Shivaji Sarkar
Hunger is a reality in modern India. It cannot be wished away. No food is available, as some leaders say, for Rs 5 in Delhi or Rs 12 in Mumbai or as the Planning Commission fixes the level of urban poverty at Rs 33. These are mere important figures for the “enlightened” bureaucracy, “expert” economists and nitpicking politicians of the ruling party.
The number of hungry today exceeds the population of the Indian sub-continent at the time of its partition, which was 34 crore. Even if we accept the revised Planning Commission’s controversial figures at 21.9 per cent of the population, in absolute terms it would be 28 crore poor. There are other figures of the Plan panel itself that put number of poor at 37.5 per cent – 45 crore poor.
If we accept the World Bank figures, above 80 crore people live on less than $1 a day or to quote late Arjun Sengupta about 77 per cent live on less than Rs 20 a day. The World Bank estimates put the poverty percentage at 29.8 per cent – 37 crore – against the Government’s 21.9 per cent.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is more candid. It says India is home to about 25 per cent of the world’s hungry poor. Although the country grows enough food for its people, WFP says pockets of hunger remain. It quotes Government figures to stress that around 43 per cent of children under the age of five years are malnourished and more than half of all pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 suffer from anaemia. In absolute terms the figures are staggering.
Then again, the country has a mid-day meal programme. However, see what it did in Bihar — claimed lives of 23 children. Many others have fallen seriously ill across the country. The scheme was introduced to allure hungry children to the portals of schools. It has increased attendance in schools, at least during meal time. But it’s a different issue whether it has improved educational standards or nutritional conditions or not.
Remember, tweaking of figures by Planning Commission helps the Government project better image at international fora. The UN or other global organisations are guided by official figures, and India appears to be doing better in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG). However, the figures only help window-dress the reality.
Incidents of mid-day meals capture the reality. The quality of food grain, pulses, edible oil or utensils used only raise one basic question – why should parents send their children to have food cooked in such unhygienic conditions. The answer is not difficult to seek. They cannot afford to feed them even once a day!
Rising inflation – almost 36 per cent in a little over three years – keeps the hands and mouths of the poorer consumers away from food. More the country has indulged in the politics of food, more go hungry. Malnutrition increases. Officially, Government subsidy increases and so does the pilferage and wastage at Government warehouses of Food Corporation of India (FCI). It hoards more than the norms set at 18 million tonnes.
The Government organisations hoard more food grain than it can store. Semi-rotten food is sold to breweries officially at highly subsidised rates. In 2012, organisational apathy of Punjab Agro Foodgrains Corporation and lack of storage space has resulted in the loss of more than two lakh sacks of wheat, which was offered for sale to breweries.
It is said that after the great famine of 1943, officially there has not been its recurrence. But the food mismanagement has caused immense miseries. Officially, there is never a death due to starvation. It is a different story that innumerable people die of malnutrition across the country. Officially, it means they “had food” but not in the required quantity. It helps Governments, both States and Central, keep their records “clean”.
That is the greatest hypocrisy. It also appears strange why the ruling political parties accept the bureaucratic explanations on malnourishment, while it is actually starvation. Much of the woes of the Indian economy are due to the apathy of political leaders once they get into the seat of power. Protecting the bureaucracy, creating innumerable immunities for them, becomes the religion of the ruling political clan, irrespective of their shades – so-called rightists, leftists, regionalists or centrists.
Poverty has become the biggest vote gainer. In Tamil Nadu or Chhattisgarh or Uttar Pradesh, populist promises of cheap food grain, free TV, sari or laptop buy votes. Why? The vast majority cannot afford either of these. It raises another question. Are we deliberately keeping the people poor so that a few can become rich quick? Or are we so inefficient that we cannot manage our economy?
Possibly this is the only nation that allows food grain hoarding and betting on it so that some large houses could maximize their profits. The bureaucrat helps them for obvious reasons and so do the politicians. It helps the latter gain large funds for their parties. This is the summary of the UN report on India’s rising food prices. The UN has wondered why should there be betting on food at a time when half of the country’s not only the poor even the so-called middle class failed to procure two square meals.
The very price system that generates a massive supply keeps the hands – and the mouths – of the poorer consumers away from food, says noted economist Amartya Sen. India has the unenviable combination of having the worst of under-nourishment in the world and the largest of unused food stocks on the globe.
The nation has also mastered the art of mismanaging supposedly some of the well-intentioned programmes such as the mid-day meal schemes. Rather it has diverted the energy of teachers, who are now made to spend more time in managing the kitchen than classrooms.
The country has officially avoided famine. But kitchens at school feed over 11 crore children, according to Ministry of Human Resource Development, on a permanent basis. It reveals that this nation has at least 11 crore families, in reality many more, who cannot afford even one meal a day. No wonder hunger remains the number one problem as the nation celebrates 67th Independence Day in two weeks. Worse, the country does not have a programme either to bring down the food prices or free its people of hunge. INFA
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