Title: From ‘Grow More Food’ to ‘Miss a Meal’: Hunger, Development and the Limits of Post-Colonial Nationalism in India, 1947–1957
Abstract: AbstractCharting the rise and fall of the Grow More Food programme in India, this article explores a set of tensions that characterised development policies in the first decade after Independence in India. The post-colonial Indian state staked its legitimacy on securing economic independence for India, and, in particular, on being able to feed its citizens without resorting to importing food. The transition to food independence, however, was fraught and contested. In particular, this piece argues, the plans to get the nation to 'Grow More Food' as part of this drive towards national self-sufficiency were marked by a conflict between the dream of providing the benefits of development to all Indians and the reality that independent India's resources were extremely limited. In addition, this transition also involved a transformation in the nature of nationalism. The ruling Indian National Congress struggled to formulate a post-colonial nationalism because it was torn between using the state for development and urging the people to shape their own destiny outside of the state. It was also deeply ambivalent about rural citizens, who were viewed both as a burden and as a potentially limitless public resource. This article suggests that one of the defining features of post-colonial development was the tension between scientific and democratic development. Notes1 James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (New Haven: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard (eds), International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).2 Bipan Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India (Delhi: Anamika Publishers, 2004).3 Akhil Gupta, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); and Sugata Bose, 'Instruments and Idioms of Colonial and National Development: India's Historical Experience in Comparative Perspective', in Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard (eds), International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp.45–63.4 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine; and Partha Chatterjee, 'Development Planning and the Indian State', in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), State and Politics in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.271–97.5 Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard, 'Introduction', in Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard (eds), International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp.1–41.6 Srirupa Roy, Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007).7 Chatterjee, 'Development Planning'; and Sudipta Kaviraj, 'Dilemmas of Democratic Development in India', in Adrian Leftwich (ed.), Democracy and Development: Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p.123.8 Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Joseph Morgan Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007). See also Michael Jennings, '"We Must Run While Others Walk": Popular Participation and Development Crisis in Tazania, 1961–9', in Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.41, no.2 (2003), pp.163–87; and Michael Jennings, '"A Very Real War": Popular Participation in Development in Tanzania during the 1950s and 1960s', in International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol.40, no.1 (2007), pp.71–95.9 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee (Delhi: Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 1952), p.8.10 Editorial, The Bombay Chronicle (3 April 1951).11 See Subir Sinha, 'Lineages of the Developmentalist State: Transnationality and Village India, 1900–1965', in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.50, no.1 (2008), pp.57–90; Medha Kudaisya, '"A Mighty Adventure": Institutionalising the Idea of Planning in Post-Colonial India, 1947–60', in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.43, no.4 (2009), pp.939–78; and Christian W. McMillen and Niels Brimnes, 'Medical Modernization and Medical Nationalism: Resistance to Mass Tuberculosis Vaccination in Postcolonial India, 1948–1955', in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.52, no.1 (2010), pp.180–209.12 Gupta, Postcolonial Developments, p.49; and Bose, 'Instruments and Idioms', p.53. See also Chatterjee, 'Development Planning and the Indian State'; Ashutosh Varshney, Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban–Rural Struggles in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Kaviraj, 'Dilemmas of Democratic Development'.13 Ibid.; and Benjamin Zachariah, Developing India: An Intellectual and Social History, c. 1930–50 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005).14 Kudaisya, 'A Mighty Adventure'; and McMillen and Brimnes, 'Medical Modernization and Medical Nationalism'.15 On the global food crisis during World War Two, see Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food (London: Allen Lane, 2011).16 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Paul R. Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982); and Bikramjit De, 'Imperial Governance and the Challenges of War', in Studies in History, Vol.22 (2006), pp.1–43.17 Food Situation in India, 1939–1953 (Delhi: Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 1954), p.vi.18 See for example David Hall-Matthews, Peasants, Famine and the State in Colonial Western India (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); and Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts. El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2001), Chap. 1–2.19 Darren C. Zook, 'Famine in the Landscape: Imagining Hunger in South Asian History, 1860–1990', in Arun Agrawal and K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds), Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representation and Rule in India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), pp.107–31; and Chandra, Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism.20 David Arnold, 'The "Discovery" of Malnutrition and Diet in Colonial India', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.31, no.1 (1994), pp.1–26.21 Sunil Amrith, 'Food and Welfare in India, c.1900–1950', in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.50, no.4 (2008), pp.1010–35.22 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee, p.5.23 Sen, Poverty and Famines, pp.52, 75–80. See also Greenough, Prosperity and Misery.24 Grow More Food Campaign Progress (Delhi: Department of Education, Health and Lands, 1945), p.1.25 Ibid., p.2.26 Food Situation in India, 1939–1953, p.xx. See also Indivar Kamtekar, 'A Different War Dance: State and Class in India, 1939–1945', in Past and Present, Vol.176, no.1 (2002), pp.187–221.27 Department of State, Funds Appropriated to the President, The Indian Emergency Food Aid Program (undated), United States National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC (hereafter NARA), RG59/250/63/22/06/box 3; and NARA RG59/5392/box 3.28 William Gould, Bureaucracy, Community and Influence in India: Society and the State, 1930s–1960s (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).29 Food Situation in India, 1939–1953, p.iii.30 Ian Duncan, 'The Politics of Liberalisation in Post-Independence India: Food Deregulation in 1947', in Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol.3, no.1 (1995), pp.25–45.31 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee, p.9.32 Towards Self-Sufficiency (Delhi: Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 1951), p.7.33 Food Situation in India, 1939–1953, p.xiii.34 For one estimate of India's defence expenditure, see State Department, 'Country Statement on India' (undated, ca. 1951), NARA RG469/UD 1233/box 2.35 Jawaharlal Nehru, 'A Crusade for Food Production', All India Radio Address, 29 June 1949, in S. Gopal (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series (hereafter SWJN2) (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1992), Vol.12, p.47.36 Editorial, Siasat (Hyderabad) (30 August 1949). All translations are my own.37 Ibid.38 Nehru, 'A Crusade for Food Production'.39 Editorial, Siasat (Hyderabad) (20 November 1949).40 Nehru, 'A Crusade for Food Production'.41 Manu Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), Chap. 8.42 Jawaharlal Nehru, 'Grow More Food', All India Radio Address, 6 August 1949, in SWJN2, Vol. 12, p.74.43 S.Y. Krishnaswamy, joint secretary to the Government of India, to All Provincial Governments, Local Administrations and All States and States Union Governments, 13 September 1949, Andhra Pradesh State Archives, Hyderabad (hereafter APSA), Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.802.44 Ibid.45 Bharat (7 June 1950), Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (hereafter NMML) Munshi papers, reel 124, f.410.46 L.C. Jain, chief secretary to chief civil administrator, Government of Hyderabad, to M.K. Vellodi, secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of States, 21 June 1949, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter NAI), Ministry of States (hereafter MoS), f.11(3)-H/49.47 Mail (Madras) (6 October 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 125, f.416.48 Ibid.49 One maund was the equivalent of around eighty pounds in weight.50 'A Brief Note on the Activities of the Department of Agriculture for the Year 1949–50' (undated), NAI, MoS, f.1(5)-H/51.51 L.C. Jain to the secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of States, 1 December 1949.52 Ibid.53 Bharat (7 June 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.410.54 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee, p.11.55 Times of India (New Delhi) (8 May 1952), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 125, f.416.56 Deputy secretary, General Administrative Department, Hyderabad-Deccan, to the secretary, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 26 January 1949, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.450.57 Assistant secretary, GAD (Political), Hyderabad Deccan, to the plant protection advisor, 7 May 1951, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.834.58 W.R. Natu, economic and statistical advisor and deputy secretary to the Government of India, to all directors of Agriculture, All Provinces, Administrations and States, 30 January 1948, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.342.59 The plant protection adviser to the Government of India, to the chief secretary to the Government of Hyderabad (Dn), 11 November 1950, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.834.60 Draft letter from private secretary to the chief civil administrator to the secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, 31 December 1948, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.636.61 See for example S.Y. Krishnaswamy, joint secretary to the Government of India, to All Provincial Governments and State Governments, 13 October 1949, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.803. See also S.T. Raja, under secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India to the chief secretary, Hyderabad State, 13 August 1949, APSA, Instalment no.81, list no.5, serial no.802.62 Mitchell, Rule of Experts.63 Amrith, 'Food and Welfare', pp.1022–3.64 Nick Cullather, 'The Foreign Policy of the Calorie', in The American Historical Review, Vol.112, no.2 (2007), p.338.65 Editorial, Siasat (Hyderabad) (23 September 1951).66 Editorial, The Bombay Chronicle (3 May 1951), p.4.67 Nehru to Jairamdas Doulatram, 1 July 1949, SWJN2 Vol. 12, p.53.68 Nehru to premiers of provinces, 1 July 1949, SWJN2 Vol. 12, p.57.69 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee, p.18.70 See for example R.S. Krishnaswamy, Ministry of Food, Government of India, to Vinayak Rao, Ministry for Supply, Government of Hyderabad, 4 August 1950, NAI, MoS, f.10(3)-H/50.71 The Statesman (New Delhi) (25 May 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.406.72 The Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad) (24 May 1950), p.2.73 Hindustan Standard (25 May 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.406.74 Final Report of the Famine Inquiry Commission (Madras: Superintendent, Government Press, 1945).75 The Leader (Allahabad) (15 November 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 126, f.416.76 Mail (Madras) (28 August 1951), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 126, f.417.77 The Bombay Chronicle (25 April 1951), p.5.78 The Bombay Chronicle (21 May 1951), p.3. This assessment coincides with Amartya Sen's famous definition of famine. See Sen, Poverty and Famines, p.4.79 Extract from letter from the chief secretary, Hyderabad, 26 August 1950, NAI, MoS, f.10(3)-H/50.80 Extract from Part I of the Daily Summary of Information of the DCIO, Hyderabad, 21 August 1950, NAI, MoS, f.10(3)-H/50.81 Tribune (15 June 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.406.82 Indian Nation (28 June 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.406.83 Shankar's Weekly (6 August 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.408.84 Times of India (Delhi) (3 January 1951), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 126, f.417.85 Editorial, The Bombay Chronicle (17 April 1951), p.4.86 Pioneer (Lucknow) (14 June 1950), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 124, f.406.87 The Bombay Chronicle (14 April 1951), p.1.88 The Bombay Chronicle (24 February 1951), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 125, f.412.89 The Bombay Chronicle (10 April 1951), p.4.90 Editorial, Siasat (Hyderabad) (23 September 1951).91 Tribune (Ambala Cantt) (2 February 1951), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 126, f.417.92 The Bombay Chronicle (23 April 1951), p.1; and The Bombay Chronicle (30 April 1951), p.5.93 The Bombay Chronicle (4 June 1951), p.3.94 The Bombay Chronicle (25 April 1951), p.5.95 See for example Gupta, Postcolonial Developments.96 Jawaharlal Nehru, 'The War Against Famine', broadcast to the nation, 1 May 1951, SWJN2 Vol. 16(I), p.39.97 Letter from Prithviraj Kapoor, president, 'Hum-Sub', The Bombay Chronicle (25 May 1951), p.4.98 The Bombay Chronicle (9 May 1951), p.5.99 The Bombay Chronicle (1 June 1951), p.6.100 M.K. Vellodi, chief minister of Hyderabad, to N.M. Buch, joint secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of States, 28 July 1950, NAI, MoS, f.10(3)-H/50.101 Note by P.A. Gopalakrishnan, Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Food), 5 June 1950, NAI, Ministry of Food, Policy Division, f.PY(V)/2500(6)/50; and Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of the USSR, 27 January 1949, NAI, Ministry of Food, Policy Branch, PY(V)-1557(1)C/49.102 Commerce Department Summary based on article in Indian Trade and Industry (India House, Aldwych, London: High Commission of India), 1 May 1953, NARA, RG469/UD 372/box 4.103 Dennis Merrill, Bread and the Ballot: The United States and India's Economic Development, 1947–1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).104 See for example Government of Bombay, Final Report on Scarcity of 1952–53 (Bombay: Director, Government Printing, Publications and Stationery, 1958).105 'Proceedings of the Meeting held at the Secretariat Bombay to Consider the Question of Handling, Clearance and Movement of Foodgrains from Bombay', 9 July 1951, NARA RG469/UD 1234/box 1.106 Frank R.J. Gerard, food aid representative, to Paul M. Green, controller, Washington, DC, 4 October 1951, NARA RG469/UD 1234/box 1.107 Food Situation in India, 1939–1953, p.xiii.108 The Bombay Chronicle (24 February 1951), NMML, Munshi papers, reel 125, f.412; and 'Resolution passed at the Second Annual Session of the Hyderabad State Congress' (undated, 1950), NAI, MoS, f.1(10)-H/50.109 For the late 1950s see B.R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.199; for the 1960s see Gupta, Postcolonial Developments, pp.60–1.110 Report of the Grow More Food Enquiry Committee, p.42.111 Ibid., p.22.112 Quoted in Francine R. Frankel, India's Political Economy: The Gradual Revolution, 1947-77 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), p.106.