When you think of it, this fight over India's GDP numbers - whether it is 5% or 3.5% is not really relevant to the common man. What the common man aspires for is three square meals, a roof over his head, education for his children, an opportunity to stay healthy, and should the need arise, easy access to affordable healthcare for day-to-day health issues at a minimum, and an opportunity to work so that all of these can be provided to his or her family. These are not tall aspirations. Many of our parents ventured out of their villages into the big cities out of compulsion, because the family back in the village was finding it increasingly difficult to make two ends meet with the meagre opportunities that village and agriculture life provided. Our fathers sought greener pastures in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, or Kolkata, skilled themselves for clerical jobs, found themselves a job for life, raised a family, and just about managed to provide all those things to the family I mentioned above; we were a generation of Indians who made through our youth with just about enough of everything to get by, without really experiencing the pain of hunger, poverty, or rooflessness.
It is the job of government, whichever party it may be of, to strive to house, clothe, and shelter all Indians, and provide healthcare, education, and jobs for all. GDP is just a proxy to measure that success. So when Indians quarrel over GDP numbers, they are actually quarrelling over the success of programs that are lifting people out of poverty. GDP unfortunately measures overall wealth creation, and not the distribution of it over a wider cross-section of people. It matters less if our overall wealth went up by say 100 crores but all of that ended up in the hands of five people.
It is in this regard that the World Hunger Index is relevant today, and will always be. For the current year (year 2020), our number has dropped to 102 (out of 117 countries) from 93 in 2015 and 63 in 2013. To make all loyal fans of the present government happy, let us ignore 2013 data for now. But dropping 9 points over 4 years is not good news. It essentially means that more people in India are hungry now than they were in 2015, even as the economy has ostensibly grown, which is a greater cause for worry.
To put this data into perspective, here is something more to chew - 195 million Indians are hungry (~15%), alarming by any stretch. 38% of children are stunted, and 28% are unweight/ malnourished. This means more kids in India will die before the age of six, more will stay sick for a very long time, and more children will consequently not have the brain power to learn and be productive. Isn't this frightening? Now, supporters of this government will say that this is not of our making, that Rome was not built in a day, etc. Agreed. But a slide towards the bad is also not because of policies of the past. Hunger is ‘present’ data, it is actionable now, and results are immediate.
Over the past two decades, India’s food production has doubled, GDP has grown by 4.5 times, and per capita consumption has grown three times. But our performance in alleviating hunger and poverty has been less than stellar. If the government stops spending time defending its GDP numbers, or in less useful and more divisive social activism, and instead focuses on feeding the hungry with the food it simply wastes, expands its healthcare system, and redoubles its efforts to house the poor, we would be a far better country than what even the BJP would have aspired for. We’ve waited 350 years for our Ram temple, what’s another 10 years wait after all.
It is the job of government, whichever party it may be of, to strive to house, clothe, and shelter all Indians, and provide healthcare, education, and jobs for all. GDP is just a proxy to measure that success. So when Indians quarrel over GDP numbers, they are actually quarrelling over the success of programs that are lifting people out of poverty. GDP unfortunately measures overall wealth creation, and not the distribution of it over a wider cross-section of people. It matters less if our overall wealth went up by say 100 crores but all of that ended up in the hands of five people.
It is in this regard that the World Hunger Index is relevant today, and will always be. For the current year (year 2020), our number has dropped to 102 (out of 117 countries) from 93 in 2015 and 63 in 2013. To make all loyal fans of the present government happy, let us ignore 2013 data for now. But dropping 9 points over 4 years is not good news. It essentially means that more people in India are hungry now than they were in 2015, even as the economy has ostensibly grown, which is a greater cause for worry.
To put this data into perspective, here is something more to chew - 195 million Indians are hungry (~15%), alarming by any stretch. 38% of children are stunted, and 28% are unweight/ malnourished. This means more kids in India will die before the age of six, more will stay sick for a very long time, and more children will consequently not have the brain power to learn and be productive. Isn't this frightening? Now, supporters of this government will say that this is not of our making, that Rome was not built in a day, etc. Agreed. But a slide towards the bad is also not because of policies of the past. Hunger is ‘present’ data, it is actionable now, and results are immediate.
Over the past two decades, India’s food production has doubled, GDP has grown by 4.5 times, and per capita consumption has grown three times. But our performance in alleviating hunger and poverty has been less than stellar. If the government stops spending time defending its GDP numbers, or in less useful and more divisive social activism, and instead focuses on feeding the hungry with the food it simply wastes, expands its healthcare system, and redoubles its efforts to house the poor, we would be a far better country than what even the BJP would have aspired for. We’ve waited 350 years for our Ram temple, what’s another 10 years wait after all.
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