By M L Satyan

Bengaluru, Oct 6, 2021: An 8-year-old orphan boy living on a footpath in an Indian town stole a biscuit packet from a small shop. The shopkeeper and the onlookers beat up the boy mercilessly. Later he was sent to a juvenile home where he spent one year.

In another incident, a 10-year-old girl stole a loaf of bread from a bakery and started running. The bakery owner chased her. The girl got into a park and the bakery owner followed her. He saw the girl was helping two small hungry children to eat the stolen bread. The bakery owner beat the girl and the kids with a stick. He left them after severely warning the girl.

Contrast this with a similar incident in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. A 15-year-old boy was brought before a judge for stealing from a store. The boy also broke a shelf of the store while trying to wriggle out of the guard’s hold.

The judge heard out the boy and pronounced the verdict startling all in the court.

“The theft and especially the theft of bread is a very shameful crime and we are all responsible for this crime. Every person in the court, including me, is a perpetrator. So, every person present here is fined ten dollars. No one can get out of here without giving ten dollars.”

Saying this, the judge took ten dollars out of his pocket and then picked up the pen and started writing: ‘In addition, I fine the store a thousand dollars for handing over a hungry child to the police. If the penalty is not deposited within 24 hours, the court will order to seal the store.’

By giving the full amount of collections to this boy, the judge and the court asked for forgiveness from that boy.

Chanakya, an ancient Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor, has said that if a hungry person is caught stealing food, then, the people of that country should be ashamed and held responsible.

Are our society, systems and courts ready for such a decision especially in view of the alarming prevalence of malnutrition and its detrimental effects on children in our country?

A report published by UNICEF notes that malnutrition is the cause of 69 percent of deaths of children under the age of five in India. It also says that within the under-five age bracket, every second child suffers from some form of malnutrition, according to a report in the Economic Times.

Malnutrition among children in India continues to be an endemic issue despite huge improvements in the past few years. With an abundance of resources and rapidly evolving technology, access to proper nutrients for every child seems like a feasible possibility. Children continue to be the world’s hope for a brighter, safer future and there must be a global effort in eradicating this problem.

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) serves as the most critical instrument in addressing India’s child malnutrition challenge. It focuses on supplementary nutrition, growth monitoring and promotion, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-ups and health referrals, as well as pre-school education.

India in 2017 launched The Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment (POSHAN Abhiyaan), or the National Nutrition Mission, as the country’s flagship program to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.

What are the end results of the above schemes? It is a million-dollar question.

India is facing an unprecedented nutrition crisis and children are the ones most severely impacted. Even before the multiple shocks caused by the pandemic, India was not on its way to meet the Sustainable Development Goal-2 to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

To make matters worse, data released from the first phase of the National Family Health Survey 2019-2020 (NFHS-5) indicates reversal of any gains India had made in child malnutrition in the last few decades.

Despite decades of investment to tackle this malaise and attractive nutritional schemes, India’s child malnutrition rates are still one of the most alarming in the world. The Global Hunger Index (2020) – which is calculated on the basis of total undernourishment of the population, child stunting, wasting and child mortality – places India at the 94th spot among 107 countries.

Considering the pathetic situation of hungry children in India, we must agree that a grave injustice is being done to the children.

Every person in society, including me, is a perpetrator. Are we ready to stop injustice done to our hungry children?