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HUNGER IN INDIA - WHAT IS THE ISSUE? Under the present rule of the landlords and the foreign-dependent capitalists of India, the misery of Indian people is increasing daily. It is becoming more and more difficult for larger and larger fraction of the population to survive under the extreme exploitation and plunder of their labor and land. The so called democracy in India is only a fig-leaf to hide this barbaric oppression. In 1956-57, fully 40% of the Indian population was below the depressed official poverty line. (Indian government defines the poverty-line income as that necessary to buy 2250 Calories of food per day at local prices with no provision for clothing, housing, health care etc.) In February of this year, Mr. Varma the 'labor minister' to Desai regime confessed in the parliament that the number has reached 80% and is still increasing daily. Associated with such wide-spread misery and poverty, we find illiteracy, negligible public health care and housing shortage. People are at the mercy of floods, cyclones and storms and even drinking water is not available to a large majority of the Indian people. Anywhere one goes, one cannot miss the rampant unemployment (more than 30%) and starvation. The imperialists, the reactionary ruling classes of India and their various apologists and lackeys blame the hard working toiling masses of India for their misery. This is as callous as blaming slaves for their slavery. These fascist lackeys peddle various 'theories' of how the Indian people are 'inherently lazy', unproductive, 'spiritually oriented', and how they 'breed like mice'. Overpopulation is the favorite whipping-boy of a lot of these fascist theoreticians. They rationalize the existence of the poverty of the masses by blaming the people for overpopulation. Such arguments date back to Thomas Malthus (1798) who even urged that some (the poor) must perish when population presses beyond subsistence. Malthus was thoroughly exposed by Marx and Engels for what he was - a bumbling apologist for the landed aristocracy; a reac tionary even at that time! (e.g. see "Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb", Ramparts Press). Since that time despite being exposed by progressive and democratic people, his theory has seen several attempts at resurrection by the reactionaries, since they find this theory convenient to explain away the poverty inevitably resulting from the rule of the reactionary classes. Neo-malthusians today say that food production etc. in the colonial and neo- colonial countries cannot keep pace with their growing populations. And therefore they proclaim population-control to be the principal issue facing the people of these countries. Thus the reality of the imperialist plunder and backward semi-feudal mode of agricultural production becomes just secondary side issue and sterilization of the people (whether by using the priest or the hangman) is presented as the burning issue. No wonder that neo-malthusian theories are popular with World Bank, A.I.D., the Club of Rome, various multinational foundations and reactionary propaganda organs (such as Universities, TV, media, movies etc.). An explanation of human misery in terms of an 'eternal law of nature' has an obvious appeal for political reactionaries since it diverts attention from the part played in the creation of this misery by class exploitation. As Engels points out " Why is too little produced? Not because of limits of production - even today and with present day means - are exhausted. No. But because the limits of production are determined not by the number of hungry bellies but by the number of purses able to buy and to pay". For example today the Indian ruling classes export grain to the Soviet imperialists and to Vietnam and have so much grain on their hands that they have resorted to storing it on airstrips and railway platforms; while hundreds of millions of Indian people are dying slowly of starvation. Only by smashing the stranglehold of the two ruling classes of India - the imperialist-dependent capitalists and the feudal landlords - can the problem of hunger in 1978
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Title | 1-29-15_0001 |
Transcript | HUNGER IN INDIA - WHAT IS THE ISSUE? Under the present rule of the landlords and the foreign-dependent capitalists of India, the misery of Indian people is increasing daily. It is becoming more and more difficult for larger and larger fraction of the population to survive under the extreme exploitation and plunder of their labor and land. The so called democracy in India is only a fig-leaf to hide this barbaric oppression. In 1956-57, fully 40% of the Indian population was below the depressed official poverty line. (Indian government defines the poverty-line income as that necessary to buy 2250 Calories of food per day at local prices with no provision for clothing, housing, health care etc.) In February of this year, Mr. Varma the 'labor minister' to Desai regime confessed in the parliament that the number has reached 80% and is still increasing daily. Associated with such wide-spread misery and poverty, we find illiteracy, negligible public health care and housing shortage. People are at the mercy of floods, cyclones and storms and even drinking water is not available to a large majority of the Indian people. Anywhere one goes, one cannot miss the rampant unemployment (more than 30%) and starvation. The imperialists, the reactionary ruling classes of India and their various apologists and lackeys blame the hard working toiling masses of India for their misery. This is as callous as blaming slaves for their slavery. These fascist lackeys peddle various 'theories' of how the Indian people are 'inherently lazy', unproductive, 'spiritually oriented', and how they 'breed like mice'. Overpopulation is the favorite whipping-boy of a lot of these fascist theoreticians. They rationalize the existence of the poverty of the masses by blaming the people for overpopulation. Such arguments date back to Thomas Malthus (1798) who even urged that some (the poor) must perish when population presses beyond subsistence. Malthus was thoroughly exposed by Marx and Engels for what he was - a bumbling apologist for the landed aristocracy; a reac tionary even at that time! (e.g. see "Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb", Ramparts Press). Since that time despite being exposed by progressive and democratic people, his theory has seen several attempts at resurrection by the reactionaries, since they find this theory convenient to explain away the poverty inevitably resulting from the rule of the reactionary classes. Neo-malthusians today say that food production etc. in the colonial and neo- colonial countries cannot keep pace with their growing populations. And therefore they proclaim population-control to be the principal issue facing the people of these countries. Thus the reality of the imperialist plunder and backward semi-feudal mode of agricultural production becomes just secondary side issue and sterilization of the people (whether by using the priest or the hangman) is presented as the burning issue. No wonder that neo-malthusian theories are popular with World Bank, A.I.D., the Club of Rome, various multinational foundations and reactionary propaganda organs (such as Universities, TV, media, movies etc.). An explanation of human misery in terms of an 'eternal law of nature' has an obvious appeal for political reactionaries since it diverts attention from the part played in the creation of this misery by class exploitation. As Engels points out " Why is too little produced? Not because of limits of production - even today and with present day means - are exhausted. No. But because the limits of production are determined not by the number of hungry bellies but by the number of purses able to buy and to pay". For example today the Indian ruling classes export grain to the Soviet imperialists and to Vietnam and have so much grain on their hands that they have resorted to storing it on airstrips and railway platforms; while hundreds of millions of Indian people are dying slowly of starvation. Only by smashing the stranglehold of the two ruling classes of India - the imperialist-dependent capitalists and the feudal landlords - can the problem of hunger in 1978 |
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