American president George Bush's remark that India is responsible for the existing food crisis proves that how ill-informed is America about the situation in India and how easy it is for them to blame us for the price rise.
Bush commented that the Indian middle class has started to gain wealth and when you gain wealth you start demanding better food and better nutrition and when demand is higher the prices go up and as Indian middle class population is about 350 million which is larger than the American population India is responsible for the ongoing global food crisis.
Some may term this as a good observation statistically, but one doubt persists in my mind. Why is America getting worried when Indians are demanding for better nutrition. Statistically a large portion of India's population is suffering from malnutrition. People do not get enough two square meal per day to feed themselves. The middle class is feeling the pain of price rise as financially they are not that prepared to handle daily rises in the basic commodities. India's major portion lies in the rural belt where people do not have enough money to feed themselves. Farmers are committing suicides. According to United Nations India is among the countries where a majority of the children are suffering from the problem of malnutrition. Poverty is a problem that has been lurking as a bug in India for the past decades.
So now when India is slowly making progress and people have started to gain wealth obviously they will demand food of better nutrition value. What do people work for? For money and what is money required for? To ensure that the family gets food and is not starving. When people in America do that Indian president never questions them but when people in India do that an American president feels that he has the very right to question us.
Being the super power does not give a country the right to interfere in every country's matter. The under developed and developing nations are trying to overcome the problems of poverty and malnutrition. What is the harm if the people of these countries are trying to earn and become financially stable. It is not that only developed nations have that right to do.
Regarding the price rise it is a global issue. Why blame the countries like India and China?
In many countries the production of grains has decreased due to droughts leading to price rises. The African and Asian countries are the ones who are feeling most of the heat of price rise. What is expected of the developed countries at this stage is to stop blaming the other countries and extend help in counter attacking this global crisis of inflation.
1 comment:
The whole issue ,about blaming India for food crisis,as you mentioned brings light to the fact that America likes to play as a global policeman.Imposing democracy on other nations,not tolerating the existence of other nuclear powers and only creating troubles for nations which want to etch away the cuffs of 'developing nation' tag, points out that America is insecure about its position as a superpower and wants to curb down any possible potential power that can rival it in a hence bipolar world.But it is no harm in looking as to why a president ,who has been accused of pushing America into a state of post war contentiousness,still comments on a nation which could be a potential partner in its future foreign agendas. How does it help Bush when he condemns eating habits of a developing nation?why create a nuisance when his downfall is implicit?? I would be really glad if your next blog speaks abt the answer to this question.
----- :)
Meeth
Post a Comment