The Pain of Hunger

A child crying for food in Bihar, and his mother telling him to wait for the next day, when they would be cooking some food, was a painful experience that kept coming back to my mind again and again all through my journey across India, during Desh Vandana 2007. India claims to have many billionaires today. But we also have millions going to bed hungry every day. The pain of hunger is a daily experience for millions of Mother India's poor children even after sixty years of political freedom! Liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, and the much publicised increase in GDP are not helping the poor millions in India. The pathetic condition of rural India wherein most of our people are struggling for one square meal a day continues to proclaim the urgent need for greater focus on rural development and poverty alleviation. It was while at Varanasi in October 2007 (during Desh Vandana-2007) that I saw on the front pages of all news papers the news that Shri. Mukesh Ambani of India had become the richest man in the world. On the same day in one of those newspapers on the last page right corner I saw the news. That was about the starvation death of a poor man in a village near by Varanasi. I felt greatly pained when I saw the poverty that is being suffered by millions of our fellow Indians all over the country. Gandhiji's talisman for the decision makers of our country was to recollect the face of poorest Indian, they ever saw, and to imagine how his life would be affected by the decisions they made. A return to this Gandhian talisman is an urgent need of the hour for liberating India from poverty and Hunger.