Staying alive

However, as I stood at that crossing, freedom from want seemed possible,from hunger impossible. After all, this is a problem that has taken rooteverywhere — in villages and towns, in hills and dales, in our country andacross the world.

It is an onerous task, this removing hunger from our midst. Having a visionis easy — it’s what we have been doing since time immemorial. The World FoodDay envisions “food for all during the new millennium”. This means raisingagricultural productivity, increasing income of rural communities andimproving access to food, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Allthat reads very well on paper. However, converting this vision into reality — so all the have-nots become haves — is what proves difficult.

Consider this: despite all plans that have been put into action, the latest FAO figures indicate that if the problem remains unchecked, nearly 700 million people will suffer from chronic hunger by 2015.

That means so many more of those hungry ones — struggling to stay alive asthey drown in a sea of hunger — was the first thought that came to mymind. Watching a hungry child perhaps exemplifies the worst failure ofmankind — there can be no sorrier sight than seeing a human have to scavengefor survival. Yet, it continues to happen. And we deal with it in our ownway — sometimes shooing them away, other times handing out yesterday’schapaati and at the marketplace simply rolling up the car window.Temporary solutions, but what else can be done, you wonder.

What bothers even more is that in our country sometimes the plight of eventhose who manage to get their daily bread is no better. Take a look atstatistics tossed up by the Planning Commission’s mid-term review:approximately three-fourths of all children in India under three years sufferfrom anaemia. Out of them, 65 per cent are under-nourished. Not that thereare no plans. The National Plan of Action on Nutrition aimed to reducemalnutrition in children by half by 2000. However, the reduction has been ameasly 6.7 per cent, according to the National Family Health Survey –clearly indicating the ineffectiveness of anti-poverty programmes.

If this is what happens to those who somehow get a square meal a day — maybeowing to the Government’s public distribution system programmes that costaround Rs 12,000 crore in subsidies each year — think of all those hundredswho make do with what they can lay their hands on. The thought isfrightening, the result even more so.

For a world that can dream of life on Mars, this chronic hunger is ananachronism we can ill afford. But till we manage to assuage it, the beggarchild — and many others like her — will continue to wait and want. Seek andsearch. And stay hungry.