Why I can’t digest the hunger index

India would have been ranked in the global top 10 if they’d polled people right after a three-course meal

A lot of people have expressed shock at India’s poor rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI). Many of them, in case you haven’t noticed, are people who gorge on four meals a day. These same people, after years of overeating, compensate for their gluttony by going on a diet. Their entire knowledge of hunger is derived either from dieting-related yearning for pizza, or the ritualistic fasting they undertake periodically for image management purposes. Their self-awareness is so low it never occurs to them that even a single calorie consumed in excess of bodily need is food snatched away from the table of the authentically hungry people of India, assuming there are any. And yet, these shameless individuals have no compunction about blaming the government for India’s appalling GHI score.

Therefore, first of all, I want to take this opportunity to condemn these people. Secondly, I wish to draw your attention to a piece of good news that most commentators have ignored in their obsession with showing India in a negative light: India is ranked higher than a whopping 15 countries. These include global superpowers such as Papua New Guinea, Chad, Burundi, Haiti, Madagascar, and Somalia. To borrow a favourite phrase of our legal luminaries, the heavens won’t fall if India stays at 101st rank for some time. Sure, it means we are not World No. 1 in combatting hunger. But it also means we aren’t the worst. Let’s give credit to the government where it’s due — we could have been Somalia but aren’t.

Thirdly, regardless of the fact that India’s rank is not as bad as it’s made out to be, or as bad as it could have been (116th), it’s important to note that GHI’s methodology is nonsense. As already pointed out by the government, they have used an opinion poll to find out how many people in India are hungry. I personally have no objection to that. But then, GHI rigged the poll in such a way that most people would end up saying they were hungry or that they were never going to eat again.