India: A Particular Hunger

"I pledge to surrender my rice ration for the people of Kerala. I also pledge not to eat or serve rice until the food situation there is normal." That was Indira Gandhi's way of showing her sympathy last week for the plight of South India's most populous state.

The words were admirable enough, but they would not fill bellies, as rioting students made vocally clear. Through out Kerala, gangs attacked government offices, blockaded roads, cut telephone wires, overturned buses, and fought with police. At several places students even ripped up rails and crossties, thus delaying the trains that were carrying emergency food to the state.

Kerala's influential Communists egged the mobs on. The government retaliated by jailing 13 Reds, including E. M. S. Namboodiripad, who was Kerala's chief minister during the 27 months in the mid-1950s when the state was under Communist rule. Even in jail the Reds managed to make trouble by going on a hunger strike, which they vowed would not end until the government provided Kerala with larger rations.

This will not be easy. For one thing, the rice-eating people of Kerala stubbornly refuse to supplement their diet with other grain. Thus President Johnson's announcement last week authorizing shipment of 3,000,000 tons of wheat and maize to replenish India's depleted food supplies will be a boon to the nation, but will not necessarily keep the rioters off the streets in Kerala.