India’s Hunger Problem Persists Amid Plenty

According to the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report, the world’s battle against hunger is stagnating. Unlike in the 2000-2015 period, when the world made “significant headway” in addressing hunger, there has been barely any progress over the past eight years. The GHI score was 18.3 in 2023 compared to 19.1 in 2015.

The GHI score is based on a formula that combines four indicators — under-nourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality — which together capture the multi-dimensional nature of hunger. Countries are scored on a 100-point scale where 0 is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

With GHI scores of 27.0 each, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are the world regions with the highest levels of hunger, indicating serious hunger, the report found.

With a score of 28.7, India in particular is suffering from “serious hunger,” the GHI report said. 

The Indian economy may be the world’s fifth largest — its GDP touched the $3.75 trillion mark in 2023 — but when it comes to feeding its people, its performance is abysmal. It has the highest child-wasting rate in the world at 18.7 percent reflecting acute under-nutrition, the report said. The rate of undernourishment in India stood at 16.6 percent and under-five mortality at 3.1 percent; 58 percent of women in the 15-24 year age group are anemic.

India has been ranked 111th out of 125 countries, down from 107th in 2022. India's neighboring countries, Pakistan (102), Bangladesh (81), Nepal (69), and Sri Lanka (60) fared better in the hunger index. Afghanistan, at 114th, was the only South Asian country lower than India in the hunger ranking. (Note: Bhutan and Maldives were not part of the survey.)

India has struggled with mass hunger and starvation for centuries. The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 claimed some 3 million lives.

Addressing hunger was thus a priority for independent India. In the late 1960s, cultivation of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat was introduced to increase food production to alleviate hunger and reduce dependence on grain imports.

While the “Green Revolution” had some negative implications for Indian agriculture, it boosted food grain production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), India today is the world's largest producer of milk and legumes, and the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, and vegetables. Once derided as a ship-to-mouth country — a reference to imports feeding people — India has emerged as the world’s largest rice exporter, accounting for nearly 40 percent of total rice exports

Food grain and horticultural production are registering record output, according to government figures. In the July 2022-June 2023 period, for instance, food grain output stood at a record 329.68 million tons, up 4 percent from the previous year.

So why are Indians going hungry? There are a multitude of reasons. 

One is that large amounts of grains are wasted; poor storage facilities result in grains rotting or being consumed by rats. Then there is poverty; the poor cannot afford to purchase food. 

Over the decades, successive governments have developed a vast public distribution system (PDS), which aims to distribute staple foods at subsidized cost to the poorest. Besides the PDS, there are several other food and nutrition schemes like the mid-day meal program, under which school children are provided hot cooked meals.

The PDS suffers from multiple problems. Foremost among these is the identification of beneficiaries. Food rights activists say that the vast majority of people who should be covered by the PDS are not because of the government’s narrow definition of beneficiaries. Then there is the problem of identification cards; many beneficiaries do not have the required biometric-based unique identification number to access the system, even though they are entitled to. 

The PDS system also suffers from leakages — grains meant for the PDS are channeled into the market. Often, grains sent to the PDS are of inferior quality and largely inedible. India’s PDS is largely cereal-centric, say nutrition experts. Therefore, the poor do not receive proteins and other nutrients.

Predictably, the Indian government rubbished the GHI findings. The Ministry of Women and Child Development said the report suffers from “serious methodological issues and malafide intent.”

This has been the government’s standard response to reports and surveys that draw attention to poverty, diminished democratic rights, or malnutrition, all of which sully India’s preferred image of a rising power. 

Hunger is a multi-dimensional problem and has survived despite decades-long initiatives of successive governments to tackle it. Yet, the government cannot absolve itself of responsibility.

Food security activists have criticized several government policies and decisions. They question the export of grains abroad when millions are going hungry at home. Is the government prioritizing profits over its own people? 

When India banned the export of wheat and non-basmati rice to curb food inflation at home, it came under immense pressure from the G-7 group of advanced economies as well as the IMF and FAO to resume exports. But food security activists question whether should India bear the burden of feeding the world.

Particularly devastating for India’s poor has been the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s slashing of food grain subsidies for the poor. The 2023-24 budget slashed the amount allocated for food subsidies by 31 percent. It also discontinued a free food scheme that was rolled out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There have been reports of starvation deaths in recent years, which the government has repeatedly denied. In January 2022, when the Supreme Court was hearing a public interest litigation petition seeking a national-level policy for the implementation of community kitchens, the government presented the apex court with outdated data to claim that no starvation deaths had been reported in the country. 

India’s hunger problem needs immediate attention, comprehensive policy changes, and robust action. Denial and dissembling will not make it go away.