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Paper short abstract:

The production and consumption of rice constituting the core element of peasant’s subsistence is linked with their socio-religious duties as mechanisms of survival. The complex domestic world view of rice is studied as a commodity representative of food crises and food security for the future.

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on the production and consumption of rice constituting the core element of peasant’s subsistence intimately linked with their socio-religious duties as mechanisms of survival. A study on the semiotics of rice in the context of the Bengal famine (1943-44), food supplies, the campaign to ‘grow more food’ (1942 onwards) embodied in textual and oral traditions draws upon a strand of historiography that explains the cultural biography of commodities as a yardstick for consumption changes (Appadurai 1996). The paper dislocates the semantics of rice from the literature of distress to understanding crop decisions within the economic unit of a household. This argument is broadened in the public realm, where rice as a value-laden agricultural commodity was used in the political campaign against hunger and repurposed for ethical consumption. The domestic world views of the primary producer contributing to human well-being are articulated in the complexities of rice consumption, as a commodity representative of the food crisis and food security for the future. Rice represents the idea of well-being in Bengal that is expressed not only in material terms but also in terms of the symbols that govern sharing of food. Apart from fulfilling basic needs, rice meets the instrumental needs of placating gods, funerary rites and is widely used in other rituals. It is, therefore, tied to the social grammar of consumption, where value judgements are based on the basic needs of someone and his ability to fulfil the needs of others.