Dossier about Hunger in India

Hunger in India

Introduction

Located in the South of Asia, India is the second largest nation in terms of population, after China. With a population of 1.3 billion people, India is the home to approximately 1/7 of the world’s total population. India’s population grew by 17.64%, between 2001 and 2011. This is due to the medical advances made in the past 50 years and the “Green Revolution” which increased the agricultural production. This phenomenon boosted India’s economy, but despite this huge industrial and economic growth and food being produced in large quantities, India is unable to provide access to food to a large number of people, most of which are women and children. People are hungry in India, as in the world, not because of a lack of food but because of a lack of money. People don’t have enough money to buy their food, thus making India the home to 1/4 of the world’s undernourished people. According to the Global Hunger Index, which is based on the prevalence of wasting and stunting in children under five years old, under five child mortality rate and the proportion of undernourished people in the country, India was ranked 100 out of 119 countries in 2016. Being on a scale of 1 being the best and 119 the worst, India is considered a serious case of hunger. Even if its score decreased through the years going from 38.2 in 2000 to 31.4 in 2017, the score is still dangerously high. 190.7 million people are undernourished in India, out of which 38.4% of children under the age of 5 are stunted (too short for their age) and 21% suffer from wasting (weight too low for height). Ending hunger is essential for India’s development, but its development is also a factor to end hunger in India. It’s a vicious circle which can’t be eliminated without taking different measures.

wasted child

stunted children

Causes

The biggest issue in India isn’t producing less food than needed, but not having enough money to pay for these food. As India raises its standard of living, it brings a socio-economic progress leading to a tripled per capita income, yet the minimum dietary intake fell. This shows that the economic growth only increased the gap between rich and poor people. 21% of its population live on less than US$1.90 a day. This means that 273 million indians don’t have enough money to pay for food for their whole families. In India, most fruits and vegetables cost between 0.34$ for 1kg of potatoes, and 0.96$ for 1kg of oranges. Rice, which is India’s major agricultural income, costs 0.75$ per kg which is slightly more than a water bottle of 1.5 liter which cost 0.43$. It means that for 273 million people, buying only rice and water costs them a tremendous amount of money compared to the amount of money they earn. Even though India has attained self-sufficiency in grain production in the recent years, people don’t earn enough money to buy the crops and levels of inequality and social exclusion are very high. Adding to the economic issue, India’s debt equals 49.24% of its GDP, which represents 1112 billion dollars. This huge debt doesn’t help in reducing hunger as money, instead of being used to build infrastructure to provide food for everyone, is used to repay the debt.

Also, eliminating hunger can only be achieved when everyone has equal opportunities, equal access to resources and equal voice. In India, due to gender-discriminatory norms in access to food which prevent women to have the same access to resources as men, most of the hungry population are women and children. 51.4% of women in reproductive age (between 15 and 49 years old) are anemic. The deficiency of red cells or of haemoglobin in the blood lead to problems during pregnancy and damaged newborns. One goal of the World Food Programme is to provide food assistance equally to women, men and children while respecting their particular needs.

Although the child stunting rate decreased over the past 25 years, wasting hasn’t substantially improved. Purnima Menon, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), said “the improvement of the child stunting rate shows that children are born in a better condition than before. The high wasting rate, however, shows neglect in the first two years in terms of infant feeding, sanitation, and overall environment.” Wasting is a strong predictor of under five child mortality. It is often linked to food shortages, diseases or poor sanitation. Most children have enough to eat as India is self-sufficient in grain, but eating only grains and more particularly rice isn’t a good diet as it doesn’t bring all the nutrients needed. It leads to malnutrition, and stops or corrupts physical and psychological development.

Hunger is also an effect of bad sanitation conditions. Sanitation has a big impact on children’s health. Malnutrition can’t be fought without getting rid of water-related diseases. A World Resources Report said that about 70% of India’s natural water supply is seriously polluted with sewage effluents. This made India rank 120 among 122 countries in terms of quality of water available for its citizens. Most of the water available for indian people is contaminated and brings them diseases. Everyday, indian people and mostly children die from diseases like diarrhea, dysentery and cholera caused by dirty water, unsanitary conditions or bad food. For example, 1.5 million children die of diarrhea annually. Lasting up to two weeks, this illness can leave the person dehydrated, so in need to drink water with a high risk of pollution, which would lead to another disease and eventually death. Sanitation is essential in the process of eliminating hunger, but building irrigations and infrastructure is expensive.

Also, Indian people should have a better education in order to tackle hunger more effectively. In 2011, the literacy rate was 65% for females and 82% males. The inequality between men and women is clear through this number which shows that not much more than half of all indian women were illiterate. This gender inequality

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