Thomas Plümpera and Eric Neumayer published a paper a dozen years ago rubbishing Sen's claim that Democracy and a Free Press militates against famine death.
Obviously, the most striking disproof of Sen's claim are the two famines in Bengal after a transition to a Democratically elected Government- viz. the 1943 famine and the Bangladesh famine of 1974.
Famines represent a chance for local politicians to make money and gain influence by controlling, or extorting money from, the food supply chain. By scapegoating a minority community or by using famine for ethnic cleansing purposes, Democratic leaders may find that exacerbating famine gets them re-elected.
Sadly, if the US is giving you money for all sorts of stupid shite and if you refuse to bring in American PL 480 grain to feed people dying of starvation then the US may stop giving you money for other stupid shite. That's what happened in Bihar in 1967.
Plumpera & Neumayer write-
We will concentrate here on the Bihar famine since Drèze (1990) himself in his single-authored contribution to their co-edited volumes on The Political Economy of Hunger is much more cautious in his verdict on famine mortality in Bihar than Drèze & Sen (1989). Noting substantial drops in food production, food availability and calorie consumption, he addresses the issue of excess mortality. He regards officially published data on registered deaths as the least unreliable, particularly for assessing changes in mortality. According to these data, there was excess mortality of 1 and 3.5 deaths per thousand people in Bihar in 1966 and 1967, respectively. These unimpressively small numbers nevertheless suggest an excess mortality in the famine-ridden years of up to several ten thousand deaths (50.000-175.000), given a population at the time of roughly 50 million. Dyson & Maharatna (1992) regard the official total mortality data as highly deficient and therefore conclude that substantial excess famine mortality cannot be deducted from these data, but can also not be excluded as a possibility. They regard the registered infant mortality rate as more reliable and find that this mortality increased more in the Bihar districts most affected by the drought, which provides some indirect and tentative evidence for excess mortality. Drèze (1990: 59) comes to the conclusion that even if the official mortality data are questionable, ‘one thing is clear: there is precious little evidence to support the self-congratulatory statements that have commonly been made about the Bihar famine, e.g. “no exceptional mortality was recorded” or “no one died of starvation”.’ Interpreting Bihar as a case of successful famine prevention by a responsive democratic government also appears questionable in the light of the actual responses by the state and central governments. In a detailed study, Brass (1986) shows that democratic response to the Bihar famine has been far from straightforward. Instead of doing everything they can to relief the famine impact, the relevant political actors ‘used the crisis to gain advantage or prevent harm in their relations with each other’ (Brass 1986: 253).
Initially, the central government refused to accept the severity of the crisis and refused to provide assistance because the state government was regarded as incompetent and out of favor, despite both being run by the Congress party. The state government itself refused to declare a state of famine before the elections in November 1967 and famine was declared only after its election defeat by a new government.
This is not true. Elections were held in February. Famine was declared, by the new Government in fulfilment of its campaign promise, in some areas from April onward and was revoked in November 1967. However, the Union Government had started helping in November of 1966. The truth is Indira wasn't happy with K.B Sahay. A defeat for Congress in Bihar would weaken Kamraj and the Syndicate. Obviously, the alternative coalition would be even shittier and would collapse soon.
The other point was LBJ who was trying to use PL480 as a diplomatic weapon. Starving Biharis would be a good stick to beat him with. LBJ got rattled and sent a 4 member Congressional delegation in December 1966 to Bihar. They were suitably chastened by the experience and recommended that a couple of million tons of grain be shipped off post haste.
It is true, however, that English language papers in Patna did highlight the drought and threat of famine. Sadly, they were not able to hit the jackpot of a truly gruesome holocaust. However, the far more tragic victims of this American atrocity were Bihar's own vernacular poets and litterateurs. They could have gone one up on Bengal's 'hungry-realist' poets- despite being a lot stupider and more ignorant- and got Alan Ginsberg's imprimatur and maybe even a Nobel for one of their own.
This is a good example of how hegemonic Capitalism- like 'managerial' Colonialism- renders the subaltern surd. Everybody should have a Holocaust and and Holodomor of their own to commemorate.
Eventually, food aid was provided to Bihar. Approximately 2.5 million tons of grain were shipped to the affected regions, which was about half of the amount requested by the regional government. However, rather than the central government re-directing food from unaffected provinces to Bihar, the large bulk of the food shipped to Bihar came as international food aid from the US (Brass 1986: 259). Thus, Bihar not only demonstrates that some famine mortality can happen even in democracies, it also shows that democratic governments do not always act responsively and prevent famines fully. There can be little doubt that the response to the Bihar famine came too late and was insufficient to prevent famine mortality entirely. It is difficult to say whether the Indian government would have been willing to prevent a potentially much higher number of deaths in the absence of the humanitarian intervention by the US. The Bihar famine highlights two problems of democratic response to famine: A famine becomes easily politicized, which can hinder rather than help immediate famine response as politicians get caught up in their politics rather than concentrating on famine relief, and a central government will be reluctant to redistribute domestic resources to famine victims if the affected population represents only a minority of the electorate and is not decisive for general elections. Fortunately for the famine victims in Bihar, the central Indian government could draw upon generous external assistance. This suggests that international food aid can be instrumental in overcoming the internal impasse that even a democratic government might face in confronting an impending famine threat. Thus, whilst the reaction of the Indian government to the famine in Bihar was everything but straightforward, once famine was officially declared the government happily accepted large quantities of foreign food aid and allowed staff from foreign donors and international organizations to help in administering and allocating the food aid. With the help of ‘the dedicated cooperation of the international community’ (Mayer 1974: 111) famine mortality was not prevented, but at least limited.
This is misleading. India like Pakistan considered PL 480 shipments an asset. They wanted free money and free food and free anything else. This did not mean anyone in power anywhere wanted to declare a Famine because, as Brass notes, this is a big administrative headache. Bihar was a good place to have a famine at this time because the old elites wanted K.B Sahay and so on to fail because of their role in land reform. The ideal situation would be lots of poor people starving- which would take the wind out of the sails of the backward caste leaders- and then US grain being dumped to depress prices for peasant proprietors. Of course, the Communists wanted the opposite- a famine to show the bourgeoisie was bankrupt and then a chance to distribute U.S grain under the pretense that it actually came from China.
Indira, in her radio broadcast of November 1966, identifying herself with the hungry Bihari, was building the first plank of her 'roti, kapada, makan' slogan which enabled her to break with the Syndicate. Henceforth, her message would be 'Indira stands for Poverty Removal', everybody else stands for 'Indira removal'.
Sen too learnt something. Famine means you can tell any lies you like. There's a saying- to a hungry man, bread is truth. To a Professor, truth can go fuck itself. A false theory of famine, on the other hand, if sufficiently 'counter intuitive', may win you Fame.
Sadly innocent people in Africa paid a price for Sen's Nobel.
Another case, which also puts doubt on the thesis that democracies will always prevent famine mortality, is provided by the Sudanese famine of the late-1980s. When Sudan experienced a third interlude of democratic government since independence with a fairly free press over the period 1986-89, the expectation following Sen’s deterministic claim is that the government would do everything in its power to prevent famine mortality. In fact, the exact opposite was the case. The central government allowed and encouraged cattle and other raids by armed militia on the economically better off ethnic group of Dinkas in Southern Sudan, which made them vulnerable to famine. Moreover, it allowed the Sudanese military and militia groups to employ famine as a strategy in its warfare against the rebels in Southern Sudan and frustrated and blocked relief efforts. How many people died as the consequence of war-related famine is hard to say. Devereux (2000) states 250,000 people based on Harden’s (1993: 169) estimate. Devereux (2000: 33) himself notes that the estimate is difficult to verify, but Keen’s (1994a) detailed and fieldwork-based study, while avoiding estimates of aggregate mortality, leaves little doubt about substantial excess mortality.3 Similarly, de Waal (1997: 93) calls it ‘the most severe famine in Sudan’s modern history’
While there were representatives from the South in the parliament in Khartoum, which raised the famine issue in parliament, it was unable to mobilize public opinion and unite the 11 democratic opposition for its cause. The press was mainly focused on issues and conditions in the North and showed little interest in famine in the South. The government was extremely concerned to keep food prices low in the North and in and around Khartoum in particular, so as not to upset its voters. In a country marked by ethnic strive, the South simply had no political clout in the North. In addition, the government did all it could to mislead the public about the extent of famine and its efforts to contain it. This was helped by some Southern representatives subscribing to the governmental line and by the counter-productive role that the largest Southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), played by obstructing relief efforts and itself engaging in warfare tactics that exacerbated the famine (African Rights 1997: 98f.). To our knowledge, Sen does not directly engage with this particular famine in Sudan. He is less neglectful of famines during Sudan’s non-democratic periods of government. For example, in Sen (2001: 183) he writes: ‘In various ways, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, several of the Sahel countries and others provide glaring examples of how badly things can go wrong without the discipline of opposition parties and the news media.’ Yet, the Sudanese famine of the late 1980s demonstrates just how badly things can go wrong with and despite the discipline of opposition parties and the news media.
Famine may begin with a food availability deficit, but the number who die is often a function of how that deficit is handled by the community and, if the Government has sufficient administrative capacity, the response of those wielding State power.
The same may be said about mortality caused by a virus like COVID. The belief that competition between political parties and a 'free press' concerned with 'speaking truth to power', will lead to lower mortality in a democratic country may itself be mischievous. It can cause complacency on the one hand and, on the other, a paranoid suspicion that any strong action by the State has the ulterior motive of 'stifling dissent' and paving the way for authoritarianism or 'populism' or majoritarianism or plain Fascism.
Of course, if the USA and the EU are sitting on top of a huge surplus of vaccines or whatever, in the same way that they had surplus grain, then Democratic countries which already receive other forms of Aid may be forced to accept these vaccines and to do whatever their patrons tell them to do to ensure a quick resolution of the underlying problem.
Sadly, if the US does not have such a surplus- or if its leaders want to project an 'America First' nationalism- then Democracies may fare worse than Single Party states or countries with a tradition of authoritarian politics.
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