JOINT STATEMENT ON GORAKHPUR FAMINE
By Pandit Sunderlal and Dr. J.C. Kumarappa
(6 September, 1952, Allahabad. Source: Kumarappa Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library)
On a call from Gorakhpur to enquire into the famine conditions there I reached Allahabad on the morning of 27th August and requested Pandit Sunderlal also to join me in this mission to which he kindly consented.
I went to Gorakhpur and spent the 28th August in going through the various statements, official and non-official issued till then concerning conditions in Gorakhpur, in visiting Shri Shibbanlal Saxena, in meeting Shri Jagan Prasad Rawat, Deputy Minister in special charge of relief work in Gorakhpur, and in trying to ascertain facts about the scarcity conditions in the district from other important persons of the place.
Shri Shibbanlal Saxena’s Fast
On the 29th August Pandit Sunderlal joined me. The first thing that we did was to try to persuade Shri Shibbanlal Saxena to break his fast and to cooperate with Shri Jagan Prasad Rawat and other officials in trying to alleviate the suffering of the people. We saw Shri Jagan Prasad Rawat, who was good enough to assure us that he would make the fullest use of the cooperation and advice of Shri Shibbanlal Saxena and his friends in the relief work. This cooperation being assured on either side, the fast was broken the same evening at 6 pm, when Shri Jagan Prasad Rawat and a number of local workers and prominent citizens were present.
The Distress and Relief Measures
On the 30th of August we along with Shri Shibbanlal Saxena and a number of other workers, left Gorakhpur early in the morning for Tehsil Pharenda of the district. We visited several test work centres or what may be really called famine relief works, recently started by the Government. We talked with a large number of labourers working and also with some of the government employees in charge of the works we gathered that the government had already started test works in about fifty or more centres in the two tehsils of Pharenda and Maharajganj which appeared to be the worst affected areas we were also told that the total number of labourers engaged in all these centres were about ten thousand, while those applying for work in that area numbered very nearly one lakh an overwhelming majority of them had to be refused ‘cards’ for admission to the various relief works. Some of the applicants had been advised to go for work to centres as far as fourteen miles from their villages. Most of the roads were extremely bad. Naturally, most of the applicants were unable to take advantage of the offer. It was physically impossible for people, especially for famished people, to go every day fourteen miles for work and come back to their villages. From our short visit to these camps we came to three conclusions: firstly, the government had correctly recognised the people’s distress in so far as they have started some relief measures. Their calling it test work rather than ‘relief work’ only shows the usual cautiousness of the official mind; secondly, that these measures were still very inadequate to meet the extent of the distress, and thirdly, that a good deal more human sympathy was needed in those in charge of these works.
The wages being paid for a full day’s work at these relief centres were eight annas for each adult man, eight annas for each adult woman and four annas for each boy or girl. At some places the wages for an adult man had just then been increased from eight annas to ten annas. Looking to the rates prevailing and to the fact that only one member of a family will be allowed to work in a relief camp, we submit that the wages are very inadequate.
In the afternoon we decided to visit some villages nearby. We found the roads too bad for motoring especially after the recent rains. The only means of transport possible and available was elephants. The roads were so bad and muddy that one of our two elephants slipped and one of the workers riding on it fell down and injured his legs.
Condition of the People
We visited a few villages or rather a few tolas of village Adrauna, tehsil Pharenda in the village of Shivpur the villagers, a few hundred in number, gathered to tell us their story. It was painful to see the pitiable condition of dozens of little children with rickety bodies, ribs easy to count from a distance and the abdomens bulging out, faces pale and starved. The look of adult men and women was hardly any better the whole scene brought back memories of the conditions in Oudh villages during the famine days of 1908. Three crops had failed one after the other. The purchasing power of most people was practically zero. Naturally, a large number had lived for long period on grass seeds and on edible and non-edible vegetation of which we saw many samples. We entered their huts and saw what they had cooked for the morning and what food they were going to take in the evening. Under these horrible conditions it is no wonder that a large part of the village population has been pauperised. We talked to them and heard their pitiable stories told with tears trickling down their cheeks.
Starvation Deaths
Here we may enter into the much mooted question of starvation deaths in Gorakhpur. It is difficult to say what is meant by a starvation death. We do not know how the famine code defines it or if it defines it at all. Our experience is, and it is the experience of most people that even in the worst famines very few people die of sheer starvation. An average human being can live without food, though not without water, easily from six to ten weeks or even more. During the last Bengal famine, out of the thirty lakhs of people that lost their lives, the overwhelming majority died, not of sheer starvation, but of diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery and fever due to their having eaten food somehow obtained, bad in quality and wrong in quantity, after a few days or even a week or so of continued starvation. Such deaths may be called starvation deaths or scarcity deaths or famine deaths or by any other name, but, in all honesty they are deaths due to starvation in the first instance. In the villages of Gorakhpur district that we visited hundreds of stories of such deaths were narrated to us by the relatives of the deceased in words and with feelings which left little room for distrust. We need not go into details or into individual cases. But we have not the slightest shadow of doubt that in Pharenda and Maharajganj tehsils alone during the last two months or so at least several hundreds of people have died due to scarcity of food. When we bear in mind that three consecutive crops have failed in that area, and that the purchasing power of the people has all along been the lowest imaginable, it would be a wonder if things were otherwise. No government can disclaim responsibility for these deaths
Tampering with Records
In this connection another alarming factor came to our notice. At several places government officials, especially police officials, approached people who had reported the deaths of their dear ones as due to starvation, and threatened them with dire consequences unless they got their reports amended. We also came across large numbers of cases in which there is prima facie evidence of criminal tampering with public records. We have seen such records: bhukh sai mar gaya has been apparently changed into bhukhar sai mar gaya, or the word bhukmari, as the cause of death, has been changed to bhukar, we submit that such cases deserve immediate full and fair enquiry and such practice ought to be suppressed with a strong hand. It should not be the business of the government or of government officials in such cases to try to shield or to protect such persons. It can only increase the distance between the government and the people. We must confess that in this matter we found things very far from satisfactory in Gorakhpur.
The Survey
Pandit Sundarlalji had to return to Allahabad leaving Dr J.C. Kumarappa to proceed with further visits to other villages in Pharenda and Maharajganj tehsils. Shri Kumarappa travelled about 350 miles and covered villages with a population of about 75,000 most of the villages he visited were within 4 to 5 miles of the main roads and so it would seem that what he had seen was not the worst of the famine area. We understand conditions in the interior villages are much worse than what has been described here. In regard to his experience Shri Kumarappa reports:
“There is absolutely no second line of defence against poverty in these places in the form of agro-industries or other handicrafts on which the farmers can fall back upon in times of distress. Thousands of acres of excellent land have gone into sugarcane which would have provided rice and other crops to the people. The cultivation of sugar cane in a country which is short of food grains is irrational and unsound economics and yet because of immediate individual gains held out by sugar mills during certain years, these farmers have got enticed away and become entangled in a system from which they find it difficult to extricate themselves.
“The distress of the people does not require much statistical evidence and calls for only that much mathematical ability to be able to count their ribs and bones! In some of the villages my entrance was like an entrance into a house of mourning. The moment the women saw a sympathetic soul there was a greeting in the form of mourning and tears. One felt distressed at one’s inability to be of any help to such suffering masses.
“In the light of this I was pained to see the little or no effort made by the general public to meet the situation. Though everybody thinks that the responsibility is that of the government, hardly anybody is to be found with sufficient zeal to initiate relief work on their own. I was pained to see that erstwhile constructive workers were apathetic or cared little or nothing about the conditions. The people seemed to be much more politically conscious than socially sympathetic. This of course was not what was expected to be the case when we attained independence. It seems to me that our old constructive work has not thrown up sufficiently strong initiative to tackle exigencies of this type. I trust that at least from now on private committees will be formed to take up this responsibility. This is an occasion when the younger generation could be trained into future leaders if they are called out from their colleges to take part in a programme of relief to the famine stricken. I am afraid this opportunity is not being seized as it should be to build up our future leaders. I hope at least now proper advantage will be taken of even this calamity to bring some benefit out of it.”
The Remedies
Let us now consider some of the remedies. The problem of the poverty of the people of Gorakhpur is not a new problem. As in several other Eastern districts of U.P. the problem is a chronic one. It has historical reasons.
Gorakhpur is a district of recurring famines due to alternate droughts and floods. Most people in the villages have suffered from malnutrition for decades. People from Gorakhpur have been going to Cawnpore, Bombay, Calcutta and even to places outside India in their thousands to work there as labourers, on account of scarcity of food and work in their own district.
There is no cottage industry worth the name in Gorakhpur to supplement agriculture or to support the people by maintaining their purchasing power during days of scarcity. We were told that certain parts of Gorakhpur district especially of Pharenda and Maharajganj had very flourishing Gur and Khandsari sugar industries. These have been ruined by the sugar mills which now abound in the district. The remedy should therefore be both short range and long range.
The Short-range Programme
The short-range programme should consist of immediate supply and distribution of grain in all scarcity areas, expansion of relief measures to several times their present volume adequate to meet the requirements of the dreadful situation, and help in cash to all those who need it and who are not in a position to take advantage of the relief camps.
Long-term Programme
The long-term programme, which is even more important, should include the organising and developing of cottage industries like spinning and weaving of cotton and wool, tanning, Gur and Khandsari sugar industry in the district. These subsidiary industries are absolutely necessary to banish poverty from that unfortunate area and should be immediately taken in hand both by the government and the local workers.
Control of Floods
The long-range programme should also include river control and management by the building of canals, walls and water reservoirs. This should be done not on the lines of big schemes requiring big machinery and large establishments, but on the scale on which such things are being done in Japan and in New China, depending more on man power and on voluntary cooperative effort than on machine power and huge capital outlay.
Crop Planning
The villagers have also to be persuaded to prefer to grow food crops in place of commercial crops. It is not their business to grow sugar cane for the mills. The little money that it brings them is a snare which ultimately involves them in starvation and death. They need grow only as much sugarcane as they can press in their own kolhoos and use for preparing Gur and Khandsari sugar.
Land Reform
Gorakhpur is also notorious for its extremely inequitable distribution of land which is also one of the principle causes of extreme poverty of the people. The long range programme should also include a right type of land reform and redistribution of land on a fair and equitable basis so that no tiller of the soil should remain without a plot of land on which he has full ownership rights. Mechanized collective farming or forced cooperatives will give no real relief to the poor people.
Conclusion
If we really mean well with the poor villager we have to follow in this matter the examples of China, Kashmir and Burma with necessary adaptations. If India is to live, our villages must prosper and must be able to stand on their own legs. Gorakhpur affords a good opportunity for real service in this line to the government, and the public workers and to the people. Let us hope we shall all rise to the occasion and make the best of this visitation.