By Krishna Jha
India is fast becoming a nightmare for its children. They are bearing the brunt of extreme poverty and malnutrition. The confession is official. Also it is substantiated with data that are painfully true.
Maxim Gorky, the Russian novelist, author of ‘Mother’, had once said that he would not rest till a single child on this earth goes hungry. That was more than a century back. Today, nearly 37 percent, little less than half, children under five face stunted growth according to government data as all of them are suffering from malnutrition. In response to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Women and Child Development said Uttar Pradesh reported the highest rate of stunting at 48.83 per cent followed closely by Jharkhand (43.26 per cent), Bihar (42.68 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (42.09 per cent).
About 37.07 per cent of children under five registered on the Poshan Tracker were found to be stunted, 15.93 per cent under weight and 5.46 per cent wasted, as the official data itself confesses. ‘Wasted’ is a condition where a person, especially a child, is too thin for her or his height.
For the State wise details of Neo-natal mortality, that is deaths of live-born infants within the first 28 completed days of life, national average in India is 19 per cent. In Assam, it is 22 per cent, Chhattisgarh 27, Madhya Pradesh 29, for Odisha it is 23 and for Uttar Pradesh it is 27.
As for the state wise details of early childhood mortality, that is deaths of children below 5 years of age, the national average for India is 30 percent. For Assam, it is 35 percent, for Chhattisgarh, 41 percent, for Haryana, 31 percent, for Madhya Pradesh, 47 percent, Odisha, 37, Rajasthan 35 percent, for UP, 42 percent.
India also suffers from stunting of children. Stunting destroys the quality of life for children that are at the threshold of beginning their life. Their brain does not evolve as compared to those that are leading a normal life. They may never attain their full possible height, and their brains may never develop to their full cognitive potential. Globally in 2024, 6.6 percent of children under 5 suffered from wasting and 1.9 percent from severe wasting, which amounts to 42.8 million and 12.2 million children, respectively. South Asia remains the region with the highest prevalence, underscoring the need for the implementation of earlier and more effective interventions.
Children with wasting have weakened immunity, are susceptible to long term developmental delays, and face an increased risk of death, particularly when wasting is severe. Similarly, malnutrition is a violation of children’s rights, while good nutrition sets children on the path to grow, develop, learn and reach their full potential.
Even the global reports that provide region-wise data have been repeatedly pointing towards the crisis situation being faced by children in South Asia, where India accounts for the most of its population.
Recently, for example, a critical report has been released by UNICEF, WHO (World Health Organisation) and World Bank group jointly in which South Asia has been declared as the epicentre of Global Child Malnutrition Crisis.
Similarly, the key findings of the 2025 edition of another report, “Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME)”, also reveal that South Asia has the world’s highest prevalence of wasting and is home to more than half of all children suffering from this life-threatening condition globally. The report paints a grim picture for the region. While global progress against malnutrition has dangerously faltered, the sheer scale of the problem in Southern Asia is staggering.
According to this report, the future of tens of millions of children in India and surrounding countries in South Asia are being jeopardized by inadequate nutrition, which can cause irreversible damage to their physical and cognitive development.
In 2024, Southern Asia recorded a wasting prevalence of 13.6 percent, a rate classified as “high” and the worst in the world. In absolute terms, this translates to a catastrophic 24.4 million children under five in the region suffering from wasting. This figure accounts for more than half of the 42.8 million children affected by wasting globally. The report stresses that these numbers, based on prevalence at a specific point in time, are likely an underestimation of the actual ground reality, as they don’t capture the cumulative number of cases that occur throughout the year.
Alongside the wasting emergency, Southern Asia continues to struggle with an immense burden of stunting. The region has a stunting prevalence of 31.4 percent, a figure classified as “very high”. According to the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates report, nearly two out of every five stunted children in the world live in this region.
What is worse, a substantial proportion of women in India are themselves suffering from malnutrition. Women who are malnourished are unlikely to have healthy babies. Nutrition deficiencies inflict long-term damage to both individuals and society. Lack of resistance in women and children make them vulnerable to various infectious diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis, leading to a higher mortality rate. Besides, the nutrition deficiency, by making individuals unable to improve their earning capacity, pushes them in the trap of vicious cycle.
Despite India’s 50 percent increase in GDP since 2013, more than one third of the world’s undernourished children live in India. Among these, half of the children under three years old are underweight.
The struggle against malnutrition is one of the basics of the fight against inequality in the society. Poverty and starvation are main features of class divided society. Exploitation is the leading cause for the great injustice and leads the greater masses towards hunger, deprivation. Underfed, they all face the challenge the divided society places in front of them. (IPA Service)
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