Proposal for a Short Programme on the Right to Food
Right to Food : A Concept Note
The awareness that the right to food is one of the most critical rights to be claimed in a post-colonial democracy such as India is one of the gains of the rights movement. Food riots particularly in the recent wake of globalisation, structural reforms, rising inflation and food prices, occurred in many parts of the globe, including Asia. Food riots or demonstrations have taken place in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Egypt, Haiti and several other countries in the last five years. The right to food has close links with entitlement patterns in society and their gendered nature, the disabling effects of persistent hunger, presence or absence of employment guarantee scheme, integrated child development services, mid-day meal schemes for children, public distribution system, land rights, starvation deaths, coercive displacement, forest rights, and social exclusion.
In India, with all these factors present, the right to food has become in recent times one of the most talked about rights. It is an issue in which court, researchers, journalists, field surveyors, campaigners, jurists, civil rights activists, and the administration – all have got involved. Coalitions have emerged around the demand of the right to food. The National Human Rights Commission has also been aware of the significance of this right, which is now seen as the derivative of the constitutionally guaranteed right to life (Article 21 of the Indian Constitution). Social audits (mainly in the form of public hearing) are new held over the issue, which tell us as to how far this right is a reality in India.
Yet, hunger persists. There are starvation deaths, recurrent suicides of farmers, widespread joblessness, and roving bands of destitute labourers, whose situation is aggravated with disasters like regular floods and droughts. Clearly fruits of development do not reach all. But what is more significant is the fact that economic development at certain places at times creates new pockets of poverty and hunger, newer disabilities, and new vulnerabilities. If some people escape the trap of below poverty level existence, some enter the trap, which is, going down below the poverty level. It can be seen further that the Union budget 2008-09 has allocated only Rs. 5 crore for the social security protection to the unorganized and informal sector workers who number around 423 million today.
CRG’s research on the Right to Food started in the second half of 2008. The research was conceptualized primarily keeping in mind a few concerns: the research would focus on the rights perspective of the food security paradigm, considering the fact that basic research on availability of food is already being carried out by several researchers all over India. CRG’s research began with accepting the fact that food scarcity exists in this country, and exists to the point of causing starvation death in pockets. Taking a step further from present and ongoing body of research and reporting, the project therefore seeks to grasp the nature of right to food – how the agenda food entitlement shapes on the basis of contention and negotiation of the right between the state, which has to deliver the food, and the subject; who assumes different collective and individual identities at different levels and points of time.
The research has been conducted on five themes: (a) there would be an inquiry looking into the state of the right to food in the tea plantations in Jalpaiguri, North Bengal; (b) a similar inquiry will take stock of the situation in South Bengal, specifically Paschim Midnapore, where starvation and hunger deaths have been repeatedly reported; (c) there will be one paper on the legal development of the Right to Food as a concrete right, (d) the fourth aspect is related to a study of the popular movement in West Bengal in 2007-08 against the unavailability of food in the Public Distribution System which influenced considerably the results of the Panchayat elections that took place soon after the agitation had stopped; and (e) finally, a paper summarizing the historical experience of the issue of Right to Food. Three of these papers have already been published in the CRG research paper series, and the rest are awaiting publication.
Right to Food Wrap Up Seminar
21 September 11, 2009 || Rang Durbar, Swabhumi || Kolkata
Tentative Schedule
9:30am-10:00 amRegistration
10.00am-10.:30amWelcome Note and Introductory Comment by Ranabir Samaddar
10:00am-11:00am Tea
11:00am-1:00pmChair: Samir Kumar Das (University of Calcutta and CRG)
Whither Right to Food? : Rights Institutions and Hungry Labour in Tea Plantations of North BengalGeetisha Dasgupta (CRG)
Discussant: Pradeep Bhargava (GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad)
The PDS Agitation in West Bengal: Outrage against Hunger and Bureaucratic Feudalism
Manisha Banerjee, Independent Researcher;
Discussant: Arup Kumar Sen (SeramporeCollege)
Food Crisis, Right to Food, and Popular Politics in West Bengal
Kumar Rana (Pratichi India Trust)
Discussant: Ranabir Samaddar (CRG)
1:00pm-2:00pmLunch
2:00pm-3:30pmChair: Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury (RabindraBharatiUniversity and CRG)
Right to Food Situation in Nayagram Block, West Midnapore: Geetisha Dasgupta
Discussant: Bhaskar Majumdar (GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad)
Right to Food: Adequate Laws, Inadequate Will and Optimistic Campaigns
Ruchira Goswami (WestBengalNationalUniversity of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata)
Discussant: Manish K Jha (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai)
3:30pm-4:00pmTea
4:00pm-5:00pmChair: Paula Banerjee (University of Calcutta and CRG)
Future Directions in Work