Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of
Central, Southern and East Africa. It is
bordered by Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Tanzania, Malawi,
Mozambique, Zimbabwe , Namibia, Angola and Botswana. The country’s capital is Lusaka. The history of Zambia experienced many stages
from colonisation to independence from Britain on 24 October 1964. Northern
Rhodesia became a British sphere of influence in the present-day region of
Zambia in 1888, and was officially proclaimed a British protectorate in 1924. In 1960, the British prime minister, Harold
Macmillan, declared that the age of colonial rule in Africa was ending.
Finally, in December 1963, the federation was dissolved, and the Republic of
Zambia was formed out of Northern Rhodesia on 23 October 1964
Zambia
is closer to ending almost four years in default on its sovereign debt after
nearly all holders of the southern African nation’s US dollar bonds voted to
approve a long-delayed restructuring plan. Holders of more than 90 per cent of
the nearly $4bn in bonds had already backed the plan by last week ahead of a
May 30 deadline, Zambia’s finance ministry said on Tuesday. The support means
Africa’s second-biggest copper producer is on track to implement a
restructuring of the debt next month, after its 2020 bond default highlighted
growing problems with the international architecture for resolving debt crises
in poor countries. President Hakainde Hichilema’s government finalised a deal
on the bonds only in March after overcoming objections by China, Zambia’s
largest creditor, that an initial agreement appeared to favour bondholders over
other lenders.
While this could provide some relief on financial side, severe
drought is threatening hunger for millions of Zambians, cutting off electricity for long periods and
destroying the country’s social fabric and economy, the environment minister
has warned, in a harbinger of what is in store for the region as the climate
crisis worsens. A spokesperson is quoted as saying that the
“crippling drought” his country was experiencing hammered home the message that
developing countries were facing catastrophe from the climate crisis, even as
richer countries failed to muster financial help for the most afflicted.
“What
has happened this year is that we received well below the normal rainfall. This
has been a crippling drought,” he said. “We’ve had a huge crop failure. A lot
of people who depend on maize, who depend on agriculture for their very
survival, face starvation and hunger.” The rains failed in February, when
maize, the country’s staple crop, reaches the “tasselling” stage, when the
grains start to fill. A lack of rainfall at that time means there is little
prospect of saving most of the crop. People are reaching the end of their food
stores, and importing from other countries in the region has become much harder
as they too are feeling the impacts of the drought. Food supplies have come
from South Africa and Tanzania, but these are uncertain in the months to come.
In
normal years, Zambia has a food surplus that it exports to neighbouring
countries, including Malawi, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC). About 95% of the country’s power comes from hydroelectricity, the
capacity of which has been halved, leading to frequent power cuts of eight
hours’ duration and more. The drought came after a series of floods that had
already damaged infrastructure in the country.
Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema, has declared a national
disaster and put in place strict measures on the use of water. The country is
also looking to diversify away from maize, to growing more cassava and sorghum,
and crops more resistant to drought.
In
early June, countries from around the world will meet in Bonn under the
auspices of the UN for the first stage of months of negotiations on a new
financial framework for tackling the climate crisis. This will culminate in the
UN summit Cop29 in Azerbaijan in November, at which nations are supposed to set
out a “new collective quantified goal” for providing hundreds of billions of
dollars in climate finance each year to the developing world. However, the
talks are mired in difficulty. Many countries are in the throes of election
campaigns, including the US, the world’s biggest economy, and the EU, where
politicians are concerned of a possible backlash against climate action. There
is no agreement over how climate finance should be provided, where it should
come from and who should receive it.
He said the countries that benefited first from
industrialisation owed a responsibility to the poorest. “The climate has
changed because the developed world has been buying so much fossil fuel for
their development,” he said. “These are the fossil fuels which have been burned
which have made the climate change.”
India has faced many a droughts and famines especially during
colonial rule when the Colonial Kings simply looted not caring for the people
allowing starvation and death of thousands – yet our History we read about
merciful Viceroys and how Nation got freedom without shedding blood !!
Just to cite couple of examples - Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine that
swept parts of India under Crown rule. It began in 1876 after an intense drought
resulting in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. It affected south and
southwestern India (the British presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and the
princely states of Mysore and Hyderabad) for a period of two years. In its
second year famine also spread northward to some regions of the Central
Provinces and the North-Western Provinces, and to a small area in the Punjab.
The famine ultimately covered an area of 670,000 square kilometres (257,000 sq
mi) and caused distress to a population totalling 58,500,000. The death toll
from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 5.5 to 10.3 million people.
The
famine occurred at a time when the colonial government was attempting to reduce
expenses on welfare. Earlier, in the Bihar famine of 1873–74, severe mortality
had been avoided by importing rice from Burma. The Government of Bengal and its
Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Richard Temple, were criticised for excessive
expenditure on charitable relief. Sensitive to any renewed accusations of
excess in 1876, Temple, who was now Famine Commissioner for the Government of
India, insisted not only on a policy of laissez faire with respect to the trade
in grain, but also on stricter standards of qualification for relief and on
more meagre relief rations. Two kinds of relief were offered: "relief
works" for able-bodied men, women, and working children, and gratuitous
(or charitable) relief for small children, the elderly, and the indigent.
The Great Famine had a lasting political impact on events in
India. Among the British administrators in India who were unsettled by the
official reactions to the famine and, in particular by the stifling of the
official debate about the best form of famine relief, were William Wedderburn
and A. O. Hume. Less than a decade later, they would found the Indian National
Congress and, in turn, influence a generation of Indian nationalists. Among the
latter were Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Chunder Dutt for whom the Great Famine
would become a cornerstone of the economic critique of the British Raj.
Well, any History not
properly written and not read factually will corrupt the minds of the people of the Nation.
With
regards – S Sampathkumar
30.5.2024
Pic credit : https://scalar.lehigh.edu/kiplings/famine
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