Indira Gandhi on global underprivilege

Indira Gandhi began the first of her four terms as prime minister of India (1966–77, 1980–84) two years after the death of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Renowned and feared for her political ruthlessness, she left behind a mixed legacy after her assassination in 1984. In addition to sanctioning a mass-sterilization campaign, Gandhi ruled by decree between 1975 and 1977, a time when the government suspended civil liberties, censored the press, and arrested dissenters. Nonetheless, she is remembered as the leader that spearheaded social reform and industrial development in India, setting the nation on a path toward global prominence and willing it toward a truly postcolonial future. Gandhi’s disdain for the continued hegemony of former colonial powers is apparent throughout the following essay, entitled “A World Without Want.” Published as a special feature in the 1975 edition of the Britannica Book of the Year, the essay casts a critical eye on the closely related issues of poverty and globalization from the perspective of developing nations.

A World Without Want

Two-thirds of the world’s peoples are underprivileged, and this despite such breathtaking achievements of science as space travel, instant communication, and the unraveling of the very building blocks of life. Technology has given us the knowledge to supplement or to substitute what has been provided in nature. Yet many hundreds of millions remain undernourished and are denied the minimum clothing, shelter, medical care, and education.

Why does this paradox exist? Natural resources are unevenly distributed, and some countries have acquired tremendous economic power because of their advanced technology. Individual and national self-centredness is to the fore, and there is no feeling of collective responsibility. The world is still at the stage of economic nationalism.

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I belong to a generation that spent its childhood and youth (the so-called years of careless rapture!) fighting every inch of the way for our basic human rights as citizens of an ancient and honourable land. It was a hard life, of sacrifice and insecurity, of anger and impatience. Yet the hope in our eyes and our hearts never dimmed, for we were beckoned by the star of freedom, by the bright promise of a world without want and exploitation. Can it be only 27 years ago? Science, the key to the new world for which we longed, has not been allowed to serve those whose need is greatest but has been made to pander to the desire for profits and to narrow national objectives. Far from having provided more, today we face a world beset by dire forecasts of global food inadequacies, where even the richest countries are experiencing shortages of one article or other.

Many countries that are labeled as developing are the very lands where civilization began. Poor today, though rich in their contribution to the story of man, Iraq, Egypt, India, Iran, and China were among the early cradles of intellect and endeavour. Here man first became farmer, plant breeder, and metallurgist. Here he fathomed the mysteries of mathematics and medicine, the movement of stars in the sky and of thoughts in his own mind. The first seers in India arose from among farmers, singing praise of the earth, water, and the sun and celebrating the energy of growing things. From the sun comes rain, they said, and from rain food, and from food all living beings.

Until two hundred years ago, India was regarded as the world’s most prosperous country, a magnet for traders, seafarers, and military adventurers. The wealth of Akbar the Mughal is computed at several score times that of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V or Louis XIV of France. Yet in his reign—as in those of the others—the common people lived in poverty. The multitude starved, while nobles lived in splendour. Even in those times there were large irrigation works in countries like China and India, but famines were not unusual. Among countries as within countries, there have always been rich and poor. Military power and looting led to the impoverishment of the vanquished and the enrichment of the victor.

Until the modern idea arose of social engineering for equality, only small and compact societies could avoid unseemly disparities. In earlier times, the larger the extent and efficiency of government, the wider the gap between a small number of rich and the masses of the poor. The Industrial Revolution and the rise of colonialism sharpened international disparities. Even the difference in the life span of people in Western Europe and South Asia is the sequel of Europe’s earlier lead in science, for until the beginning of the 19th century, mortality rates were roughly the same in all countries. But the present affluence of the advanced countries is due as much to colonial exploitation as to their mastery over science and modern technology.

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The pace of a country’s technological advance depends upon the stock of technology it has already accumulated. Any survey of elementary human needs and the means to fulfill them brings out the incongruous coexistence of overabundance and deprivation. In Western Europe and North America, people’s chief worry is to restrict their intake of calories, for their average consumption is 22% higher than the energy requirements of the body. Elsewhere, entire nations suffer from malnutrition. For us in India, scarcity is only a missed monsoon away.

The meaning of want

The definition of want is not constant. Increasing incomes in a time of transition from one stage of technology to another bring many changes in their train—in habits as well as in the very concept of what is desirable. Additional earnings are only partly spent on more food and other necessities, while the rest go into displaying the signs of new status. To give only one example, in India the rise in the income scale has meant giving up millets for rice and wheat, discarding regional costumes in favour of modern city wear. Need has a psychological no less than an economic connotation.

There are at least three kinds of want: first, a shortage of the essentials of existence, such as minimum nutrition, clothing, and housing; second, the absence of elements, such as education and recreation, that give meaning and purpose to life; and third, the absence of the extras that advertising proclaims as necessary to good living.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that the hungry see God in the form of bread. Many millions are not yet vouchsafed this grace. The per capita availability of grain in the less developed countries is hardly 200 kg. a year, whereas in developed countries it is close to 1,000 kg. It should be noted that nearly 90% of the consumption of grain in developed countries is indirect, through its conversion into meat and poultry. In 1970 the rich countries used some 375 million metric tons of cereals to feed animals, a quantity greater than the total cereal consumption by human beings and domesticated animals in China and India put together. The noted economist Barbara Ward has computed that, since 1967, the United States has added to its grain-beef conversion rate almost the entire equivalent of India’s level of consumption. Meanwhile, according to a UN estimate, the demand for food between 1970 and 1985 will grow by 27% in developed countries and by 72% in developing countries.

A basic inequality

The world food problem highlights the contradictions inherent in the massive and continuing injustice in the control of the world’s resources—which, we have lately begun to realize, are not unlimited. Land is unevenly distributed. On a per capita basis, the United States and the Soviet Union have close to 0.9 ha. of arable land. Canada has 2 ha. and Australia more than 3 ha. The distribution of other resources—in particular, technology and material inputs—has also been unequal.

Is it not remarkable that, in spite of these disadvantages, developing countries as a group were able to achieve, over the last decade, a growth rate in agricultural production close to that of the industrial countries? But their demands have grown even faster, due to increases in population and per capita income and changed eating habits. To a great extent, this gap has had to be filled by the transfer of food surpluses, mostly of the rich countries of North America. The U.S. and Canada have controlled a larger share of the world’s exportable grain supplies than the Middle East does of the world’s oil.

The mechanism of food aid saved farmers in rich countries from the disastrous decline in incomes that surplus production would have caused. For decades these countries restricted acreage and actually paid their farmers not to grow crops! Now the United States has ended restrictions on acreage, but increases in domestic consumption there, and changes in trade patterns and in attitudes toward aid, rule out long-term dependence on North American surpluses. It is urgent that developing countries improve their domestic production. That is the only sure basis for sustained growth in other sectors.

In 1970 technological and other experts had prophesied widespread famine in India, but for us it was a year of plenty, when our new agricultural policy bore abundant fruit and we could accumulate a buffer stock of nine million metric tons of grain. But the year following brought unforeseen events—ten million refugees, a war followed by acute drought. Aid was stalled. Our surplus was depleted, though we managed to get by with marginal imports. Then we were hit by the world financial crisis and the skyrocketing price of oil. In addition, drought has persisted in successive seasons.

The present food crisis

The current worldwide concern over food is a poignant consequence of events since 1972. Drought made itself felt across whole continents, causing production to fall simultaneously in the Soviet Union, China, India, parts of Africa, and Southeast Asia. Total world production of cereals went down by 4%, or more than 30 million metric tons. In such a situation it was natural for food-surplus countries to make the most of their advantage. Grain prices rose to dizzy heights, adding to the already escalating forces of worldwide inflation and compounding the problems of developing countries already staggered by steep increases in the price of oil. In the absence of an international system governing trade in grain, the limited stocks that were available in “surplus” countries were distributed, through bilateral trade, to those who could afford to pay.

India’s current balance of payments problem is almost entirely due to the high prices of food, fertilizers, and oil. We are exploring every possibility of substituting other fuels to meet the energy needs of our economy, but what can take the place of food and fertilizer? Fertilizer is in short supply all over the world because of high oil prices and because the demand in developed countries has increased tremendously. I have read that the United States uses three million metric tons of fertilizer just to keep its lawns green. This is more than the entire supply available to India to grow food in 1971.

Africa illustrates the severity of the present food crisis along with the untapped potential for higher production. In the Sahelian zone of Africa, drought conditions have persisted for a number of years. On the same continent, the land-man ratio in several countries is favourable, and there is ample opportunity to develop the land if the tsetse fly and other disease carriers can be controlled. It has been estimated that when this is accomplished an area of nearly seven million square kilometres—larger than the entire agricultural area of the United States—can be brought under cultivation.

World grain stocks have slumped to a precariously low level. In 1961 they totaled 154 million metric tons and, in addition, land deliberately withheld from production represented a potential output of some 70 million metric tons. In 1974 grain stocks were estimated at 89 million metric tons, the equivalent of barely four weeks’ consumption, and there is little idle land left in “surplus” countries. The capacity of the world to meet a sudden adverse turn in the weather is thus greatly reduced.

The demand for food may exceed its potential supply for many years to come. According to estimates of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization the world production of cereals, currently about 1,200,000,000 metric tons, will have to increase on an average by 25 million metric tons each year to meet the rising demand. By 1985 developing countries might face a total annual gap of nearly 85 million metric tons of food grains. Nor is this dismal prognosis of a gaping chasm between what is likely to be available and what is needed confined to less developed countries. James J. Needham, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, has said that in the period 1974–85 capital will fall approximately $650 billion short of U.S. economic requirements.

Three distinct needs must be met: 1. Greater production in developing countries; 2. Assurance of some internationally controlled supplies to meet abnormal shortages that might occur in a bad year; and 3. Generation of adequate purchasing power for developing countires to finance needed imports.

Increasing food supplies

The first step is clearly the responsibility of the developing countries themselves. They must set their priorities right and provide for investment in land improvement, use of water, production of fertilizer, and the development of technologies needed to increase food production. In affluent nations, both agriculture and industry use mass-production techniques. Agriculture itself has become an industry in which fewer people cultivate ever increasing areas with the help of machines. With such capital-intensive technology, per capita productivity is high and so are individual incomes. In India, on the other hand, we face a situation where more and more people will have to cultivate progressively smaller areas of land. Unemployment figures in India appear most depressing when employment is calculated in terms of per capita productivity. This is the basis of our poverty. Our most urgent task, therefore, is to augment per hectare productivity through the scientific use of our biological and physical assets.

This goal can be achieved only through widespread involvement of the rural community in scientific methods of farming in which every individual can participate. Unfortunately, even in agriculture much of the planning has been based on the model of mass production evolved in affluent countries, without regard to our peculiar circumstances. Experts and technical knowledge are driving forces that push us inexorably. The men and women who may be simple but yet must remain the most concerned and affected by our programs tend to be relegated to the sidelines as somewhat bewildered spectators.

The interest and enthusiasm of farmers and their wives must be aroused, not only in increasing production but in seeing that the grain reaches the market on time. Scientific farming should be part of the all-round development of the village. And women play a very important part in all aspects of village life—economic, political, and cultural. Most developmental processes have bypassed them and have not appreciated their relevance to the achievement of development goals.

India has many sophisticated and large-scale industries, but vast areas and groups of people are untouched by them and the pressure on land continues to be excessive. Life is hard in the rural areas. Therefore, we cannot neglect small-scale industries and village crafts that could be greatly improved by intermediate technology. Far from being incompatible with modernization, intermediate technology is a step in that direction. It is intended to increase efficiency and to lighten drudgery, without alienating people from their environment. In developing societies there will always be room for processes that create work for people where they live, using local materials and without the necessity of imports or high investment.

The indiscriminate adoption of norms and practices from opulent societies has led to a disorientation of values and aesthetic feeling. In their emulation of international vogues, architects in tropical countries sometimes become oblivious even of climatic conditions. It is delightful to sit in an airconditioned room, but what if this diverts power from essential production in field and factory? Labour-saving methods are welcome when they save time and money, but not when they seal off possible sources of employment. In many branches of engineering, especially agricultural engineering, there should be many-faceted research aimed at developing improvements and methods that will make fuller use of the experience and capability of the local people and of the available materials with which they are familiar. This may well lead to patterns of satisfaction that are different from those of the advanced countries.

The need for modern agricultural programs

In irrigated areas, employment can be increased through multiple cropping. Scientific dry farming is more useful in semiarid regions. Tropical and subtropical regions are fortunate in having abundant sunlight, and with adequate water and nutrients some crop or other can be grown during all 12 months. The Indicative World Plan prepared by the FAO acknowledges that multiple cropping will have to play a dominant role in increasing employment opportunities and lowering underemployment in the rural areas of the tropics. In the Indo-Gangetic plain of North India we have a large underground reserve of water. Some of our farmers have developed low-cost devices that can be used to tap this resource, such as tube wells made of bamboo, but if energy—either electric or diesel power—is not available, the wells cannot function. By that much, the opportunities for employment generation provided by multiple cropping will have been diminished.

Mixed farming, combining agriculture and livestock husbandry, has a large potential in irrigated as well as rain-fed areas. It adds to income and employment for farmers with small holdings and for landless labour. But mixed farming should not be introduced without adequate scientific investigation. For example, poultry farming should be encouraged only if there are plenty of food grains, since poultry consume large quantities of maize, sorghum, and other grains. On the other hand, the cow and the buffalo can digest cellulosic material that man cannot utilize. Thus, the relationship between the cow and the human being is complementary and not competitive. In China scavenging animals like pigs have been used effectively in production systems based on recycling principles. The same principles can be adopted for pond fisheries by developing highly productive systems based upon the supply of some waste produce of ducks and pigs. Such high-synergy systems have a multiplier effect on economic growth.

In July and August, eastern India and Bangladesh are often devastated by floods, and the Brahmaputra Valley is chronically flood-prone. Flood control is not always possible, and even when it is possible it involves heavy investment. At present, the main crop in these areas is raised in the flood season, with the result that crops are often destroyed. With the help of surface irrigation and the use of underground water, the flood-free months could be converted into the main cropping season. However, this also requires power.

Modern mechanized agriculture itself has become a major consumer of energy derived from nonrenewable resources. It has been calculated that while India uses 286 kilocalories of energy to produce one kilogram of rice protein, affluent nations use 2,800 kilocalories to produce a kilogram of wheat protein and 65,000 kilocalories to produce one kilogram of beef protein. Obviously, poor countries should take care that their agricultural growth is not entirely dependent on scarce, expensive, and pollution-generating forms of energy.

Developing countries that are not endowed with fossil fuels should try to achieve their agricultural goals by energy conservation and recycling. This is the best way of ensuring growth that does not erode the long-term production potential. For a long time the Indian farmer was skeptical about modern agriculture, but in the last 10 to 12 years he has adopted new methods with great alacrity and has taken to cultivating many new crops. Just as industrialization everywhere has elbowed out traditional rural crafts, so with the advent of modern farming, the farmer is abandoning several excellent traditional practices. He tends to apply more chemical fertilizer than prudence and science would dictate. The farmer should be reeducated to use organic fertilizer—compost and green manure—along with inorganic. In other matters also, what is known and cheap is not necessarily harmful or useless.

The scarcity of pesticides may strike developing countries with even more severity than the fertilizer shortage. Tropical conditions are particularly hospitable to insects. A way out is through pest-management procedures that are locally relevant. These may be based on pest avoidance instead of control, or on taking advantage scientifically of natural enmities within the insect world. Even if pesticides are plentiful, experience shows that insects soon become resistant to them. Farmers should be more judicious in their use of pesticides, learning the value of many insects and the importance of maintaining nature’s balance.

Research can never end. Every agroecological milieu has its own problems, and new ones keep appearing. For example, during the southwest monsoon period in India, many soil nutrients are lost because of leaching. This could be minimized by mixing fertilizer with margosa cake, derived from the seeds of the margosa tree. Such local solutions to local problems must be encouraged.

Even affluent countries must now conserve energy, which is becoming scarce and costly. Scientists and technologists have yet to develop commercially feasible methods of harnessing the energy of the sun, wind, and tides, but this work is attracting greater attention and several experiments are under way. Hitherto unused sources of natural power must be developed as quickly as possible to meet the needs of production and to assure remunerative employment to a fast-growing population.