By Dr. Gyan Pathak
The way PM Narendra Modi’s growth narrative is being boastfully brought forward is nothing but mere politics, since it tries to put the stark reality of incidents of hunger and malnutrition in the country under carpet. As per the growth narrative India is the fourth biggest economy of the world, growing at the fastest rate, and aiming at making the country a developed nation by 2047 under PM Modi’s leadership, but the new report released by UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has revealed that India still houses most of the hungry and malnourished people of the world, and hundreds of millions are either moderately or severely food insecure.
And there is no hope for the people of the country until the next five years until 2028, when over 800 million people of the would require free foodgrains as per the Government of India’s own assessment, on the basis of which they will be provided free foodgrains Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Ann Yojna (PMGKAY). World Bank atlas says that over 970 million people of India just can’t afford healthy food, leading to severe level of undernourishment among people especially among children and women. Now the FAO’s new report “Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023” reveals that Southern Asia witnessed the highest prevalence of undernourished at 15.6 per cent (313.6 million) with over 809 million either moderately or severely food insecure. India’s situation is worse in the region due to its largest population. The report has noted the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on hunger and malnutrition which were just compounded by the rising cost of a healthy diet.
As for the entire Asia and Pacific region the latest statistics indicate that with 370.7 million undernourished people, it continues to represent half of the global total. Similarly, the Asia and the Pacific region accounts for half of the world’s severe food insecurity, with more women than men being food insecure. Prevalence rates on stunting, wasting and overweight among children under 5 years of age, as well as anaemia among women of reproductive age, are still off the marks in terms of World Health Assembly global nutrition targets. These problems are compounded by the rising cost of a healthy diet, which rose on average to 5.3 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day in 2021 – higher than the world’s average of 4.3 PPP dollars per person per day. It is estimated that in 2021, 232.8 million people in the region could not afford the cost of a healthy diet.
The prevalence of undernourishment in the Asia and the Pacific region decreased to 8.4 percent in 2022 from 8.8 percent of the previous year, equivalent to around 12 million fewer undernourished people than in 2021, but 55 million more than in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Southern Asia accounts for almost 314 million of the region’s undernourished people. This represents 85 percent of undernourished people in the Asia and the Pacific region. It is important to note that there are more severely food insecure individuals in Southern Asia than any other subregions. Women across the subregions, except Eastern Asia, tend to be more food insecure than men.
In numbers, undernourished people in the world were 781.7 million in 2020, out of which 500.3 million were in Asia and the Pacific Region. Out of it Southern Asia housed 240 million. Situation has since worsened. As against Southern Asia’s average of 15.9 per cent, India has a higher level of undernourished people at 16.6 per cent. Bangladesh (11.2 per cent), Nepal (5.4 per cent), and Sri Lanka (5.3 per cent) are far better than India, while Afghanistan (30.1 per cent) and Pakistan (18.5 per cent) are worse.
Since the impacts of undernourishment extend beyond health and nutritional well-being to include economic and social costs, Modi government obviously needs to take concrete action in favour of the poor people to enable them to earn enough to have food, rather than keeping them undernourished by just symbolic political gesture of providing some foodgrains, as against its policy of creating wealth for a handful of the rich.
Prevalence of food insecurity has been on the rise since 2015 across the world which rose to 11.7 per cent in 2021 from 7.6 per cent. In Asia Pacific region it rose from 6.5 per cent to 10.4 per cent, but in Southern Asia, the rise was worst from 13.2 per cent to 21 per cent, with largest number of food insecure people from India.
There were 23.5 percent moderately or severely food-insecure people in the region in 2022. Severe food insecurity figures were 9.7 percent for the region compared with 11.3 percent for the world. Southern Asia had the highest prevalence of severely food-insecure people (19.4 percent). When moderately or severely food-insecure people are grouped together, Southern Asia still had the highest prevalence rate (40.3 percent) in 2022, exceeding the prevalence for the region. These figures for Southern Asia are also higher than the world average for the same categories, i.e. either severe or moderate and severe food insecurity. Severely food insecure individuals in Southern Asia were 389.2 million, representing almost 92 percent of Asia-Pacific’s severely food-insecure people in 2022.
Stunting among children under 5 in 2022 in Southern Asia was 30.5 per cent. In India it was worse at 31.7 per cent. Neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh (26.4 per cent), Bhutan (22.7 per cent), Maldives (13.9 per cent), Nepal (26.7 per cent), and Sri Lanka 15.9 per cent were better.
Women in India are suffering the worst with highest level of prevalence of anemia at 53 per cent as against average of 48.2 per cent in Southern Asia. All countries are able to provide better food to their women that helped them reduce the level of anemia. It is just a shame for the growth narrative of Modi government, that has decided even not to collect data for anemia in further in the National Family Health Survey rounds, in a bid to put the stark reality under carpet, but it has forwarded a logic that such data are not required.
Asia-Pacific had a 17.8 percent prevalence of low birthweight babies, which is higher than the world’s average of 14.6 percent in 2020. As against this, Southern Asia had the highest prevalence of low birthweight (24.4 percent). India is worst in the region where 27.4 per cent babies are born with low birthweight. All countries in the region are performing better than India. This stark reality does not support the claim that common people are taken care of under PM Modi. His growth narrative has no meaning for these children, women, and men who are unfed and hence undernourished. Free foodgrains is just a face saving political device, while people need concrete policies and programmes that may enable them to earn at least stomach-full of healthy food with dignity, rather than the food thrown before them to feed. (IPA Service)
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