Americans may be wise to pause from their partying, at least briefly, over the Memorial Day weekend to ponder India’s criticism of the United States.

Specifically, India has said Americans should rethink their energy policy — and go on a diet.

Indian officials issued the scathing comments following criticisms by U.S. politicians, economists and academics who blame India and other developing nations — China, in particular — for a rise in prosperity that is causing a corresponding jump in food prices.

The issue is who are the real gluttons devouring the world’s resources.

For example, Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary-general of the center for international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS International, a research institute based in New Delhi, 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.”

Further, Mehta said, the money spent in the U.S. on liposuction alone could be funneled to feed innumerable famine victims.

Mehta’s comments “reflect genuine outrage — and ballooning criticism — toward the United States” around India, according to an article in last Wednesday’s edition of The New York Times.

Following a news conference in Missouri on May 2, Mehta was quoted as saying of India’s burgeoning middle class, “When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrtition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”

His comments were widely reported in the developing world, following on the heels of a statement on the subject by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice that has upset many Indians.

A ranking official in India’s commerce ministry, as well as Asian Age newspaper based in New Delhi, both took President George Bush to task for his alleged lack of knowledge of basic economic theory.
India and China are being blamed for the rising cost of commodities and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions because they are consuming more goods and fuel than ever before.

In response, Indians — from the top down through the ranks — are pointing out that per capita, India uses far lower quantities of commodities and pollutes far less than nations in the West, particularly the U.S.

Further, Indian politicians and academics are citing consumption in the U.S., the West’s diversion of arable land into the production of ethanol and other biofuels, agricultural subidies, trade barriers from Washington and the European Union and the decline in the exchange rate of the ever-weakening dollar.
Maybe the Indians have a point: Americans use — or throw away — 3,770 calories per person each day, compared with 2,440 calories per person in India, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organzation.

Americans are also the largest per-capita consumers in any major economy of the most energy-intensive common food source, beef, the U.S. Agricultural Department says.

But the elephant in the room is India’s population of 1.13 billion plus — almost quadruple the U.S. population of 300 million. The planet simply can’t support both our own voracious consumption and Indians’ rapidly growing appetite for cars, consumer goods and other resource-devouring trappings of Western-style wealth. 

Perhaps, as Mehta is urging, the West should be adjusting to a changing world. And perhaps India, in turn, should strive to show the West a cleaner, greener path to prosperity.

Energy policies that would leave the U.S. less oil-addicted and its populace leaner would unquestionably reap dividends. Come to think of it, perhaps these goals could be achieved by the low-tech practice of walking — saving on gasoline and burn calories, not to mention the corresponding reduction in demand for liposuction.