Is India “alarmingly hungry”?

and Chad. For this study on India the calorie intake was placed at 1,632 kcals per person.

The IFRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) in its 2008 and 2009 reports classifies India as being “alarmingly hungry” on the basis of its “Global Hunger Index”.

Why use the word “hunger” rather than “malnutrition”? GHI is calculated on the basis of nutrition.

“Hunger” indicates famine such as what Ethiopia suffered many years ago and which occasionally surfaces in subSaharan Africa. There was a great famine in India in Bengal during British times in 1943 when an estimated 3 million people perished. Thankfully, that is certainly not the situation now. The earlier great famine in India in 1877 was well documented by harrowing pictures in the British press. India, says the GHI (Global Hunger Index) 2009 report, had 21% of its population undernourished (24% in 1990), 43.5% of its children underweight (59.5% in 1990), and an under-five mortality rate of 7.2% (11.7% in 1990). Its GHI is 23.9 (31.7 in 1990). The WFP (World Food Program) website jerks India’s under-nourishment to 35%, allotting US$33.8 million to help 2 million people which is a small figure considering India’s current resources.

India ranks 65 in its GHI, behind Pakistan at 58, Nepal at 55 and Sri Lanka at 35. Sudan, with a very distressing refugee situation and great food shortages ranks ahead of India and Pakistan!

ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation, increases the hype reporting that 47% of India’s children are malnourished, ranking behind Bangladesh and Nepal (Indian Link, October-2 2009). How does one reach such a conclusion about hundreds of millions of children? What sampling was done to reach this alarming conclusion? The Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) calculated that of the entire Indian population 21% were undernourished during the period 2003-2005 which was an improvement from 24% for 1990-1992. Does ActionAid know better?

Calorie intake is used as an indicator of nourishment levels. The above study acknowledges that different levels are used in India for different purposes; for poverty levels, the Indian Planning Commission uses 2,400 kcals for rural areas as people there are more physically active and 2,100 kcals for urban areas. These levels are much greater levels than what FAO (Food & Agricultural Organisation) uses which is 1,820 kcals per person. The IFRI study on India used 1,632 kcals.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 (still current) recommends 1000 to 1,400 kcals for moderately active 2 to 3 year old children whilst for 4 to 8 year olds it is 1,400 t0 1,600 kcals. If the higher FAO’s 1820 kcals or IFRI’s 1,632 kcals are used, then higher levels are being used to assess Indian children compared to American and they will look very undernourished. Also, might the average American child have a bigger build compared to an Indian child?

Despite the “alarming” hype about India’s nutrition, FAO recognises that life expectancy has increased from 59 years in 1990 to 64 years in 2006 and child mortality has fallen from 115 in 1990 to 76 in 2006

IFRI claims that the GHI is a “powerful tool to help focus attention on hunger, especially for countries like India”. GHI is calculated on the percentage of those undernourished, underweightage in children under five and infant mortality under five. The last is a census figure. The reliability of the first two figures is doubtful because just over 79,000 rural and 45,000 urban households were surveyed to assess hundreds of millions of people. Is such sampling adequate? Could the sampling be biased, skewed towards certain communities or subjective? We are looking at a nation’s reputation being at stake even if such surveys were conducted by local agencies. When this author lived in Madhya Pradesh many years ago, one never heard of extensive hunger, and the people appeared quite healthy. The situation since then has improved. Australians have often been given the idea through school education and the media (both print and TV) that India is poverty-ridden and starving. The GHI report reinforces such stereotypes.

IFRI prepared a detailed report on India’s individual states entitled The India State Hunger Index: Comparisons Of Hunger Across States (October 2008) which presents an internal comparison. There are wide disparities between Punjab, the best nourished, and Madhya Pradesh which ranks last as being in an “extremely alarming” hunger situation; that same classification applies to Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Despite the “alarming” hype about India’s nutrition, FAO recognises that life expectancy has increased from 59 years in 1990 to 64 years in 2006 and child mortality has fallen from 115 in 1990 to 76 in 2006. These are census figures, not obtained by sampling, and indicate that India is making progress.

International self-appointed country rating bodies are not sacrosanct. FAO has, over the years, faced strong criticism such as from the Ecologist magazine which in 1991 dedicated an issue to say that FAO was “promoting world hunger” and in 2008 the Senegalese President Abdoulaye, called FAO a waste of money. India needs to speak for itself.