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Churchill's famine is a different story altogether from the famines stated in the article though. Churchill's famines were directly a result of food exports to
by fakedang 2y ago
Churchill's famine is a different story altogether from the famines stated in the article though. Churchill's famines were directly a result of food exports to the rest of the Commonwealth while India starved. On the contrary, these famines mentioned in the article were often the usual in India at the time. While the Northern plains are very fertile, there is also a strong "luck" element that depends on the timing of rains and the monsoon season. Getting them wrong was often the reason for a large number of famines across the country. The southern part of India is largely mountain plateau and jungle and agriculturally poor, hence they often relied on imports from the north.
What really changed the equation for India was the Green Revolution, which happened because the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru (a figure the current govt loves to denigrate and pin all their faults on), invited Norman Borlaug to replicate his Mexican success story for India.
- anui293 2y agoI would say M.S. Swaminathan as the father of Green revolution in India.
- fakedang 2y agoMS Swaminathan worked and learnt under Borlaug. I'd like to think of them as hammer and anvil - Swaminathan is the hammer who worked out the implementation on the village level, but without Borlaug the anvil present to provide the technology, would have had his hands tied.
- seltzered_ 2y agoConsider reading critiques of the Green Revolution, such as 'The Globalization of Wheat' https://upittpress.org/books/9780822947349/ https://upittpress.org/books/9780822947349/