Public action and food shortage

The Statesman, 23 October

Every year World Food Day is observed on 16 October and from this day a week-long programme is held to arouse people’s consciousness with regard to the endemic problem of hunger and malnutrition.

According to all-India estimates, more than 50 per cent of the children suffer from severe malnutrition and the most pressing impediment remains the abysmal poverty of their household.

The problem assumes greater significance as the public distribution system around the country is in the doldrums and the poor people are unable to get essential food items at a comparatively fair price. Since 1 April this year, supply of essential commodities to the states has been almost stopped.

For example, in West Bengal rice and wheat that is now being sent may be able to cater to the needs of about 4 per cent of the total population. Not only is there a severe shortage of supply, the most disturbing fact is the unbridled corruption among a section of the ration dealers, obviously in collusion with a section of the law keepers. People became infuriated when pleas on their part fell on deaf ears over the years. Is it not a little paradox when policy planners were preaching about their commitment to ensure food security, people in large numbers were on the rampage demanding food?

At the global level, there is no threat of a Third World War. Thus, antagonism at the international level is not very pronounced. But the more agonising fact remains the incredible and the growing contradiction among individuals within the gamut of a particular society. The behaviour of individual beings - remaining within the realm of a crowd is also changing fast owing to a rapid change in the basic feature of human society.

Society is a collection of individual beings and grows from a web of inter-personal relationship. Crowd remains an important pressure-group of society which is also a by-product of a collection of individuals. But the nature of crowd behaviour and the behaviour of an individual as a member of society is not always similar. Crowd forms from a number of social dynamics - curiosity, fear, protest, expression of solidarity are some of them. But it must form spontaneously and crystallise and dissolve readily. Crowd takes the proportion of mob when the reason is alarming.

But the examination of the nature of crowd in our contemporary society needs introspection. The concept of society snowballs from the fact that man is a social animal. A man or an individual being becomes a social animal by virtue of participation in a very important process during the early stage of his life called socialisation. Socialisation makes an individual in his early life a biological species to get transformed to a social being. By participation in this process, an individual learns the rules of society and becomes a full-fledged member of the society. In this process the rational kernel of understanding remains “society is supreme and individual is subordinate to society”. But in an age when rampant individualism is becoming the order of the day, individual behaviour is often dictated by narrow, selfish and parochial interests rather than of any higher or value-based purpose.

The behaviour of individuals within a crowd is by and large similar. Crowd behaviour is often understood to be representative of the desire of a wider cross-section of people. But in the recent period of time, crowd-behaviour is often guided and dictated by narrow and selfish interest of group of individuals instead of representing the society at large.

The rationing system is in a shambles all over the country. Out of 14 select items, people are usually able to get only few and that too, quite irregularly. People allege that not only is the supply of essential items irregular, ration dealers often resort to undesirable practices and the people at large are affected. The condition of a villager below the poverty level is more pitiable. It is rather difficult to believe how a family belonging to the BPL category is surviving when the rationing system is virtually in a shambles.

But the recent mob fury in a large number of districts in South Bengal is unprecedented. The corrupt practices of a large number of ration dealers over the years have forced the people to explode in anger. When people were dying in broad daylight on the streets of Kolkata during the Great Bengal Famine, not a single eatery or sweet shop was looted or vandalised by the people.

The average Indian psyche usually is so meek and submissive that people would seldom protest and rather prefer to die with a humble murmur. The protest of the teeming millions against the erring ration dealers is definitely an indication of a more assertive individual psyche not seen in the past. Judging from this perspective, it is a definite symbol of a more focussed assertion. But there are reasons to have a more incisive introspection into the emerging crowd behaviour.

Reports suggest that for the last few months a rumour was doing the rounds in various villages that the villagers would be paid an amount as they were not getting essential items from various fair-price outlets. In some villages, people heard that each family would get Rs 500 and in others it was Rs 1,000 and even Rs 1,500. Long queues were seen in front of these outlets with the villagers aspiring to get the money. They also heard that the money was sent from New Delhi in order to mitigate the sufferings of the people as they were not getting essential items for the last six months and more.

The moot question is: how did the villagers come to believe such a rumour? When this did not happen, they became furious and the outrage spread like a prairie fire across the districts of South Bengal.

In the first one month, six deaths were reported and the protesters, apart from ventilating their anger in broad daylight, resorted to robbery and arson in the darkness of the night. The family members of the ration dealers were lynched, the female members raped and insulted and often huge amount of cash, gold and other valuables were looted, and worse still, the protesters were led by notorious anti-social elements.

Therefore, the protest against the age-old corrupt practices of ration dealers did have ground reality. But the nature of protest does not have equal validity. There are hardly any reasons to justify why the mob with a genuine cause are resorting to activities in the darkness of night. Moreover, there are allegations that a number of people having criminal antecedents are moving around to provide the needed leadership to the protesters. But apparently, the protest is the outcome of an irate crowd behaviour.

The changing features of society have made people more individualistic and to indulge in rampant consumerism. The connotation of “rampant consumerism” may not be applicable in this case considering the deplorable condition of many poor villagers. Individuals indeed join a bandwagon with a desire to fulfil some individualistic goal. But collectively they shed their individualistic purpose and uphold the cherished desire of the wider cross-section. But the preservation of the interest of the wider cross-section is gradually losing its ground over the years and an individualistic desire often dictate the propensity of the crowd behaviour. But again, that does not mean that crowd behaviour is always selfish and interest-driven.

The value of protest and demonstration is still of paramount value and that remains one of the bases of survival of the people at large. But the selfish and inhuman nature of crowd behaviour has gradually become more pronounced. Take the instance of a recent suicide case of the son of a ration dealer in Birbhum, a district of South Bengal. A ration dealer’s son committed suicide in Birbhum’s Nalhati block and policemen were assaulted in Burdwan as a public outrage against corruption in the public distribution system. Police said that Utpal Narasundar (28), son of Chandra Kishore Narasundar, a ration dealer of Sitalgram in the Nalhati police station area, hanged himself from the ceiling of his house on 9 October. Family members of Narasundar said that the youth was suffering from depression and feared an attack on his house. Chandra Kishore Narasundar said: “Last Sunday villagers gheraoed my house and threatened us with dire consequence if we declined to pay them a lump sum amount”.

He further alleged that nearly 1,000-odd villagers gheraoed his house from early morning and asked him to come to a village court that would decide the fine he would have to pay. They imposed a fine of Rs 27 lakh and told him to pay up soon. They claimed that the amount would be distributed among APL and BPL card holders. As it was impossible to pay the amount, his son raised his voice. Assuming that tension could escalate, he forced his son inside a room in his house where he committed suicide.

The corrupt practices of the ration dealers are nothing new. People have protested over the years but all such voices of anguish and despair have fallen on deaf ears. An over-tolerant social ambience has made the people intolerant. But the line of protest is becoming wayward and dangerous.

In order to do away with a malady of a long-standing nature, another malady has become the order of the day. It is high time that civil society wakes up in order to make better sense prevail and public action should take the democratic route to reach its destination. Indian society is known for its wide-ranging resilience and similar tradition may reign supreme.

(The author teaches Sociology at Presidency College, Kolkata)