In a just-released report of Global Hunger Index (GHI) -2020 by the UN, India’s position is disappointingly poor. India ranks at 94 out of 107 nations of the world, placed in the category of “serious”.
The more disappointing story is that India ranks below the ranks of many South Asian countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar, Srilanka and even Pakistan.In all four indicators of measuring the intensity of hunger such as child mortality, malnourishment, child wasting (low weight than height) and child stunting (no access to acceptable diet), India has failed miserably, as the world report says. In fact, all our rhetoric about our 'vikash' mock at us; the much hyped poverty eradication policies and programmes do not really seem to address the problems of the marginalized poor.
It is true there are several poverty alleviation programmes in India meant to address the poverty alleviation and to make the hunger index zero.
The elected Governments since independence look sincere to give focus on hunger eradication. There is Mid Day Meals scheme for the school children, the biggest hunger eradication scheme in the world. There is Anganwadi system to provide nutritious food and ration to pregnant and lactating mothers and there is, as well ,the scheme of providing subsidised grains of 5 kg per person below the poverty line per month as prescribed in the Food Security Act -2013.
But despite all these Government schemes, hunger still parades and all these poverty eradication programmes do not appear doing much for the purpose.Hunger is not a single phenomenon caused by the lack of food alone. It is caused by some other factors like malnutrition, extreme poverty, unsafe housing, unsafe drinking water, orphaned and abandoned children and lack of medical care.
There are many disgusting images coming out in media , both in the print and the TVs about hunger and malnutrition in rural India. Odisha’s scenario is no exception .There was a horrifying Nagada story in Odisha four years ego which created a hue and cry in the State and in the national level . Between March and July 2016 more than 20 children died due to malnutrition in Nagada ,a small tribal village of Jajpur district.
When Saraswati, a one year old Juang girl succumbed to severe malnourishment, the images of malnutritious children of Odisha with lean and thin figure having inflated bellies shook the conscience of the Indian elites. They began to compare Nagada with the sub Sahara regions.
Of all images we have seen in the recent months in India, migrant labour exodus is a havoc the Covid -19 has caused so far. A few of them are heart breaking. Thousands of Indians carrying their meager possessions were walking on the highways after India went into full lockdown in March,2020.
This reverse migration of labourers from cities to the villages now seems to reveal the lack of concerns for the India’s most vulnerable.Hunger and malnutrition are not rural event alone although we conveniently conclude that low rural wages do not help the people to buy expensive food and the rural pregnant women are under-nourished which leads to childrens’ death at both time and which leads to the birth of small and sicker babies.
But malnutrition is an urban event too when the urban educated women due to lack of awareness grow their children malnutritious by feeding them junk food.
Therefore, in order to achieve its zero hunger target by 2030 as set by the UNO, India needs to stop drafting new poverty eradication schemes but instead implement the existing schemes effectively.
There is a need of more social spending on education and health as well because hunger eradication is not only an economic issue , it is a social issue too - poverty forces dropouts in the schools. A hungry never hesitates to commit crime and sin Mahatma Gandhi’s Talisman’s story is more appropriate and relevant now –“when you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test- recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him; Will he gain anything by it ? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and the spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.’
Let our rulers follow this talisman story when they think of any policy to end poverty and hunger.
(The writer is a Gandhian author, columnist, lawyer, who lives in Puri. Ph: 9861469328)