Sen's intellectual inedia and the Bengal Famine

Sen was greatly affected by the Bengal famine he witnessed as a child. Perhaps it explains his inability to digest brute facts as opposed to continually vomiting up stupid lies.

The Bengal famine of 1943, which I witnessed as a child, was made viable not only by the lack of democracy in colonial India, but also by severe restrictions on reporting and criticism imposed on the Indian press, and the voluntary practice of ‘silence’ on the famine that the British-owned media chose to follow (as a part of the alleged ‘war effort’, for fear of aiding the Japanese military forces that were at the door of India, in Burma).

The Bengal famine was caused by Japanese aggression. Democracy was not lacking. Ceylon had got universal suffrage in 1931. India could have got the same thing if the minorities had not objected.

Bengal was ruled by a Muslim League Government. Food was a devolved subject. The Governor of the State was a British official- later, in 1944, an Australian was appointed- but this did not impair the elected Ministry's autonomy when it came to dealing with the Food situation.

Punjab, whose Premier was a friend of the Bengali Premier- both had signed the Pakistan declaration- wanted to sell food grains to the Bengalis for the same reason the Australians did. The Ispahanis, who were big supporters of the Muslim League, were to get the contract. Shurawardy, the Minister chiefly involved, says he wanted to include a couple of Hindu business houses but that the Ispahanis refused to countenance this 'liberalism' of his. However, other Provinces were not keen on the deal going through. They too had food shortages from which their financial backers were making big profits. In any case, the Muslim League was able to put the blame on Hindu hoarders- who supported the Congress party.

Democracy worsened the food situation in India. State Governments prevented the export of food. Later on, Central Govt. preferred 'begging bowl' diplomacy to raising up a prosperous yeoman class who would vote for members of their own castes, not windbags from the educated elite.

 The combined effect of imposed and voluntary media silence was to prevent substantial public discussion on the famine in metropolitan Britain, including in Parliament in London, which neither discussed the famine, nor considered the policy needs of dealing with it (that is, not until October 1943 when The Statesman forced its hand). 

Sen thinks the vernacular press was prevented from writing about the famine. He is being silly. The vernacular press was owned and controlled by the same people who financed the main political parties. The 'British owned Media' would have been delighted to expose the follies and frauds of their new Brown masters. They feared to do so because retaliation would have been swift. The British owned 'Statesman' had the courage to break the story but it put the blame on White officials in Delhi, who had no power, not Brown politicians in Calcutta who alone were constitutionally empowered to declare a Famine and implement the Famine Code

The Communists, who had become pro-British after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, did show some interest in the issue. But they were Communists. Their aim was to fuck over the peasants the way Stalin fucked over his peasants. Still, for a time the peasants were fooled. It wasn't till Singur (which Sen supported) that the penny dropped.

There was of course no parliament in India under the British colonial administration.

WTF? The Bengal Legislative Assembly was established in 1935. It had the power to enforce rationing. It chose not to do so.

In fact, governmental policy, far from being helpful, actually exacerbated the famine.

Yes! Politicians and their backers became very rich thanks to the famine. The same thing happened during the Bangladesh famine which occurred because Democracy was established. After that Democracy was ended it coped better not worse with food shortages.

There was no official famine relief over the many months in which thousands were dying every week.

Why? Because elected politicians couldn't be bothered. They knew they could blame Hindu 'hoarders' and get re-elected- as did in fact happen.

More than this, the famine was aggravated, first, by the fact that the British India Government in New Delhi had suspended the trade in rice and food grains between the Indian provinces, so that food could not move through legitimate channels of private trade despite the much higher price of food in Bengal.

It was brown elected politicians, not white bureaucrats, who made that decision. India retained these stupid laws after Independence. Why blame the British?

Second, rather than trying to get more food into Bengal from abroad – the New Delhi colonial administration was adamant that it did not want to do that – the official policy took the form of looking for food exports out of Bengal over that period.

This is sheer nonsense. Food was a devolved subject. New Delhi had no power over Calcutta in this matter. British bureaucrats knew that any impropriety on their part might become the basis of a question put by an Opposition M.P to the Secretary of State for India. This might involve the loss of a 'gong' or an undesirable posting.
British officials in Bengal, similarly, were afraid of an adverse note in their file made by the Minister under whom they worked.

 Indeed, even as late as January 1943, when the famine was about to break, the Viceroy of India told the head of the local Bengal government that he ‘simply must produce some more rice out of Bengal for Ceylon even if Bengal itself went short!’

Politicians say stupid things. Suppose Linlithgow had actually issued such an order. The Government of Bengal would have rejected it as ultra vires. Churchill ordered Percival to defend Singapore to the last man. Percival surrendered. He was the man on the spot and the decision was his to make.

As a matter of fact, Fazl ul Haq- a lawyer by training- was poorly informed about the food situation. Indeed, the official statistics about food production were wholly misleading. Contra Sen, there was a combination of exogenous shocks which led to a food availability deficit which officials failed to predict.

It must be mentioned here, to make any kind of sense of British Indian official thinking on the subject, that these policies were based on the idea that there was no particular decline in food output in Bengal at that time, and ‘therefore’ a famine ‘simply could not occur’ there.

British Indian officials in Calcutta had to do whatever Bengali Indian Ministers told them to do. These Bengali Indian Ministers spoke Bengali and represented Bengali people. They were in a better position to say if there was or was not a famine than any Civil Servant.

This is not to say that British officials had no thoughts of their own. Their country was at war. They wished to do whatever would benefit their homeland in its hour of need. Whether or not Bengalis starved while nominally British or after a Japanese conquest was immaterial. All that mattered was winning the war.

The government’s understanding of the volume of the food output was not altogether wrong, but its theory of famine was disastrously mistaken, since the demand for food had radically expanded, primarily because of the war effort in Bengal, with the arrival of soldiers and other war personnel, new construction and ancillary economic activities associated with the war boom.

The army brought their own food with them. Since many civilians evacuated Calcutta- because of the bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese in December of '42- there was no great increase in the urban population.
Those who starved had no money at all. They did not represent 'effective demand'. Only if the Government- which was Bengali, not British- had declared a famine and stepped in to supply them with food and other necessaries could their deaths have been prevented.
In his book, Poverty and Famine, Sen writes

If there was no decrease in food availability why did people starve in Bengal? Sen says prices rose so some couldn't afford to buy food. Why did prices rise? A boom in Calcutta caused people to eat more. But, when people get more money they buy less 'Giffen goods' like rice, and purchase richer fare. One can easily double or triple or even quintuple one's spending on food. One can't eat 5 times more rice or potatoes or bread than one did before. If anything, Calcutta's affluence should have led to less demand for the food of the poor. Other things being equal, its price should have fallen.

Sen tells us that the Famine Code was not implemented by Bengali Ministers who alone had the constitutional right to do so. He says this was 'curious' but shows no curiosity whatsoever in following up the matter. Instead he quotes the recently transferred Governor who was representing the view of the elected Premier of the Presidency. Why does Sen do so? Does he not understand that Bengalis were running the show? He should be looking at Bengali primary sources.

Sen says that it does not matter how a famine is caused, what matters is that the public distribution system have a lot of food. This is quite foolish, more especially in the Indian context. Bureaucrats are perfectly willing to sit upon a mouldering buffer stock while people starve in the vicinity. Indeed, they would be acting ultra vires if they distributed food to the poor absent an official order to do so. But such an order can only come from the Ministry ruling over the Province. Food is a State matter, not a Federal one.

The fact is the 1935 constitution gave too little power to the Centre. That is why it couldn't implement a rational Food policy for the country.

A very substantial part of the population, mostly in rural areas, with stationary income, was facing much higher food prices, thanks to the demand-fed price rise, and consequently starved. To secure the ability of the vulnerable to buy food, it would have helped to have given them more income and purchasing power, for example through emergency employment or public relief, but help could also have come from having a larger supply of food grains in the region – despite the fact that the crisis was not caused by a supply decline, but by a demand rise.

Sen believes that a warehouse full of food has a magical effect. Why? He is assuming that speculators will 'dis-hoard'. However, they will only do so if they believe that the Ministry will order the disbursement of this buffer stock. If they can see with their own eyes that the Party that is in power is making a lot of money out of the misery of the people, they will not 'dis-hoard' but pay off the local bosses in order to ply a similar trade.

What was extraordinary, even beyond the colonial government’s belief in a wrong theory of famine, was New Delhi’s inability to notice that so many thousands were actually dying on the streets every day: the officers had to be real ‘theorists’ to miss the facts on the ground in such a gross way.

New Delhi is far away from Calcutta. What was truly extraordinary was that Bengali Ministers in Calcutta did not notice what was happening. Unless, of course, they were getting rich by not noticing.

A democratic system with public criticism and parliamentary pressure would not have allowed the officials, including the Governor of Bengal and the Viceroy of India, to think the way they did.

The Governor of Bengal could have dismissed the Muslim League Government subject to the Viceroy's assent. However, no other Administration could have been formed which would have acted differently. Instead the Muslim League in Bengal would have made common cause with Congress. Churchill would have sacked the Viceroy for having alienated the Muslims.

Bengal and later on Bangladesh both had transitioned to popularly elected Governments with full powers over food when they experienced terrible famines. Sen knows this. Democracy doesn't matter. The fact is, people in overpopulated countries feel that some proportion of the population should starve from time to time. Public Agitation on this issue can backfire. People might dismiss you as a publicity hungry bleeding heart or impractical idealist. Saints and Parsons have been preaching about Charity for thousands of years. People pay the Saints and the Parsons in the belief that this will get them into Heaven or, more realistically, that they will gain a reputational benefit which might increase their power and wealth.

A third way in which government policy was counter-productive was its role in the redistribution of food within Bengal. The government bought food at high prices from rural Bengal to run a selective rationing system at controlled prices, specifically for the resident population of Calcutta. This was a part of the war effort intended to lessen urban discontent.

The same policy characterises all third world countries even when there is no war. The politicians don't want their mansions burnt down by the mob from the shanty towns.

The most serious consequence of this policy was that the rural population, with their low and stationary income, faced rapidly exploding food prices: the strong outward movement of food from rural Bengal because of the war-fed boom was powerfully reinforced by the government policy of buying dear from rural areas (at ‘whatever price’) and selling it cheap in Calcutta for a selected population. None of these issues came into parliamentary discussion in any substantive way during the period of news and editorial blackout.

There was no 'news and editorial blackout'. The Statesman did report the story much to the satisfaction of the White population of Calcutta who knew this was a coded attack on their new Brown masters. The fact is, Brown Muslim League politicians were responsible in law and in fact for the famine. Saying so in print might get you knifed or your daughter raped. So, the Statesman shifted the blame to White people in New Delhi and Westminster. What were they supposed to do? Dismiss the elected Governments in the Provinces and assume direct rule?

Why did Sen's parents or other relatives not write articles about the famine? The answer is that they would have been denounced for having blasphemed against the true Religion. In any case, that family would soon be ethnically cleansed from its ancestral home.

 The Bengali newspapers in Calcutta protested as loudly as government censorship permitted – it could not be very loud, allegedly, for reasons of the war and ‘fighting morale’.

Saying 'Fazl ul Haq is a robber, Shurawardy is a bigger cut-throat than the pimps he represents in Court' would not have damaged 'fighting morale'. But, it would have got your head kicked in. Mujib ur Rehman, democratically elected as Bangladesh's first President, presided over a famine and then got rid of both Press Freedom and Democracy. But then he was shot. Ultimately, guns matter. The Press doesn't.

Certainly there was little echo of these native criticisms in London. Responsible public discussion on what to do began in the circles that mattered, in London, only in October 1943, after Ian Stephens, the courageous editor of The Statesman of Calcutta (then British owned), decided to break ranks by departing from the voluntary policy of ‘silence’ and publishing graphic accounts and stinging editorials on 14 and 16 October.*

So, a pukka White Sahib ended the Bengal Famine because he happened to be the editor of a paper. How did he do it? By talking to other elite White Sahibs. Bengalis are shit. Whether they have Democracy or a Free Press, they still gobble up more and rice so that their cousins in the countryside die of starvation.

Sen has made a remarkable discovery.

The rebuke to the Secretary of State for India, quoted earlier, was from the second of those two editorials. This was immediately followed by a stir in the governing circles in British India and it also led to serious parliamentary discussions in Westminster in London. This, in turn, quickly resulted in the beginning – at long last – of public relief arrangements in Bengal in November (there had been only private charity earlier on). The famine ended in December, partly because of a new crop, but also, very significantly, because of the relief that was finally available. However, by this time the famine had already killed hundreds of thousands of people.

There you have it. Democracy doesn't matter- unless it is located in a Westminster populated by pukka Sahibs- and the Press doesn't matter- unless a pukka Sahib is the editor.

Ian Stephens’s dilemma on the subject, and his ultimate decision to give priority to his role as a journalist, is beautifully discussed in his book Monsoon Morning (London: Ernest Benn, 1966). When, later on, I came to know him in the 1970s, it became clear to me very soon how strongly the memory of that difficult decision lived on in his mind. He was, however, rightly proud of the fact that, through his editorial policy, he had saved the lives of a great many people and had managed to stem the tide of the ‘death roll’.

Did Stephen's really save a great many lives? No. Wavell did. He was a General and understood logistics. That's why he succeeded. Why did he want to tackle the problem? The answer is in two parts- firstly helping a civilian population boosts morale. It increases the willingness of the civil administration to cooperate with the military.
Wavell's second reason for tackling the problem had to do with the Americans. Roosevelt's people had formed a low opinion of the upper class British official in India. This affected American policy. Roosevelt had a secret plan to hand Hong Kong to the KMT. The Americans saw the Indian sub-continent as a fertile field for domination. Unlike the British Mandarin, the Americans were technocrats. Sadly the Indians didn't want to adopt American methods to boost agricultural production. Instead, this nation of farmers begged for food aid- which suited the American farm lobby. But PL480 food aid came with strings attached. On the one hand it forced the Indian Govt. to tackle actual famines because failure to do so would lead to the cancellation of Aid amid accusations of gross incompetence and fraud. On the other hand, Indian economists also, very patriotically, denied there was any food shortage in India. Indeed, during the Emergency, some even declared that India had already become a developed country.

A lot of injustice is about stupidity and ignorance. Democracy, certainly, panders to stupidity and ignorance, as does 'Public Reason'. But at some point both go too far. They start sounding stupider and more ignorant than those they mean to manipulate. So their ability to fuck things up is curbed. It is in this interregnum that a greater mischief- viz. a Rights based approach to everything under the Sun- can gain salience.
This has nothing to do with the Law- which recognises that Rights are linked to Obligations under a bond of law. If the obligation is onerous or inadequately compensated, people will exercise their right not to provide it. The bond of law will be a dead letter.

Sen takes a different view. He believes people have as strong a 'justice drive' as a 'hunger drive'. However, people are very stupid and ignorant. Thus some nice Professor has to explain to them what Justice is and what rights human beings ought to have

For a freedom to be included as a part of a human right, it clearly must be important enough to provide reasons for others to pay serious attention to it.

We know that journalists want press freedom because it benefits them. Poor people want rights to food and medicine and education and a basic income because this benefits them. Professors want academic freedom- i.e. tenure- so that they don't get fired for talking worthless shite.

Making a nuisance of yourself can get others to pay attention to a right you claim. Religious groups can and have asserted their right not to be offended by 'blasphemy'.

However, it is not enough that a right is recognised by some State or International body. What matters is if an obligation is created in an effective and incentive compatible manner. If it isn't, rights are just pi-jaw.

There must be some ‘threshold conditions’ of relevance, including the importance of the freedom and the possibility of influencing its realization, for it to plausibly figure within the spectrum of human rights.

This is quite unnecessary. What matters is whether you can make a big enough nuisance of yourself.

In so far as some agreement is needed for the social framework of human rights, the agreement that would be sought is not only whether some particular freedom of a particular person has any ethical importance at all, but also whether the relevance of that freedom meets the threshold condition of having sufficient social importance to be included as a part of the human rights of that person, and correspondingly to generate obligations for others to see how they can help the person to realize those freedoms, a subject that will be more fully discussed presently. The threshold condition may prevent, for a variety of reasons, particular freedoms from being the subject matter of human rights.

Quite untrue. Sen thinks a right Indians currently possess- viz to get the Courts to ban books which insult their religious sensibilities-  fails the threshold condition. Yet this right is effective whereas many other rights Indians have are wholly ineffective.

To illustrate, it is not hard to argue that considerable importance should be attached to all five of the following freedoms of a person – let us call her Rehana: 

(1) Rehana’s freedom not to be assaulted;

Rehana may enjoy this freedom in certain places and at certain times. She would be very foolish to rely upon this supposed right of hers in other places or at different times.

(2) her freedom to be guaranteed some basic medical attention for a serious health problem;

'Freedom to be guaranteed something' is not a freedom. It may be a right but that right may turn out to be ineffective. Madoff's investors had a right to a good return on their money. Much good it did them.

(3) her freedom not to be called up regularly and at odd hours by her neighbours whom she detests;

This is a right to quiet enjoyment.  It may not be safe for her to assert this right. She might be better off moving.

(4) her freedom to achieve tranquillity, which is important for Rehana’s good life;

Yes. We must force her to do Transcendental Meditation.

(5) her ‘freedom from fear’ of some kind of detrimental action by  others (going beyond the freedom from the detrimental actions themselves).

And also get her committed to an asylum.

Even though all five may be important in one way or another, it is not altogether implausible to argue that the first (the freedom not to be assaulted) is good subject matter for a human right, as is the second (the freedom to receive basic medical attention), but the third (the freedom not to be called up too often and too disturbingly by unloved neighbours) is not, in general, reason enough to cross the threshold of social relevance to qualify as a human right.

Freedom means being allowed to do certain types of things. A free man may kill anyone who tries to kill him. That is his right. He has a specific type of immunity with respect to a certain class of self-regarding actions. But this immunity depends on the jurisdiction. A 'stand your ground' State may grant higher immunities than one which requires 'proportionate response'.

What does ''freedom not to be assaulted' amount to? A guy with superior weaponry and ruthlessness enjoys this freedom. A weak and puny fellow does not enjoy it at all unless he can call upon guys with superior weaponry and ruthlessness. But this is a function of the freedom of those other tough guys, not of anything pertaining to the puny guy's freedoms.

Will a Human Right 'not to be assaulted' help me evade a mugging if I walk at midnight through a sink Estate? Nope. It does not change my 'freedoms' in any way.

What about 'freedom to receive basic medical attention'? Unless one is held captive by a vicious gang, we all possess this freedom. Who on earth would stop some injured fellow receiving medical attention?
What Sen is talking about is a Right, not a Freedom. But, no one possesses this Right in an unqualified manner. I currently need basic medical attention for my hangover. I ring up the NHS helpline and ask for an I.V to be sent to me. They refuse. They say- 'drink plenty of water and take an aspirin'.
Of course, if I had money to burn, I could pay for a Harley Street Doctor and a beautiful nurse to turn up to minister to me. Even then, my Right only exists in a qualified manner. The Doctor may refuse to give me  'basic medical attention' because of the pile of dead hookers in my vestibule.

In general, there can be no Human Right to basic medical attention. A dangerous lunatic who likes killing nurses and doctors may have no such right.

By contrast, everybody does have the 'freedom not to be called up by unloved neighbours'. All they need to do is disconnect their phone. True, this might involve a cost- for example missing an important business call. Still, that's how freedoms work. They involve trade-offs.

Does this freedom, which I do have, also give rise to a Right? Yes. In most jurisdictions, I have been the victim of a crime and can prosecute the offender or take out an injunction against her. In general, this Right is unqualified and thus can be referred to as a Human Right.

In contrast, the fourth (the freedom to achieve tranquillity), while quite possibly extremely important for Rehana, may be too inward-looking and beyond the effective reach of social policies to be good subject matter for a human right.

Freedom to achieve tranquility must involve some Rights against others as well as certain Immunities for oneself.  As such it falls within the rubric of, and is in fact covered by, Human Rights.

The exclusion of the right to tranquillity relates more to the content of that freedom and the difficulty of influencing it through social help, rather than to any presumption that it is not really important for Rehana. The fifth alternative, involving fear of negative action by others, cannot really be sensibly judged without examining the basis of that fear, and how that can be removed.

When drawing up a Will or Deed of Trust, we may be motivated by fears. It is not necessary for these fears to 'sensibly judged' by an examination of the basis of that fear. If such 'sensible judging' were a feature of the enforcement of Wills or Deeds of Trust, they would lose their efficacy. All that matters is whether assets and their method of disposal have been unambiguously identified and that the purpose is lawful.

Human Rights should include freedom to contract or make Wills or set up Trusts even if no 'sensible judging' of the basis of the fear that motivates them occurs. An action may be lawful even if motivated by an irrational fear.

Some fears may, of course, be entirely cogent, such as the fear of the finiteness of life as a human predicament. Others may be hard to justify on reasoned grounds, and as Robert Goodin and Frank Jackson argue in their important essay ‘Freedom from Fear’, before determining whether we should ‘rationally fear’ something, we ought to ‘ascertain the likelihood of that possibility, which might turn out to be very remote’.* Goodin and Jackson are right to conclude that ‘freedom from fear’ seen as ‘being free from undue influences that irrationally frighten us, is . . . a genuinely important but genuinely elusive social goal’.

Important to whom? Armchair theorists? Why? The fact is, if we find ourselves incommoded by the irrational fears of others then we take some first order action. we say 'Don't be silly! Trump can't possibly be elected.'

And yet freedom from fear can be something that a person has reason to want and that others – or the society – may have good reason to try to support.

While you were reading the above, some girl- not necessarily named Rehana- was assaulted despite the fact that her right not to be assaulted passed Sen's 'threshold'.

In Bengal in 1943, the people did have a right to food under the Famine Code. They didn't get it because Brown politicians were in charge. The arrival of a White General made a difference. Why? Because the guy was a good organiser and his troops morale was improving as the military balance tilted in favour of the British. This had noting to do with 'rights' or 'freedom's or any other such pi-jaw. It is notable, in this connection, that Bangladesh coped better with famines under a General than under a very popular elected leader.