ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Indian Constitution and its underlying ideas provide a sound framework for thinking about the right to food. In this framework, the right to food is one of the basic economic and social rights" that are essential to achieve "economic democracy", without which political democracy is at best incomplete. The right to food is nowhere near being realised in India. In fact, undernutrition levels in India are among the highest in the world. The nutrition situation in India is a sort of 'silent emergency': little attention is paid to it in public debates and democratic politics. This illustrates a more general feature of Indian democracy–its tremendous lack of responsiveness to the needs and aspirations of the underprivileged. The accumulation of nearly 70 million tonnes of grain against a background of widespread hunger is a particularly startling violation of the right to food.
