essay on green revolution
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The world’s worst recorded food disaster happened in 1943 in British ruled India known as the Bengal Famine. An estimated four million people died of hunger that year alone in Eastern India (that included today’s Bangladesh). The initial theory put forward to explain that catastrophe was that there was an acute shortfall in food production in the area.
However, Indian economist Amartya Sen (recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 1998) has established that while food shortage was a contributor to the problem, a more potent factor was the result of hysteria related to World War II which made food supply a low priority for the British rulers. The hysteria was further exploited by Indian traders who hoarded food in order to sell at higher prices.
Nevertheless when the British left India four years later in 1947, India continued to be haunted by memories of the Bengal Famine. It was therefore natural that food security was a paramount item on free India’s agenda. This awareness led, on one hand to the Green Revolution in India and on the other, legislative measures to ensure that businessmen would never again be able to hoard food for reasons of profit.