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Letters, Reports and Penance: How the Tirupati Laddu Lent Itself to Politics

Jaganmohan Reddy has said that Chandrababu Naidu’s claims were calculated to deflect attention from the Telugu Desam Party’s governance failures.

Hyderabad: Accusations on the Tirupati laddu, initially made by Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on September 18, have snowballed into a political controversy that have called the original claims to question. Naidu had first said that the ghee used in making the laddus was adulterated with animal fat – an allegation he has since walked back on. However, this claim led to an unleashing of outrage.

By September 19, Naidu had modified his stance, stating only that the ghee’s quality was substandard, without repeating the animal fat claim. Former chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy then seized on this inconsistency to question Naidu’s credibility.

“It’s impossible for adulterated ghee with animal fat to be used in Tirumala laddus,” Jagan declared at a September 20 press conference.

He highlighted Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam’s long-standing protocols that subject all ingredients to rigorous testing. “TTD’s robust quality checks make such adulteration impossible,” he added, arguing that Naidu’s claims aimed to incite public unrest and deflect attention from his own administrative shortcomings.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 22, 2024, Jagan urged the Union government to intervene, calling on Modi to reprimand Naidu for spreading “blatant lies.” Jagan highlighted that lab tests conducted in July 2024 – months before Naidu’s allegations – had confirmed the presence of vegetable fats, not animal fats, in the ghee.

He stressed that the TTD’s quality control mechanisms had rejected the adulterated ghee from A.R. Dairy Foods well before the laddus were distributed to devotees. “Naidu’s statements have already caused confusion and distress among devotees,” Jagan wrote. “The truth is that the TTD’s safeguards ensured that the questionable ghee was never used in making the sacred laddus.”

Jagan contended that Naidu’s actions were calculated to tarnish his party’s reputation and deflect attention from the Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) governance failures. He also emphasised that Naidu’s behaviour was disrespectful to Hindu religious practices, asserting, “It is crucial that political leaders like Naidu avoid making irresponsible statements that could undermine the sanctity of our religious institutions.”

Jagan’s defence has been reinforced by the Ghee Committee’s draft report, which was first made available by the news portal SouthFirst. It was submitted earlier in September but not made public until the news website provided a link to it. It confirmed that no animal fat had ever been used in preparing the laddus and that the TTD’s procurement process had consistently adhered to strict quality control guidelines.

Also read: Explained: Chandrababu Naidu, the Tirupati Laddu, and Why the Fat Is in the Fire

Jagan and TTD’s integrity

Jagan emphasised that stringent procurement processes have been consistently in place, spanning both his tenure and Naidu’s previous administration. He noted that TTD had rejected substandard ghee batches multiple times, stating, “This is routine, not unprecedented.”

In his letter, Jagan not only denied the allegations but also urged Modi to take decisive action against Naidu. He accused Naidu of exploiting the sacred Tirumala laddus for political gain. “Naidu has stooped so low as to hurt the beliefs of crores of people purely for political objectives,” Jagan wrote. He described Naidu’s claims as “reckless” and warned they could inflame religious sentiments among millions of Hindu devotees.

Jagan emphasised in his letter that the TTD operates independently, governed by a board of trustees including eminent devotees from across the country. “Naidu’s claims are a direct affront to the faith of Hindus everywhere,” Jagan asserted. He further pressed Modi to hold Naidu accountable for spreading misinformation and undermining public trust in religious institutions.

Jagan’s letter appears to be a strategic political move, aimed not only at countering Naidu’s allegations but also at positioning himself as a defender of the TTD’s integrity. “This baseless claim hurts the sentiments of millions of devotees,” he stated, calling for a national inquiry to dispel the accusations and restore public confidence.

Pawan Kalyan

Amidst the controversy, deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan embarked on an 11-day penance, portraying the alleged desecration of the laddus as a grave offence against Sanatana Dharma. Kalyan’s ‘Praschit Deeksha’ sought to atone for what he deemed was the previous administration’s failure to maintain the offerings’ “purity”.

His statements highlighted the controversy’s communal undertones, with him saying that “the nation would have reacted differently had such an incident occurred in mosques or churches.”

Kalyan’s appeal to Hindu sentiments and call for religious accountability intensified the communal sensitivities surrounding the issue, particularly given his proximity to the BJP. Social media is already abuzz, glorifying Pawan as the saviour of Sanatana Dharma and Hinduism.

Clamour for probe

The controversy has also drawn in Y.S. Sharmila, Jagan’s sister and Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president. On September 21, Sharmila met with Governor S. Abdul Nazeer and formally requested a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged adulteration. She argued that only an independent, comprehensive investigation could resolve the issue and ensure accountability.

“Tirumala is one of the most sacred places in the country, and it must remain free from political interference or acts of desecration,” Sharmila stated.

BJP leaders have also joined the fray. Senior party figures have demanded action against Jagan and his allies, accusing them of mishandling the temple’s administration and disrespecting Hindu traditions. For the BJP, this controversy presents an opportunity to strengthen its support base by positioning itself as a defender of Hindu religious practices.

Naidu announces rituals

Undeterred by the backlash, Chandrababu Naidu announced on September 22 that the Andhra Pradesh government would establish a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations. Led by an Inspector General of Police, the SIT will investigate the procurement and testing practices at TTD, aiming to ensure accountability for any individuals or entities involved in the alleged adulteration.

In tandem with launching the SIT, Naidu declared that the Tirumala temple would undergo “purification rituals” to cleanse it of any spiritual impurity linked to the scandal. These rituals, known as “santhi homam” and “panchagavya prokshana,” are scheduled for September 23. “The purity of the Tirumala temple must be restored,” Naidu asserted.

Naidu has framed the controversy as part of a broader governance failure under Jagan Mohan Reddy’s leadership. He alleged that the YSRCP government’s cost-cutting measures led to the procurement of substandard ghee at suspiciously low prices, compromising the quality of the Tirumala laddus. Naidu contended that these lapses reflect a wider neglect of religious practices during Jagan’s term.

“Why did the government pursue reverse tendering for such a vital commodity?” Naidu questioned, implying that political expediency – rather than religious sanctity – drove the YSRCP’s decisions. He also criticised Jagan’s defence of key TTD figures, Y.V. Subba Reddy and Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, accusing them of failing to uphold Hindu traditions due to their Christian background.

Amroha Authorities Probing ‘Expulsion’ of 7-Year-Old Muslim Student Over Non-Veg Tiffin

Although the audio of the circulating video is unclear in places, various reports have quoted the principal as having told the boy’s mother, “We cannot teach children in our school who destroy our temples…”

New Delhi: Officials in Amroha district of Uttar Pradesh are probing reports that say that a private school principal assaulted a Muslim student, confined him to a room, and eventually expelled him for bringing non-vegetarian tiffin to school.

The Wire has learnt from Amroha police that the district inspector of schools at Amroha has formed a three-member team to probe the incident and a video of it which was widely shared on social media.

The video purportedly shows the principal, one Avneesh Sharma, telling a person who appears to be the student’s mother that he has already struck the student’s name off the rolls.

Although the audio is unclear, various accounts have quoted Sharma as having said, “We cannot teach children in our school who destroy our temples…”

The Hindu quoted the principal as also saying, “Your child says that he wants to convert everyone to Islam by making them eat non-vegetarian food.”

The mother in the video can be heard refuting the allegations and mentioning repeatedly that her child is just seven years old. Sharma says that she teaches him these things, and that he learns of this at home.

Times of India has reported that the child was in Class 3 and that he had brought biryani in his tiffin.

Sudhir Kumar, the sub-divisional magistrate of Amroha, has noted, according to the report, that the Basic Shiksha Adhikari and the district inspector of schools had been ordered to investigate the matter.

Rajya Sabha MP Syed Nasir Hussain has been among those who condemned the incident.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for not counselling students in Muzaffarnagar who were allegedly instructed by their teacher to slap a Muslim boy for not doing his homework. In that viral video, the teacher could be heard saying “Mohammedans should be beaten up”.

The Hindu has also reported earlier on schools across New Delhi making “vegetarian” tiffin almost mandatory in a Hindutva-driven push.

India’s Path to Food Security Has No Quick Fixes

Achieving it necessitates a comprehensive strategy that integrates both immediate and long-term solutions.

Last month, we presented in a rather descriptive manner the challenge India was facing on the food security front and showed that it was bound to be more acute in the coming decades because of the growth of its population as well as the legacy of the Green Revolution (including monoculture and water stress), the impact of selective minimum support prices and climate change.

We will now address the quest for solutions, by summarising, once again, the ideas featured in detail in our Institut Montaigne note on the subject. When we look for solutions, various categories of thought emerge immediately. Some of them can be seen as reforms (aiming at improving agricultural production, availability of products and access to these products), whereas one of them amounts to a more revolutionary move: the development of agroecological farming.

Improving agricultural production, availability and access to food

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

Agricultural production can be optimised in several ways to address not only undernutrition but also malnutrition, which is inter alia is crucial given the strong links between poor diet quality, undernutrition, and the early onset of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), which is a looming public health crisis, especially among the structurally excluded majority (lower socioeconomic groups) of the Indian population.

First, an effort towards diversification could be undertaken to escape the trap of monocultures inherited from the Green Revolution and, in particular, to revive the cultivation of millets (with recognised nutritional virtues) and especially pulses which are produced and consumed in quantities too small to effectively combat under- or malnutrition. Concerning the latter, the plan proposed by the committee led by Arvind Subramanian in 2015 could be revisited. One of the recommendations was for the state to provide producers with a guaranteed price – referred to as the Minimum Support Price (MSP) – that is sufficiently remunerative to incentivise investment in this crop, similar to the system in place for rice and wheat, where the state purchases half of the production. Some years later, such as in 2018-19, this policy was followed and bore fruit, but this financial effort is marginal today. The committee also recommended the ban on exports of pulses, which was, however, lifted in 2017.

Irrigation, which still only concerns a minority of cultivated land (where farmers can therefore only make one to two harvests per year) can be developed, no longer solely (nor even primarily) by creating canals subject to high evaporation or by digging wells (as groundwater is being depleted), but by reviving traditional forms of rainwater collection through reservoirs and wells with wide margins to maximise collection.

In parallel, water-intensive crops like maize, rice, and sugarcane must be replaced by others, such as millets, which would make the development of irrigation less necessary. Reducing the area dedicated to export crops like rice would also make it possible to produce the fodder needed by livestock – which might otherwise be fed with food that could be intended for human consumption.

The growth of livestock farming must in any case be limited, not only for this reason but also because of its effects on climate change. Dissuasive prices could be applied in the state-managed wholesale markets.

To help the peasants to cope with climate change, the Manual of Drought Management needs to be revised again: in 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture changed the Union government policy, making it much more difficult for the state governments to declare a drought.

The supply of foodstuffs can be improved both quantitatively and qualitatively by modernising the conditions of product conservation in two ways: the cold chain, which is very deficient – or even almost nonexistent – could be developed through both the installation of cold rooms and the use of refrigerated trucks, and food stocks can easily be kept dry, preventing the spoilage of tons of grains, something that has occurred in the recent past. Exports of certain products should be suspended as long as the Indian population is not fully fed. This is particularly the case with pulses. Limiting meat exports would also be a way to discourage farmers from investing in livestock, which is a large consumer of fodder. By design, reducing meat exports from India could increase the availability of meat for domestic consumption, particularly for poorer populations subject to socio-cultural constraints.

Also read: It’s Not Just Food Price, India Is Facing a Food Security Challenge

Addressing mass poverty, which leaves the poorest unable to meet their basic nutritional needs, is a top priority here. India had embarked on this path at the beginning of the century, thanks in particular to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, which had lifted millions of people out of poverty and/or given them access to more substantial food. The policy of the Modi government has reversed this trend. The budget for MGNREGA should be tripled to return to its level in 2007-08.

The Public Distribution System (PDS), renovated as a part of the National Food Security Act (2013), must regain the means to offer cheap food to the poor. While the Narendra Modi government, during the COVID-19 crisis had doubled the food ration of 800 million Indians, in 2022, the decline in production mentioned above compromised this program when the government announced that it would more than halve the quantities of wheat available in the PDS, the main instrument of food aid in India. Modi suspended this decision in late 2023 because of the extreme vulnerability of the poor. Yet, the government failed to apply the NFSA because it did not adjust the number of the PDS beneficiaries according to the population data: first the government said it was waiting for the census, but no census was organised in 2021, the year when it should have taken place. The Supreme Court asked the government to take steps to re-determine the number of people covered by the NFSA in June 2021, to no avail: the government said it will wait for the next census.

The PDS can be made more efficient by adding more millet, pulses, fruits, and vegetables to rice and wheat which currently make up the bulk of the food rations today.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Enhancing children’s nutrition can be achieved by systematizing the mid-day meal programs. Initially implemented in southern states, this policy was officially extended nationwide following a directive from the Supreme Court. However, the number of beneficiaries has been declining in many states due to the growing enrollment of children in private schools, where mid-day meal programs are not offered. To address this issue, the program should be expanded to include private schools as well.

To restore purchasing power to the countryside while the terms of trade deteriorate in favour of cities, increasing the “minimum support prices” set by the government is a convenient solution, even if it means subsidising the commodities put on the market to spare poor urban consumers.

The market(s)’ question needs to be addressed. The committees managing agricultural markets, known as agricultural produce market committees (APMC), were created to protect farmers against middlemen who might not buy their products at a fair price. They have recently been accused by the government of harming the efficiency of the sector. However, the three farm acts promoted by the government in 2020-21 did not provide an acceptable solution to the farmers since they intended to deregulate the sector in favour of large agro-food firms. Farmers protested for a year near Delhi and forced the Modi government to back down. These reforms would have made them more vulnerable vis-à-vis big business players like Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani who are investing in retail, without much regulation. Nevertheless, the state should help small farmers gain market access and a reform is certainly needed.

The issue of trade in agricultural products also arises at the international level. If India limits its exports of pulses, rice, and meat as recommended above, and if it lowers tariffs on imports of commodities it needs most, such as pulses, it will have to compensate for this loss of revenue. This compensation could come from international aid that India refuses today – particularly from the World Food Programme.

India is faced with the famous food dilemma of finding it difficult to choose between “cheap imports” to feed consumers, but at the expense of national agriculture, or protectionism that helps producers but penalises consumers. Frédéric Landy points out that the country has not decided between these two options and acts on a case-by-case basis. Today, the government of Modi tends to increase imports to lower the prices of certain foodstuffs to preserve the purchasing power of urban residents, the core of its electorate. This policy would need to be corrected to offer farmers more remunerative prices.

On the export side, following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Westerners (starting with the European Union) have pressured the World Trade Organisation for India to continue supplying the global market with agricultural products to contain the price rise and in the name of market logic. India has resisted these pressures. In 2020, the EU and India began trade negotiations aiming to conclude a free trade agreement, and the context arising from the war in Ukraine will undoubtedly weigh on the discussions. Already, the Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal, has assured farmers that he will be able to defend their interests and protect, in particular, dairy producers.

Agroecology: The long-term solution

Besides the very important reform mentioned above, a structural change may well be the only long term response to the food security challenge India is facing – and will have to cope with even more acutely in the future: the development of agroecology. One state, Andhra Pradesh has already initiated substantial reforms to promote this alternative type of agriculture. Other regional examples (like the state of Sikkim) or even local experiences could also be mentioned.

The agroecology alternative is a response to the environmental and social consequences of the Green Revolution which include (1) the depletion of soil nutrients leading to reduced soil productivity because of monoculture and the overuse of pesticides, and (2) the rise of farming costs and debts forcing farmers to sell their land and to abandon agriculture – or even to commit suicide.

As a response to this unsustainable conventional model of agriculture, many initiatives emerged from all over India, including in Maharashtra where Subhash Palekar pioneered the Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in the 1990s. His farming technique, based on a combination of natural elements, aimed to enhance microbial activity in soil, boost soil carbon, add nitrogen via green mulching, and improve nitrogen availability in the surface soil. They also emphasise the use of natural inputs and, when possible, indigenous seed varieties.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

In 2015, the Andhra Pradesh government took significant steps to institutionalise, further innovate and scale up Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) across the state. This policy was entrusted to the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS, the ‘farmers empowerment corporation’), a government-backed entity tasked with implementing the Climate Resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming programme. RySS’s mandate included educating farmers and facilitating peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. The programme began as an experiment involving more than 700 villages and 40,650 farmers in 2016. By March 2020, the programme had seen substantial growth, with 623,300 farmers participating, accounting for 10% of all the state’s farmers. It covered nearly 3% of Andhra Pradesh’s total net sown area, amounting to 181,600 hectares. Looking forward, the state’s ambition is to extend what became in 2020 the Andhra-Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF) to all 6 million farmer families, covering 8 million hectares of land by 2027. While this model has garnered coverage and interest globally, it also sparked debates regarding the sustainability of natural farming in providing long-term food security for a populous nation such as India.

The RYSS-CIRAD-FAO AgroEco2050 participative foresight project (2019-2023) studied two contrasting scenarios for Andhra Pradesh by 2050: the intensification of conventional industrial agriculture and food (scenario IA), and the 100% generalisation of agroecology with natural farming (scenario NF). The agro-industrial model refers to conventional farming with intensive use of chemicals, larger specialised farm sizes with economies of scale, stronger oligopolies of input suppliers and buyers, and increased degradation of human and environmental health. On the other hand, the agroecological model is based on women self-help groups, natural farming principles, reliance on organic fertilizers and pesticides, low water and energy requirements, small farm sizes, and indigenous knowledge with both community and scientific support.

The AgroEco2050 foresight platform worked with: (1) these two contrasting narratives or “sociotechnical regimes”; (2) an Indian expert group of about 30 people including scientists from different disciplines, policymakers, NGOs and farmers’ representatives; (3) a macro-bioeconomic model, Agribiom-India. It investigated and interlinked four dimensions of the agri-food system:

Land use
Population and employment
Economic growth, income and inequality
Yield and production of plant food calories.

By 2050, under the industrial agriculture scenario, there would be a reduction in the area of land cultivated, from 6.2 million hectares to 5.5 million hectares, with few monocultures and an emphasis on the most efficiently irrigated regions. By contrast, in the agroecological scenario, the area of cultivated land is projected to expand to 8.3 million hectares by the year-round regeneration and cultivation of 2.8 million hectares of land left fallow by industrial agriculture, especially in semi-arid zones.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

By 2050, Andhra Pradesh’s population is expected to reach 59.5 million, with those aged between 20 and 63-years old numbering 35.4 million. If the industrial agriculture model persists, the 2019 unemployment rate of 30% for the 20-64 age group would not change, and the farming population would halve, dropping from 9.3 million to 5.0 million. On the other hand, in the natural farming (NF) scenario, 10 million small-scale farmers would enhance their livelihoods through natural farming, which would reduce the unemployment rate in the 20-64 age demographic to 7%.

Under the natural farming scenario, the Gross Value Added (GVA) of agriculture and allied activities is expected to increase by 6% annually, surpassing the 4% annual growth recorded between 1980 and 2019. This anticipated growth is primarily due to the extensive involvement of both land and farmers in natural farming techniques, alongside significant savings in agricultural input costs such as seeds, irrigation systems, chemical fertilizers, fossil energy, financial credit, and machinery. Additionally, the market is likely to assign higher values to food products that are safe and nutritious, stemming from natural farming practices. On-farm value-added activities, which include small-scale processing and packaging, as well as the development of agrotourism, are also expected to contribute to this growth. Consequently, these improvements in the agricultural sector are projected to spur general economic growth, potentially increasing it by 6.5% per annum. This growth is anticipated to lead to broader economic benefits, including reductions in unemployment and inequality, and contribute to the overall well-being of the population, resulting in a healthier and happier society compared to the scenario with industrial agriculture.

In the industrial agriculture scenario, the yield of a limited number of monocrops is projected to continue on its historical trajectory, despite potential adverse effects on farmers’ livelihoods, environmental resources, and the health of consumers. In contrast, the natural farming (NF) approach might result in a somewhat lower increase in food yield, but it promises a production that is more nutritionally diverse — richer in both macronutrients and micronutrients, as well as fibres — and produced without the use of any chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. The per capita plant food production, when considering both yield and the extent of cultivated area, is expected to be substantially higher in an agroecological scenario, amounting to 5008 kilocalories per day per inhabitant. This is in contrast to an industrial agriculture system, where the figure stands at 4054 kilocalories per day per inhabitant.

In summary, achieving food security in India necessitates a comprehensive strategy that integrates both immediate and long-term solutions. The adoption of agroecological farming, alongside reforms in crop diversification, irrigation, and market policies, offers a sustainable pathway to enhancing agricultural productivity while preserving environmental resources. Additionally, strengthening the Public Distribution System, revisiting social welfare programmes like MGNREGA, and expanding nutritional initiatives for children are critical steps to ensure that all citizens, especially the most vulnerable, have consistent access to adequate and nutritious food. This holistic approach not only addresses the current challenges but also lays a resilient foundation for India’s future food security. It relies on existing, promising initiatives which have been tested at the local or state level by innovative and entrepreneurial experts and agriculturalists.

Christophe Jaffrelot is research director at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Professor of Politics and Sociology at King’s College London and Non Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His publications include Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2021, and Gujarat under Modi: Laboratory of today’s India, Hurst, 2024, both of which are published in India by Westland.

Hemal Thakker is an environment policy expert specialising in Agriculture Policy and Energy Transition, currently serving as an Adjunct Professor at Sciences Po, and formerly worked with the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

Vignesh Rajahmani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of Indian and Indonesian Politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, and a Research Affiliate, at the King’s India Institute, King’s College London.

Migrants Are Going Home, This Time to Save Their Ration

Ironically, the E-KYC verification exercise for removing unwanted beneficiaries (dead, fake, etc) from the food security coverage list is turning out to be a real threat to most of the genuine ration cardholder population, particularly the migrant population.

In the recent press conference organised in Delhi by the Right to Food Campaign on the mandatory E-KYC drive, Sumaira, a domestic worker informed the media that she spent ₹ 8,000 to travel to her village in Uttar Pradesh with 7 members of the family to present themselves for verification for the Electric Know Your Customer (E-KYC) process as their ration card is from UP.

They had to stay in UP for 15 days and lost their daily wages in the process. The process was delayed as the EKYC of one child was not successful and they had to wait to get it updated.

Sumaira’s plight is one among countless ration cardholders in the country. The One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme, implemented in 2020, is operational nationwide, but with exception of metro cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, it is poorly implemented across the country.

Thus, some like Sumaira can avail rations in their place of work, by virtue of being in Delhi. Yet, owing to challenges posed by poor digital infrastructure and insensitive procedures outlined by the government, many poor families such as Sumaira are having to travel long distances to their towns and villages to get the E-KYC verification done. Losing daily wages and incurring additional expenses in the process.

The Fair Price Shop (FPS) dealers across the country have been ordered through a simple text message, by the Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies, to conduct an E-KYC verification of all 81 crore people who have ration cards and are entitled to receive food grains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

E-KYC is a verification process where each member mentioned on the family ration card has to physically be present at the ration shop to authenticate their identity through their Aadhar card. In obeying the orders, FPS dealers are informing all ration cardholders in their list.

In this process, the migrant population is also getting informed about this exercise and that raises many questions which need to be resolved in the first place.

All the efforts and resources being spent in this exercise are at a time when crores of people are excluded from food security coverage because the Government failed to conduct the Census of 2021. Presently, the quotas for NFSA are estimated using the 2011 census, which, it is estimated, leads to an exclusion of more than 12 crore individuals who would have been covered had the updated population figures been used.

The whole power to complete this exercise has been given to the FPS dealers. This is a surprise as FPS dealers have no role in issuing and cancelling ration cards as it is the responsibility of the food department. By giving such powers to the person who is responsible for distributing the ration, the government has weakened and abandoned its responsibility towards the ration cardholder.

In many states, ration cardholders are being informed to complete their E-KYC verification at the ration shop and do the most challenging task, “prove their authenticity to a machine”. The E-KYC verification faces the same challenges as the daily struggle to access ration. Card holders face difficulties when the Electronic Point of Sale (e-pos) machine fails to recognise thumbprints, and poor internet connection leads to delays in accessing ration.

Similarly, many such centralised technical interventions in ration distribution have created hurdles for the masses rather than facilitating the process. The Fair Price Shop dealers in many instances have informed cardholders that failure to get E-KYC verification will result in the cancellation of ration cards or removal of names and denial of food grains. This has created a situation of panic among millions of cardholders dependent upon monthly rations.

‘Server Down’, Rations Denied

Starting a verification exercise without providing clear information raises some existing problems related to ration access. The usual refrain of ‘server down hai (server is down)’ by dealers at the E-pos machine at the ration shop due to poor internet connection and biometric-related difficulties are regular concerns in this verification exercise.

The E-KYC verification is ongoing in an exclusionary manner. By forcing all holders of the ration card to be physically present for the completion, it especially ignores the outstation students, migrant workers, old age and disabled population, who find it difficult to present themselves at the shop. The rigid conditions and potential consequences of not being able to fulfil E-KYC verification, owing to lacunae in technology and hurdles posed by requirements to be physically present, have created distress and panic among the ration cardholders.

The government’s continued apathy towards the migrant population living in distant places in search of jobs and sustenance has once again thrown them into the crisis with this exercise.

Also Read: It’s Not Just Food Price, India Is Facing a Food Security Challenge

One Nation One Ration Card: A Million Challenges

The first national lockdown in India because of COVID-19 witnessed one of the worst migrant exodus where millions of migrant workers working in the cities were forced to leave and walk thousands of kilometres towards their village. In one go the national lockdown led to them losing their sources of livelihood.

One of the main reasons that forced them to leave was their exclusion from the food security net at their place of work. They possessed a ration card at their origin place or home but not in the city where they worked. This created a scenario where people faced staggering food insecurity and took extreme steps.

In response to the migrant crisis and food insecurity, the government of India started the One Nation One Ration Card Scheme, which provided a facility for the ration cardholder to get foodgrains from any ration shop in the country. Since its introduction, the government has failed to implement this mobility scheme effectively.

Apart from some presence in metro cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, the poor spread of information by the government about the scheme among the migrants, supply mismanagement of the foodgrains at the ration shop, and authentication-related difficulties in accessing ration are some of the main concerns that persist in the operation of the ONORC Scheme across the country.

However, the E-KYC verification process with September 30, 2024 as a deadline to complete verification at any ration shop in the country poses a big question on the existence of the ONORC scheme. There needs to be more than oral directions about the accessibility to complete the E-KYC verification. In a practical sense, the verification at any ration shop in the country is not as comfortable as it sounds.

The ONORC is still facing difficulties in addressing the challenge of providing access to migrant beneficiaries who are not from the location which is served by the Fair Price Shop. Considering the local dynamics, the FPS dealer first prioritises to fulfil the verification of those who are the beneficiaries of that shop and not those ration cardholders who are migrants.

A migrant worker in a distant location goes through different forms of discrimination on an everyday basis and continues to lack the agency to claim their rights at their workplace. The hostile attitude at various workplace locations tends to discriminate against these migrant workers on the lines of caste, gender and linguistic identities.

Workers in a circular migration who spend a few months in cities or distant places to earn are the most vulnerable to locating and accessing the nearest ration shop to complete this process.

It has yet again exposed the fragility of the unorganised migrant workforce in the economy. The fear among the migrant population to save their monthly food grains erupted due to the ill-informed and mandatory exercise by the government.

The devastating COVID-19 national lockdown in the year 2020 has been a reminder to address the miseries of these vulnerable populations but the government of India has failed in doing so by ignoring those who are continuously on the move to survive and has further added to their problem by attacking one of the most essential safeguards for the households that is ration card.

Technology as an instrument of exclusion

During the years 2013-2020, with the help of technology-driven Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) operations, such as digitisation of ration card details, Aadhaar seeding, identification of ineligible/duplicate ration cards, etc. the States/UTs collectively have weeded out a total of about 4.39 crore ration cards.

These ration cards have been cancelled without any prior notice to the beneficiaries and no proper reason has been given even after the cancellation. While the Central Government claims that these cancelled cards were bogus, on the grounds that there are problems related to matching of biometric records even for genuine beneficiaries (biometric errors) and non-possession of Aadhar.

Non-functioning of the internet in rural and remote areas lead to significant scale cancellation of ration cards for which notices to the family concerned were not served. The starvation death of an 11-year-old Santoshi in Simdega district, Jharkhand was one such case where the family lost their ration card due to the non-fulfillment of authentication.

The ongoing E-KYC verification exercise by the government indicates that the government has not learnt its lesson. Reliance on poorly developed technology that is erratic and fails to serve the needs of millions of poor will lead to deletion of ration card holders. At a time when India is witnessing unprecedented inequality, instead of widening the welfare coverages, we are witnessing an attempt to dilute the existing structures.

Way Forward: Right to Food for all

The rigid compulsion on all ration card holders for E-KYC verification needs to be stopped immediately. Any update or improvement process in the ration card list should be inclusive and transparent and its responsibility should be given to the State Food Commission. The name of any innocent family or individual should not be removed from the ration card list on technical grounds.

Unfortunately, the Government of India’s exclusionary E-KYC verification of ration card campaign started at a time when the Supreme Court ordered all the state governments and Union Government to issue ration cards to all unorganised workers registered at the E-shram portal who do not have a ration card.

The Supreme Court took Suo Motu cognisance of ‘Problems and Miseries of Migrant Labourers’ in the year 2020 and has given important directions to ensure food security for migrant workers and unorganised sector workers to an additional 8 crore people. In this case, last year, the apex court directed the Union Government to ensure an adequate supply of food grains to cover the excluded population.

For over a year, the Supreme Court’s orders have not been implemented by any state/union territory. The implementation of the Supreme Court’s order will be important for the universalisation of the Public Distribution System. It is also crucial to expand the food basket and include dal, millets and edible oil for all ration cardholders considering the poor dietary diversity and the need to ensure the nutritional security of the majority.

(The author is an independent researcher and activist associated with the Right to Food Campaign)

FSSAI Withdraws Advisory on A1 and A2 Labelling of Milk, Calls For Further Consultation

Earlier, FSSAI had deemed such claims “misleading,” and last week had asked food business operators to remove A1 and A1-related claims terming from the labels of their dairy products.

New Delhi: After directing dairy companies last week to remove claims regarding A! and A2 milk from labels of milk and milk-related products, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), on Monday (August 26) said that it was withdrawing this advisory.

The decision to withdraw the advisory was taken after a member of the Governing Body of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) criticised the move and called for the need of a high-level committee being constituted to examine the issue, reported thehindubusinessline.com.

“This is to inform that the advisory dated August 21 (clarification regarding selling/ marketing of milk and milk products such as ghee, milk etc in the name of A1 and A2) stands withdrawn for further consultation and engagement with stakeholders,” the FSSAI said in a statement issued on Monday (August 26).

Earlier, FSSAI had deemed such claims “misleading,” and last week had asked food business operators to remove A1 and A1-related claims terming from the labels of their dairy products.

It had also directed e-commerce companies to immediately remove all such claims from their websites.

At the time, many experts had lauded the move saying that the advisory would help in eliminating misleading and unscientific claims which in result would protect consumers.

However, Venugopal Badaravada, a member of the Governing Body of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Health Minister J P Nadda, demanding that a committee of experts should be formed to examine the matter.

“We humbly request that the Prime Minister advise the Minister of Health & Family Welfare to withdraw the decision on A1 and A2 Milk and Milk Products Regulations and instead constitute a high-level committee,” the letter stated, reported thehindubusinessline.com.

It’s Not Just Food Price, India Is Facing a Food Security Challenge

If the quality of the food the poor can get is at stake, the quantity is not guaranteed – and may not be sufficient in the future.

The rise of food prices in India today remains insufficiently analysed in terms of food security. Years ago Amartya Sen, in his “Capability Theory”, explained famines not only by a lack of food availability but also by social and economic factors. According to him, famines occur when vulnerable populations can no longer access available food due to a lack of means. This theory remains valid today in India where undernutrition is primarily a function of households’ financial resources. But in the future, food security may also be challenged in quantitative terms because of climate change.

Key factors of undernutrition

In today’s India undernutrition is partly due to one of the contradictions of the Green Revolution. Certainly, this “revolution” has resulted in a rapid increase of the production of foodgrains (rice, wheat, and pulses) – 2.5% per year from 1950 to 2007, while the population increased by 2.1% per year. As a result, India began to export rice and even wheat. But India continues to suffer from chronic undernutrition partly because the Public Distribution System gives cereals – the key products of the Green Revolution – to the poor and not enough pulses, fruits and vegetables. This paradox was noted as early as 2014 by Suresh Babu of the International Food Policy Research Institute, in a highly interesting interview.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

In 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), while launching its Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition, pointed out that “74.1% of Indians were unable to afford a healthy diet”. The trend is worrying: in 2023, India ranked 111th out of the 125 countries considered by the Global Hunger Index, an index whose calculation is based on four criteria: the general undernutrition of the population, the weight of children under five, their height, and their mortality rate. India is increasingly falling in the ranking conducted every year based on this index: it was ranked 107th in 2022, 103rd in 2018, 100th in 2017, and 97th in 2016. Only Haiti and twelve countries in sub-Saharan Africa were ranked lower than India. While India had seen its index significantly improve from 35.5 to 29.2 between 2008 and 2015, it has almost stagnated since then to reach 28.7 in 2023.

The latest National Family Health Survey 2019-2021 (NFHS-5) reveals that about a third of Indian children under five years of age are underweight and show growth retardation: 36% of children under five are too short for their age, which is a sign of chronic undernutrition, 19% are too thin for their height, which is also a sign of acute undernutrition, while 32% are underweight.

Certainly, the prevalence of stunting and underweight has decreased since 2015-16. Stunting affected 36% of the population in 2019-21, compared to 38% in 2015-16. During the same period, the prevalence of wasting (or emaciation) went from 21% in 2015-16 to 19% in 2019-21. However, progress is very slow. The average annual rate of reduction (AARR) between 2005-06 and 2019-2021 is 2.2%. If India continues at this pace, the proportion of Indian children suffering from growth retardation due to undernutrition will not fall below 10% until 2076.

Furthermore, according to the National Family Health Survey of 2019-21, 67% of children (aged 6 to 59 months) suffer from anemia. These figures reflect a worsening of the situation because in 2015-16 the prevalence of anaemia among children in this age category was “only” 59%. Among adults, 57% of women (aged 15 to 49 years) were anaemic in 2019-21, as well as a quarter of men in the same age group.

The data presented in the latest National Family Health Survey displeased the government, which led to the suspension of the director of the International Institute for Population Sciences, the agency in charge of this report. The government decided that from now on, the NFHS surveys will no longer measure anaemia. When the thermometer reveals a fever that those at the top do not want to admit, it is considered good practice to break it. This practice had already been observed in 2019: when figures from the National Sample Survey Office revealed that the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line had increased between 2011-12 and 2017-18, the government cancelled its publication, prompting two statisticians – thanks to whom these figures are known – to resign.

How much food is – and will be – available?

If the quality of the food the poor can get is at stake, the quantity is not guaranteed – and may not be sufficient in the future.

The problem is already palpable today. Although cereal production has greatly increased, the quantity of “foodgrains” available per capita is already decreasing, going from 510.1 grams per day per person in 1991 to 507.9 grams in 2021.

How is this essential variable calculated?

By subtracting from the total production seeds, concentrates for animals, lost products, and the balance of imports/exports, and then dividing the resulting figure by the population. While seeds only marginally reduce the product, the same cannot be said for the other three variables.

The FAO estimates that 40% of agricultural products are lost in India due to poor storage conditions, preservation, and transportation. 1.3 billion tons of perishable goods (such as fruits, milk, etc.) are lost due to the lack of an efficient cold chain. This staggering figure represents a third of the total production and amounts to between 8 and 15 billion dollars depending on market prices.

Concentrates for animals (cereals, oilseeds) are becoming an increasingly important factor given the growth in poultry (uniquely fed with oilseeds) and livestock which has increased by almost 5% between 2012 and 2019.

Finally, India has become a major exporting nation of agricultural products, with revenues from these sales jumping from 33.3 billion dollars in 2016-17 to 50.2 billion in 2021-22. Cereals – especially rice, but also recently wheat – top these exports.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

What about the food availability in the future?

The scenario we present below is based on three different sources: the Annual Report, 2022-23 of the Department of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, the Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics of the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, and the Handbook on Fisheries Statistics, 2022. We have calculated the “Compounded Annual Growth Rate” of each of the productions we were interested in between 2015 and 2020 and then extended the curves to 2050 by applying this growth rate. A variant of these simulations was then added to present the situation that would prevail in each case if the annual growth rate was 5% lower.

The Indian population is expected to register a 0.82% annual growth rate between 2020 and 2050 according to the forecasts of the Census of India. The report from the Census of India titled Population Projections for India and the States, 2011-2036 covers only part of the period we are interested in, so for the years 2036-2050, we have applied the same rates of deceleration in population growth as those observed for the period 2011-2050. This leads us to estimate India’s population at 1,723,380,000 people by mid-century.

On the basis of these data, per capita productions of cereals, pulses, foodgrains (a category combining cereals and pulses), vegetables, milk, meat, and eggs are likely to increase, respectively, by 2.65%, 4.9%, 2.84%, 4.65%, 4.58%, 11.57% and 5.82% as an average annually. In the scenario where the annual growth rate of these productions was 5% lower than the projections on which these figures are based, the per capita productions would increase over the period by respectively 2.52%, 4.66%, 2.69%, 4.42%, 4.36%, 10.99% and 5.53%. Apart from meat – whose dynamism reflects the phenomena noted above –, none of these food productions is therefore expected to experience growth that would significantly combat undernutrition.

This scenario does not take into account the possibility of a drop in production linked to a rapid deterioration of weather conditions due to an acceleration of climate change. Yet the most recent events, from prolonged drought episodes to excessive rainfall leading to catastrophic floods, make this hypothesis credible.

Due to these extreme conditions, in 2022, wheat production fell 107 million tonnes against 113 million tonnes the previous year. It rose to 112 million tonnes in 2023, but is bound to drop to 105 million tonnes in 2024. In 2023 and 2024, the decline in rice production has been even more significant. According to the Indian government, it should still drop by 8.8% below the level of the previous year in 2024. This is due to the drought that affected a large part of the territory (monsoon rains being very late or insufficient) and the floods that subsequently devastated the crops. Expecting a poor harvest, the Indian government suspended exports of rice other than Basmati in July 2023. India, whose rice exports account for 40% of global rice exports – a performance unmatched by any country – had exported nearly 18 million tonnes of non-Basmati rice in 2022, with Basmati rice accounting for only 4 million tonnes. In 2023, the government of India, by suspending exports of non Basmati rice, has been able to sale 17.5 million tonnes of rice on the domestic market in order to contain price rise.

The possible grim scenario of declining rice and cereal production deserves to be taken seriously, even if it is too early to assign it a probability coefficient for several reasons, all related to environmental conditions.

The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that not only the yields from cereal crops like rice and wheat will decline significantly because of climate change, but also that the risk of simultaneous crop failures will increase. Using some of the most reliable studies, the report said that “by 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger will increase by 20% and 11% under high- and low-emission scenarios, respectively”, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia “being projected to be at the greatest risk, with triple the amount of South Asia’s current food reserves needed to offset such an extreme event”.

The heatwaves – which have so penalised Indian agriculture in 2022, 2023 and 2024 – risk becoming the norm. The incidence of heatwaves in India has increased by a quarter compared to the previous decade. Climate change has made heatwaves 30 times more likely than it would have been otherwise in India, according to World Weather Attribution. This is due both to the increase in India’s average annual temperature — by about 0.7°C between 1900 and 2018 — and to the fact that it has made heatwaves larger and more frequent.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

If 147 million hectares are already suffering significant degradation due to different forms of erosion and salinisation, climate change is expected to amplify this process, to the point that by 2050 half of the arable land should suffer from it, which will inevitably result in a decrease in productivity. Two experts in the field do not hesitate to conclude that “Growing trend in the salt-affected soils in India is becoming a threat to national food security and economic development”. In 2012-14, an estimate, now ten years old, assessed the loss of agricultural production due to salinisation alone at 16.84 million tons.

Water resources are being depleted. The drop in groundwater levels is mainly due to the growing consumption of an ever-increasing population and, in some areas, to the introduction of water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane, cotton, or maize since the Green Revolution. However, the evolution of rainfall and monsoon patterns also explains why the largest part of the water supply for agriculture and the population’s drinking water comes from groundwater. Approximately 89% of groundwater used in India is for irrigation, and it is this type of use that has led to a 61% reduction in groundwater levels in India between 2007 and 2017, according to a report by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), presented to the Lok Sabha in 2018. In Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, and Rajasthan, one must dig more than 40 meters on average to find water – and to irrigate fields –, something that only large operators ready to invest in tubewells can afford.

If the stagnation, or even the decline, in the production of staple crops were to be confirmed, the implications would be considerable in terms of undernutrition, but not only. One of the major consequences of such a development would concern the rise of farmers’ indebtedness which has already reached a very high level.

Another consequence would concern India’s trade balance. Today, the country earns precious foreign currency from its agricultural exports. In 2022, it sold $9.66 billion worth of rice. In the future, if production does not increase fast enough to feed the population, India will likely have to not only reduce its exports but also start importing essential commodities again, which will further impact its foreign trade. The country has already been importing large quantities of pulses and edible oil for decades.

Furthermore, the decrease in Indian exports contributes to reducing the supply of foodstuffs on the global market and, consequently, to increasing prices, which for rice, have jumped by 15 to 25% depending on the country following the announcement of the suspension of its exports by India. African countries are the first collateral victims of this new situation, with India exporting rice to Benin, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Kenya.

The banning of rice and wheat exports has been criticised by observers of trade relations who accused the Modi government to destabilise the global trade of cereals for domestic, political reasons: “India’s export bans can also be seen as irresponsible if driven not primarily by domestic food security, but rather by political reasons. Ahead of the March [sic] 2024 elections, there is a need to appease India’s urban middle class by reducing mounting food prices”, wrote J. Ma Luis Montesclaros.

The scenarios mentioned above all focus on the issue of food production to examine to what extent India will be able to feed its growing population. The question is not trivial. According to the most serious estimates, India will indeed need to produce 311 million tons of foodgrains by 2030 and 350 million by 2050 to meet the needs of its population. To achieve this, the country must either increase productivity or expand cultivated areas – or, better yet, do both at the same time.

If the pessimistic scenario of significant impacts from the El Niño cycle does not occur, and if the recent decline in production is not due to climate change, then India’s food security is expected to be stable in the medium term, based on the scenario we have developed.Still, this scenario shows that malnutrition is expected to remain a chronic ailment in 21st-century India, simply because, as mentioned above, the country would need to multiply its annual average reduction rate (AARR) by two or three to significantly address this phenomenon, whereas today and in our scenario, it stands between 2 and 3%.

This article draws from a detailed study we have recently made for the Institut Montaigne, a French think tank. Next month, we’ll present a summary of the solutions we have suggested to meet the food security challenge India is facing.

Christophe Jaffrelot is research director at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Professor of Politics and Sociology at King’s College London and Non Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His publications include Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2021, and Gujarat under Modi: Laboratory of today’s India, Hurst, 2024, both of which are published in India by Westland.

Vignesh Rajahmani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of Indian and Indonesian Politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden.

Food for Thought: In the Era of Biryani, UP’s Name Plate Diktat More Discriminatory Against Scheduled Castes

Sadly, what Adityanath perhaps forgot is that Uttar Pradesh has a 21.3% Scheduled Caste population, with whom many Hindus belonging to other castes still do not share food, especially during religious occasions.

The non-vegetarian-vegetarian ratio of approximately 80%:20% may not sound pleasant to the ears of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, yet according to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021) 83.4% Indian men and 70.6% women in the age group of 15 and 49 eat non-veg food daily, weekly or occasionally.

During the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Adityanath publicly proclaimed that the electoral battle in his state was between 80% versus 20%, hinting at 19.3% Muslim population who may not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while the rest about 80% are Hindus who will definitely throw their lot behind the saffron outfit.

Sadly, what he perhaps forgot is that Uttar Pradesh has a 21.3% Scheduled Caste population, with whom many Hindus belonging to other castes still do not share food, especially during religious occasions.

Counter-productive move

If food habit of Hindus is the reason behind Uttar Pradesh government’s diktat to shopkeepers to put up name plates during the Kanwar Yatra, the latest NFHS data exposed the ground reality about vegetarianism in India. Since about 80% of the total population of India is non-vegetarian the Uttar Pradesh government’s order on name plates outside eateries, restaurants, dhabas and even fruit and vegetable stalls or ‘thelas’ is not going to work — actually it may prove counter-productive.

So, apart from a few days of the monsoon month of Sawan an overwhelming percentage of these Kanwariyas are non-vegetarian on regular days. The order to put up name-plates — now withdrawn after the Supreme Court’s interim order — will in a way work as an advertisement for the Muslim-owned restaurants or shops. Surprisingly, mechanics and barbers too have been asked to display their names.

Also read: Satvik vs Halal: Exclusion Served with a Side of Communal Politics

As most of the biryani, kabab and chicken outlets as well as poultry and mutton shops are usually owned by Muslims, now the Hindu customers, who love to eat or buy them, would not face much difficulty in identifying the business establishment owned by the minority community.

There is a general trend among Hindus — even those living in cow-belt states — of preferring Muslim-owned joints if they want to eat non-vegetarian food. It is widely known that male members enjoy more freedom in this regard.

The champions of vegetarianism must first examine why the percentage of non-vegetarians is rising even in the BJP stronghold of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. At an all India level, the proportion of men aged 15-49 years who have never consumed non-vegetarian food decreased from 21.6% in 2015-16 (pervious round of the survey, NFHS-4) to 16.6% in 2019-21, a 5-percentage-point drop. The non-veg eaters in Gujarat increased by at least seven percentage points, the survey data suggest.

Male members of even those social groups who had in the past never taken non-vegetarian food are now taking them.

Mid-day meal

In some states, for example Jharkhand recently, child right activists had launched movement demanding that eggs be given to school children in the mid-day meals. Their argument is that since children of economically weaker sections of the society go to these schools and are not healthy, they should be given eggs.

In contrast, several BJP ruled states had earlier stopped this practice. A few years back Gujarat had even regulated the display of non-vegetarian food items in shops and outlets.

The Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh as well as other BJP governments in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh appear to be cut off from the ground reality. They need to do thorough soul-searching before undertaking such an unpopular and discriminatory step.

Biryani revolution

Whatever may be the motive of the Adityanath government’s directive, traders from Uttar Pradesh are spreading non-vegetarian culture far and wide. As Moradabadi biryani is popular in Delhi, in particular, and north India, in general, a Muslim businessman from Tanda near Moradabad in Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh came all the way to establish a biryani restaurant in an up-scale market in Patna. Ironically, Muslims do not form even 5% of the population in one km radius of this biryani shop.

Another owner of a biryani restaurant told this correspondent that though his shop is situated in a mixed populated locality yet an overwhelming number of customers are Hindus. They not only turn up to eat in the restaurant but order home delivery.

Also read: Holy Water, Unholy Segregation: Uttar Pradesh’s Kanwar Yatra Controversy

Biryani business has increased manifold in the last one decade or so, especially in the Hindi belt where the BJP is in power. In comparison to other fast foods, it is relatively cheap, so customers, cutting across religious lines take it for lunch too. Now, many Hindus are opening biryani joints, even in Uttar Pradesh.

Hyderabadi Biryani in South India and Kolkata Biryani in the East have long been popular among Hindus, reflecting the higher percentage of non-vegetarians in these regions compared to the Hindi heartland. Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu also have their own distinct biryani styles, catering to the diverse tastes of their non-vegetarian populations.

Similarly, the demand of Champaran Mutton is spreading fast. Most of the owners of the outlets serving this dish are Hindus. As it is cooked in earthen ‘handa’ and has its origin in Champaran in Bihar it is named so. It is also a well-known fact that many Muslims enjoy consuming vegetarian food and sweet items from Hindu restaurants and shops.

In general, while Hindus and Muslims do not hesitate buying food items from each others’ shops or outlets, what is of concern is that many customers who are considered upper caste Hindus and even some who belong to the backward caste communities are still reluctant to buy and eat food made by Dalits, or restaurant run by any individual belonging to the Scheduled Caste community. This wall is collapsing, but very slowly in the rural hinterland, especially of North and West India.

Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.

Food Prices and the Growing Challenge of Price Stability for the Modi Government

This upcoming budget presents a critical opportunity to address not only the immediate issue of rising food prices but also to establish measures for long-term inflation stability.

This is the second part in a special series by the Centre for New Economics Studies’s InfoSphere team which aims to closely study and understand the macro-state of the Indian economy in a lead up to the next Union Budget. Read part one here.

In the previous part of this series, we examined the complexities of consumption and investment in India. Now, we turn our focus to a persistent and pressing challenge: inflation. This issue has profound implications for the country’s economy, particularly when considering the significant weight of food prices in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket.

Food accounts for nearly 40% of the CPI, and historical data underscores that overall inflation cannot be effectively controlled without addressing food price inflation.

From 2000 to 2006, India experienced its most sustained period of low inflation, with the headline CPI averaging 3.9% and food inflation averaging 2.5%. This period of stability was marked by relatively benign food prices, which played a crucial role in keeping overall inflation in check. However, this stability has been elusive in more recent years.

In June 2024, the rise in food prices, driven by costlier vegetables, cereals, and fruits, pushed food inflation to a six-month high of 9.4%. This surge is particularly concerning given that, since 2000, the CPI has fallen below 4% in only six years.

The persistent high food inflation highlights the vulnerability of the Indian economy to fluctuations in food prices, which are often influenced by factors such as weather conditions, agricultural productivity, and supply chain disruptions.

The trend of high food inflation continued post-pandemic, averaging 6.4% between 2020-21 and 2023-24, surpassing the overall CPI inflation of 5.9% during the same period. Initially, projections from SBI Research suggested that retail inflation, measured by the CPI, would stay below or near 5% for the remainder of 2024-25, excluding September. However, recent data paints a more troubling picture, indicating that the battle against inflation is far from over.

Food prices have become a major concern, with inflation in this sector reaching a four-month high of 9.4% in June, largely due to extreme heatwaves affecting vegetable yields. Despite a favourable base effect, where inflation is compared to the previous year’s figures, this reversal in the declining trend observed over the past five months is alarming.

The macro-data reveals a persistent problem: eight consecutive months of food inflation exceeding a concerning 8%, with year-on-year comparisons showing food prices nearly doubling. June’s inflation rate of 8.36% starkly contrasts with the 4.63% recorded in the same month of 2023, illustrating the significant challenge for policymakers.

Overall retail inflation remains within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) comfort zone of 2-6%, but it still sits above the ideal 4% target.

CPI Inflation (in % Y-O-Y). Source: InfoSphere.

Adding to the concern, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation surged to 2.61% in May 2024, marking the highest rate in 15 months since February 2023, when it stood at 3.85%, before dropping to 1.41% in March 2023.

This increase was driven by a significant rise in vegetable prices, which soared to 27.33% due to ongoing heatwaves. Over the past 50 months, inflation has remained above 4% most of the time, with food inflation exceeding 4% in 39 months. Headline inflation has surpassed the RBI’s upper tolerance limit of 6% in 24 months, while food inflation has been above 6% in 28 months.

Even as overall CPI slid to 5.4% in 2023-24, food inflation rose to 7.5%, climbing further to 8.7% in the first two months of the current financial year.

Also read: Food Inflation Reached 4-Month High in April, Impact on Rural Consumers More Pronounced

Rural and urban consumers are both feeling the pinch, with rural inflation spiking to 5.66% from 5.3% a month ago, and urban inflation rising to 4.4% from 4.2%. Urban India faced higher food inflation at 9.55%, compared to 9.2% for rural areas. These figures highlight the significant challenge facing policymakers as they strive to achieve a sustainable 4% inflation rate. The immediate priority must be to tame the escalating food prices, while also laying the groundwork for long-term solutions to stabilise inflation and protect the most vulnerable segments of the population from its adverse effects.

The way ahead

This upcoming budget presents a critical opportunity to address not only the immediate issue of rising food prices but also to establish measures for long-term inflation stability. Policymakers need to implement strategies that enhance agricultural productivity, improve supply chain efficiency, and mitigate the impact of adverse weather conditions on food production.

Investments in advanced agricultural technologies, such as precision farming and drip irrigation, alongside initiatives to educate farmers on modern techniques, can significantly boost crop yields and reduce monsoon dependency.

Additionally, improving cold storage facilities and transportation networks will minimise post-harvest losses and stabilise food prices. Encouraging crop diversification and supporting allied sectors like dairy and poultry can provide farmers with additional income sources, reducing the risk of price spikes from single crop failures. Market reforms that simplify regulations and promote digital marketplaces will enable farmers to sell directly to consumers, ensuring fair prices and reducing intermediary costs.

Further strengthening subsidised food programmes like the Public Distribution System (PDS) and implementing stricter monitoring to prevent hoarding will protect consumers, particularly the vulnerable, from inflation’s impact addressing both immediate inflation concerns and lay the groundwork for long-term economic stability.

Deepanshu Mohan is professor of Economics, dean, IDEAS, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, and director, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), O.P. Jindal Global University. He is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a 2024 Fall academic visitor to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.

Aditi Desai is a senior research analyst with CNES and lead of its InfoSphere initiative.

Some MDH, Everest Spices ‘Unsafe’ for Consumption, Finds Rajasthan Health Department

In April this year, Hong Kong suspended the sale of three types of spices manufactured by MDH and one spice of Everest.

New Delhi: Authorities in Rajasthan have written a letter to the Centre after the state’s health department found some spices manufactured by brands such as MDH and Everest to be ‘unsafe’ for consumption after tests, reported Reuters.

According to the Reuters report, the Rajasthan government had checked samples of many spices and had discovered that a batch of Everest spice mix and two spices of MDH were unsafe. Rajasthan Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Shubhra Singh has written letter to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), highlighting the issue.

The development comes at a time when the two brands have been facing scrutiny globally as well.

In April this year, Hong Kong suspended the sale of three types of spices manufactured by MDH and one spice of Everest, saying they contained high levels of ethylene oxide, a pesticide that causes cancer, said the Reuters report.

Thereafter, food safety authorities in India have been testing more samples from the two brands.

After Hong Kong, authorities in Singapore too ordered a recall of the Everest mix. At the same time, New Zealand, the United States and Australia have stated that they were looking into the issues.

Britain has applied extra controls on the spices being imported by the country from India, the world’s biggest exporter, producer and consumer of spices.

Both MDH and Everest have maintained that their spices, which are exported across the world and are hugely popular in India, are safe for consumption.

Reuters quoted the letter written by ACS Singh of the Rajasthan government wherein the senior official has said that the Gujarat and Haryana governments should take immediate action since spices of both the brands are manufactured in these two states.

Patanjali’s Soan Papdi Fails Quality Test, Employee and Two Others Face Jail Term, Fines

A forensic investigation of the soan papdi samples at the State Food and Drug Testing Laboratory in Uttarakhand had indicated that it was of poor quality

New Delhi: After Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali soan papdi failed quality tests, a court in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh imposed fines and a jail term of six months on three people, including an assistant manager of Patanjali Ayurved Limited, as per a report by LiveHindustan.

Businessman Leeladhar Pathak, distributor Ajay Joshi and Patanjali assistant manager Abhishek Kumar have cases filed against them in this regard. The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand, has also sentenced them to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively under Section 59 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

On October 17, 2019, a food safety inspector had collected samples of Patanjali Navratna Cardamom Soan Papdi from a shop in the main market of Berinag, Pithoragarh, following complaints about its quality. The samples were subjected to a forensic investigation at the State Food and Drug Testing Laboratory in Rudrapur, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. In December 2020, the laboratory’s report sent to the State Food Safety Department indicated that the sweets were of poor quality and did not pass quality tests.

LiveHindustan quoted a food safety official as saying that the evidence presented in the court clearly pointed out the poor quality of the product.

This comes barely two months after the Supreme Court had pulled up Patanjali’s founders Baba Ramdev and Acharaya Balkrishna over the company’s misleading advertisements regarding its products in the media.