In all this "tit for tat" convoluted policies, like the PL-480 for India, it is easy to miss the fact that the US, one of the wealthiest nation in the world even in the 50's and 60's, was asking India, then an impoverished nation, to pay for the wheat they supplied to it.
> A key event took place in 1943 that extended India’s food shortage until the early 1950s. In 1943, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered foodgrains meant for eastern parts of the country to be diverted to the British troops engaged in World War II. It resulted in a man-made famine in Bengal and the deaths of millions of people ... India signed a long-term Public Law (PL) 480 agreement to get food aid under Government agricultural trade development assistance, with the US in 1954. The agreement was signed a few more times before the US ended it in the late 1960s as Lal Bahadur Shastri and then Indira Gandhi were not willing to make policy changes, especially to allow privatisation of the industrial sector, in return for food aid. > > ... Food aid under PL480 not only drew flak but some critics pointed out that the wheat sent to India was “fit enough only for pigs!”. It was termed as a great insult that was to linger for long in people’s memory. Despite repeated pleas, the US gave only “a small quantity of rice” to India.
(How India overcame food emergency, attained self-sufficiency (August 2022) - https://web.archive.org/web/20240616192936/https://www.thehi... ).
> Now, the US wants India to export its wheat to other parts of the world amidst rising prices due to the Ukraine war whereas India is avoiding falling into the wheat trap all over again ... In 1954, then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Public Law 480 (PL-480) ... It was an initiative to offload all the excess wheat that the US had cultivated with price support. The US also started using it as a tool of diplomacy, because when another nation is dependent on you for its food, you can easily compel it into submission ... It was however realised by India in the mid-1960s that American food supplies came with strings attached and were being used as a means of diplomatic interference. At one point, the US even came close to rejecting wheat shipments to India, which threatened to push the country to the brink of famine. > > ... Six decades after the PL-480 controversy broke out between the two countries, India and the US find themselves at a crossroads over the staple commodity all over again. This time around, India imposed restrictions on its wheat exports ... India has restricted exports in the background of a persistent heatwave and lack of rain compelling officials to lower wheat output estimates ... However, the US, Germany and other G-7 countries have been critical of India’s stance. They are arguing that the restrictions on wheat exports could worsen the current food crisis in the world. Asking India to export wheat on the terms and conditions set by the Western world for its own advantage is more of a condescending attempt to tell the country that it somehow owes the sole responsibility to relax the soaring global prices. The richer nations, therefore, want India to do most of the heavy lifting ... This is in sharp contrast to Washington’s own track record. Remember, the US could have left India in a severe food crisis in the 1960s had New Delhi not managed to augment agricultural production within time. At that time, the US was motivated by its self-interest and India’s refusal to take sides between the USSR and the US. Today, India isn’t abandoning its moral responsibility, yet the US is sermonising it over wheat exports.
(Ghost of PL-480 Returns as India Avoids the Wheat Trap All Over Again (May 2022) - https://web.archive.org/web/20220525074511/https://www.news1... )
The only kind thing I have to say about the PL-480 or the "food for peace" program is that the American politicians taught us Indians a very valuable lesson - the need to become self-reliant to stave off exploitation. (Ironically, when it comes to people to people relationship, ordinary Indians and Americans really hit it off and work well together - for e.g. India's space, nuclear and even agricultural programs owes a lot to American scientists and thinkers. But this still hasn't translated to a close political relationships because Indian and American politicians just don't see eye to eye).