Towards being a role model for ensuring right to food

Right to food though is not an age old notion but now people all over the world including the people of Bangladesh are more or less familiar with this very concept. Though there were some misconceptions mostly because of interpreting it literally, but gradually it is becoming more transparent and practical. With the significant changes to the welfare state concept, now there are some more duties of the state authority other than preservation of law and order, collecting taxes and protecting the citizens from foreign enemies. Rather, it is now a duty of the state to provide the essential security of living peacefully and of course living hunger free in the state. Being the mother of all laws of the country, our Constitution provides various rights for the citizens and imposes obligations upon the state authority in the name of Fundamental Principles of State Policy. State will not feed you but will make you capable to manage your food, ensure your legitimate access to food; the obligation of the state is limited to this extent only. 

Bangladesh, has for long been successfully maintaining its people with the advantages of some basic policies and programs targeted towards ensuring the right to food of the people. In the year 1998 the Government of Bangladesh took an exhaustive food security policy for the country which was again revised in the year 2006. In this very policy the three essential features of right to food namely availability, accessibility and utilisation of food are vividly and expressly ensured. 

The term 'Right to Food' though not expressly or directly used in our Constitution as a right, but in Part 2 of the Constitution it has been recognised as a part of the fundamental principles of state policy. Through the provision of Article 11, Constitution guarantees the fundamental human rights and freedoms and respect for the dignity and worth of the human person. Those can only be ensured if right to food can be ensured. Article 15 of the Constitution stipulates the fundamental responsibility of the state to secure its citizens with the provisions of basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, shelter, education and medical care.

Article 14, Article 16, Article 18, Article 20 and Article 25 impose upon the state the responsibility to create such a condition where right to food will be ensured.  It will not be too much to say that being a very young country taking birth with the poorest economic condition only 44 years ago Bangladesh has attained more than what could be expected and those are of course better than our neighbouring countries. Following the footmark of other developed countries our country is stepping forward giving this very right a concrete shape. There are three obligations of the state to ensure right to food: these are namely, Obligation to Respect, Obligation to Protect and Obligation to Fulfil. By way of various social safety net programs the right to food of the people of Bangladesh is being respected. 

Bangladesh has enacted and implemented various laws like Consumer Rights Protection Act, 2009; Safe Food Act, 2013; Formalin Control Act, 2015; Breast Milk Substitutes, Baby Food, Commercially Manufactured Supplementary Baby Food and its Equipment(Regulation of Marketing) Act, 2013 to protect the access to food of the people and protecting their Right to Food thereby. Again Special Powers Act, 1974 also protects Right to Food of the people by way of controlling the hoarding, black marketing and adulteration of the food.

Now it is time to ensure the other two Obligations for which the Constitution must be interpreted in a liberal manner so that Fundamental Principles of State Policy can be enforced against the government for the interest of the people as people are the sole owners of the state and government is merely their representative, so government is bound to obey the people's will, the Constitution; thus it will be the duty of the government to ensure people's right to food by making them capable of earning their own food. 

It is now the high time to make such arrangements so that rent seekers may not be able to take control over the food supply chain. Government must make such arrangement so that farmers, the backbone, the insurer of food supply of the country may survive well; the rent seekers and corporate evil must be eliminated with iron hand. If the farmers live, if there are cultivatable land and supply of agricultural commodities are available, if the farmers get just price of their labour, the farmers of Bangladesh will be able to  produce enough food to feed us all. Our duties and responsibilities are to protect the framers, protecting from natural as well as corporate calamities and from rent seekers at the top. An umbrella law should be enacted for securing right to food.

We have known that the Law Commission is working on preparing a right to food law for Bangladesh. We will expect that this law will be a model law on right to food and Bangladesh will be a role model for the world on ensuring right to food for its people.  It is not possible for a country to ensure full food security for its people. Again, we cannot expect to live better keeping our neighbours hungry, so a regional food safety net must be created. SAARC Food Bank needs to be made a reality as soon as possible. Recently in a Regional Conference titled, 'South Asian Right to Food Conference, 2015' our Finance Minister and government high officials of other SAARC countries have ensured that they are working on it with their utmost effort. Let us wait for the sunrise. Let the world shine by the lights of Bangladesh's success on ensuring right to food.