Dear Editor,
There is no doubt that digitisation of the economy and the use of Internet have improved our lifestyle. But can we really digitise hunger? Is it a mere digital datum that India ranks 100 among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2017? Can we really download it in our realisation? Can we feel the pain of being forced to go to bed on an empty stomach everyday?
No, simply we cannot. We have at the most experienced hunger only occasionally when observing a religious fast or for the sake of dieting. Not only are these occasional experiences but voluntary as well. It is difficult for us to empathise with the pain of a mother who fails to provide food for her hungry child. We can never digitise the pain of helpless parents who are forced to hear the cry of their hungry children everyday.
Now, let us have a trip down memory lane to September 28, this year, at Karimati village of Jharkhand’s Simdega District. We see that the parents of a 11-year-old girl, Santoshi Kumari, could not get their ration cards digitally linked with their Aadhaar cards. As a result, they have been denied ration. With no school midday meal available during Durga Puja holidays, Santoshi Kumari has been starving for eight days. Do not forget that this day is the Mahastami Day of Durga Puja. And on this day, she has to die. She is crying for rice and begins fainting from hunger. Now, it is 10.30 PM. It is all over. She is no more.
Had she written a diary describing how she had been feeling for those eight days, that diary must have been no less traumatic than that of Anne Frank’s. Like all famous books, the digital version of Anne Frank’s Diary is available. Santoshi Kumari’s Diary would have also been made available online had she written one. If that happened; we could have easily downloaded the book in our computer memory. But even then could it really help us to feel her agony? As a matter of fact, we need, so to speak, an App called empathy through which we will be able to download the pain of hungry people in our hardware.
Sujit De,
Kolkata
