Hungry India

Women are the worst affected by hunger because the patriarchal structures of families in India teach them to go hungry, when food is scarce. It deserves mention that adolescent women are not only the future workforce but also bearers of the next generation. In the areas marked by higher levels of undernutrition, malnourished women or adolescent girls give birth to babies that are born stunted and thin. In this way, undernutrition is handed down from one generation to another as a terrifying inheritance

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A tragic paradox is that even while democracies are apathetic to mass starvation, they downplay and ignore the fact that the hundreds of million children and adults continue to lead lives of severe undernutrition (hidden hunger) since it hardly provokes a public outcry. A democratic government cannot afford to ignore the public outcry.

Hence, India's success in preventing a famine during the period since 1947 can be attributed to the inherent force of democracy. But its overall record in fighting hunger and malnutrition seems to be quite abysmal. Indeed, the "hungry India" situation is characterized by high levels of undernutrition and child malnutrition, particularly stunting and wasting, with its Global Hunger Index (GHI) ranking in the serious category.