AN EMPTY STOMACH HASD NO CONSCIENCE

AN EMPTY STOMACH HAS NO CONSCIENCE
I SOLD MY SOUL FOR BREAD,
WHEN IT WENT OUT OF REACH.
I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY,
BUT PRACTICE BEFORE YOU PREACH.

These words echo into my ears whenever I watch urchins collecting rags from the garbage dumps or some beggar biting on the leftover thrown in after the party is over or a frail teenage mother holding a child and asking for alms at the crossings. All such scenes are enacted daily on the streets of our Metros.

Hunger can be demeaning. Hunger does not know humiliation. Hunger can drag a person to unimaginable limits. It is hunger that forces a mother to sell her child. It is hunger that drives a girl child or a woman to prostitution.

For centuries mankind has fought this demon named hunger without success. It raises its heads every now and then. No country is unaffected by it. The third world countries can blame the ever increasing population, lack of resources, corruption and what ever but the Developed countries has no such compulsions. The back streets of all flourishing big cities in the world are the home of poor and hungry. What is Dharavi for Mumbai , Queens and Bronx are for New York, may be slightly better cousions. What is Bihar for India , Mississipi is for America.

Whatever has happened to the promise of wiping the tears from the eyes of every poor? It is not that we have not enough. World food production of main food grains like wheat and rice is estimated to be more than the actual demand. In fact there has been a time when the excess production in USA and Canada was dumped into the sea in order to stop the fall in prices. A big part of African continent faces acute food shortage and starvation deaths.

Closer home we are self sufficient in Food grains. 2001-02 production of wheat was 65.13 MT and that of rice was 93.8 MT... The figures must have crossed 100 MT mark by now considering the average 2 to 3 % annual growth in food grain production. Thousands of grains were allowed to decay in the open for paucity of proper storage space. Governments come up Employment Guarantee Schemes, Subsidized Food for the BPL families and what not. In Twenty First Centaury it is difficult to comprehend that people can die of hunger. True we do not have famine like situations but it is also true that people die of hunger and malnutrition.

Could it be that the people are themselves to be blamed for their sorry state of affairs? They do not want to work. Begging is easy. It is their fate.