Dear Editor,
The snippet, “More US rice for India under PL480” in 1965 brought back harsh memories of hardships we had to face in a fledgling democracy. Food scarcity was so severe that Shastri, the then Premier, pleaded that hotels shut shop one day every week in order to minimise rice consumption! Five decades ago we did not have sufficient food grain to feed a population of 40 crore people. The nation had fought two expensive wars, with China and Pakistan, and, starved of foreign exchange reserves, we could not equip our soldiers with sophisticated weapons. There was also the one question, ‘Who after Nehru?’ The lurking fear of India becoming another totalitarian state was averted, thanks to the sagacity of tall leaders like K. Kamaraj who engineered a smooth transition of power to Shastri.
Fifty years on we have enough and more food grain to feed a massive population of 120 crore people and also enough to export. Agriculture is now centre-stage. Large sections of today’s young population are unaware of these hardships and the rough road we have travelled to be where we are today. Without this historical perspective, it is sad that the ruling dispensation of the day is hell-bent on marginalising agricultural activity. One only hopes that with the modified Land Bill we do not go back to a position like in 1965 when we may have to import food grain to feed our ever growing population!
Pritam Singh,
via-e-mail