Indian mythology

From "Stuffed & Starved : The Hidden Battle for the World Food System" by Raj Patel

Economist Utsa Patnaik has followed the statistical sleight of hand that have enabled India's poor to vanish since the 1970s, and she has calibrated her observations by going back to one of the central features we associate with poverty - hunger.

At the beginning of the 1970s, over half the population was classed as poor. Two decades later, in 1993-94, the number of poor people had fallen to just over one-third. This progress was achieved in no small part because the official threshold for poverty had been lowered. In the 1970s, being on the poverty line afforded you 2,400 calories per day — in the early 1990s, you were afforded only 1,970 calories per day. By 1999-2000, just over one quarter were poor — an impressive reduction. But the threshold for poverty meant consuming fewer than 1,890 calories per day. Says Patnaik, 'by the 60th Round, 2004-05 [the poverty line] is likely to be below 1,800 calories and correspond to less than one-fifth of the rural population.

Today, when the official figure for poverty in India is around 27 per cent, a more accurate calculation based on the implied calorie norm of 2,400 per day puts three-quarters of the population under the poverty line. To put it slightly differently, around half a billion people have been written out of poverty, by the simple expedient of shifting the goal-posts and the diligent advertising of present and future prosperity. This is how the story of 'Shining India' is told - with an official narrative about poverty that directly contradicts the facts. Jobs have been created for the educated middle class, but for those without access to education, the story has been rather different.