Democracy, Human Rights, and Famine

Question 1

Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History”
(1989)

Answer 1

• At the Cold War’s end: “Peace seems to be breaking out in many regions of the world”
• Inexorable march of Western economic and political ideals
  “liberal democracy in the political sphere combined with easy access to VCRs and stereos in the economic”
• The rest of the world would eventually
  catch up

Question 2

Amartya Sen’s “Democracy as a Universal Value”

Answer 2

• Regards “the rise of democracy” as the most important thing to happen in the 20th century
• “a country does not have to be deemed fit for democracy; rather, it has to become fit through democracy”
• Gender equality is growing, and “the coverage of universality, like the quality of mercy, is not strained
• Understanding of democracy as a universal value is a “major revolution in thinking”

Question 3

Sen universalization of democracy

Answer 3

• While not yet universally practiced, has now achieved the status of being taken to be generally right
  -The ball is very much in the court of those who want to rubbish democracy to provide justification for that rejection

Question 4

Case study: democracy India

Answer 4

• Britain was reluctant to grant India independence in 1947 - doubts that it was ready to govern itself
• India had “an untried government, an undigested partition [with Pakistan], and unclear political alignments, combined with widespread communal violence and social disorder”
• Key divisions according to region, religion, ethnicity, language, and class
  democracy in India has worked out

Question 5

Democracy & human security

Answer 5

• There is no evidence that non-democracies are better at promoting economic growth (ex: Singapore)
• Sen argues we need to look beyond questions of economic growth and consider need for economic and social security
• “We have to look at the connection between political and civil rights, on the one hand, and the prevention of major economic disasters, on the other”

Question 6

Democracy & the absence of famine (Sen)

Answer 6

• “No substantial famine has ever
  occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press”
• A democratic government, “facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers,” is forced to take
  action against famine
• Even the poorest democracies have successfully averted famine and large-scale disaster after droughts, floods, or other natural disasters

Question 7

Case study: Bengal famine

Answer 7

• 3 million Indians died, most of them in the Bengal region (present day Bangladesh)
• 1943 (even as the famine set in): British Empire shipped grain from India to stores in the Mediterranean; burned rice crops and locals’ boats to prevent Japanese seaborne landing, exporting more than 70,000 tonnes of rice
• British government refused to accept food relief for India from Canada + Australia
• As grain prices shot up, hoarders were able to make huge profits while people starved to death in the streets of Calcutta and surrounding rural areas
• “Mothers had turned into murderers, village belles into whores, fathers into traffickers of daughters” –Madhusree Mukherjee, Churchill’s Secret War

Question 8

Was colonial governance benevolent?

Answer 8

Churchill : “I hate Indians,” he told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” The famine was their own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for “breeding like rabbits.” (Mukherjee, Churchill’s Secret War)

Question 9

British colonial policy towards famine (Mukherjee)

Answer 9

• UK government an ideological commitment to free trade
  partly shaped by Malthus’s belief that famine corrected over-population
• It was “not so much racism as the imbalance of power inherent in the social Darwinian pyramid that explains why famine could be tolerated in India while bread rationing was regarded as an intolerable deprivation in wartime Britain”

Question 10

Positive role of political + civil rights

Answer 10

• Protective power of democratic rights in safeguarding the population’s security
• Democratic rights have a clear economic + security impact

Question 11

The value of political + social freedoms

Answer 11

Works via three mechanisms:
* intrinsic value: human well-being
* instrumental value: enhancing people’s political voice and their ability to raise awareness
* political value: opportunity learn from one another and helps society to form its values and priorities

Question 12

Democracy and coronavirus

Answer 12

• Iran: ineffectual containment, denial, likely concealment of true death toll (satellite images of mass graves)
• China: denial-based approach facilitated the virus’ spread; later, a strong centralized government facilitated containment
• Most successful countries succeeded regardless of regime type (Singapore, South Korea)
• Some advanced, industrialized democracies failed to contain the virus, had high death tolls (Italy, Spain)
  Others managed (Germany, Canada)
• Trump’s authoritarian tendencies (silence, denial, blame-shifting) helped shift epicenter to USA
• Many developing countries lacked capacity to contain, treat virus

Question 13

Case Study: Kerala, India

Answer 13

• State has historically had left-leaning governments
• These have implemented socialist land reform and welfare programs
• Promoted gender equality
• Very strong state-funded schools and medical infrastructure
• Among the highest literacy rates in India
• Prioritized renewable energy initiatives
  Gave rise to term “Kerala Model”