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Aakar Books Food Security In India Myth And Reality by Vikas Bajpai And Anoop Saraya
Food security issues in India acquired prominence in public policy debate through the 2000s, resulting in promulgation of schemes like the National Rural Health Mission, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Food Security Bill. The aura of high hopes built around these interventions almost completely absolves the role of the present social, economic and political system in leading to the precarious situation of the people. The mainstream debate on poverty and hunger has been sequestered within the safe margins defined by the present system. An alternative opinion critical of the present, social, economic and political structure has been an anathema to the mainstream debate. The present Modi government is intent on giving a go by even to the marginal gains that may have resulted from the social sector interventions mentioned above. The book – Food Security in India: Myth and Reality is an effort to articulate an alternative for which there seems little scope in the mainstream debate. It is a political treatise on food security in India and an argument for the implementation of radical land reforms as the fulcrum of India’s social, economic and political transformation. The arguments there in are ‘polemical’, ‘tremendous’ and ‘value laden’ because there can be no a-polemical and value neutral position vis-a-vis issues that hinge on the power relations in the society. Dr Vikas Bajpai teaches at the Center for Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Dr Anoop Saraya is Professor of Gastroenterology and Head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Human Nutrition Unit at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.