COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	WHAT IF INDIA DOESN'T MAKE IT
C00007 ENDMK
C⊗;
WHAT IF INDIA DOESN'T MAKE IT


	As  everyone  knows,  the poorer  countries  are  in  a  race
involving population growth, population control programs, development
of food production and starvation.  Since food  production fluctuates
from year to year in all countries, if famine comes, it will probably
take  the form of a crisis, in which  several bad crop years in a row
lead  to  famine conditions.    Before  modern  transportation,  such
famines  occurred occasionally with  great loss  of life,  though not
with such a loss of life as to constitute a substantial reduction  in
population.      The   worst   famine    in   history,   according   to
\F1Encyclopedia  Britannica\F0,  happened  in  Bengal  in  1769,  and
10,000,000 people died.  India as  a whole had a population of  about
170,000,000 at the time, but the afflicted area clearly lost a larger
fraction of its population. 

	Although some  of the considerations of this section apply to
other countries,  we  shall concentrate  our  consideration on  India
specifically  for the following  reasons: (1)  It is large  enough so
that a famine relief can  strain world food supplies including  those
of the United States. (2) It has a tradition of being rescued in food
crises  by outside aid.   (3) It has a  democratic government that is
limited in what it can bring itself to do in order to avert crisis or
deal with it. 

	Somewhat  arbitrarily, we  shall define  a major  Indian food
crisis as  one in which food rationing would have to be introduced in
the United States  in order to prevent  more than two million  people
dying directly of  starvation in a few months in  India.  Some of the
considerations of this section might not apply until the second major
Indian food crisis. 


	In  face of  a  major  Indian  food crisis,  the  world,  but
especially  the United  States  because we  have 40%  of  the world's
exportable food, would have the following alternatives:


	1. Introduce  the necessary  rationing putting  no  political
conditions  on  the government  of  India,  and appropriate  tens  of
billions  in fertilizer, production facilities, and budgetary support
in the hopes that this would prevent a recurrence.   The aid would be
delivered through the United Nations in order to avoid any suggestion
that the U.S. might expect anything in return.  This way  of handling
the crisis  would be appropriate  on the basis  of the view  that the
richer countries are responsible for the troubles of the poorer ones.
It would also follow from the view that any inequalities in the world
should be redressed by the richer countries as a moral obligation. 

	If the crisis recurred, it might be concluded that the richer
countries  had been delinquent  in not responding  more generously to
the first or second crises.  If this view prevailed once or twice, it
would probably lose its popularity after several crises.