The conventional explanation until 1981 for the cause of famines was the decline of food availability (abbreviated as FAD for food availability decline). The assumption was that the central cause of all famines was a decline in food availability. However this does not explain why only a certain section of the population such as the agricultural laborer was affected by famines while others were insulated from famines.. It has been suggested that the causal mechanism for precipitating starvation includes many variables other than just decline of food availability such as the inability of an agricultural laborer to exchange his primary entitlement, i.e., labor for rice when his employment became erratic or was completely eliminated. Per the proposed theory, famines are caused due to a breakdown of the ability of a person to exchange his entitlements rather than due to food availability decline. This theory is called the failure of exchange entitlements or FEE.

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...

 advances the theory that lack of democracy and famines are inter-related citing the example of the 1943 Bengal famine, stating that it was made viable only because of the lack of democracy in India under British rule. He further argues that the situation was aggravated by the British government's suspension of trade in rice and grains between various Indian provinces. Olivier Rubin's review of the evidence disagrees with Sen; after examining the cases of post-Independence India, Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

, and Malawi

Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

, he finds that "democracy is no panacea against famine." Rubin's analysis questions whether democracy and a free press were sufficient to truly avert famine in 1967 and 1973 (the Maharashtra famine involved some 130,000 deaths), and notes that some dynamics of electoral democracy complicate rather than bring about famine relief efforts. Rubin does not address colonial period famines. On the other hand, Andrew Banik's study Starvation and India's democracy affirms Sen's thesis, but indicates that while democracy has been able to prevent famines in India, it has not been sufficient to avoid severe under-nutrition

Malnutrition in India

The World Bank estimates that India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition, after Bangladesh , where 47% of the children exhibit a degree of malnutrition...

and starvation deaths, which Banik calls a 'silent emergency' in the country.