Hunger: India’s National Shame

Yesterday’s online edition of the Times of India carries a headline that said “India tops world hunger chart”. You can read the entire article by clicking on the link below:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India-tops-world-hunger-chart/articleshow/4197047.cms

Unfortunately, this is the India that most of the world used to know till recently. This is the India of “Slumdog Millionaire”, without the songs and happy ending. A corrupt, inefficient country that until recently repeatedly went to the rest of the world for aid, begging bowl in hand. There is another related article which shows how corrupt, incompetent and completely callous the government-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) is. The FCI is responsible for collecting, storing and distributing food-grains to the poorest of the poor. In this endeavour, it has failed miserably. Over one million tonnes of food-grains lying in FCI warehouses have been allowed to rot. One million tonnes! These food-grains would have fed over ten million hungry Indians for a year!! Statistics like these make my blood boil.

India is a crowded, overpopulated country to begin with. Resources are scarce and inefficiently distributed. To top it off, we have corruption, wastefulness and criminal negligence in government run organizations such as the Food Corporation of India. Why is nobody held responsible for allowing such huge amounts of food-grains to go to waste? Who is responsible? Does anyone in the government care?

I have heard some experts say that the facilities in FCI warehouses are poor. Apparently, these warehouses do not have proper refrigeration facilities for food-grains and they are rat infested. Many reports by impartial agencies have highlighted the need for the government to invest in a “cold chain”, since efficient refrigeration and transportation infrastructure is essential for the effective distribution of food to the hungry. So far, nothing has been done by successive governments.

The tragedy here is not that India does not have enough food to feed its people. We do. It is the gross inefficiency and negligence of the public food distribution system, as represented by the Food Corporation of India and allied governmental agencies. This is not an insurmountable problem. It does not require additional money or resources to solve. All it requires is the better use of existing resources.

Why hasn’t the government done anything about upgrading the food supply chain in the country? Why does the government not focus on upgrading these FCI warehouses? Why do you hear about this appalling hunger epidemic so rarely on national TV channels? Is it because this is not supposed to be part of the brave, sexy new India, where actresses and cricketers are paid millions of dollars for endorsements? Why is our media, which is so active in highlighting many other trivial issues so silent on this one? An issue that affects 250 million people. Is it because there is no “lobby” that speaks up for them? Or do they care only about their TRP ratings? After all, “real” news is that which sells, not that which is true. To quote eminent journalist P. Sainath: “I learned that conventional journalism was above all about the service of power. You always give the last word to authority. I got a couple of prizes which I didn't pick up because I was ashamed”. I will tell you more about Sainath later in this blog.

Anybody who has spent significant amounts of time in rural Maharashtra and North India will know the extent of the hunger epidemic. South Indian states especially Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are better administered, and consistently score higher than their North Indian counterparts on nearly every economic parameter. Last year, there was a news article that gave a graphic account of famine in Thane district, barely a hundred kilometres from my home in Mumbai. Such deprivation so close to India’s largest city should have caused a stir. Instead, it barely caused a ripple.

If you are interested to learn more about India’s hunger epidemic and the non-existent government response to it, I highly recommend P. Sainath’s book “Everybody Loves A Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts”. Sainath is an award winning journalist and won the 2007 Magsaysay Award for journalism, literature and creative communication arts. The book is a little dated (it was published in 1996), but it will give you a good idea of the complete paralysis and lack of action of governmental agencies to this crisis. Not much has changed on this front since 1996.

Have we become so unfeeling as a nation? Have we become so much like those government bureaucrats and politicians we despise? I sincerely hope not.

Of course, all of us in our individual capacities can help in small ways. However, this will not solve the problem. At a macro level, you can start by holding your government responsible, at both the state and central levels.

My solution would be to dismantle the Food Corporation of India, and hand over the entire task of storing and distributing food-grains to the private sector. That way, someone would be held accountable for criminal negligence. If you hear of any political party proposing this course of action, vote for them. What are your views?