BBC’s sepoys have come out with a new article titled ‘Is India exporting food inflation to the world?’ (the headline was later changed to ‘Why India’s soaring food inflation is a global problem’).

These days, it has become fashionable in the West, and among the die-hard comprador/sepoy class, to position Bharat as a villain that is upsetting the global order – global democracy is under threat as Indian democracy is ‘backsliding’, India’s human rights records is worsening and it is losing the ‘Gandhian spirit of non-violence’, Indian minorities are on the ‘brink of genocide’ & religious tolerance has disappeared, Indian press is being crushed and journalists muzzled, India is destabilizing the region by stubbornly refusing to talk with nuclear-armed Pakistan (it’s a different matter that the West refuses to talk to nuclear-armed Russia)…..you get the drift.

So it comes as no surprise that BBC’s India Business Correspondent Nikhil Inamdar (ex-NDTV) has penned this latest piece that blames global food inflation also on Bharat! Let’s examine Inamdar’s proposition – is Bharat really acting selfishly by banning exports of certain food items like non-basmati rice, wheat and by hiking export duty on onions?

Let’s remember that Bharat has a large PDS (Public Distribution System) to provide subsidized food to its poor. That PDS program was increased massively during the pandemic when people were under unprecedented economic stress due to Covid lockdowns – free 5 kg of rice/wheat was given each month to 800 million Bharatiyas, and that scheme has been more or less extended at least until Dec 2023.

Like the rest of the world, Bharat too is facing the bite of rising food inflation. Retail inflation surged to a 15-month high of 7.44% in July from 4.87% a month ago as prices of food items, especially vegetables, shot up.

So clearly, a developing country like Bharat has no option but to first ensure that its own food security needs and large population (18% of global population) are taken care of.

But if there is one global event that has had the maximum impact on global food scarcity in the last one year, it is the Ukraine-Russia conflict, or as some analysts term it, the NATO-Russia war which started in earnest in Feb 2022. Western media like BBC report it as ‘Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’, obfuscating the history of the conflict which had been brewing under the surface for over a decade due to NATO’s steady eastward expansion in violation of commitments made to Russia at the time of USSR’s breakup; and especially how things heated up after the Maidan Revolution (coup) of 2014 in which Ukraine’s democratically elected govt was overthrown and new US-approved leaders took charge.

The BBC article in question does mentions this war as a factor contributing to global food inflation, but only in passing –

“The termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extreme climate conditions across the world are other major contributing factors.”

Let’s see how the Ukraine conflict’s impact on global food supply was reported by BBC –

‘The effect of war…‘, ‘crisis is unleashing…‘ – no blaming any party (not even Russia, at least in headlines!) unlike ‘Is India exporting food inflation to the world?’

Why didn’t we see BBC headlines like ‘Is American and NATO obstinance exporting food inflation to the world’? Even now, when they talk of Black Sea Grain Initiative being terminated, it is important to understand why Russia terminated it. Ukraine is one of the largest wheat exporters, and under this initiative brokered by Turkey and UN in July 2022, cargo ships were allowed to sail through the Black Sea to export Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. But after one year, Russia refused to renew this deal because the assistance promised by UN to help Russia increase its exports of grain and fertilizers did not materialize. The plethora of sanctions and restrictions placed on Russia by the West have effectively cut off Russian food producers, agricultural banks and shippers from the global financial system.

So here too, it is the West’s dangerous anti-Putin obsession that is exacerbating a global crisis, apart from bringing the world to the brink of WW-3.

The conflict in Ukraine has also impacted global fertilizer supply and disrupted supply chains, which has a negative downstream effect on food production. Despite all this, the West has been haranguing all countries across the world, especially Bharat, to completely stop all trade and ties with Russia. Thankfully, Bharat has ignored their diktats and increased imports of Russian fertilisers.

Here is a simple question that no sepoy like Nikhil Inamdar, Souptik Biswas etc ever asks – When the West lectures Bharat to exercise restraint & talk to Pakistan despite frequent cross-border terror attacks and the ongoing genocide & religious cleansing of Pakistan’s Hindu and Sikh minorities, why doesn’t the West talk to Russia to resolve its differences? Big boys don’t have to practise what they preach? Rules for thee, not for me?

Incidentally, it must be remembered that in April 2022 Bharat had offered to supply food stocks to the world if the World Trade Organization (WTO) allowed, but was forced to announce a wheat export ban a month later after unseasonably hot weather affected the wheat crop, sending local prices soaring.

This transparent behavior by Bharat can be contrasted with the way America and other Western nations had hoarded vaccines despite having enough supply for their own at-risk population. US even denied vaccine raw materials, which it had more than enough of, to Bharat! How can we forget the statement of US govt. spokesperson Ned Price, ““It’s, of course, not only in our interest to see Americans vaccinated, it’s in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated.”

And BBC seems to be echoing exactly those thoughts; that it is in Bharat and the rest of the world’s interest to see that rich Western nations are not impacted with food inflation or any other discomfort. Wasn’t this the same line of ‘reasoning’, a sense of British/Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism, which drove Churchill to trigger the 1943 Bengal famine.

Another aspect of Western hypocrisy and propaganda that was unmasked by hawk-eyed netizens with regards to this BBC article, is how the same Western press cheered on the violent protests by vested interest groups which derailed the much-needed farm reforms that would have helped Bharatiya farmers increase their incomes and yields.

“Heads I win, tails you lose,” is how BBC and the rest of the Western establishment media reports on issues related to Bharat, especially when a ‘Hindu nationalist govt’ is at the helm.