Abstract
This paper attempts to address the problem of hunger from the viewpoint of its social face against the backdrop of fast growing economy of India. Current sad state of affairs in the domain of poverty and hunger are nothing but the cumulative result of what happens in the Indian development planning since Independence, or at least in the name of development planning. This paper sociologically examines three most critical events in the history of Indian development planning, which are introduced to mitigate hunger and poverty, in both urban and rural India. The central focus of this paper is to highlight politics of those development initiatives and liquidation of public planning at the level of implementation, which eventually increased the gap between rich and poor, and left the Indian poor to their own fate. This paper also examines the most significant aspect of delinking power relations from the development discourse of India by providing more room for populist ideas with an aim to gain political mileage by the ruling elite. The present state of affairs with respect to poverty and hunger coupled with low standards of health, literacy and social awareness in India call for serious introspection. This paper, therefore, critically looks at Indian development discourse from the perspective of power relations, both established and emerging, which could alter our views on India and its growth story.
Highlights
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today but it still struggles to eradicate the most alarming problem of hunger and acute poverty, which is widely visible in every corner of the country
Bardhan (2003) seems to provide an interesting dimension to understand the problem of hunger, which has its own set of unique complexities in India
The rise of regional political parties as power centers has become a dominant factor in determining Central government programs or schemes aiming to mitigate hunger
Summary
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today but it still struggles to eradicate the most alarming problem of hunger and acute poverty, which is widely visible in every corner of the country. India’s neighboring countries seem to have done fairly well, while China ranked 4, Pakistan ranked 59 and Sri Lanka ranked 36 in the GHI. This Global Hunger Index is calculated taking three interconnected dimensions of hunger—inadequate consumptions, child underweight, and child mortality—into consideration. It clearly points out that India is home to 42% of the underweight children under the age of five. These aspects of India demonstrate the sorry state of affairs that needs a serious thought and it calls for sociological explanation. This paper goes into socio-historical aspects of Indian realities with reference to poverty and hunger to explain the current state of affairs
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