Hunger stalks rising India

Infochange Analysis,Sept 28,2007
By Devinder Sharma

Over 500 hunger deaths are reported to have occurred in Kalahandi and other parts of western Orissa in the last few months. Indeed, all the 836 million who live on less than Rs 20 per day are probably unable to get two square meals a day. And yet the government is planning to double the price of foodgrain for the midday meals programme.

At a time when the newspapers are full of reports of billions of dollars of foreign investments flowing into the country and daily projections of an unprecedented growth rate that will eclipse poverty, the cries of 12-year-old Jabila in Orissa's Kalahandi district have gone largely unheard.

In the first week of September, within a matter of five days, Jabila's younger brother died due to a hunger-related ailment. The very next day, her father succumbed to hunger; unable to buy grain, he had been living on green leaves just before he died. No sooner had the pyre cooled when Sonai, Jabila's mother, died of starvation. Jabila now sits in front of her hut, empty-eyed, perhaps awaiting her turn...

This is not an isolated case. Writing in the web magazine Ravivar.com , journalist Neeraj says that as many as 20 people in Telnagi village in Rampur , Kalahandi, have died from hunger or hunger-related ailments. Talk to any villager and he will start counting the names on his fingers.

According to Parshuram Ray of the New Delhi-based Centre for Environment and Food Security, over 500 hunger deaths have occurred in the Raigada, Kashipur, Kalahandi and Koraput regions of western Orissa, over the past few months.

Around 10 years ago, while researching my book In the Famine Trap , I was travelling in the infamous Kalahandi area; a few hunger-related deaths had been reported from the Bolangir district. I drove to the village to meet the families of those who had succumbed to hunger. As I approached the dusty village, what appalled me was the sight of two huge satellite towers installed right in the heart of the village. Believe it or not, every house in the village had a satellite telephone! The villagers didn't have enough food to eat, but they had been provided telephones!

Orissa is not the only state that downplays growing hunger and malnutrition and, at the same time, adopts lopsided polices in the name of development. It's the same situation in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra , Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Hunger stalks the entire northern belt of the country (and, for that matter, parts of the rest of the country too). The only difference is that respective state governments continue to either ignore or deny this as they do deaths from diseases like cholera and malaria.

An estimated 320 million people suffer food insecurity in India . This could well be an understatement. If the projections of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector are correct, 836 million people survive on less than Rs 20 (less than half-a-dollar) a day. Rs 20 is not enough to buy you two square meals a day. The number of hungry therefore stands at 836 million -- almost equal to the 852 million hungry that the UN Millennium Development Goals (and the FAO) wrongly computes as the number of people living in hunger throughout the world.

Shocking reports of hunger deaths pour in at a time when the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution estimates that 53.3% of wheat and 39% of rice worth Rs 31,500 crore, meant for distribution to the poorest of the poor, have been siphoned off in the past three years. For the last three decades, despite numerous studies and reports, pilferage from the Public Distribution System (PDS) remains colossal. This is not a crime, it's treason.

Although the per capita availability of food has climbed down to a level that existed at the time of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, the nation seems unperturbed. The need to make the PDS effective has remained outside the gamut of political expediency.

Knowing that food meant for the poor is not reaching them, and undeterred by persistent reports of hunger and malnutrition, the department of food and public distribution, under the same ministry, is now planning to double the price of foodgrain meant for the midday meal programme for schoolchildren. In simple words, the department is making it difficult for the states to provide midday meals for 12 crore (120 million) children. A resource crunch will ensure that, in the future, the Ministry of Human Resources is unable to shell out Rs 12,000 per metric tonne, as against the present Rs 5,650.

In a country where 5,000 children die every day from malnutrition and related ailments, the importance of expanding the midday meal programme needs no emphasis. But by putting it beyond the reach of the official machinery, the Ministry of Human Resources may now find it difficult to run the existing programme let alone expand it to reach an additional 3 crore (30 million) children.

The paradox of plenty -- acute and widespread hunger amidst abundant foodstocks -- exists at a time when the country is poised on a high-growth trajectory. Policymakers, planners and economists have been telling us that even if poverty increases in the short term, it is a price that has to be paid for long-term stability and growth. In other words, Jabila needs to accept that her parents paid for the growth the country is witnessing!

It is primarily for this reason that we feel good about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme that provides 100 days of employment to the poor and vulnerable. We know that 100 days' wages cannot keep a poor person alive and well for the entire year. Yet, none of those who form part of the growing tribe of intellectuals are willing to raise their voice against this glaring human inequality. If we in urban centres cannot survive for a year on 100 days' wages, how do we expect the poor to survive?

Even with the largest number of hungry in the world, hunger and starvation no longer evoke compassion in India . News of hunger and starvation rarely makes it to the front pages of the newspapers. In reality, hunger is a non-issue; it's something we close our eyes to. How does it matter to us if the PDS doesn't work, or the midday meal programme is eventually scrapped because of lack of adequate funds?

What we don't realise is that an empty stomach cannot wait. With the passage of time it will lead to social upheavals whose repercussions could be damaging to society at large.