DO WE KNOW ENOUGH OF OUR PAST HISTORY ?

Few months ago,I was listening to a radio talk show by Mr.P.Sainath on India's farm crisis. He spoke at length about the famines in India during the erstwhile British Raj and how poorly they governed the famine crisis especially in Mysore and Madras regions. He quoted a book by Mike Davis which intrigued my interest in learning more about our past. A number of references in that book discussed widely about the famines and their effects on Indian farmers. About 24-29 million people had perished due to famines while the British people enjoyed feasts during that era. It was one of the worst periods in India before Independence.

Now after reading the book, i wonder how different is our present government from the erstwhile rule in handling the sucides of farmers on a large scale due to droughts and famines . Its been more than 60 years after independence and basic infrastructure is still lacking in almost all areas required for basic living .Has this has become the way of life that our rulers now even bother to uplift the downtrodden societies ?