Hunger Brigades Crime: a debate

HUNGER BRIGADES CRIME

It wasn't even a week since the controversial statement by Mr. Raj Babbar claiming that an Indian can get a meal with as low as Rs. 12 and another such person, with a similar political background, claimed the same meal costing outraging Rs. 5. Well to them I ask, “Are you still living in the era of colonized India?”

A family living in Dharavi wishes nothing more than a four score meal for him and his family. Along with water, food is the elements around which the whole world revolves. Ever since the Green Revolution, the food production has increased manifold and so has the number of mouths to feed. In developing nations, like the ones in South Asia, industrialization has forced the people to migrate into the towns and cities. Concurrently, it has decreased the producers while the consumers have multiplied vigorously. With the increasing number of consumers, we see a rapid increase in the rate of criminal activities taking place all around.
So how is Food related to Crime?

Well, I think all the crimes we hear of are simply the resultant of an empty stomach and a fundamental need to fulfill the basic needs of ones family.
The events of 26/11 must still be raw in your memories. Kasab and his co-sinners, do you think always dreamt of all those murders? According to news, all of them were offered money and shelter by the terrorist group in return for a vital work and a promise of their own safety. Ultimately the matter revolves around the fact that those group of people went up to the extent of stimulating an Indo-Pak war simply because they wanted to save food for their families.

One must be familiar with so many Big-B movies. In a few of them, it’s given away that the lead actor turns toward evil paths just because he was from a poor family and could not acquire money for his family. Here too, movies speak that Crimes are sideeffects of starvation. One can turn the police records and find that petty crimes like pick-pocketing, shop-lifting, blackmailing, etc. are often done away by teenagers. Upon enquiry, 90% of such criminals are found with the same reason of money for food.
I’m not saying that Hunger is a justified excuse for crimes.
But ask yourself, if that boy would have had an access to homely food, if he would not had to have slept through nights with an aching stomach, would he ever have opted to a life where every day he can’t be sure of spending the night in his house or behind bars.

Let’s imagine the scenario that occurred during the last year in Japan where the floods disrupted the nuclear power plant and the whole town was drowned with water and also with the fear of radiations for the second time in the nation’s history. Acquired from a few news footages, one can strongly claim that the lack of food forced the normally peaceful citizens to turn violent at the local food distributions. Were not it for the corps, situations would have led to a civil war, at the most unfortunate.

One such example, I saw a few evenings back in our railway station. Two beggars, just teenagers, were fighting over a pack of biscuit. Most probably after begging for the entire day, they could not acquire enough to suffice for their supper and that led to a quarrel when both of them together found a biscuit packer, half eaten.

Paulo Coelho, in his best selling novel, The Alchemist, has mentioned a part regarding such an ordeal. In the deserts of Sahara, the oases are considered to be neutral places for it shelters women and children and mostly because it is blessed with food and water. During tribal wars, the oases are not to be touched, that’s the law. But the war mentioned in the story prolonged till such an extent that one of the platoons was forced to invade a holy oasis. Hunger and thirst forced them to breach the laws made thousands of years ago. Hunger forced them to turn into devils and break the law of a ground which is the blessing of Allah. If centenaries old laws can be broken then the criminal laws set by today’s governments seem so petty against such sins.

I read news last night that a robber stopped a pizza delivery man and instead of stealing his wallet or his scooter, the robber ran away with the stack of pizzas. In this way, a teen-force that is supposed to be the future engines of the nation is presently turning into a force that wants to eat up the nations with the stains of crime on its attire for the simple reason that he couldn’t feed his family. Were there sufficient food available for all those criminals coming up everyday, then most probably the amount of criminal conspiracies would have lessened by a great parameter. I wish that the government of all nations take a simple step to feed each stomach so that it would lessen at least the amount of crime.