Page:Famine Inquiry Commission (Woodhead Commission) Final Report.djvu/8



This is the second report of the Famine Inquiry Commission appointed under Ordinance No. XXVIII of 1944. We shall begin by repeating our terms of reference.

To investigate and report to the Central Government upon the causes of the food shortage and subsequent epidemics in India, and in particular in Bengal, in the year 1943, and to make recommendations as to the prevention of their recurrence, with special reference to—

1. the possibility of improving the diet of the people and the quality and yield of food crops, and

2. the possibility of improving the system of administration in respect of the supply and distribution of food, the provision of emergent medical relief and the emergent arrangements for the control of epidemics in famine conditions in those areas and in those aspects in which the present system may be found to have been unsatisfactory.

Our first report, entitled "Report on Bengal" was published in May 1945. This was concerned mainly with the history and causes of the great famine of 1948, but we dealt also with problems of food supply and distribution in Bengal in the immediate future, and with medical relief and the control of epidemics in famine. In analysing the causes of the famine we had to give considerable attention to the all-India food situation and food policy during the critical war years, and in the chapter on food administration in Bengal in the immediate future we referred freely to administrative methods followed in other provinces, but Bengal itself was throughout the main theme of the report,

2. In the present report, which is divided into four parts, we have attempted to cover the remaining items in our terms of reference. Part I is in general concerned with the emergency food situation in India as a whole and the steps which have been taken to relieve it. As a starting point, the position in 1943—the year of the famine—is described in detail. Next, we consider the results of the Grow More Food campaign which was initiated in 1942. Other chapters in Part I deal with food administration in India during the war, statistics of acreage and yield of crops, the need for imports, and food administration in India during the immediate post-war period. This part of our report relates, in fact, to what may be described as short-term food policy and the immediate practical measures which should be taken to avoid any repetition in the near future of the grave situation from which India is now emerging.

The remaining three parts, which form the bulk of our report, are concerned with the tremendous item "(a) the possibility of improving the diet of the people and the quality and yield of food