UNDER today’s inequitable global economic system, some unfortunate people and places only attract attention when they are in acute distress. Tharparkar is one such place. It has recently attracted national attention as reports of famine and images of skeletal, sick children have flooded the press.

The famine in Tharparkar is often described as the result of drought. Even globally, conservatives portray famine as the result mainly of drought, overpopulation, laziness and/or fatalism. However, while natural factors play an immediate role, the main causes of famine lie in the realms of local and global political economy and relate to exploitation and/or marginalisation of vulnerable communities by powerful elites.

If this seems odd, consider a woman dying of terminal cancer despite availing herself of high-quality treatment. Clearly, natural factors were the main cause of her death. Consider next a small village girl dying of malaria because of gross neglect by local health staff. Viewed narrowly, the girl’s death too could be attributed to nature. Death occurred as her body’s defences could no longer defy malarial parasites.

However, rather than natural factors, most people would blame staff neglect as the main cause in failing to treat a simple disease despite the great medical advances made recently. Thus, when science provides simple defences against natural threats but those defences are not made available to marginalised groups, the damage suffered by them is seen as resulting mainly from political rather than natural factors.

The same is true of drought. Its negative effects can be managed more easily than tsunamis and earthquakes, since droughts unfold gradually and cause no large-scale physical destruction. Amartya Sen, the Harvard-based Indian academician, was the first to discount drought, overpopulation and fatalism as the main causes of famine and identify exploitation and marginalisation as its main causes. Sen’s work, while illuminating was largely based on secondary data.

Alex de Waal, a UK-based academician, was among the first to provide primary evidence in support of Sen based on research in 1985 in Sudan. His book Famine that kills described vividly how subsistence-based rural communities despite not having access to modern technology had developed creative coping strategies to overcome drought.

However, these coping strategies were undermined by conflict, exploitation by local and national elites and neglect by the national government with the result that droughts in the 1980s transformed quickly into large-scale famine. My own anthropological field inquiry over six months living with rural communities in Eritrea (Horn of Africa) discovered similar dynamics.

These insights have played a monumental role in reducing the frequency of famines since the 1990s. Aid agencies have started addressing the political causes that impoverish rural communities so much that they cannot overcome easily manageable droughts. They have also established famine early warning systems which alert authorities to impending food shortages and the need for aid before communities suffer grievously during drought.

NGOs have also undertaken intense advocacy against the inequitable global food system which is controlled by American corporations and government who prioritise corporate profits and undermine the food security of poor people. Thus, while famines often killed thousands until the 1990s, especially in Africa, serious drought in East and West Africa more recently in 2011-12 caused few deaths.

The situation in Tharparkar is no different. While it receives little rain, Tharis have developed their livelihoods systems accordingly to counter drought. Unfortunately, their coping strategies have been eroded by major economic and social changes in recent decades. Migration by Hindus into India has resulted in the loss of wealthier households who often supported more vulnerable households during drought. Many large portions of common grazing lands are monopolised by large land-owners without authority.

While the arrival of the modern economy has expanded certain trades, such as carpet-making and milk-selling, the returns offered to local people are paltry. Additionally, people have to borrow exorbitantly from money lenders to adopt these trades. Finally, government investment in health, education, infrastructure and irrigation is highly inadequate. Thus, severe food shortages in Tharparkar are the result of drought occurring in the backdrop of these underlying factors.

While mortality in Tharparkar has not reached pre-1990 global levels when famines killed thousands, even this relatively limited mortality rate is unacceptable for a middle-income, nuclear-armed country given the massive progress made in tackling famines even in low-income countries in Africa. Government officials are arguing that the situation should not be classified as a famine.

Technically, they may or may not be correct. However, this argument misses the point that a famine merely is the tip of an iceberg which represents permanent impoverishment due to exploitation by elites and neglect by the government. One can argue whether the iceberg’s tip has protruded the water surface yet or not. However, there is no denying the presence of the iceberg of exploitation and neglect itself.

The government was slow even in providing immediate aid which constitutes just a band aid. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the durable solutions required to help Tharis escape food shortages permanently, such as investment in education, health, irrigation, early warning systems and land reforms. In the absence of such measures, it would not be surprising if during another drought a few years later Tharparkar again makes it to the national press or even the international press if the situation is far worse.

The writer is a development and political economist and is affiliated as a Senior Fellow with UC Berkeley. murtazaniaz@yahoo.com.