India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry people. Since the green revolution, the country has produced enough to feed itself, but it has not yet been able to wipe out mass hunger, which haunts the landscape of the countryside and lurks in the narrow alleys of urban slums.
Currently, 40 per cent of the population is malnourished – a decrease of only 10 per cent over the past three decades. Poor families, who spend more than 60 per cent of their incomes on food, are increasingly struggling to stretch their meagre household budgets. Unfortunately, small farmers have not benefited from high retail prices either, as they usually receive far less for their produce. In fact in the past 15 years, in an unprecedented wave, a quarter of a million farmers crippled by debt have chosen to commit suicide.
Clearly, the country is in the midst of both an agrarian crisis and a nutrition crisis, the causes being -
In the midst of this overwhelming national hunger crisis, many progressive strands of change have emerged, from both Indian civil and political society. In the past decade, India has made some headway in the battle against inter-generational hunger. But the opportunity to redistribute the gains of sustained economic growth has been lost. The main culprit is entrenched inequality in the modes of production and distribution of food.
India’s democracy has proved to be both its strength and its weakness. While the progressive Right to Food campaign has had sporadic successes, a decade after its formation the tragedy of excess food grains rotting in granaries has been repeated.
At this current sluggish pace of change, India will halve hunger only by 2083 – nearly 70 years after the MDG deadline. To accelerate momentum, effective implementation of the National Food Security Bill will be key. However, a real game changer would need a renewed emphasis on land reform and a sustainable revival of agrarian productivity.
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