Have neoliberal reforms worsened poverty in India? A new book investigates the possibility

The media have been full of claims by the World Bank and by individual governments that in the global South, “millions of people had been lifted out of poverty” during the last four decades. India, by now the most populous country in the world, claimed that by 2022–23, only 5 per cent of its population was poor. The data on nutritional intake in India, however, show that hunger rose greatly for both rural and urban populations during the same period, while its very low ranking on the global hunger index worsened further. Even educated citizens believe the official claims and say, “How can hunger have increased when poverty has declined?” The question, however, should be the other way round, namely, “how can poverty have declined when hunger has increased?” The information on the increase in hunger is far more direct and based on readily verifiable statistics than are the official calculations of poverty. The latter are indirect and use certain calculation procedures – very strange and illogical ones as my book argues – to derive the results on which claims of poverty decline are based

It was not always the case that illogical statistical procedures were used. Initially, in every country using...

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