about famine and 
democracy had received. The Nobel committee, in awarding its prize, did not 
even mention this aspect of his work, he said, adding, however, that many 
newspapers had seized on it and misrepresented it.

Mr. Sen's views about famine and hunger have recently been put to the test 
by Dan Banik, an Indian-born political scientist at the University of Oslo. 
Mr. Banik has spent much of the last several years in India, studying the 
parched, desperate Kalahandi region of Orissa. In that area alone, Mr. 
Banik said by phone from India, he found 300 starvation deaths in six 
months. And they are hardly unique. "I have collected newspaper reports on 
starvation for six years in Indian newspapers," he said, "and there's not a 
state where it hasn't happened. Starvation is widespread in India."

He quickly added, however, that the toll was nowhere near the hundreds of 
thousands that constitute a famine. In fact, Mr. Sen's theory about famines 
not occurring in democracies "applies rather well to India," he said. 
"There has not been a large-scale loss of life since 1947." At the same 
time, he said, "there have been many incidents of large-scale food crises 
that, while not resulting in actual famines, have led to many, many deaths."

While the Indian bureaucracy responds well to highly visible crises like 
famine threats, Mr. Banik observed, starvation "occurs in isolated areas 
and so isn't very visible." India has done an even poorer job of addressing 
the problem of chronic malnutrition, he said. "It's so shocking," Mr. Banik 
added. "There's so much food in the country, yet people are starving."

more at:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/01HUNG.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=top>