Food for Thought: What a National Convention Taught Us About Rights
The fight against the persisting problem of hunger was reaffirmed at the Eighth National Convention of the Campaign for the Right to Food in India held at the Ambedkar Memorial Welfare Society’s premises in Jaipur on May 24-26, 2025. Over 800 delegates, representing more than 80 groups from 16 states in the country, gathered to mark the 20th anniversary and invigorate the movement.
The Right to Food Campaign was seeded by the path-breaking efforts of the Akal Sangharsh Samiti, a network of 56 organisations in Rajasthan that was formed in the wake of acute drought in Rajasthan in 2001. Pioneering members of this erstwhile Samiti, Jawahar (of Prayas) and Dharam Chand Khair (leader of the Adivasi Vikas Manch), both alerted the country to the distressful loss of lives from starvation and hunger. “It is fitting that the twentieth Convention be held in the province that first sounded the alarm and gave rise to the Right to Food Movement,” Jawahar remarked.
“How to achieve freedom from hunger,” well-known activist Aruna Roy of the MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) observed, “is not my question or your question but concerns all political parties”.
In 2024, India was ranked 105th of 127 countries by the Global Hunger Index, a multidimensional tool operationalised by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilife. It regards the situation of hunger in India as ‘serious’ based on the four considered indicators of undernutrition and child wasting, stunting and mortality. Given the persistence of undernourishment in the time of viksit or economically developing India, the national convention debated and analysed the multiple dimensions of hunger in the country, the bottlenecks, and the way forward through 4 plenaries and 24 parallel sessions.
“We do not ask for charity; we demand our right" – this sentiment rang through the convention, making plain that the right to food was a fundamental right flowing from natural justice and the right to live with dignity conferred by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is girded by legislation in the shape of the National Food Security Act, 2013. Speakers at the Convention’s inaugural plenary reiterated that the right to food is not akin to revdi or freebies. This clear refrain cut through the sessions, the diverse political affiliations of the assembled and the sweltering heat. The presumption that the poor seize the revdi did not hold water at all after the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax, which is a tax paid by everyone.
The convention galvanised a coalition of diverse groups and different hues, tellingly captured in the greetings that heralded their speeches. Apart from zindabad and namaskar, johar, the Adivasi salutation, vanakkam (the Tamil ‘welcome’) and a striking range of salaams were heard here. The neel salaam (the blue salute) referred to the colour of the Bhim flag, symbolic of the teachings of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the satrangi salaam (the seven-coloured rainbow salaam denoted the LGBTQI+ groups), the lal salaam (the well-known communist salute) and the tiranga saalam (salute to the tricolour) all found a home here. Some speakers combined two or more salaams, simultaneously signposting the country’s democratic credentials and struggles beyond the nation’s borders.

Eighth Convention of the Campaign for the RIght to Food held in Jaipur on May 24-26, 2025. Photo: Prateek Saini.
The hungry human is not free: hunger constrains democracy
“Food security creates an environment where you can voice your thoughts, while its absence fosters a milieu of fear,’’ said Kavita Srivastava, the national convener of the Convention and the president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. Both Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, framed in the aftermath of World War II, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Right to Life in the Indian constitution, enabled the casting of the right to food as a fundamental right. Yet the right and its entitlement, when incompletely realised or obfuscated, attest to a right denied.
How to fight hunger was the leitmotif of the campaign, but it was coupled with the standpoint that hunger is the biggest constraint on democracy. “What is the meaning of democracy for those who can afford only one meal a day? It is difficult to fight if you are hungry. You can’t raise your voice on an empty stomach,” said Mukesh Nirvasit of the MKSS. “Hunger constrains the freedom to speak, the freedom to write, and the freedom to dialogue."
The right to food secures the freedom to express one’s demands, and the right to freedom secures the right to food in dialectical mode, such that the two are in a dynamic relationship where the one right is instrumental in achieving the other.
The public distribution system: Long-standing concerns and newer apprehensions
India’s National Food Security Act of 2013 was the culmination of the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India and the Campaign for the Right to Food that started in 2004. Yet, the Food Security Bill, 2013, fell short of the Campaign’s consistent demand for universal coverage of rations by the Public Distribution System. Instead, modalities worked out under the Food Security Act calibrated the needs of citizens through quotas for rations, clinched by poverty ratios based on the Census of 2011, which were fixed state-wise and differentially for rural and urban areas.
The institution of quotas brought in the predictable issues of sorting who is and is not eligible for rations, the need for supporting documents and ensuing corrupt practices. It overlooked the rural-urban migration that rendered state-wise ration cards inoperable outside the province. Their troubling aspects were highlighted through the COVID-19 pandemic and after. Nearly 8 crore Indians in the unorganised sector registered on the e-Shram portal, which was activated in 2021 to mitigate the acute hunger and the lack of employment during that period.
In its present form, the Public Distribution System(PDS) makes 35 kgs. of grain at subsidised rates available per family that is identified as falling below the poverty line. It accounts for about 1% of GDP, constitutes 60% of social welfare spending, and benefits around 800 million citizens, note Andaleeb Rahman and Prabhu Pingali, authors of The Future of India’s Safety Nets (2024). The discussion on the PDS, ration shops, ration cards and rations brought up a slew of issues at the Convention. The functioning of ration shops was opaque; there was scarce communication about when a shop received its quota of rations; the amount made available to the cardholders was sometimes short of the entitlement, and/ or the quality of grain provided was poor.
Making matters worse, if the person named on the ration card died, the death entailed that the family did without rations until a new name was registered which could take up to 6 months. If the ration-card holder asked too many questions, the ration was jeopardised, and on one occasion, a woman noted, the card itself was torn up. Some participants expressed the fear that under the amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2019 and the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, the accountability of public officials and ration-overseers would be further eroded.
Looking beyond calories: Nutrition security
“We want not just anaj (grain) but poshan (nutrition),” said Lingaraj Azad of the National Alliance of People’s Movements. Often, 35 kgs of grain, either rice or wheat, was insufficient to meet even the calorie requirements of a poor family. Adequate nutrition demanded more – the addition of edible oil, local, culturally appropriate millets and pulses to the ration provisions given the troubling health issues of a high proportion of the population, especially children.
On occasion, regular, natural rice was mixed with what was described as ‘plastic’ rice, that is, rice powdered, fortified and reshaped to look like rice grains. Such admixture was viewed with suspicion given the lack of information to the consumers and its contraindications. Analogously, warnings on processed, ‘junk food’ were wanting.
The Missing 2021 Census: Implications
Further, since the Census was not held in 2021, the number of eligible ration card holders, fixed by the Census of 2011, had multiplied in the intervening period. But despite the Supreme Court’s exhortation that the figures for ration-eligible citizens should be revised based on the projected increase in the population, the case hangs fire in obfuscation by legalese. The government is taking cover under the provision of the Food Security Act that says it should go by Census figures. In one reckoning, nearly 13 crore citizens are having to do without ration provisions because of the stalemate.
But is there a deeper plot? “Is the government banking on cash transfers as the way to go?” wonders Anjali Bhardwaj of the Delhi Campaign for the Right to Food. Such a decision would run against the very grain of the fight against hunger. The perils of cash being spent on non-essential items, the limited reach of banking services and the likelihood of the consumer’s buying power being undercut by inflation could raise multiple red flags.
Digitalisation dilemmas: Linking ration cards with Aadhaar, biometric verification and eKYCs
A range of problems came to the fore in the discussions on digitalisation. The eKYC (Electronic Know Your Customer) verification, introduced since 2019, was supposed to check bogus cards, but there are hurdles on that route for bona fide citizens as well.
The Aadhaar card must now be seeded with the ration card. “Without an Aadhaar, you are apparently not a citizen, and who knows, you may be taken to be a Bangladeshi,” noted a participant. Often, the digitalisation site lay at a considerable distance in rural areas, but under the new dispensation, every family member must be present to renew the ration card. An activist narrated the story of a villager who managed to get leave for a day, but the server was down for several days, and by the time he got back, he had lost his job. On bio-metric verification, a woman-farmer recounted how she was advised to use the ‘Fair and Lovely’ cream on her fingers for 3 weeks because her fingerprints, worn down by agricultural labour, were unable to register the biometrics.
In towns, when the server happened to be down, the resident was directed to a private cybercafé, adding to the costs. The portal for eKYC verification, too, was not always open, and neither did the grievance redressal committees work as might be hoped. As a delegate put it: “Although we have the right, we are treated like beggars…the government puts out a fatwa and sends us running helter-skelter!"
There were constructive suggestions to improve the PDS system and ration shops as well, apart from expanding the range of ration items. It was maintained that the KYC should be offered in both offline and online modes until such time that the technological systems are undoubtedly robust. Volunteers could be encouraged to keep a watch over the goings-on at ration shops and befriend individuals struggling to obtain food rations.

Eighth Convention of the Campaign for the RIght to Food held in Jaipur on May 24-26, 2025. Photo: Prateek Saini.
PDS: Perspectives from the Underprivileged
The Convention shone a clear light on the constraints faced by the underprivileged – women, children and the aged, religious minorities, Adivasis, as well as ICDS and Anganwadi workers.
The women assembled at the Convention conveyed both their tribulations and courage in emotive songs that often spoke more eloquently than speeches. The lyrics of a poignant song noted that though it is women who sow, gather food, harvest, spin, labour at construction sites, cook and feed the family, often neglecting their own needs, they are seldom able to procure paid work. The male vision dominates employment norms and policies, especially in the unorganised sector. Further, a sum of just Rs. 6000 is granted to an expectant mother, and, tragically, there is no maternity allowance at all if a third child is conceived. The disparity between maternity leave of 6 months for women who are government employees and women in the informal sector is striking. Yet, the resounding chant of women-activists was "Hum bharat ki nari hain, phool nahin chingari hain (we, women of India, are not flowers/ We are sparks of fiery showers)."
Since nearly 55% of children in India are anaemic, the convention proposed that the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) services for all children under the age of six years and that the mid-day meal scheme in schools (extended to class 12) be written into the country’s law. Again, because pensions for the aged, too, are much lower in the unorganised sector (ranging from Rs. 200 to Rs 400 per month) compared to the pensions of government employees, the demand for raising these was mooted to the tune of half the wages earned over a month (computed on a minimum daily wage). In a related vein, the emoluments for ICDS and mid-day meal workers, the Anganwadi worker, the ASHA, and mid-day meal cooks and helpers, also call for regularisation.
Discrimination: Perspectives from Muslims, Dalits, Tribals, Migrants
Discrimination against Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims in the mid-day meal and the ICDS schemes were issues that carried over from the past. Despite the efforts of the right to food campaign, the introduction of eggs was denied in more than 13 states of the country due to Jain and Brahmanical vegetarianism being the unstated diktat.
The “right to food,” Munteha Fatima, general secretary, Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union reiterated, “is neither the PM’s charity, nor charity. It is a Constitutional right, but this right is being assaulted by the state’s communal actions”. For instance, non-vegetarian food is arbitrarily disallowed, and now the names of contractors who refuse to supply garlic, eggs or onions are even less likely to be disclosed under the new Data Protection Data Privacy Act (DPDP Act). “Food queues are formed caste-wise in some schools and the names of Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis,” Fatima notes, “cease to be just names but become targets to be attacked. Such actions constitute an attack on the secular national fabric”.
The features of inequality differed between groups as well. “If a Dalit had ghee, it could be remarked upon as an oddity or a problem,” a speaker noted, “much like if he rides a horse”. For slum-dwellers, tenants and migrants, the lack of an acceptable address posed problems that called for the portability of ration cards. Climate change and the continuous loss of the commons of forests, mountains and rivers, which are a source of critical, pesticide-free, ‘wild’ food for the Adivasis, were especially acute problems in rural and Adivasi areas. Siraj Dutta, a member of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, contended that the state’s incursions in forest tracts seemed to be “attempts to render forests free of tribals and not just Naxals”.

Eighth Convention of the Campaign for the RIght to Food held in Jaipur on May 24-26, 2025. Photo: Prateek Saini.
Slogan, song and poetry: The spirit of struggle
Far from the dry-as-dust atmosphere of regular conferences, the Convention of the Campaign for the Right to Food was animated by slogans, songs and the spirit of sangharsh (struggle). Slogans that directly related to the campaign, such as "jab tak bhooka insaan rahega/ dharti ka apman rahega (as long as the hungry are unattended/ the Earth will remain offended)," were interspersed with cries of "inquilab zindabad (long live the revolution)."
Again, the irony of present-day hunger in the country was brought out in the couplet: "Na roti, kapda makan hai/’Phir bhi mera bharat mahaan hai (No food, clothing or homestead/Yet my India is spinning ahead)."
Songs, dances, skits and solo performances in varied dialects as well as shayari (Urdu poetry) brought out the sensorial dimensions, the biting wit and the nuances of struggles that could not be expressed quantitatively. As Shanker Singh of the MKSS put it, “These inputs are a tool, a weapon, and an intrinsic part of the struggle for rights”.
Taking the fight into the future
The Convention for the Right to Food Campaign views its struggle as part of ongoing struggles, such as the Farmers’ Agitation and the Right to 100 days of enhanced wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). It joins the demand for swift action against unwarranted killings and the right to live with dignity as well as adequate food in the conflict-stricken areas and camps of Manipur and seeks the withdrawal of paramilitary forces in Bastar. Beyond the nation, the Jaipur Convention proffers strong support to the fight against hunger and carnage in Gaza.
The Jaipur Declaration, outlined at this Eighth Convention of the Right to Food Campaign, seeks to rechart the path to viksit Bharat. The action-plans proposed have a dual thrust: on the one hand, the right to universalize the PDS, augment the cereal ration with edible oil, pulses and eggs, enhance the coverage of the ICDS to children under six, provide mid-day meals to school-going children, all aim at alleviating the pangs of hunger and nutrition. But action on the other front – livelihoods - is vital as well. The realisation that the cries of the poor for livelihoods are being drowned out by the large-scale take-over of the commons – forests, rivers, pastures - now makes free, democratic and vigorous assertion of opposition to such ventures the go-to site and the heart of present-day struggles. Clearly, the right to food and nutrition cannot be decoupled from the right to livelihoods from the common base of natural resources and its defence against privatisation.
Strikingly, in enacting its public-spirited, uncensored deliberations, the Convention underscored that democratic space in the country, though shrunk, can still be harnessed. The Akal Sangharsh Samiti and the subsequent Right to Food campaign that started with a spark and the slogan Goddamon ke taale toro (Unlock the Godowns) continues to propose and deliberate action plans for the public good in its twentieth year. It promises to fight on (ladenge, jeetenge) – with and beyond the right to food.
Rita Brara is a sociologist, professor, and author.
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