Gnawing hunger cannot be ignored

There is nothing more depressing than going to bed on an empty stomach and more so in an age where the digital revolution has created wonders in every sector including agriculture and food production. And yet, sadly, the ranks of the hungry are growing with each passing day and more so in South Asia and India, says a report released by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and other UN agencies.

The report could not have put it more bluntly, having said that nearly half-a-billion people, more than eight in 10 of them in South Asia, were undernourished in 2021 and more than one billion faced moderate to severe food insecurity. And if anyone hoped that access to food is getting easier as we progress, the real picture says otherwise – the prevalence of food insecurity rose to more than 29 percent in 2021 from 21 percent in 2014.

There are more depressing facts in the report – like the one that says one-third of women in Asia aged 15-49 are affected by anaemia, which causes fatigue and even lung and heart damage. The pandemic, job losses and the war in Ukraine have been cited as some of the reasons for the rather bleak scenario on the food front but then the basic reason is clearly written on the wall – people just do not have the resources to keep the pot boiling and get enough to eat.

Rising prices of food grains is one prime factor why those on the brink of poverty prefer to tighten their belts, cutting down on their essentials rather than risk a life on the street with their young ones. Inequality is rising as was lucidly pointed out in a recent report that said India’s top 1% owned more than 40 percent of the total wealth of the country in 2021.

Growing corporatisation, privatisation of public entities, an economy where big business is consolidating its grip fast and policies that favour profit-making with social concerns hardly given a thought, are some of the reasons why unemployment and the resultant poverty are reaching gargantuan proportions. And what’s more distressing as we head into the second month of 2023 is that more and more young people are getting thrown out of their jobs as a recession looms.

An increase in poverty and undernourishment inevitably go hand in hand, says the report that also cites a shocking fact that nearly a quarter of children in the Asia-Pacific are affected by stunting, or small height for their ages. About a century ago, the Mahatma wrote that “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread”.

With the advancement of technology, the Green Revolution and a quantum jump in food production besides improved warehousing and distribution modes, one would have expected hunger if not poverty to become a bad dream of the past but shockingly, there are still millions of people in South Asia including India who long for the day when they and their family do not have to worry about when the next meal will be available.

Freedom, democracy and hi-tech advances are hardly of any meaning if we do not have a humane society and leaders who do not have the welfare of the poorest of the poor at the top of their minds. For democracy after all is governance for the people and if the people are still craving for means of subsistence, there is obviously something terribly wrong with our economic planning and policies, which could do with a course correction to bring the smiles back on the faces of the most deprived.