Around a quarter of the world’s population who are deprived of food live in India and 43 per cent of all children in the country under the age of five are malnourished, claims a recent report published by an international non-profit organisation.
While India’s per capita income tripled between 1990 and 2005, the number of hungry people also increased by 53 million, bringing the total numbers of chronically hungry people in India to a staggering 270 million, says the study by Actionaid International.
The report predicts that India cannot halve its number of people starving until 2083 - nearly 70 years after the Millennium Development Goals target date.
“Two inferences are clear from this: the growth has failed to reach the poorest of the poor; and along with massive rise in food prices and agriculture distress, the focus on industry and resource intensive growth has widened the bracket of poverty,” said Sandeep Chandra, executive director of Actionaid India.
I note that the SPGB call for world socialism, or global socialism. Would socialism be possible in societies that lack the development of Northern and Western economies. I am not necessarily thinking of India in particular, but the root of my question is whether a period of industrialisation is required before an economy can (or should, or ought) to become socialist.
ReplyDeletei may be wrong but i think you are raising the issue of uneven development, Tom . Indeed the SPGB does emphasise the world-wide character of the socialist movement.
ReplyDeleteEach socialist organisation has the task of seeking democratically to gain political control in the country where it operates. Thisis merely an organisational convenience; there is only one socialist movement, of which the separate socialist organisations are constituent parts. When the socialist movement grows larger its activities will be fully co-ordinated through its world-wide organisation. If only a part of the world were in a position to gain control of the machinery of government, the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time