India Inexplicably Angry Over Bush Observation That World Food Crisis Due To Their Increased Consumption

NEW DELHI – Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy – and go on a diet.That has been the response, basically, of a growing number of politicians, economists and academics here, who are angry at statements by top United States officials that India’s rising prosperity is to blame for food inflation.

The global food problem has clearly been created by Americans, who take in far more calories than the typical person in India, said Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS International, an independent research institute center based here.

Mr. Mehta said that if Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.” He added, archly, that the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

Mr. Mehta’s comments reflected ballooning criticism of the United States in India , especially after President Bush was quoted as saying of India’s burgeoning middle class, “When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”

The remarks, widely reported in the developing world, were made at a news conference in Missouri on May 2 and followed a statement on the subject by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that had upset many Indians.

A ranking official in the commerce ministry, Jairam Ramesh, told the Press Trust of India, “George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,” and the remarks proved again how “comprehensively wrong” he is.

The Asian Age, a newspaper based here, argued in an editorial last week that Mr. Bush’s “ignorance on most matters is widely known and openly acknowledged by his own countrymen,” and that he must not be allowed to “get away” with an effort to “divert global attention from the truth by passing the buck on to India.”

Developing nations, in particular China and India, are being blamed for global problems, including the rising cost of commodities and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, because they are consuming more goods and fuel than ever before. But Indians from the prime minister’s office on down frequently point out that per capita, India uses far lower quantities of commodities and pollutes far less than nations in the West, particularly the United States.

Many Indians seemed to take Mr. Bush’s remarks as more of the same, though this time they provoked more visible outrage.

Explaining the food price increases, Indian politicians and academics cite consumption in the United States; the West’s diversion of arable land into the production of ethanol and other biofuels; agricultural subsidies and trade barriers from Washington and the European Union; and the finally the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar.

There may be some foundation to Indians’ charges of Western hypocrisy. Each American eats an average of 3,770 calories a day, the highest calorie intake in the world, according to United Nations data – compared with 2,440 calories per capita in India. Americans are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of the most energy-intensive common food source, beef, the Agriculture Department says.

And the United States and Canada lead the world in oil consumption per person, according to the Energy Information Administration, an Energy Department agency.

When it comes to trade, Western farming subsidies undercut agricultural production in fertile areas of Africa, India’s commerce minister, Kamal Nath, said in a telephone interview, and adding that Americans waste more food than people in many other countries.

The United States is responsible “many times more” than India for the world food crisis, said Ramesh Chand, an economist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which advises the government on farm policy.

The Bush administration has called for a truce. President Bush is a “great friend and admirer” of India, the United States ambassador here, David Mulfor, said last week. He added that he thought “this is a time for increased cooperation among nations to solve this problem and that hostile political commentary is not productive.”

A White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, added, “We think it is a good thing countries are developing, that more and more people have higher standards of living.”

Some economists argue that blaming India’s growth is not only unfair, but makes little sense.

Food prices have not been rising continually as developing nations grew, said Ramgopal Agarwala, a former World Bank economist and senior adviser at RIS, a research institute in New Delhi. “They were static until 2006, then in 2007 and 2008 there was a sudden spark,” he said. But India has been growing for the last decade. This is “not last year’s phenomena,” he said.

“I don’t know who advised the president” on his recent comments, Mr. Agarwala added, but his analysis is “subprime.”

Mr. Mehta of the research institute said his remarks on liposuction were meant to be tongue in cheek, but that “politically incorrect” attitudes like President Bush’s and Ms. Rice’s needed to be challenged. Rather than blaming India, Mr. Mehta said, the West should be adjusting to the changing world.

“If the developing world is going to develop, demand is going to go up,” he said.