Public action and its limits: re-examining the politics of hunger alleviation in eastern India

Abstract

This study examines the role of ‘public action’ within a democratic political framework in placing pressure on government to implement effective policy to alleviate hunger. Drawing on fieldwork evidence conducted by the author in the highly publicised Kalahandi and Naupada districts of western Orissa, the article questions the extent to which public action through India's liberal democratic framework has translated into government commitment to improve the quality of its relief and welfare administration. It suggests that successive governments in Orissa have adopted a range of alternative strategies, both within and outside the sphere of parliamentary electoral politics, to maintain electoral support and to offset public criticism before they have acted to improve administration of food security support. In doing so, it argues for the need to broaden the focus of debates surrounding the relationship between public action and hunger alleviation.