Afia Ambreen
Reports of starvation deaths are on the rise in India, leading many activists to criticize the government’s failure to implement welfare measures and enforce a law that ensures the right to food. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of India, estimates in ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2019′ report, 194.4 million people are undernourished in India. By this measure 14.5% of the population is undernourished in India. Also, 51.4% of women in reproductive age between 15 to 49 years are anemic. Further according to the report 37.9% of the children aged under five in India are stunted (too short for their age), while 20.8% suffer from wasting, meaning their weight is too low for their height. Malnourished children have a higher risk of death from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. The Global Hunger Index 2018 ranks India at 103 out of 119 countries on the basis of three leading indicators prevalence of wasting and stunting in children under 5 years, under 5 child mortality rate, and the proportion of undernourished in the population.
Ironically, driven by “Mandalay philosophy”, India under Modi, has been attempting to attain a dominating position in national and regional politics. Lok Sabha 2019 elections witnessed unusually sharp increase in BJP seat tally, whereas, Modi govt is now expanding interventionist policy under the garb of foreign aid and cultural invasion of some regional countries. Indian government’s key instrument for diplomacy, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has obtained a 14.7% hike in the allocation for 2019-20, compared to revised estimate for 2018-19. This means an even more respectable 19% rise when evaluated against the ministry’s actual expenditure in 2017-18. Reportedly, first Budget of the Modi government’s second term has registered a sharp hike in money allotted for foreign aid for Mauritius, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal.
According to the announced budget, India plans to spend Rs 9,069.34 crores on various projects (a hike of 25% from the last financial year’s revised estimates). This is the biggest jump in foreign aid since Modi govt’s first entry in New Delhi in May 2014. Bhutan continues to be allotted the largest share for a single country in India’s foreign aid budget. Aid for Mauritius has been tripled (from Rs 350.39 crores in 2017-18 to Rs 1,100 crores for 2019-20). According to sources, the increasing funding was essential as several of India’s proposals including Metro Express, construction of Supreme Court building and also infrastructure at Agalega Island is expected to gather steam. It is pertinent to mention that Agaléga Island is leased to the Indian military for the development of strategic assets. Moreover, head of the Mauritius Navy and the Mauritian National Security Advisor are Indian officers.
There has also been an increase in allocation for African countries to Rs 450 crores in 2019-20 and 18 new Indian diplomatic Missions in Africa were approved in Mar 18). Five new embassies have been opened in Rwanda, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Guinea and Burkina Faso, with another four scheduled to be launched in 2019-20. Interestingly, since last two yrs, allocations for dev of Iran’s Chabahar port are conspicuously missing. India did spend Rs 100 crores on Chabahar in 2016-17, but the allocation of Rs 150 crore in the next year (2017-18) was never used. Similarly, 2018-19’s budget estimate of Rs 150 crores for Chabahar were whittled down to zero in the revised allocation. For 2019-20, MEA has been allocated an optimistic Rs 45 crores.
The number of people living in slums in India has doubled in the past two decades. According to Indian Government, the population of people living in slums has exceeded the entire population of Britain. According to Kumari Selji, Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, India’s slum-dwelling population had risen from 27.9 million in 1981 to 61.8 million in 2001. The ballooning slum population is also an evidence of the Government’s failure to build enough housing and other basic infrastructure for its urban poor, many of whom live without electricity, gas or running water. India’s largest slum population is in Mumbai where 6.5 million people live in tiny makeshift shacks surrounded by open sewers. Mumbai is also home to Dharani, Asia’s biggest single slum, which is estimated to be home to more than a million people. Delhi has the country’s second largest slum population, totalling about 1.8 million people followed by Calcutta with about 1.5 million. According to Maju Varghese of YUVA, an NGO that has been working with urban poor for more than 20 years, the rise in slums is due to lack of affordable housing provided by the Government.There is a need that India should first provide basic amenities such as clean water, food, and housing to its citizens.
Instead of following a hegemonic policy/lavish spending as foreign aid, India needs to realize growing poverty in the country. As per India’s own survey, more than 400 million (one third of the country’s population of more than 1.2 billion) continue to live below the poverty line. Poverty statistics of India reveal that 50% of Indians have no proper shelter; 70% have no access to decent toilets; 35% of households have no nearby water source; 35% of villages have no secondary school, over 40% of these villages have no roads connectivity. Contrastingly, Indian leadership claims for 9 % annual growth and brazenly follows interventionist policies.
Moreover, India has no threat from neighboring countries but it’s the smaller neighbors that are being threatened by the big brother. Sometimes it harmed them by blocking their water wealth and sometimes by creating instability through its intelligence agency RAW. Indian claims of allocating good part of budget to fight insurgencies in North East and central India are farce. Basic stimulus behind insurgencies in these parts is under-development and neglect by the successive governments. For that matter, gentle way to deal with these rebel movements is by addressing their causes rather than fighting oppressed people with arms. There is a direct correlation between extremism and poverty in practice and the social, political, economic, and cultural discrimination faced by India’s poorest people has resulted in discontented people resorting to violence for their rights.
