Global Hunger Index: Why India lacks the foresight to avert food shortage crisis
Since the release of the Global Hunger Index data, which ranked India at a dismal 100th rank among 119 countries, there has been much discussion on the social media about how it is to be interpreted. While the causes for this national embarrassment are debated, one thing that is clear is that we do have an acute problem of hunger.
Despite being one of the largest producers of food in the world, millions of Indians still sleep on an empty stomach. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report in 2015, India accounts for a quarter of the world’s undernourished population. Further, about 51 per cent of the women between the ages of 15 and 59 are anaemic and 44 per cent of children under the age of five are underweight.
The magnitude of the problem is missed by most Indian youth as they appear to be blissfully unaware of the stark socio-economic realities. On social media, (where privileged sections of society, with urbane tastes and corporate jobs are found) the trends are about matters that are trivial. There is often discussion on when, how and who will make India a "superpower".
We have perhaps imbibed these delusions of grandeur from our leaders who with scant regard for fiscal discipline talk of building statues or other such wasteful expenditure. Surprisingly, when the MGNREGS or the Food Security Act are talked about, the same people deride it as socialist tendencies which put the country’s finances in jeopardy by encouraging subsidies.
What’s worse is that many of our leaders apparently lack the wisdom and foresight to avert crises such as food shortages. Countries such as Japan have banned rice imports, to ensure that they are not dependent on the outside world for their staple diet. Our leadership on the other hand is myopic to sacrifice farmland in the name of development.
For instance, the CM of Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu has literally bulldozed his way into beginning the construction of the new capital Amaravati despite concerns from various sections of society regarding loss of prime farmland. People from privileged backgrounds can seldom comprehend the plight of those displaced in the name of development.
Moreover, the loss of prime farmland, in an agrarian state like Andhra Pradesh has inconspicuous but very profound repercussions. As land is finite, we will become more dependent on imports to feed our population. This dependency will make us vulnerable, especially when there are global food shortages like the Global Food Crisis of 2008, when many countries including India banned the export of rice to ensure food security.
There is a misconception that development cannot occur when there are food subsidies as it will make people lazy. On the contrary, a healthy population is an asset for any nation. In 1992, the International Conference on Nutrition, which was held in Rome, stated that nutritional well-being was a precondition for the development of societies and elaborated on the correlation between nutrition and economic development.
It is common sense that a healthy workforce is cardinal for the economic progress of any nation. Yet, many leaders fail to see the importance and gravity of the situation. In a 2012 interview to The Wall Street Journal, the then Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi when quizzed about the high occurrence of malnutrition among girls of his state, had attributed it to girls being fashion conscious.
Instead of blindly attacking or defending leaders, (irrespective of political preferences), if the youth of India discussed with objectivity the problems we have to overcome to become a modern progressive nation, the polity might become more responsive to our plight as a society. Blind opposition, (or support) to welfare schemes in the delusion that India doesn’t have poor people will only make us more oblivious to ground realities. The critics of schemes like MGNREGS overlook the fact that it was instrumental in reducing poverty by up to 32 per cent and preventing close to 14 million people from slipping into poverty.
The least we can do as responsible citizens, is to mull over and discuss these problems in our interactions in the social media. If we can all do it at some point, it would probably have a multiplier effect and the political classes might take note of it to make a course correction. They will perhaps realise that talking about building statues in a bid to pander to our fragile egos and primordial loyalties will not fetch them many votes.
We need to nourish our public discourse and intellect if we are to have any chances of being a modern nation, let alone a superpower.