Hungry
India
Source: By Jaydev Jana: The Statesman
The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into the world” ~ Norman Borlaug
Food security and the right to food are the two major political and social issues in India today. A democratic government cannot afford to ignore the public outcry. The country’s success in preventing a famine in the period since 1947 can be attributed to the inherent force of democracy. But its overall record in fighting hunger and malnutrition seems to be quite terrible. Hunger is endemic and the poor response of the government is also well-documented. And it is a cruel irony that widespread hunger is reported in parallel with abundant foodgrain. Food rights in the absence of storage facilities, and yet the people don’t get their share. India is among the 29 countries with the highest level of endemic hunger, malnourished children and poorly fed women. As Amartya Sen has written in Poverty and Famines: “Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough to eat.”
Endemic hunger works silently. Contrary to the image of protruding bellies, sunken faces, peeling skin and receding hairline, it is not easily visible. While famine appears with climatic swiftness, hunger persists in rural as well as urban households and arouses our consciousness only when there is a troubling media report of starvation death. It has been estimated that the number of hungry people in India today is more than what the country’s entire population was in 1947. Indeed, ours is a hungry country despite a booming economy and the expenditure amounting to crores on subsidising foodgrain and other social welfare programmes.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) presents an incisive survey. It is a multi-dimensional statistical tool, adopted and developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), comprising three equally important indices ~ the proportion of people undernourished, child mortality, and the proportion of underweight children. In the 2012 list of 79 countries, India was ranked 65th ~ behind China which ranked second, Pakistan 57th and Sri Lanka 37th. This apart, the India State Hunger Index (ISHI) 2008 revealed that the extent of hunger varies from state to state. As per ISHI, not a single state is either low or moderate in terms of its index score and 12 of the 17 states surveyed fall in the ‘alarming’ category. Madhya Pradesh has been placed in the ‘extremely alarming’ category.
In 2007, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) came out with another revealing report on food scarcity in households in as many as 17 states. The households were classified into three categories: (1) those with adequate food throughout the year; (2) those that make do with inadequate food during certain months of the year; and (3) those with inadequate food throughout the year. West Bengal had the highest percentage of households (10.6 per cent) that did not get enough food to eat during some months of the year. The second in the scale was Odisha. Surprisingly, Bihar (2 per cent) and Jharkhand (0.6 per cent) fared better than West Bengal. Among the category of households that were hungry throughout the year, Assam topped the list with 3.6 per cent. Odisha and West Bengal jointly occupied the second position, each having 1.3 per cent starving rural households at any time of the year. Seasonal starvation in rural Bengal peaked during February and March and the worst sufferers were agricultural labourers (23.3 per cent) and non-agricultural workers (8.9 per cent).
India’s performance in eradicating undernutrition seems to be abysmal, with the levels of child undernutrition exceptionally high. Had the malnourished in India formed a country, it would have been the world’s fifth largest ~ almost the size of Indonesia. According to the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 (FAO, IFAD and WFP), India has the largest number of undernourished people in the world ~ 217 million (17.5% of its population) as of 2012. In January 2011, the Prime Minister released the much publicised Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) survey report with the lament: “The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame.”
There is enough evidence to indicate that more people die of malnutrition than from famines. Hunger affects the normal functioning and development of the body and results in ailments that drastically reduce the body’s ability to resist infections. Malnutrition can even affect the child’s concentration in school. It impairs an adult’s performance in the workplace. Hunger thus traps individuals and households in a vicious cycle of health problems and a diminishing capacity to learn and work. It can turn out to be a killer in due course of time. The consequences of malnutrition transcend generations; stunted mothers are likely to have underweight children. These damaging effects extend to communities and economics affecting the development potential of nations. An FAO study of developing countries over 30 years found that if countries with high rates of undernourishment had increased food intake to an adequate level, their economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), would have risen by 45 per cent. The loss in labour productivity due to hunger can reduce the per capita GDP by 6 to 10 per cent, according to a UN task force on hunger.
To make India hunger-free, the UPA-II government has promulgated an Ordinance to implement the National Food Security Bill (NFSB). The government claims that the Bill marks a shift from a welfare-based to a right-based approach. Yet the narrow definition of food security assumes that the individual is a passive recipient of a dole... and not a claimant of entitlement. The Bill suffers from the one-size-fits-all approach. Its predetermined entitlements seem to be based on the assumption that the same level of hunger is prevailing across the country. This is contrary to reality. The selection of the target groups is central to the implementation of the ‘quasi-universal’ bill, but the stakeholders are clueless as to how to identify beneficiaries under the NFSB so that they could fit into the eligibility criteria for 67 per cent of the population and all hungry individuals could be covered. Moreover, the existing Public Distribution System (PDS) has been selected as the delivery mechanism. This is the most serious flaw. Institutional corruption is so deeply entrenched that mere revamp and reform can hardly make the system free from corruption.
The key issue is to make foodgrain available to the needy. The delivery mechanism should be left to the respective states. The presently centralised PDS needs to be de-centralised. Such a system rests on the principle of localised procurement, storage and distribution, and the involvement of local communities. It would make truly participatory. If the Bill is to be effective, the target groups will have to be identified and data collected on hunger and malnutrition.
There is a proverb that “a hungry man is an angry man”. It would be useful to recall Mahatma Gandhi’s statement ~ “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” The National Food Security Bill provides a chance to launch a frontal attack on endemic hunger and to realise the Mahatma’s wish that the “God of bread” should be present in every household. We cannot miss the opportunity.
The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into the world” ~ Norman Borlaug
Food security and the right to food are the two major political and social issues in India today. A democratic government cannot afford to ignore the public outcry. The country’s success in preventing a famine in the period since 1947 can be attributed to the inherent force of democracy. But its overall record in fighting hunger and malnutrition seems to be quite terrible. Hunger is endemic and the poor response of the government is also well-documented. And it is a cruel irony that widespread hunger is reported in parallel with abundant foodgrain. Food rights in the absence of storage facilities, and yet the people don’t get their share. India is among the 29 countries with the highest level of endemic hunger, malnourished children and poorly fed women. As Amartya Sen has written in Poverty and Famines: “Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough to eat.”
Endemic hunger works silently. Contrary to the image of protruding bellies, sunken faces, peeling skin and receding hairline, it is not easily visible. While famine appears with climatic swiftness, hunger persists in rural as well as urban households and arouses our consciousness only when there is a troubling media report of starvation death. It has been estimated that the number of hungry people in India today is more than what the country’s entire population was in 1947. Indeed, ours is a hungry country despite a booming economy and the expenditure amounting to crores on subsidising foodgrain and other social welfare programmes.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) presents an incisive survey. It is a multi-dimensional statistical tool, adopted and developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), comprising three equally important indices ~ the proportion of people undernourished, child mortality, and the proportion of underweight children. In the 2012 list of 79 countries, India was ranked 65th ~ behind China which ranked second, Pakistan 57th and Sri Lanka 37th. This apart, the India State Hunger Index (ISHI) 2008 revealed that the extent of hunger varies from state to state. As per ISHI, not a single state is either low or moderate in terms of its index score and 12 of the 17 states surveyed fall in the ‘alarming’ category. Madhya Pradesh has been placed in the ‘extremely alarming’ category.
In 2007, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) came out with another revealing report on food scarcity in households in as many as 17 states. The households were classified into three categories: (1) those with adequate food throughout the year; (2) those that make do with inadequate food during certain months of the year; and (3) those with inadequate food throughout the year. West Bengal had the highest percentage of households (10.6 per cent) that did not get enough food to eat during some months of the year. The second in the scale was Odisha. Surprisingly, Bihar (2 per cent) and Jharkhand (0.6 per cent) fared better than West Bengal. Among the category of households that were hungry throughout the year, Assam topped the list with 3.6 per cent. Odisha and West Bengal jointly occupied the second position, each having 1.3 per cent starving rural households at any time of the year. Seasonal starvation in rural Bengal peaked during February and March and the worst sufferers were agricultural labourers (23.3 per cent) and non-agricultural workers (8.9 per cent).
India’s performance in eradicating undernutrition seems to be abysmal, with the levels of child undernutrition exceptionally high. Had the malnourished in India formed a country, it would have been the world’s fifth largest ~ almost the size of Indonesia. According to the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 (FAO, IFAD and WFP), India has the largest number of undernourished people in the world ~ 217 million (17.5% of its population) as of 2012. In January 2011, the Prime Minister released the much publicised Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) survey report with the lament: “The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame.”
There is enough evidence to indicate that more people die of malnutrition than from famines. Hunger affects the normal functioning and development of the body and results in ailments that drastically reduce the body’s ability to resist infections. Malnutrition can even affect the child’s concentration in school. It impairs an adult’s performance in the workplace. Hunger thus traps individuals and households in a vicious cycle of health problems and a diminishing capacity to learn and work. It can turn out to be a killer in due course of time. The consequences of malnutrition transcend generations; stunted mothers are likely to have underweight children. These damaging effects extend to communities and economics affecting the development potential of nations. An FAO study of developing countries over 30 years found that if countries with high rates of undernourishment had increased food intake to an adequate level, their economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), would have risen by 45 per cent. The loss in labour productivity due to hunger can reduce the per capita GDP by 6 to 10 per cent, according to a UN task force on hunger.
To make India hunger-free, the UPA-II government has promulgated an Ordinance to implement the National Food Security Bill (NFSB). The government claims that the Bill marks a shift from a welfare-based to a right-based approach. Yet the narrow definition of food security assumes that the individual is a passive recipient of a dole... and not a claimant of entitlement. The Bill suffers from the one-size-fits-all approach. Its predetermined entitlements seem to be based on the assumption that the same level of hunger is prevailing across the country. This is contrary to reality. The selection of the target groups is central to the implementation of the ‘quasi-universal’ bill, but the stakeholders are clueless as to how to identify beneficiaries under the NFSB so that they could fit into the eligibility criteria for 67 per cent of the population and all hungry individuals could be covered. Moreover, the existing Public Distribution System (PDS) has been selected as the delivery mechanism. This is the most serious flaw. Institutional corruption is so deeply entrenched that mere revamp and reform can hardly make the system free from corruption.
The key issue is to make foodgrain available to the needy. The delivery mechanism should be left to the respective states. The presently centralised PDS needs to be de-centralised. Such a system rests on the principle of localised procurement, storage and distribution, and the involvement of local communities. It would make truly participatory. If the Bill is to be effective, the target groups will have to be identified and data collected on hunger and malnutrition.
There is a proverb that “a hungry man is an angry man”. It would be useful to recall Mahatma Gandhi’s statement ~ “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” The National Food Security Bill provides a chance to launch a frontal attack on endemic hunger and to realise the Mahatma’s wish that the “God of bread” should be present in every household. We cannot miss the opportunity.
