indian kids more malnourished than those in sub-saharan africa

feb 22nd, 2007

this is probably true, and it shows the callous attitude of the 'aam-aadmi'-friendly kaangress and the 'saviors of the poor' marxists. they have been in power in the whole country for more than 50 years, and in west bengal and kerala for much of the last 50 years. what did they do for the poor? absolute squat.

this is an indictment of the poor-unfriendly policies of the kaangress that have been designed merely to fill the pockets of the 'dear leaders' and their friends.

on the other hand, there are some questions about these numbers. on the one hand, what does 'malnourished' mean? it may be that the calorie intake number of indians is not the same as for the rest of the world. for instance, take the body mass index (bmi). a bmi of 20-23 is considered normal among white people. but it turns out that indians with 20-23 bmi may in fact be too high for indians, as many indians with bmi in that range have diabetes, high cholesterol etc. thus, the criteria for asians may not be same as those for whites.

similarly, there is great irony in white people talking about indian calorie intake. let me remind people of the 'temple rations' given by the brits to indians during the great famines of the late 1800s. an able-bodied worker was given 1600 calories, and he was expected to work all day. this, by the way, is lower than the starvation calories given to prisoners in buchenwald!

here's an excerpt from an old column of mine:

Here is a damning table from Late Victorian Holocausts (Mike Davis, Verso, pp 33). Look at the state-sanctioned ration for the famine-ridden Madras Presidency in 1877, under the leadership of the aforementioned Temple. Less than half the approved caloric intake for a modern Indian. Less than the caloric intake at the most notorious concentration camp run by the Nazis.

Caloric Value Activity Level
Basal metabolism 1,500 No activity
Ration in Madras, 1877 1,627 Heavy labour
Buchenwald ration, 1944 1,750 Heavy labour
7-year-old child, approved diet, 1981 2,050 Normal activity
Minimum war ration, Japan, 1945 2,165 Moderate activity
Indian adult, subsistence, 1985 2,400 Moderate activity
Ration in Bengal, 1874 2,500 Heavy labour
Survey of Bengali labourers, 1862 2,790 Heavy labour
Indian male, approved diet, 1981 3,900 Heavy labour
Voit-Atwater standard, 1895 4,200 Heavy labour