Of the many reasons that the UPA and Sonia Gandhi were excoriated by the BJP and “independent” commentators, there was the dependence on human rights activists and NGOs when it came to formulating social welfare programmes. And yet as the data from the Global Hunger Index shows, some of those policies worked. India’s disgraceful track record in hunger was on a downward trajectory.You may even remember that it was in these very UPA years as India was doing better that a certain chief minister of Gujarat informed us that there was no malnutrition in his state – just young girls dieting. The arrogance is matched by the ignorance and finally now in 2021, with that CM as PM, callous indifference.Which is reflected in our society at various levels. From the highest commentariat (how dare woolly-headed Lefties and similar compassionate anti-nationals advise a government on improving the lot of hungry Indians) to the easily-provoked violent mobs fed on hatred and Otherisation, Indian society would rather hope that the poor and needy and underprivileged and forgotten would just sort their lives out.As the Global Hunger Index report does not fail to point out, India has a large proportion of rich people, its enviably high proportion of 84 billionaires on the Forbes list, where one percent own 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. This India also has the second largest number of under-nourished people in the world.
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